Cool Web Sites
by Don Singleton
Tulsa Computer Society
From the October 2001 issue of the I/O Port Newsletter
Including links previously reviewed at
http://www.educationindex.com/index.html,
http://www.komando.com/,
http://www.yahoo.com/picks/,
http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/arch.htm,
and http://marylaine.com/neatnew.html
A list of sites for teachers, prepared by Robert Dally, Sixth Grade Teacher at
Knowlton Township Elementary School
Some fascinating links between color and our minds and bodies, that explain why you should paint jail
cells pink and dye your ice cream blue
This site is for anyone who’s ever forgotten something at the grocery store. Go through their complete checklist
and think of everything before you go shopping. It’s much easier than scouring your entire kitchen.
Our country's very own Federal Bureau of Investigations presents an index of downloadable FBI files on such notable
personages as Lucille Ball ("registered to vote as a communist in 1936
at the insistence of her grandfather"), Pablo Picasso
("activities in connection with various subversive groups"), and John Lennon ("contributed $75,000 to a group planning to
disrupt the Republican National Convention in 1972"). Browse the files of
notorious gangsters, traitorous spies, and
unexplained phenomena. Three cheers for the Freedom of Information Act!
Four or five outstanding web sites for each scientific discipline
The New York Times is fine, but I want more from my information site.
Throw the Times, The New Yorker, and the online magazine
Salon.com into a blender; hit frappé; and you end up with Kuro5hin.
The site is a free-for-all of news and opinion written by
readers--you're as likely to find a humorous discussion about listing
"Jedi" as your religion on government census forms as a serious
essay on using PC viruses to efficiently distribute security info.
Get all the facts on health and consumer information for children. Created by the Consumer Federation of
America Foundation, this site provides crucial product recall information, tips on what to buy your kids, and a
wealth of general information on raising children. There’s even a place where childcare professionals can read up
on cutting edge issues.
With over 300 charities listed on this site, you can find the cause that's right for you. Read up on a charity
organizations or donate to them directly online. This is one site you’ll feel good about visiting.
Resources and tips for making your web site more usable
In the laboratories at Harvard, researchers and scientists are "turning artifacts of the imagination into facts of life." This site
offers a peek into these labs, and allows you to read about the research as it happens, whether it's the latest news on medical
treatment, technological advances, or space exploration. Divided into six categories --
Mind,
Body,
Society,
Earth,
Space, and
Technology -- the site's in-depth look at innovative research will fascinate and amaze.
Get a kool summer job or jumpstart your career by finding the internship that matches your interests. InternWeb
allows would-be interns to search by job type, employer type or state.
Keep the kids busy with this fun, educational site. With lots of kool graphics, it’s easy for kids to find
fun games and learning resources.
A daily guide to the most important tech news
The National Weather Service provides this site to let you know the current weather
situations around the world. If you have a fast connection, you can watch weather
patterns as they develop. This site also shows places where dangerous weather is
happening.
Check up on a package sent through UPS, Airborne or FedEx. This site will track it down and let you know its
current status. How simple is that!
Explore the surface of the moon from your PC. This site maps the moon’s entire surface with high-quality
photographs. Unfortunately, we found out that it’s not made of cheese.
Wonderfully whimsical and appealing graphics and animations from
Water Garden and Gardening Graphics
This interactive resource offers a vast array of tools designed to "make history make sense." The database of over 400 articles
is searchable by period and theme so you can get an overview of the history of painting from cave art to 18th-century British
watercolours, or zero in on the Napoleonic wars. Take one of the over 200 tours to explore themes and movements throughout
time, or choose among some 300 timelines to gain a broader perspective of historical events. Once you've learned all there is to
know, join the History Club and post your own essays, or test your smarts with a round of Whizz Quizz, an online competition
staged every hour.
This page is the ultimate for anyone interested in developing web pages. You can find resources for web
programming languages and links to graphics and multimedia pages, or join a discussion with other webmasters.
There are even special pages for beginner and intermediate web designers.
Can you draw? Well, neither can the artists on this site. There are some truly awful pictures in this gallery. Forget
“impressionistic” art, this is “bad” art. Or is it?
A prime source of clip art and banners for library web sites, but also a calendar of
promotional ideas, articles on good ideas and how-to-do-it.
The goal of the Microwave Anisotropy Probe (MAP) is pretty
cosmic — to produce a detailed map of the early universe.
Backgrounders explain where scientists think we all came from.
