(Also see WHERE'S YOUR KEWUL GRAPHICS?)

A: Um. This site was created in 1994.

The whole thing is written by hand directly in HTML. Why? It's compatible with all modern browsers, and with nearly all of the early ones. It works fine with text-only terminals and loads instantly even with a 2400b modem. It's friendly to vision-disabled internet users. But those are just excuses. Really I'm a techno-luddite who runs out and buys an 8080 home computer and then looks suspiciously at these newfangled "PC" things with "operating systems"... someone who leaps onto the internet and then just uses a text-only browser (Lynx) forever after. But that's only what set me on this path.

Why write websites in html?

Most important: totally cheap editing. From any computer with a modem I can run a Telnet text-terminal and then improve my pages or start adding more content to the site.   amasci.com is a one-man show, a little "personal website." It's like having a file cabinet in my house which automatically appears on the internet, no work required. If I had to use website-builder software, then I couldn't create this huge site without hiring a staff of employees. And I'd have to carry that software with me in order to change my site. Text terminals would be useless for editing, and I wouldn't be able to treat this site as my personal C: drive. And in that case, this site wouldn't exist.

When internet users say that content is more important than the "look," they actually mean it. The majority of website developers don't believe this for an instant. But what happens when someone takes this idea seriously, then spends 100% of time on site content and 0% on design? You get something that's all depth! But then the "surface" looks simplistic and primitive.

I figure that my website might offend the kind of people who look only at surfaces, while it rewards those who pursue depth. Don't just appeal to a particular audience... also make sure to drive away everyone else! It's an old trick well known to shamen and alchemists.

NEVER TRY TO PLEASE EVERYONE! YOUR GOAL SHOULD BE TO BECOME THE HATED ENEMY OF CERTAIN KINDS OF PEOPLE.    :)

A: I'm sorry about this, but the website is just my hobby. I have a family and an engineering career, and lately I only have time to answer a few messages per week. But sometimes I receive over 50 per week! Site traffic here is up to 50 thousand hits/week. To help people out, I've set up lots of pointers to discussion groups and other help pages at various places on my site. Try these:

• Guestbook for comments (or contact other users)
• Science fair help
• Comments about MISCONCEPTIONS
• Comments about ELECTRICITY MISCONCEPTIONS
• Answers to Science Questions
• Science teacher discussions
• Tesla coil questions, try usa-tesla or Tesla Group
• Reporting your Unusual Phenomena
• Kids: report your science experiment findings

A: Sure! Excess traffic on Sci. Hobbyist is not a problem. If your ISP charges you for hits per month or bandwidth usage, you might consider checking out ESKIMO.COM as a new provider. Single-user remote accounts (accessed by telnet) are amazingly low priced if you buy a whole year at a time, and they come with 10megs for webpage use (and only $1/month per extra ten megs!).

A: Sorry, too many requests and not enough time. Try the Science Fair Ideas List, or go to ASK A SCIENTIST at MADSCI.

A: Sorry, all my information is already on my webpages. To find more, try searching at ALTAVISTA, LYCOS, and YAHOO. If you have a science question, try the ASK A SCIENTIST project at MADSCI.

If you can't find any information about your subject, it probably is not on the internet at all, and you'll have to go to the public library.

Note: if you cannot find any info about a very important topic, this means that nobody has created a webpage for that topic yet. It means that YOU YOURSELF could start that webpage and become the internet's central clearinghouse for that subject. Then all the other people who are right now getting frustrated from finding no information, could instead find you.

A: By growing up abnormal: I was one of those weirdos who hated school, sports, and popularity, knew better than to worship straight-As, and spent all my time reading in libraries, building science demonstrations and electronic devices, messing with computers, etc. My father died when I was nine, which seriously messed with my head, to say the least. (That sort of learning experience is the most valuable thing any human can ever encounter. Vast wealth pales in comparison.) An early attraction for paranormal gave me a critical eye regarding the belief-system of conventional science. Encounters with certain books seriously warped my mind! (Reading a book is the ultimate subversive act.) My work in designing science exhibits for museums showed me how to do physics in visual/intuitive mode, without using any math. Long years attempting to see interesting scientific phenomena outside myself, as well as fascinating/disgusting psychological phenomena INSIDE myself, made my eyes open a bit wider than the usual. I developed the habit of telling the truth. No, I mean really telling the truth. No, I mean **REALLY** telling the truth, not like shining a flashlight but like using a blowtorch. I grew up overseas, on Guam, which pretty much broke the "American male" mold for me. I also try to watch less than 1hr of TV per week. Dump your TV set for a couple of years, it will make you... "different."

