Cool Web Sites
by Don Singleton
Tulsa Computer Society
From the August 2003 issue of the I/O Port Newsletter
Including links previously reviewed at
http://www.educationindex.com/index.html,
http://www.komando.com/,
http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/arch.htm,
and http://marylaine.com/neatnew.html
Bald Eagles come back from the brink, and may soon be off the endangered list.
Sick of giving your mouse the finger? Now pointing, typing and gesturing can all be done in one place thanks to MultiTouch. Who knows if copying, cutting and pasting is really as effortless as they promise, but it sure is fun watching those well-manicured fingers demonstrating the "touch and pinch" method.
Excavations revealed the remains of a vehicle buried almost 2,500 years ago. But did Iron Age designers use it as a carriage, a cart, or a chariot. You might be surprised that there is a difference. Discover the distinctions. And find out more about Iron Age building techniques.
Become a virtual coin collector, courtesy of the U.S. Mint. You'll find high-resolution images — ready for downloading — of 50 state quarters, Olympics commemoratives, golden dollars and even something called the Platinum Bullion.
Learn how to protect yourself and your kids with Child & Family Safety's Stop Sex Offenders site. View registries of convicted sex offenders in your state. Find safe Web browsers for children, and learn how to screen babysitters. Chat with other parents in the forum.
Find out everything you ever wanted to know about installing a faucet, calculating grass seed or repairing hail damage with Ace's interactive Project How-To's. Get a leg up on your summer projects by learning how to conserve energy, repair and patch concrete, and waterproof your basement.
Is it or isn't it — an emergency call, that is. You be the judge as England's Avon and Somerset Constabulary serves up some real-life examples of unreal calls that emergency-line operators have received. An audio hoot. (But don't try this at home.)
Look at that picture very closely. Who is it? Come on, strain your eyes a little. Hey, it's Abe Lincoln ... in dominoes. Check out more fun photos of celebrities constructed out of 48 complete sets of double nine dominoes on Domino Artwork. Buzz Aldrin looks pretty good on the moon ... in dominoes.
Lions and tigers and water bears, oh my! Water bears? Well, Tardigrades to the science types, but that's not important. About the size of a period on a printed page, these eight-legged critters have nervous and digestive systems like 'higher' creatures, and make for one strange gallery of photos and animations, as you'll find here.
Just when you thought there were no resources on the Net for the average grandparent, here comes Grandparents. Check out gift ideas for grandchildren. Read product reviews. Learn your rights as a grandparent. And if you're really feeling out of the loop, learn the hip new song lyrics kids are singing.
Get plugged into wireless. Find wireless libraries across the country and world. Read the latest articles about going wireless, library style. And find out about one man's wireless experiences. Join a wireless discussion group.
Have a cell phone that turns on only when you hit the 'End Call' button? Shampoo and conditioner bottles that are identical? Then you've experienced the mind-numbing exasperation of poorly-designed products, a category of consumer goods mercilessly lambasted at BadDesigns.com.
No, it's not some funky rock group or crazy name. Phrenicea is a vision of the future; a prediction of the ultimate outcome of the Internet and biotechnology revolutions. Some phrenicea thoughts: Surnames will serve no functional purpose; there will be no money, rather financial transactions occur on a man-made 24th chromosomal pair. These are just a few of the Phrenicea things that make you go hmm...
You know about the rest of the Bush family, now get to know the first dog. Learn about Barney's biological parents and where he was born. Take a look at the White House through his eyes with the Barney Cam
Just when you're ready to give the world up for a ball of meaningless coincidences, along comes Kjell Sandved and his butterflies. Discovering a butterfly with the letter 'F' in its wing markings, he spent the next 25 years circling the globe until he had, at last, photographed butterflies representing every letter of the alphabet.
Learn everything you ever wanted to know about gears, levers and inclined planes the easy way. Edheads' simple machines offers a fast and fun way to learn what makes wheels go around and screws turn. Stroll through the basic machines of a house or tool shed with the interactive quiz. (Broadband connection recommended.)
Discover the Egypt of centuries past with National Geographic. Decorate your desktop with wallpaper, write in hieroglyphics and take a trip down the Nile with a free map. Browse through the Ramses II family photo album. Find Nile Valley's archaeological sites.
Learn here of the plight and irrepressible optimism of children forced by rogue governments and rough circumstances to fight in the jungles of Sierra Leone. In essays, audio clips and artworks, former child soldiers describe their experiences and express their hopes that other children shall never know the misery of battle.
Most snail mailers just lick it and stick it. Few take the time to look at what's on the stamp, let alone devote an entire site to one stamp theme. But if you love birds and stamps, Theme Birds on Stamps is the site for you. View statistics like "countries with 50 or more bird stamps" or "the most depicted bird species." Chime in with your thoughts, and don't forget to take a spin through the slide show.
The Internet Sacred Text Archive bills itself as a quiet place in cyberspace devoted to religious tolerance and scholarship. Or you could call it everything you may have wanted to know about the human race's religious heritage - with links to works ranging from the Egyptian Book of the Dead to a hypertext Bible index.
They are the questions that keep you awake at night: Who's bigger — Godzilla or King Kong? Was that UFO in Close Encounters bigger or smaller than the Enterprise on Star Trek? This simple-yet-impressive site lets you drag and drop scale models of these and other objects next to each other until you find the answers you crave.
Go ahead and doze off on the job. You're covered with the Sound Busy section of Don's Boss Page. Download Don's exclusive "hard-at-work" sound effects. Thanks to typing sounds, phones ringing and whipping noises blaring from your cubicle, your endless hours of goofing off will go completely unnoticed.
One man's revenge on an obnoxious telemarketer makes delicious reading on the Web — particularly since there are copious links to resources that might enable you, too, to eke out some vengeance, if not a monetary settlement.
If it goes boom with the brightness of a thousand suns, chances are you'll find it tucked neatly away somewhere within the Trinity Atomic Web site. From videos of the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to a detailed rundown of the weapons each country claims to have.
You see it almost every day: A happy canine passenger hanging his out of a car window, sporting that fresh, wind-blown look. But have you ever thought of snapping a picture? Well at least 200 people have. View two fun-filled galleries of canine, car escapades.
Get all of your burning questions about bacteria answered at the Virtual Museum of Bacteria. Find out how to fight the microorganisms, watch them reproduce, and learn about basic food and water safety. Discover how bacteria can go gold.
As Afghanistan tries to salvage a more stable civilization from its decades-long history of war, The Afghanistan Digital Library seeks to digitize the small number of books published in that country, in order to make them available on 'electronic media' and the Internet. Follow its progress online
Original stock cars were raced on dirt tracks but were rarely tough enough to handle the abuse. They've come along, baby. Discover how the cars work — from frame to safety. HowStuffWorks walks you through the inner workings of the body, the tires and the engines. Even shop and compare prices
Forget being confused by alphabet soup. Find out what other meanings those letters have. Did you know that SARS stands for South African Revenue Service? Find other fun initialisms and submit your own.
For more information on the Tulsa Computer Society click here
Tulsa Computer Society 7/01/2003
Don Singleton, President