Be hip to all of the cultural events going on in your community. This site contains a comprehensive list of venues
and shows in over one thousand American cities. Support the arts in your community by attending a musical,
dance recital, or art show. Tulsa is not one of the cities listed, but I did a search on Tulsa
and found 12 events in the next week (between Sunday, July 1, 2001 and Saturday, July 7, 2001)
Actually it was just 2 events, listed on six different days: a show at Gilcrease Museum and
one at Philbrook Museum of Art
Let the American Museum of Natural History guide you on an exciting adventure. Go on an African Safari or an
expedition to the South Pole. This site will take you through land, air and sea to find the thrill of a lifetime.
"contains over 16,000 titles that can be browsed by author, by title, or by Dewey Decimal
Classification." There's substantial overlap with texts on the On-Line Books Page, but there appear to be some unique titles as well.
The Easter Egg Archive highlights unseen but interesting tidbits
about the things around us: Everything from how to take an express
ride on an elevator to finding hidden messages in your computer
programs.
Are you a bartender wannabe? Let this site serve you up everything you ever needed to know about drinks.
Beware--with over 6000 potent potables in their database, you could have too much fun trying them all out.
WebTender can tell you how to make a certain drink or even what type of drink you can make whatever
ingredients you have on hand.
Let the six experts on this site “tell you what to do.” If you are looking for advice on love, fashion, work,
entertainment and more, send your question to this site. Dear Abby, eat your heart out.
Not only describes the various cancers, treatments, and medical procedures, but also deals as
much with questions such as when to call a doctor, how to tell your child about the diagnosis, break
the news to brothers and sisters, and help everybody cope.
If you're new to digital photography or already know all about megapixels, this site has
something for you, offering a variety of online "courses" covering a variety of digital
imaging topics. Find out everything you need to know if you're buying a digital camera
in the appropriately named "Choosing a Digital Camera" course, or learn how to take
better electronic images, or even how to manipulate your pictures once you've captured
the photo.
Billing itself as a collective of hundreds of journalists offering
grassroots, non-corporate news coverage, the Independent Media
Center posts a growing number of dispatches and photos from
around the world.
With a library of nearly 2000 songs complete with lyrics, this site is a great resource for
rediscovering all those great lullabies of your youth. There's also a section with
visitor-submitted kid's stories, as well as fun and games, art and more!
Help keep the U.S. Congress accountable with a visit to C-SPAN.
Brings you blow-by-blow action in the House, along with extensive
links to other congressional resources.
Established in 1846, the Smithsonian Institution offers 16 museums and galleries, the
National Zoo as well as numerous research facilities in the U.S. and abroad. This site is
the official home to the Smithsonian, and from here you can explore all it has to offer,
from museums to libraries and archives to shopping and more. There's also help in
planning a trip to the Smithsonian, as well as information on getting involved and
becoming a member.
Itinerant photographers Clay Enos and Stephan Ghukfvin have embarked on a year-long quest to shoot portraits in every
neighborhood of every borough of New York City: "Treating everyone we photograph as someone special, we are
endeavoring to capture the diverse faces, fashions and attitudes that comprise this great city." After setting up their portable
studio on a sidewalk, they grab people off the street for portrait sessions: "As people walk by, we ask them to stop for a
moment, pose, and then carry on." Take folks in their street clothes and photograph them against a white background? Sure,
it's been done before, but it's a formula that works.
Ever think of day-hiking the Sierras for a few hours of solitude? Or
dream of canoeing the Canadian wilderness? Let your thoughts and
dreams wander at the Great Outdoor Recreation Pages
It may be downright easy at times to focus on the bad things that
life throws your way. GoodThings.com aims to change that
perspective — an effort to foster an online conversation that, if
nothing else, may help "get us out of bed every morning."
PhotoWorks provides both digital and film camera users an easy way to share,
organize and preserve the images they cherish. Get scanning, online archiving and
e-mail sharing services for either digital or film images, and then create albums or e-mail
pictures to anyone. You can also order prints of your favorite photos, or create
personal greeting cards or have them applied to t-shirts, calendars, mugs and other
great gift items.
This is one of the premier radio sites on the web. Listen to hundreds of stations of all formats from around the
world. It’s just too bad that you can’t take this in your car...yet.
Find some terrific digital images at Kodak's online 'zine. And
while you're at it, upload your own photos (membership required)
or pick up some useful tips.
This site is the ultimate science resource. Find hundreds of topics discussed with lots of
cool, helpful graphics as well as links to other relevant sites.
Volcanologist John Seach's site features several jaw-dropping photographs of your host casually ogling massive plumes of
spouting lava. It's also bursting with constantly updated information on all things volcanic.
Check out live volcano cams,
breaking volcano eruption news,
the latest satellite images of active volcanoes, and suggested
travel spots for die-hard volcano
fans. And don't miss the photographs of huge, perfectly formed smoke rings puffed out by
Mount Etna.