;)

"On a certain shelf in the bookcase are collected a number of volumes which look somewhat the worse for wear. Those of them which originally possessed gilding have had it fingered off, each of them has leaves turned down, and they open of themselves at places wherein I have been happy. Each of them has remarks relevant and irrelevant scribbled on their margins. These favorite volumes cannot be called peculiar glories of literature, but out of the world of books I have singled them, as I have singled my intimates out of the world of men." - Alexander Smith

Read the following books, they will warp YOUR mind too:

   "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman" - R. Feynman
   "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintainence"
   "Antinomy" - Spider Robinson
   "The Nature of Personal Reality" - J. Roberts
   "The Fire from Within" - Carlos Castaneda
   "Stranger in a Strange Land" - R. Heinlein
   "The Cartoon History of the Universe" - Larry Gonick (also vol II)
   "Why Children Fail" - J. Holt (and others by Holt!)
   "Sympathetic Vibrations" - K. C. Cole
  "Jim" and "Frank" comics  - Jim Woodring
   "Chaos" - James Gleick
   "Alternative Science" - R. Milton
   "Kooks" - D. Kossy
  "Cat's Cradle" - K. Vonnegut

   In libraries, everything under Dewey Decimal 507 (science experiments!)

   Hundreds of SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN mag backissues buried in libraries,
     especially concentrating on "The Amateur Scientist"

   Many feet thick of underground comics, concentrating on the Greats
     such as Crumb, Shelton, Spain, Mavrides, etc.

   Hundreds of pounds of Science Fiction paperbacks,
     particularly anthologies of short stories, and
     everything by Robert Heinlien, Spider Robinson, 
     and Larry Niven

  Also see:  BILL BEATY'S BOOKSTORE

 and Science Heretic's Bookshelf





















Q: WHAT IS YOUR COMPANY, WHAT ARE YOU SELLING?

A: This website is a "personal page," although the contributions from the
folks on VORTEX-L help much in offsetting expenses.  OK, OK.  Time to sell
out, go strictly commercial as Zappa says.  I'll sell you something. But
then I'll give away the profits, nyaaa!  Check out SCIENCE HOBBYIST 
BOOKSTORE, also FEYNMAN BOOKS.

Also, I hire myself out for occasional lectures on topics like:

  - WHAT *IS* ELECTRICITY, ANYHOW?
  - PHYSICS PROJECTS AND TOYS YOU CAN BUILD
  - DEMOS AND EDU. TECHNIQUES FOR TEACHING ELECTRICITY
  - EVERYTHING WE KNOW IS WRONG: ERRORS IN SCIENCE TEACHING

(Old Answer: I'm a hobbyist on a $10/month account.  The internet lets me
get this info out to people without having to *pay* anyone!  Maybe someday
browsers will have micro-cash features, and I'll be able to charge
everyone a penny per hit and make the site pay for itself.  If you like
the site, please consider making a donation to help me keep it alive. 

Speaking of selling, there are cassette tapes available of me talking
about "scientific suppression" and about the "Taos Hum", see the Laura Lee 
radio show.  No, I don't make any money off of cassette sales.
You can find my talk "The Darker Side of Amateur Science" on the 
Keelynet Conference videos Jerry Decker sells.
I also have an "Electricity Misconceptions" talk on Steve Ellswick's
Exotic Research conference videos.


The REPORT UNUSUAL PHENOMENA page is part of the WEIRD SCIENCE section of 
my SCIENCE HOBBYIST website.  It's not associated with any academic
institution, etc.  I started it for several reasons: there was nothing
else like it on internet, I myself wanted to read these types of reports,
and finally, I realize that these types of stories, if kept secret, can
wreck your life.  The cure is to realize that such things happen to
other people too, and to get your experiences out (even anonymously) so
others can benefit.






















Q: WHERE ARE ALL THE KEWUL GRAPHICS?

