Cool Web Sites
by Don Singleton
Tulsa Computer Society
From the July 2004 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
This site claims to be the Net's most comprehensive venue dedicated exclusively to classic movies, and those who love the Golden Age of film will not be disappointed by what Elizabeth, your host, has put together here. There are lots of pictures and information on movies and musicals, as well as biographies and pictures of the actors and actresses. The Movie Makers section features behind-the-scenes info on the directors, producers, costume designers, choreographers and other support artists and, of course, the studios. If you really get bitten by the movie bug, there are desktop themes, screensavers, wallpapers, etc. available for download, allowing you to capture the best of the classics on your own computer.
George Mason University professor Steve Weinberger has, with the help of students and fellow staffers, compiled a remarkable database of accents from around the world. So far there are 329 samples of various folk reading the same text, which enables linguists to denote subtle (and not-so-subtle) differences in intonation and pronunciation. Civilians may not understand data such as the phonetic inventories and IPA transcriptions, but simply browsing around and listening is oddly enjoyable.
Geeks have a reputation for being future-obsessed, but many of the breed have a great interest in their own shared history. At this excellent site, for instance, those who remember the early days of Apple, the Mac, and the two Steves (not to mention all the other folk who make the whole thing possible) are recounting their stories, both to amuse and entertain each other and to make sure that there's a record of how it all came to pass. Not an Apple fan? Skim a few of the stories here to get a sense of why aficionados feel such intense affection for the company.
Girl Scouting has always been about much more than the cookies. This great site presents science and math concepts in ways designed to appeal to intelligent and inquisitive kids, and adults can also learn a few things from the nifty facts and quick, appealing games. Lively writing and great anecdotes round out the package.
The debate over the economic effect of music downloading is heating up again; take a moment to peruse some of the most current findings. This study by researchers from Harvard Business School and the University of North Carolina analyzes a large dataset of file-sharing info from the last third of 2002, compares downloads to sales of the same items, and finds that the effects on record sales have been minimal. The Adobe Acrobat document includes extensive charts of their data and a bibliography.
Please, you've said it yourself at least once. (Yes, even if you're self-employed in a one-person office.) Blow off steam or commiserate with fellow-sufferers at this site, which invites anonymous contributions detailing just how bad it is around your workplace. Even better, you'll find the stories to be sorted by fool-type, so those of you laboring under the rule of a brain-dead boss won't have to listen to the folk coping with a bratty co-worker, and everyone can stay out of the path of the poor souls with incompetent employees.
Created by the Biology Project at the University of Arizona, this site offers information about blood types, inheritance, and Rh factors. The problem sets for this tutorial were created by using edited versions of questions sent to the site by curious visitors and answered by Rick Hallick, professor of biochemistry at the university. Site visitors can compare their answers with Dr. Hallick's as they work through the problem sets. The tutorial even provides site users with a Blood Type and Rh Factor Calculator for determining the possible blood type of a child based on the blood types of their parents.
Whether you’re planning to move or you’re just curious to find out your current city’s relevant statistics, you’ll find what you need here. Once you’ve figured out that you live too far from the hospital, the weather is crappy most of the year, the property prices are dropping and the odds of finding a social life is zilch, take comfort by looking to see which locales are below yours on the top 100 lists. The site lists the lucky (?) cities with the highest income, least crime, newest houses, shortest commutes and other aspects pertaining to the quality of life.
Tulsa data is here.
There’s something terribly sweet and a little corny about this project: John Hargrave, pretending to be a 10-year-old boy, sent letters to all 100 U.S. Senators asking for their favorite jokes. A few answered, and Hargrave prints their letters here (along with a charming note acknowledging the fact that the respondents were kind to take time out of their days, or their aides’ days, to answer a letter from non-voting non-constituent). And the jokes? Not horrible, with Jon Corzine (D-NJ) getting our vote for funniest Senator and both officials from Arizona (John McCain and Jon Kyl) receiving gold stars for amusing self-effacement.
