Cool Web Sites
by Don Singleton
Tulsa Computer Society
From the December 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
What if George Washington had agreed to become king of the USA? What if the Black Plague hadn't decimated Europe's population in the Middle Ages? What if Bobby Kennedy had survived? Alternate histories are a popular jumping-off point for a lot of great fiction, and this site lists over 2,300 novels, essays and so forth that explore any number of possible otherwises. If you can't find something to read on this ever-expanding roster that gives you a serious case of the what-ifs, check your pulse.
The skull came into being nearly 500 million years ago to protect the brain and sensory organs in vertebrate animals. Lend some color to the inside of your own cranium with a visit to this library of skull studies and find out why various species end up looking the way they do under their skins
What do worms eat? Do identical twins have the same fingerprints? Do trees ever stop growing? Why does the Hot Sites column consistently rock? OK, so Dr. Universe may not have the answers to all of life's most pressing questions, but she sure does know a lot. And according to her site, this cat with connections is not afraid to ask the big questions. Dr. Universe has taken it upon herself to do the dirty work — ask the questions you always wanted to but were too afraid you'd look stupid. Peek at the most recent questions, browse by topic, or get really bold and submit a few of your own.
Perhaps you or someone you know has a dire need to figure out who was running Peru in 1949. You could see for yourself with this handy, text-only reference guide to who ran nearly every country and nation-state in the world from 1700 to the present day. Trivia lovers, genealogists and history buffs may fall into this one and never return
Go ahead and fry your optic nerves with a little deceptive art for the weekend. Those cherries appear to be moving, but are they really? Are those spinning coffee beans or Dongururin? Fun and dizzying, these sketches promise hours of soothing (or frustrating, depending on your temperament) entertainment.
For anyone who's ever read a set of Ikea assembly direction and been more confused afterwards than before you started, this site's for you: a Hall of Shame of confusing, bizarre or simply odd technical instructions. We're not saying that we'd necessarily be able to do a world-class job of nonverbally conveying complex instructions, but it's simply got to get better than the angry light bulb and the… well, we think it's a snake coming out of a computer box and attacking some guy's foot. We just can't be sure.
Who knew there was so much Harry Potter news winging its way around the world (carried to some places, we like to think, by owls) on a daily basis? This fine site blogs the worldwide doings of fans of the boy wizard, making note of everything from Quidditch contests to seminars on the morality inherent in the world of wizards and muggles. The site's also got a wealth of fan art, movie gossip, kids' activities, and even a nifty gallery of Potter book covers from around the world. Proprietor "BoBaFeTT" clearly puts in an immense amount of work on this charming site, and we're the lucky beneficiaries.
Spot the man's noggin in a pile of coffee beans within one minute, and this site says that's a sign right brain is developed normally. Spot it within three seconds and you're a genius. Spend more than three minutes looking for this dude's noodle, and you might want to get yours checked. Ask why there's a man's head in a maze of beans, and you're too inquisitive for silly games.
You can't get enough of Mars in its close-up phase. The press (including this publication) can't get enough of those gorgeous Mars photos. We sense a synergy here, and the Hubble Site - normally populated with the latest and most stunning images from the beloved telescope - has devoted its entire site to Mars-mania for a few days. Come for the Red Planet, but stay for the regular deep-space photos; the redemption of the once-derided Hubble is one of the Net's great public-relations success stories, and we never visit this site without feeling cheered and uplifted.
Want to know when you can catch the White House's next Webcast? Hoping to sit in on a religious service from the comfort of home? Wanting a local newscast from a town not currently local to you? Itching for something more stimulating than whatever's on the television right this minute? This useful site lists dozens of online broadcasts of all descriptions.
If these meat-eating flora could talk, we're pretty sure they'd be grunting and muttering that photosynthesis is for lightweights. See some of botany's scariest, most aggressive, bloodthirsty plants at ilovecarnivorousplants.com, a virtual Little Shop of Horrors. Though you can buy some if you'd like, we simply recommend browsing names and habits for pure enjoyment. (And you thought bladderworts were something your aging grandfather needed removed regularly.)
An overwhelming majority of Americans consider themselves religious, so the idea of a prayer each day is probably not foreign to most readers. What's terrific about BeliefNet's daily feature is that it gives visitors a sense of the sheer beauty of the formal and semi-formal of the world's faiths. Recent offerings have included a Jewish prayer for a newborn child, an African prayer for peace, and an Aztec blessing over food. Let the words of other faiths resonate with you, or simply enjoy the cross-cultural variety.
A lot of people dream of paying visits all of the major-league baseball parks, but Brian Merzbach is doing something downright extraordinary: He's documenting not only those shrines to baseball but minor-league, amateur and even disappeared parks around the U.S. and Canada. Enjoy his photographic tours as the summer slips into memory.
If the past month hasn't convinced Windows users that keeping up to date on software patches is an important computer-maintenance priority for security reasons, we can't imagine what would. This site merits regular visits to be sure that your PC is in the best possible condition; security updates are covered, as are performance patches for mice, keyboards, and more
A nice selection of stamp artwork from the exhibit at the Postal Museum -- images of American history, flora and fauna, Norman Rockwell, the American scene, and more.