A: Many who use this page are on VT-100s at libraries, or are using older
PCs at school, so I intentionally try to see the world through their non-
Netscape eyes by developing and using these pages with a Lynx 
text-only browser.  I'm starting to become a bit of a 'techno-luddite' and
text-only activist.  I can't SEE the bleeding edge hype-factor stuff, so
my pages end up having a bit more content than most sites.  Also, my pages
don't have that "Please download Netscape" notice which excludes so many
users: if the people have no bread, why, let them eat cake!  Also, things
aimed at the text-only users will end up being useful for the growing
population of visually-impaired internet users.

Another point: reading is subversive.  Reading makes you weird.  If I put
lots of good science stuff on the www in the form of text, then any kids
who read will be rewarded.  The web is an immensely powerful force for
convincing kids to take up reading.  It may be even stronger than, (gasp!) 
comic books.  (I learned to read via comics.  If not for comics during
childhood I probably never would have become a voracious reader.) 

BTW, if you use a modem link and have a Unix "shell" account on your ISP,
try typing "lynx" as a Unix command.  Or, if you are on a freenet, search
your menus for the "Lynx" browser.  If Lynx is available, try using it for
web surfing.  On a modem, it is MUCH, MUCH faster than Netscape (and
others), since it is actually running on your ISP's machine with a direct
hardline to the internet.  Unlike with Netscape, your PC is then being
used only as a terminal, and your actual browser is on an extremely
high-speed mega system.  I use Lynx to race through my web site
explorations while bookmarking the good ones, then later go explore them
with Netscape.  This is a huge time-saver.






























Q: WHAT DO YOU HAVE AGAINST 'FRAMES'?

My main beef: Frames make a site useless for visually-impaired people.  My
site attempts to be handicapped-friendly, so my policy is to avoid linking
to frames-only sites.  It's not just Frames that causes problems.  If a
site is entirely based on ISMAPS and has no text links or ALT tags in its
GIF graphics, or if a site is useless when viewed with the Lynx browser,
then I will avoid linking it to my site.  For more info on creating good,
browser-compatible web pages, see my collection of links to webpage 
design flaws.
























Q: WHY DID YOU INVOLVE YOURSELF IN ALL THIS DISGUSTING
"FRINGE" STUFF?  YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED!

A: Many reasons.

• 1. New discoveries come from the "fringe."
• 2. Seek unexplored areas in science.
• 3. Flee self-congratulatory arrogance, hubris, concensual mob-rule.
• 4. Excess rationality poisons creativity
• 5. Be skeptical about so-called 'Scientific' hyper-skepticism
• 6. The world is still 99% unknown.
• 7. The REAL reason! :)

Q: HOW DID YOU GET SO MANY HITS ON YOUR PAGE?

A: Ah, the webmaster's secrets, eh?  The number one way to get lots of
hits on your webiste is this:

1.  When first starting out, don't concentrate on exotic HTML and Java
    features, they will only use up your precious time.  Instead, offer
    some kind of useful service to internet users.  As they say, CONTENT,
    CONTENT, CONTENT.

Don't copy other sites, find something that ISN'T on internet already,
then become the worldwide supplier for that thing.  If your site just
shows what a clever Flash programmer you are, no one will care.  If your
site is useful, everyone will bookmark it. 

I looked around the internet and found that there were no webpages at all
for Amateur Science or Tesla coil building.  (this was 1994)  I complained
about this for awhile, but then I realized something.  There must be
hundreds of other people out there looking for the same sorts of webpage.
If I was writing webpages instead of complaining, other people would even
now be hitting my pages while searching, and I could develop an audience. 

Therefore, I decided to nominate myself as the central internet clearing-
house for Amateur Science and for Tesla coils.  I was subscribed at the
time to the USA-TESLA discussion group, and also regularly read
sci.physics newsgroup. I started saving the really interesting messages
and putting them on my pages for the rest of the world to find. 

2. While surfing, stay aware of your own desires, and write them down.
   Assume that there are lots of other people just like you on internet,
   and if you are wishing that there was a good website for XXXXX, then
   you've probably just discovered an idea for a popular website.