Put in a zip code and this site will connect to everything that’s happening in that area. Keep up on fun stuff in your
neighborhood or prepare for an exciting trip. The entry for Tulsa is
here and you can see what movies
are playing at what theaters.
This search engine browses through almost every magazine imaginable to find specific articles. Type in any word in several types of searches and they’ll give you the article.
Look here for rates on CDs, mortgages and personal loans.
BanxQuote is a virtual banking center on the Web.
Use the Mad Scientist Library to guide you to all of the cool science sites on the web.
You can even e-mail a question to one of the mad scientists.
The Internet Society is an organization that works to ensure the growth and evolution of the Internet and its infrastructure. The
Interplanetary Internet research group represents its latest foray into the future. The goal of this project "is to define the
architecture and protocols necessary to permit interoperation of the Internet resident on Earth with other remotely located
internets resident on other planets or spacecraft in transit." What's all that mean? Well, as far as we can tell, it means that if
this plan takes root, sending an email to Mars in the future will be much easier than downloading an MP3 from Napster
Lots of stunning graphics and multimedia can be found here. Even if you aren't into
science, you've got to be amazed by the visuals on this site.
Can't tell your "waldgravine" from your "echidna," or your
"caduceus" from your "pancosmism"? Don't despair — just click on
the handy Dictionary of Difficult Words, which boasts a
collection of more than 13,900 jawbreakers.
The easiest way to find stars in your local sky is on the Internet. Type your zip code
into this site and it will show you a diagram of all the stars, constellations, and heavenly
bodies that you can see from your house.
PhotoShop wizard Eric Shindelbower presents a collection of World War II photographs that we promise you've never seen before. Through hard work and a little digital wizardry, your host has seamlessly inserted America's favorite plastic GI into actual war photographs, kind of like Saving Private Ryan meets Toy Story. The Forrest Gump effect works quite well, and Mr. Shindelbower is gracious enough to share the tricks of his trade. Author disclaimer: "This technique produces images that are not intended to disrespect or make light of the soldiers and photographers that served in World War II."
Here’s a way to truly find out what people think of your looks. Post a picture here and then others vote (from 1 to
10) anonymously. Sorry, no recounts!
The virtual library for science is a great place to find a wealth of information on a
variety of topics. You'll find plenty of links and resources here to turn you into a real
virtual Einstein.
"It is a period of stylistic banality. The rebellion is looking dowdy and the evil Galactic Empire has grown too fond of industrial finishes. Dull grey is the 'in' color." So begins an epic journey to the farthest reaches of time, space, and fashion sense. From the new-Beetle-inspired AT-AT Walker to Jabba the Hut's Ghery-designed palace, you'll be amazed at how today's designers have managed to spruce up the galaxy. Say goodbye to dull earth-tone robes and passé pastel light sabres.
Forget your old boring pocket thesaurus. This site brings words to life and strings them together. Interact with the
graphic display and play with all kinds of word associations.
An overdose for news junkies: The British Library Newspaper
Library. Boasts a catalog of more than 52,000 newspaper and
periodical titles, making it the only large, integrated national
newspaper service in the world.
Most of the time, restaurants have the best food. This site will tell you how to duplicate those dishes you find at favorite popular restaurants, like Bennigan’s and T.G.I. Friday’s.
Spice up your computer screen with the help of 3D Mindscape, a
labor of love that offers a big selection of free wallpaper images for
you to download. Nothing more fantastic anywhere in cyberspace.
The creator of this site loves physics. So he made a page where people can easily
access specific physics topics. There are also several animated presentations.
This Internet magazine is all about digital imaging, and each issue offers four new
camera reviews along with plenty of helpful articles covering all kinds of photo subjects.
There is also a large glossary of terms to help you understand the nuts and bolts, as
well as a forum where you can post questions.
Track down old friends with this massive resource of people search engines. This site has just about every type of people search imaginable, including links to other people search websites.
Right now, dozens of lab groups, tech companies, and inspired amateurs are hard at work building robots that look, act, and think like humans. No one questions the fact that they have a long way to go, but the results so far are pretty interesting. Chris Willis' no-nonsense Android World keep tabs on various ongoing projects, and provides plenty of background resources for folks curious about androids. Featured sections include the world's greatest android projects, including Honda's little buddy Asimo, and a special area devoted to Animatronic Heads, featuring MIT's groundbreaking Kismet project.
When you "play it by ear," what are you really doing? And what do
you call creative facial contortionism? Answers to those and other
linguistic stumpers are tackled by World Wide Words.
This award-winning site at Cornell University has resources and links to every science
topic imaginable. It's even better than a search engine because it guides you right to the
best sites on your area of interest
For more information on the Tulsa Computer Society click here
Tulsa Computer Society 10/06/2001
Don Singleton, President