Love apes or fear them (and there’s a debate we avoid at every opportunity), there’s no denying that it’s hard to make a case against the near relation of the beast to humankind. The Canadian Great Apes Alliance further makes the point with a digital display of paintings from chimpanzees and apes living in Cameroon. We’re not sure we’d go so far as to call these works “representational,” as the curators do on the site, but they’re certainly an arresting look at the creativity of creatures other than ourselves
Serious shoppers love a good Net bargain, and this site delivers, with plenty of great deals listed along with those all-important coupon codes. The site's sorted by category, but we found the daily list of new offers to be the most useful (and fun) stop, with a number of honestly impressive offers on sites we already know and like. There's even an e-mail newsletter (of course it's free, you bargain fiend!) for keeping up on those dizzying deals.
The Philosophers' Magazine has an interesting short quiz that gives you a chance to think about exactly what you think about when you think about God. Do you believe that a Supreme Deity must be all-powerful, all-loving, all-sustaining, eternal, perfectly free? Check off the attributes that describe your idea of God, and the "metaphysical engineers" behind the scenes will gently suggest whether your ideas are consistent with the universe as we know it. Very simple, but very powerful if you let the thoughts sink in.
To this land built by dreams of foreign hands, people continue to arrive and with them a wealth of culture and knowledge. Meet the new Americans and read how, and why they decided to come here. Once you have worked up an appetite, nab a recipe for “Crazy Chicken” from the Caribbean. While you are at it, you may want to tune in to some Afro-beats while you go crazy in the kitchen. After your culinary adventures, there is a fascinating quiz about immigration waiting for you. The surprise lay not in the questions but the answers.
Siberian-born New Yorker does a good job of presenting the time all over the globe, including in those truly odd locales (Oceania, Antarctica) that make it rather complicated to know when you are
Here’s a fun way to kick off your weekend entertainment planning: Send your friends an e-card of the very movie you’d like to go see (or rent) with them. This site has a nice (not comprehensive, but nice) selection of recent, current, and coming attractions, and we found that the movies we selected from the A-Z list had a variety of good choices for our e-mailing convenience.
Finally, a site for both healthcare providers and patients. Civilians can tour the Virtual Hospital for any medical questions they might have: You'll find patient educational briefs browseable by organ system or by a topical list, a collection of peer-reviewed and annotated Web resources, an internal search engine, as well as a Virtual Children's Hospital. For you health professionals needing continuing education credits, here's your resource. Do keep this address in your files. You never know when you might need a Virtual Hospital.
This site hopes to find the essence of funny by having a robot (well, a robotic voice) run a few jokes by you; you’ll tell the robot which one amuse you, and from this we’ll learn… well, something. Odds are you’ll hear some true groaners here, but we got a few smiles out of the material.
Not a site, exactly, but we can all but guarantee this is the link you’re most likely to forward to your friends – if, of course, you can bring yourself to touch the keyboard after you hear about the bacteria, microbes, and other disgusting creatures lurking on it. (And don’t even get us started on what’s living on the mouthpiece of your telephone handset.)
We can’t escape it -- even the yellow brick road will at some point present a fair dose to remind us how precious life is without pain. This site looks at concepts and approaches to pain in different historical eras and the discourses that surround pain in medical history. In addition, it introduces complementary approaches to pain control, such as acupuncture. If this is all too New Age for your taste, take the scientific approach and find out what happens on a molecular level when you get burned.
Poor intelligence is not a modern phenomenon, but perhaps more romantic were the ways in which intelligence once were collected. This fascinating digital exhibit of cloak and dagger covers the colorful language, ingenious secret code and invisible ink used to evade enemy interception of sensitive information. A fair number of the featured letters came to play a crucial role in the success and failure of sieges, battles, and surprise attacks launched onto less knowledgeable adversaries.
Who says nothing good online is free these days? The BBC is offering lessons in various languages to anyone who cares to sign up for them, with plenty of sound files and helpful glossaries. You won’t necessarily gain fluency – the short, simple lessons are geared toward vacationers and focus on the phrases most useful for getting by when out and about – but it’s a wonderful start.