For example, while on newsgroups I was pissed about the constant flamewars
between all the gigantic, fragile egos.  I wished there were some
interesting discussion groups where flaming was prohibited.  And I wished
that people on alt.sci.physics.new-theories actually did experiments,
rather than arguing endlessly about untested theories.  My internet-
provider offers an email list service, so it was possible for me to START
a discussion list.  I became the provider for discussion groups for Weird
Science (FREENRG-L),
science museum staff (WEBHEAD-L), and others. 

I also slowly typed in all sorts of useful files for other people to find. 
I'm a frustrated writer.  In the non-web world I never managed to get an
article so cleaned up that I would want to offer it to a magazine.  On
internet things were different.  I could type the first draft of many
articles onto my website, then go back later and clean them up.  I could
even put MAILTO buttons on the articles, get comments from passersby, then
fix what other people pointed out!  This got to be a habit, and sucked me
into writing huge amounts of stuff.  This draws people to my site. 
Therefore, my third secret to generating content and attracting high
hit-count is: 

3. Make your website be your filing cabinet.  If you have little projects
   underway, put them on your website while working on them.  Reject the
   paper-publishing traditions of polishing an article to perfection
   before publication.  Instead, type things directly into your site in
   rough draft form (label them UNDER CONSTRUCTION).

Expunge the fear of embarassment from your life, and instead practice
making foolish mistakes in front of thousands of strangers.  Stop using
your PC to store files, instead use your website as your main storage. 
Let people poke through your filing cabinet.  It will contain far more
than a perfectly polished website does. 

You'll always be adding more stuff, which will make your audience come
back again and again to see what's new. It will also give you "external" 
ambition, because you'll start getting mail from people who say things
like "when are you going to finish your article about smoke rings."  ;) 

Once you have some content, there are other things you can do to "spread a
net" and catch more hits.  There are conventional tricks like submitting
your page to various search engines.  But once you are "out there" you
should constantly test how searches are finding you...


4. Use "meta" tags.  Do it like this. Search Altavista and Google for
   pages like yours.  Think of lots of keywords, and see what's out there.
   Did you get lots of hits on your own pages?  If not, then there's 
   something wrong.  Your own pages don't contain the keywords YOU
   YOURSELF would use while looking for your type of page.  Fix this by
   adding a "keywords" tag to the head section of your various webpages:
       < meta http-equiv="keywords" content="amateur,science,physics">


OTHER HINTS:

 5. NEVER EVER move one single webpage file or change an URL.  Don't you
    hate it when you click on a link and it says "404 file not found"?
    Well, I've been here since 1994, and everybody's links to my site
    still work!

Hitcount grows slowly as others link to you, and as search engine spiders
gradually catalog your whole site.  Don't start over from square one by
doing something stupid.  I've seen people move their entire site to a new
provider, yet only leave a forwarding link on their former top page.  VERY
stupid.  Even big companies do this!  Are they trying to hide, so users
cannot find them? As far as search engines are concerned, their site has
disappeared without a trace.  All the search engine links will say "404
not found."  It will take months for all the different spiders to index
their new site's location.  During those months, people will think that
the site has met it's demise, and will stop clicking on any links that the
search engine turns up, even if those links go to the new location.  PS,
if your site is maintained by another person and you catch them changing
the URLs without maintaining the old URLs for many years, then they are
completely incompetent and you should ditch them ASAP. 

Another problem: people like to link to your "subpages", not to your top
page.  If you move your site, you'd better replace every single html file
on your old site with the new location of that page, and then maintain
that skeletal site for a year or three.  If you don't, then people with
links to the "good stuff" inside your site will see those links go bad,
and they will delete them.  You could lose the majority of your site's
users.  You'll only be left with the non-serious people who link to the
"splash page" at the top of your old site.  Very often I'll browse
somebody's "amateur science" links and will find that all the links on the
page are bad.  All except the ones that point to MY pages.  :) 

Wait a second.  Forget everything that I just said.  Keep moving your site
a few times per year, and only leave a forwarding address at the top page
of your old site.  As long as you make all the links to your site become
"404 not found", then everyone will delete the links to you, and they'll
only be left with links... to ME! 


6. Maintain a "link farm" of other pages similar to your own.  Whenever
   you find another page to add, email the owner of that page to tell them
   about it.

