mallville is nearing the end of its second season, and in its time on the air the show and its stars have garnered a large and loyal following. Smallville Fans is a gathering place for those dedicated to knowing—and sharing—all the hot-off-the-press news about the show.
With a bloggish sensibility to its layout and plenty of pictures and links, this site is crammed with information bulletins about Smallville, all posted by show devotees. Cast birthdays, information about actors' upcoming film projects, interviews, contest announcements—every scintilla of data picked up elsewhere on the Internet has been brought to Smallville Fans, collected in one place and easily accessible. Upcoming episode titles and airdates, along with very minor spoilers, are also provided.
Smallville Fans has a discussion forum for its members, too, as well as an extensive photo gallery and a link to Smallville Radio, a Realplayer "station" that has songs from the Smallville soundtrack on continuous play. Its archive of yes/no surveys contains some quirky and
thought-provoking questions, and makes for entertaining browsing.
This page is still very much a site under development. Its download offerings are scant and occasionally glitchy, and a single extensive surf-through will be enough for most visitors to absorb the bulk of its written content. As the show continues to develop and mature, though, the site's materials will certainly develop more depth. In the meantime, Smallville Fans is a top-notch place for tracking everything related to the doings of TV's latest incarnations of Clark Kent and Lex Luthor—a must-have, especially with the summer hiatus looming in the too-near future.
— A.M. Dellamonica
Site of the Week—April 14, 2003
magine watching the celestial dance of Saturn's rings and moons from the cloud tops of Titan. Or hovering over Mars, looking down on the 2,500-mile-long canyon of Valles Marineris from Deimos. Or even
traveling to the gas giant orbiting Pegasus 51 to watch a few alien sunsets.
Faster than Picard could say "Make it so," users of the Celestia 3D Space Simulator can visit 100,000 stellar locations like these. The free open-source program is available at the Celestia Web site and includes versions for Windows, Unix/Linux and Mac OS X.
The most robust of these, the Windows version, offers a guided tour of the solar system, as well as preprogrammed destinations of note, including all of Sol's planets and many of its moons, Proxima Centauri and Barnard's Star. Real-world photos of planets and stars are mapped onto their Celestia counterparts, and are further enhanced by special effects like clouds. It makes for beautiful, occasionally breathtaking views. Users can toggle on a variety of labels, including constellation maps (useful for seeing what Earth's constellations look like from Betelgeuse), orbital paths and star names. Double-clicking on any celestial body activates a hyperlink to a Web site containing additional information about it.
In addition to the source files for the program, the Celestia Web site includes a FAQ explaining system requirements and certain known problems, screenshots of various popular views and an active message forum. Under the links section, fans can find a variety of sites offering add-ons for the program. Of particular note is Celestia Add-Ons, which includes importable models for black holes, various real-world spacecraft, Larry Niven's Ringworld and the ever-ominous Death Star.
— Kenneth Newquist
Site of the Week—April 7, 2003
ome people work in space, others just want to play there. The latter can check out HobbySpace.com, which is dedicated to every pastime that intersects with the final frontier.
The site's divided into more than 30 categories, including the more typical hobbies—model rocketry, astronomy and movies—and the more obscure—like GPS navigation, satellite watching and space radio. Each section includes recent news stories about the topic in question, links to related Web sites, information about getting started in the hobby and much more.
Back on the home page, visitors can find regular news blurbs about space-related hobbies, as well as interviews with leaders in the field, such as Peter Diamandis, founder and president of the X Prize Foundation, and Paul Blase of TransOrbital (which plans to launch a private spacecraft to the moon). There are also occasional guest articles covering such subjects as proposals to mine asteroids and thoughts on constructing starships. Overall, the site's an excellent resource for anyone who's passionate about space—and who wants to do something with that passion.
— Ken Newquist
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