After Metallica’s ugly reaction to Napster-style file sharing, you’d think the contents of this site – parodies that combine Metallica-esque songs with those of the Beatles – would seriously cheese them off. Surprise! According to the site, at least two members of the band know about these tunes and dig the creative effort. (No word from Paul or Ringo; so it goes.) Fire up your preferred BitTorrent-download software and drop by for some free music. You bet it rocks.
Rebuilding Iraq is a huge undertaking. One of the most important tasks – restarting the educational system -- could use your help. This site supports a program that sends supplies and Arabic translations of Laura Hillenbrand's wonderful book Seabiscuit to villages in the process of rebuilding their school programs. Why Seabiscuit? Because Hillenbrand is, along with actor Gary Sinise, one of the co-founders of the program; she's investing all royalties right back into acquiring more pencils, paper and such. Check out the stories for a hopeful view of what America can accomplish in the region.
Deep breath. Don't panic. Not only can you and your intended have the wedding of your dreams, there's an excellent chance you can do it without killing yourselves in the process. This site brings together a wealth of tips and information on handling everything from finding a beautiful dress to booking the reception hall and preparing the toasts. The core of the site is a vast directory of links to goods and services, which are sorted geographically. Most convenient, at a time when convenience means a lot.
New Yorkers, rejoice! The greatest city in the world has quite possibly the greatest public-library Web site in the world. The catalog-search functions have been a bit shabby for a while, though, so we're pleased to see the NYPL's tech folk have rolled out a beautiful new interface that works well. The search couldn't be simpler and the results pages are a vast improvement over the previous text-only assortment.
Having a hard time climbing your family tree? Here's a site with a great premise: Putting together local volunteers willing to check local phone directories, cemeteries and the like for elusive bits of information for faraway seekers. It's certainly not a fancy site, but if you're serious about pursuing every possible lead in your search (and are willing to contribute a bit of your own time in exchange), this one's worth checking out.
As the dot-com landscape has changed over the past few years, we've mourned the loss of lots of good, free e-card sites. (Concerns about certain ne'er-do-wells hiding viruses, worms and spyware in certain kinds of electronic postcards didn't help our disposition either.) It turns out, however, that the company that offers so many cards on paper also has some perfectly charming selections for those of us living a stamp-free lifestyle
Attention Net fans, especially those of you who own your own domain name: WLS stands for Wait List System, and it's something that was proposed a couple of years ago as a way to let folks scoop up a domain if its previous keeper happens to let it drop. (For instance, if you wanted usatoday.com, you could pay your money and wait for us for vacate the domain. Don't hold your breath.) Critics of the system say that it's anti-consumer and prone to massive corporate abuse — and point to ICANN and VeriSign, those less-than-popular Net gatekeepers, as the problem once again. Read through their arguments at this site
Need fresh music for the weekend? Acquaint yourself with this site, which offers a good selection of MP3s made freely available by their net.labels – and, as of this week, a downloadable copy of Free Culture, Lawrence Lessig’s latest book on digital rights, downloading, and the culture wars. The files are shared by the technology known as BitTorrent, which shows great promise for just such projects as this.
Got an endless appetite for trivia? You'll love this site, which has amusing stories on famous folk of all sorts. Feel free to rummage through their files, but we're particularly fond of the random-story button, which always seem to deliver the tastiest tidbits on the most unlikely folk
Here's a great way of supporting worthy causes while doing something you probably already do: selling stuff on eBay. MissionFish lets you choose a nonprofit with which you'd like to share the proceeds of your sales. Once you sell and ship the item, a portion of the price is earmarked for whichever cause you've chosen, and MissionFish expedites the process of giving those funds and getting you a receipt for tax purposes. Sweet.
If your understanding of Buddhism doesn’t go beyond the platitides you read in the occasional celebrity interview, this site might bring some clarity, if not actual enlightenment. BuddhaNet provides a rundown on the various aspects of this ancient philosophy with playful animations and a multitude of texts. You’ll also find a digital library, multimedia collection, and even sound bites to soothe your ears.
For more information on the Tulsa Computer Society click here
Tulsa Computer Society 7/01/2004
Don Singleton, President