They might add yours to their own links.  If they haven't seen your pages
before, at least you've attracted a new user.  Once a number of sites link
to each other, they form a "net", and when one page catches a surfer, the
person can easily find all the other pages too.  And even if you're the
only one who keeps a links collection, this still will attract people. 
People would rather browse a list of links than to run web searches. 
Think: would you rather wander in a bookstore, or would you rather have a
librarian on call who can deliver any book you ask for.  Most prefer the
bookstore, because neither you nor your super-librarian knows what to ask
for! 


7. Always add a link to the top of all of your pages which links back to
   your main site.

If someone uses a search-engine and hits a deep subpage on your site, they
will have no clue that the rest of your site exists unless you provide
links!  Also, other site-owners may link to subpages on your site.  If one
of your files gets lots of business from some other site, that file had
better have clear links to your site.  If it does not, then those users
may entirely miss the fact that they are reading just one file on your
much larger site. 


8. Every time you add a separate webpage, submit it to Altavista's
   add-URL page. Another good place is the Mozilla Open Directory Project,
   dmoz.org.  Both of these sites share
   their data with other link archives, so once you get into one of them,
   your links end up in many others.


9. View your site with graphics turned off, then redesign it so it's
   still useful.

If you drive people away people who have graphics turned off for speed, or
are using LYNX, or if you drive away blind people who are using
text-to-speach screen readers, then your priorities are crazy.  Use "alt"
tags on images, and provide text links that duplicate all your Image Maps,
etc.  I say more about this on my WEBPAGE MISTAKES page.  Stay compatible
with minimal browsers like Opera, don't become a "Flash bigot."  You're
trying to get MORE users.


10. Maintain a "WHAT'S NEW" page.  This will let your repeat users
    immediately find the stuff they haven't seen before.  Without a
    "what's new" page, your site may seem exactly the same to everyone who
    visits, even though you're adding huge amounts to some far corner of
    your site.


11. Use absolute links. E.g., on your own pages, don't link to "sci.html",
    link to "http://www.yoursite.com/~user/sci.html".  Why?  Because
    people like to copy good webpages, and if all the links on the copy of
    your pages point back to your actual site, then copies of your pages
    will send people back to your REAL pages and not to other parts of the
    copy.  I've been doing webpages since 1994, and I've seen LOTS of
    copied fragments of my pages in other places.  But I always smile,
    because all of the links to my real pages still work, so these
    copies just route traffic back to me, and serve as advertizements for
    my original site!


12. Provide a guestbook.  Let people read it.  This isn't just for your
    ego. It provides another interesting file for your audience to read,
    and you didn't have to write it yourself.


13. Mutate your guestbook!  Look at my "report unusual phenomena" page, 
    and "science fair archives".  These are simple guestbooks, but altered
    so that passersby can type in interesting things, and others can read
    them.  Even if there were no other things on my site, just these pages
    alone would be worth an occasional visit.  It's like a no-cost
    mini-newsgroup.


14. Troll the "awards" sites, submit your own page for consideration.
    If you see a page which has multiple awards, use it as a reference
    for where to find awards sites!  My AWARDS page, for example.


15. Note how you cruise the WWW yourself, then modify your top page so it
    is easy for YOU to cruise.

For example, most people (including me)  rarely use the scroll-bar. 
Therefor, if they don't see good stuff on the screen instantly, then they
will go elsewhere.  If the good stuff on your website is not right up at
the top of the screen, most people will never see it.  See my own top
page.  I put the big four subsections right in your face, using huge font
size.  Yes, most of my other pages are these great huge things which
absolutely require lots of scrolling.  However, nearly all of them have a
"shortcuts" list which lets people jump down to all the sections, and this
"shortcuts"  list is right in your face, right at the top of the page.  I
suck you in first, and only THEN force you to get off of your butt and use
the darned scroll bar. 

16. Start early.  If you had started a few weeks ago, you might be getting
    lots of hits by now.  If you had started last year, your site might
    now be a major player on the web.  WWW is still growing fast, don't
    put it off, jump in quick.  Don't polish your site before publishing.
    The time it takes to perfect your site could be better used for
    hooking in more users and getting an early start on the geometrical
    growth of hitcount.  If you create a site a month early, several years
    down the road that month could mean an increase of hundreds of
    thousands of hits per year.  If you are a big company that moves slow,
    a year of delay can move you from the top-ten websites and place you
    with the hundreds of late-comer wannabes.