Mitchell Brown here offers his list of the previous century's most influential comic books. Like many fervent fans of pop culture, Brown's the kind of guy who pours a lot of love into his lists; like most listmakers, he offers his selection as a way of encouraging you to agree, agitate, argue or otherwise amend his best-of roster.
School's in session, which means that many thousands of students are getting down to the hard business of grappling with their fear of math class. This charming British site hopes to make the going easier by showing off the fun and practical side of "maths." This is a great resource for teachers or parents hoping to show that there's plenty of excitement and beauty beyond the realm of rote 2-plus-2 memorization; we were particularly interested in the recent article on using math and statistics to catch a serial killer.
For such topics as "The Dance of Death, "Angels and Demons," "Weird Science," "Fantastic Space," this presents a brief backgrounder, a variety of images, and a list of sources for the images. Created by the Cornell Institute for Digital Collections, drawing on the rare and manuscript collections of the Cornell University Library.
Away from your e-mail? Miss it? If your ISP doesn't provide a means of remotely checking your inbox, we suggest a visit to Mail2Web, a handy site that'll let you quickly send, read, answer and delete messages to and from your own address. It's an incredible convenience and they make it available free.
Stop dreaming of rolling in Bill Gates’ cash and be grateful for what you’ve got, even if you make a mere fraction of what he nets every minute. If you think you’re poor, consider this: Even were you living on just $91 a year, there are more than 219 million people in the world subsisting on less. And if you make $20,000 a year, you’re in the top 7.7% of this planet’s richest people. Find out exactly where you stand in the wide world of wealth.
Interesting article reveals what online and print sources some prominent internet figures read regularly and why.
If you're about to get a mugshot snapped, it's not as if the arresting officer is going to wait for you to reapply mascara and change into a cleaner shirt. And yet a few moments browsing this site is enough to convince you crime isn't a pretty business; most of the people featured here, famous and obscure alike, look like they're on the fourth day of a three-day bender. Unless you're Jane Fonda. If you're Jane Fonda you're ridiculously beautiful getting arrested. But not if you're Yasmin Bleeth. We think there's a lesson in that, but darned if we know what
If you find great pleasure in watching kittens playing poker, tabbies smoking cigars or calicos playing golf, you browse over to Catland Gallery: The Art of Louis Wain for all of your anthropomorphic-cats-in-action needs. This online exhibit celebrates the English artist’s lifetime obsession with drawing cats. Most fascinating aspect: Watching the kitties change from friendly to fanatic to frenzy-eyed as Wain dips in and out of mental illness.
"A complete compendium of information on every state's open records and open meetings laws. Each state's section is arranged according to a standard outline, making it easy to compare laws in various states."
It's not the major financial outlay it used to be, but buying new computer gear is still a bit nerve-wracking if you're looking to get the greatest value for your money, and the variety of online shops promising big bargains can make a person nervous. Canny shoppers should drop by this simple site to get other shoppers' opinions on what's good and, especially, where to get it — you may not have heard of some of the smaller e-tailers out there, but someone has, and here's where you can find out whether they're worth your visit.
Calendars have always been based on astronomical events — equinoxes, solstices and the like — and their effects (real or perceived) on human activity. Calendars through the Ages documents the structures humankind has attempts to place on these celestial movements. Learn what the names of the days of the week mean, find out why so many calendars group days in sets of seven. and discover a simple equation that'll tell you on which day of the week a certain date fell
You'll have fun with this, searching either by location or activity for events you might want to take part in, throughout the world, including both the unusual (dog races on ice, the world pumpkin chucking championship, the Space Coast Birding and Wildlife Festival, the Tarantula Festival and Fall Barbecue, etc.) and everyday attractions and activities like art exhibits, greyhound racing, farmers' markets, whitewater rafting, etc. Even if you never go anywhere, it provides remarkable insights into the human imagination.
C.S.I. fans have Las Vegas, they have Miami, and thanks to this site they've got the whole world for their investigation pleasure. The U.K.'s Channel 4 presents this fine overview of forensic investigation, with an emphasis on discoveries around the world that have advanced our knowledge of humankind (as opposed to our knowledge of whodunit, though there ar a few of those as well). Squeamish readers are warned that, well, it is a site about dead people, and the graphics may prove slightly unnerving.
This online version of an Ontario museum exhibit invites you to examine, transform, improve or even destroy common household objects to find out more about them. The site lets you get up close and personal with aluminum atoms inside a soda can; discover new and fascinating ways to electrify catsup (!), learn why canned food can be dangerous when dented, find out whether it's concrete or ice that crushes faster, and much more.
Includes a little of everything -- jazz history, a timeline, festivals, a photo gallery, a teacher locator, a glossary, and more.
A breathtakingly simple site — remember all-text, anyone? — has 52 ideas on ways you might spend your time. It's that simple, except each project includes whatever levels of contemplation and observation you bring to them. (It's one thing to ride a train to the end of the line and take pictures; it's another to do it with the knowledge that you are in the process of A Project.) And Jeffrey Yamaguchi, the proprietor, has a fifty-third project in mind — something larger, but just as charming and reflective as the first 52
For more information on the Tulsa Computer Society click here
Tulsa Computer Society 12/01/2003
Don Singleton, President