Don’t Be CHI; Interact With Computers Here

Making the impossible possible is the theme of this year’s Conference on Computer-Human Interaction (CHI 98), opening Saturday at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

In the spotlight will be applications of the more specialized topics of education, health care and entertainment.

In addition to presentations and exhibits, the conference will offer tutorials on designing for the Web, graphic and visual design, the psychology of multimedia, computer-supported cooperative work, designing user interfaces for TV, and children and technology. See related story, D3

For more information on CHI 98, which runs through April 23, call (410) 263-5382 or point your browser to https://www.acm.org/sigchi/chi98.

Cyberspace

* Astronomy Day: Got stars in your eyes? Then you’ll be happy to know that Sunday is Astronomy Day. You can spend the day online honing your star knowledge, then take what you’ve learned outside at night to celebrate the special day. If you have more questions than answers, point your browser to Ask the Astronomer (https://www2.ari.net/home/odenwald/qadir/qanda.html). You can check the archives of 3,001 questions already answered or submit your own query. The site is part of the Astronomy Cafe (https://www2.ari.net/home/odenwald/cafe.html), designed for the “astronomically disadvantaged.” It has an astronomy career guide, big bang cosmology, other Web resources and “the infrared universe” (technical details of astrophysics.) The Absolute Beginners Astronomy and Telescopes site (https://webhome.idirect.com/~rsnow/) has a question-answer section on buying your first telescope and how to locate objects in the sky; photos and links.

* Titanic Talk: If you can stand any more Titanic talk (the ship, not the movie), you may want to know that Wednesday marks the 86th anniversary of the great ship’s fatal encounter with an iceberg. The Ulster Folk and Transport Museum has a Titanic exhibition online at https://www.nidex.com/uftm/titanic/. The site tells the story of Titanic and includes a photo archive. You can read a survivor’s account of the wreck at https://www.sfmuseum.org/hist5/dodge.html

* Play Ball: With baseball season already underway, we won’t take up a lot of your time. So here’s a quick list of baseball site must-sees: the official Major League baseball site (https://www.majorleaguebaseball.com/); the Major League Baseball Fans Assn. (https://www.mv.com/org/mlbfa/); the Major League Baseball Players Alumni Assn. (https://www.mlbpaa.org/); the Dodgers’ official site (https://www.dodgers.com) and the L.A. Times’ salute to the Dodgers’ 40th anniversary this year, at https://www.dodgers40.com; the Angels (https://www.angelsbaseball.com); and that old standard, “Casey at the Bat” (https://www.clark.net/pub/cosmic/catb1.html).

* Darwin Legacy: Charles Darwin died 116 years ago this month. If you want to know more about the man who gave us the theory of natural selection, check out his bio at https://userwww.sfsu.edu/~rsauzier/Darwin.html. Calling itself “the enchanted Web site,” the Charles Darwin Research Station of the Galapagos Islands is online at https://www.polaris.net/~jpinson/welcome.html. The center is part of the Charles Darwin Foundation for the Galapagos Islands, a nonprofit organization dedicated to scientific research in the islands. The site has research and conservation project info. You can read Darwin’s “Origin of Species” and “Voyage of the Beagle” at https://www.literature.org/Works/Charles-Darwin/

Site suggestions can be sent to cutting.edge@latimes.com