Q: HOW'D YOU MANAGE TO CREATE SO MUCH STUFF?

A:

First answer: I have a very understanding wife!  :)

[UPDATE 9/2000:  Not any more.  Now divorced.]

Second answer is, I started early, in 1994.  Them squirrels, how they do
accumulate detrius.  Or maybe its crows.  They like shiny objects.

Third answer: whenever somebody asks me for something and I have time to
supply it, I make a strange assumption.  I assume that hundreds of other
people are wanting that thing too, but didn't have the ambition to email
me and ask.  Therefor I copy it onto my website, rather than hiding it
uselessly away.

Fourth answer: I don't live in Windows 95.  Not win3.1 either.  Not msdos. 
I live on the internet, in a unix shell account which is aliased to look
like msdos.  If I should type a little textfile during other activities on
the computer, it only takes me ten seconds to put it on my webpage. 
Unlike most people, for me the barriers against publishing on internet
have entirely evaporated. 

Fifth answer: I took a typing course in high school.  Best investment 
I ever made, almost as important as learning to read.  Now after years of
programming, I can type REALLY FAST.  If ever I think of something
interesting, I can jot down a couple of pages about it and link it to my
website.

Sixth answer: I have no shame.  Would you let the entire internet have
read-rights to your hard drive?  And then make some menus, so they could
look at all your private stuff?  That's what SCI HOBBYIST is, it's my c: 
drive.  I'm sure that many people have all sorts of fascinating junk on
their systems as well, or in their filing cabinets.  Difference is, only
they themselves can access it.  Most people prefer to hide their flaws, I
suspect.  I want to flaunt mine!  The withering spotlight of honesty keeps
the evil insanity of the self-lie at bay.

Seventh answer: I don't necessarily create it.  Much of it I simply notice
and write down.  If you adopt a religion which requires that you look at
yourself without blinders on, then you'll discover that it's a monumental
task to take your habitual blinders off.  Once you succeed, you'll find
that the entire world looks very different.  Interesting things will
spring out at you which only you can see.  Anyone could see them, but the
vast majority of humans are so afraid of looking at the rotten crap that
they've done throughout their lives, that they desparately maintain the
blinders.  The blinders are like painkillers which eliminate any negative
viewpoints and let people feel good about themselves regardless of their
past actions.  Unfortunately these same blinders make most of the real
world become invisible to them.  So, gather your stamina and gaze
unblinking into your own personal hell, and on the other side you might
perceive the outside world as it really is. 

Last: if you never have to wait for a Windows application to load, writing
a quick note will become a positive experience, and also you will have
some extra free time for other things.  :) 


 
Q: WHERE DID YOU GET THIS JUNK?

A: It's a secret.  Here it is.  Always tell the truth, and, more
importantly, never lie.  Even to yourself.  What the heck does this have
to do with anything?  Well, once I realized that I was defending my ego by
constantly telling myself a thousand subtle lies, I was able to stop. 
When I did, all this stuff started boiling up out of my unconscious and
out onto my website.  It must have been in there all along.  It just
wouldn't come out and play.  Maybe it was embarassed about all the lying. 


PS  I strongly suspect that Richard Feynman accidentally stumbled across
this same technique.  It's a source of creativity like you wouldn't
believe!  It's a wellspring of amazing ideas which seem to arise fully
formed, without you doing the work to assemble them.  Well, actually the
extreme creativity seems to be an inbuilt human feature.  Unfortunately a
"normal life" is filled with millions of tiny dishonesties which acts as a
"plug" that halts the creative flow almost entirely.  If you stop lying to
yourself totally; stop distorting reality in your efforts to have a
positive self image, then you damage your own psychological defenses. Your
defenses stop the Monsters from the ID.  They keep your personal horrors
at bay.  But they do far more than that: they also cut you off from the
prime creative source and block your flow of ideas almost entirely.  

Shatter your plug and you're on your way to an amazing life.  However, if
you do remove your psychological defenses, you force yourself onto a path
that leads to both genius or insanity.  Do you REALLY want to see yourself
as you really are?  No fuzzy lens at all?  Some people would rather not go
there.  And that's one reason why insanity is so close to genius.  
Removing your defense mechanisms is far more serious than taking a
powerful drug that gives you honest vision.  The effects won't wear off!