Science: Kary Mullis talks about the next-gen cure for killer infections, but it's the enthsiasm that's contagious

Drug-resistant bacteria kills, even in top hospitals. But now tough infections like staph and anthrax may be in for a surprise. Nobel-winning chemist Kary Mullis, who watched a friend die when powerful antibiotics failed, unveils a radical new cure that shows extraordinary promise.

Writers: Mark Twain

A fine source of Twainiana: Quotations, newspaper archives and related resources, collected by Barbara Schmidt, featuring graphics and photographs from the Dave Thomson collection. Included are a "Chronology of Known Mark Twain Speeches, Public Readings and Lectures" and a list of publications with Mark Twain/Samuel Clemens interviews, many with links. A great place to hang around for a few hours.

Cartography: Strange Maps

The ultimate site for cartography geeks, Strange Maps has a seemingly endless collection of historical, speculative, analytical and informational maps, such as the one above depicting the location of McDonald's restaurants. A book version, Strange Maps: An Atlas of Cartographic Curiosities by Frank Jacobs, is also available.

Passion: Heads in the Clouds

At The Cloud Appreciation Society, they love clouds, and they’re not embarrassed to admit it. Read their manifesto and see how they're fighting the banality of "blue-sky thinking." For a minimal postage and administration fee, you can join the society and receive your very own official membership certificate and badge.

Online Documentaries: SnagFilms

SnagFilms offers a wide variety of documentaries online, well-known documentaries like Super Size Me and lesser- known but interesting fare like The Times of Harvey Milk, about the assassination of San Fransisco's first openly gay elected official, and Hell on Wheels, about the origins of modern women-only roller derbies. The films are almost all full length and of a high quality. Watching the videos is free and requires no login, but there are brief 10-15 second ads every once in a while.

Science: Rensselaer Researchers to Create Semantic Web Platforms for Massive Scientific Collaboration

Web scientists at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute will use the World Wide Web to compile and share scientific data on an unprecedented scale. Their goal is to hasten scientific discovery and innovation by enabling rapid and easy collaboration between scientists, educators, students, policy makers, and even “citizen scientists” around the world via the Web.
Funded by $1.1 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF), the research seeks to break science out of the hallowed halls of the laboratory and place it in the hands of the people. -- from the press release, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Talk: Optical illusions show how we see -- Beau Lotto

Beau Lotto's color games puzzle your vision, but they also spotlight what you can't normally see: how your brain works. This fun, first-hand look at your own versatile sense of sight reveals how evolution tints your perception of what's really out there.
Go to Optical illusions show how we see at TED.

Resource: Holocaust documents on line

Hundreds of thousands of Holocaust-related documents are now searchable online through an agreement between the National Archives and Records Administration and Footnote.com.

Talk: Search for the Chimera by James "The Amazing" Randi

Presented at The Center for Inquiry / Transnational in Amherst, NY (2008-09-12):
Search for the Chimera, A Lecture by James "The Amazing" Randi.

Good Eatin': Everything you wanted to know about chile peppers but were afraid to ask

Here's a hot documentary on chile peppers and fiery foods from New Mexico State University, written, co-produced, and hosted by Dave DeWitt, The Pope of Peppers. Shot on location in Mexico, Guatemala, The Bahamas, Jamaica, Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico, and Florida, the movie covers all aspects of the passion for peppers.
Heat up Your Life - Peppers and People (YouTube)

Nostalgia: Scopitone -- Threat or Menace?

How many hangovers were aggravated by Scopitone?

And where are Bobby Vee and Joey Dee when you need them?

Photography: California Coastline

A man, a helicopter and a digital camera = the California Coastal Records Project, a 10,000 image aerial photographic survey of the entire 1,000-mile-long California coast, from Barbra Streisand's Malibu backyard to the best secret surf spots the state has to offer.

Humor: Bob Newhart, Unscripted

Bob Newhart: Unscripted

Space Program: High Resolution Image Downloads from NASA

High resolution files are available for download directly from the NASAimages.org website.

The improved download features offer a choice of high or low resolution files for still images, allowing users to select the version best suited for their needs. Many images on the site have a dimension of 3000 pixels or higher, making them suitable for printing at up to 11 x 17 inches on most printers. The website still maintains NASA’s file naming conventions for easy organization....

Internet Archive’s NASAimages.org offers the first comprehensive collection of NASA imagery in a single, searchable on-line location, providing enthusiasts, researchers, news media and the general public easy, no-cost access to NASA’s vast collection of still and video imagery. -- from press release.

Nutrition: Labels

How to Understand and Use the Nutrition Facts Label

The Nutrition Facts Panel - An Overview
The Serving Size
Calories (and Calories from Fat)
The Nutrients: How Much?
Understanding the Footnote
How the Daily Values (DV) Relate to the %DVs
The Percent Daily Value (%DV)
Quick Guide to %DV
Nutrients With a %DV but No Weight Listed - Spotlight on Calcium
Nutrients Without a %DV: Trans Fats, Protein, and Sugars

People look at food labels for different reasons. But whatever the reason, many consumers would like to know how to use this information more effectively and easily. The following label-building skills are intended to make it easier for you to use nutrition labels to make quick, informed food choices that contribute to a healthy diet. -- from the website.

Resources: Hubble Space Telescope Heritage Image Gallery

The Hubble Space Telescope is a research tool dedicated to scientific studies of nature. Enroute to illuminating the forces shaping our cosmos, HST has accumulated a cosmic zoo. The Hubble Heritage Project sees this instrument also as a tool for extending human vision, one that is capable of building a bridge between the endeavors of scientists and the public. By emphasizing compelling HST images distilled from scientific data, we hope to pique curiosity about our astrophysical understanding of the universe we all inhabit. -- from the website.

Museums: Hidden Histories - Women and the Renaissance

"The medieval and Renaissance collections at the [Victoria and Albert Museum] have many objects that reveal the lives of women. Ranging from jewellery to ceramics, most are precious items that would have belonged to the wealthy. This reflects what has survived but also what was collected by the Museum. Most of objects that will be examined here are from Italy, and date from the 15th and 16th centuries." -- from the website.

Documentary: Paperland -- The Bureaucrat Observed

A near-universal plaint concerns the sufferings inflicted on humanity by bureaucracies. Seemingly, all civilized peoples in all times have been shaped by their warrens of rule makers and record keepers. But few have tried to explain why bureaucrats behave as they do. Director Donald Brittain has traveled from Canada, Austria and Hungary to the Vatican and the Virgin Islands in an effort to understand the functioning of the public service mind. This is "The Office" made real.

Robotics: "Einstein" mimics human expressions

Scientists at UC San Diego's California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology have equipped a robot modeled after the famed theoretical physicist Albert Einstein with specialized software that allows it to interact with humans in a relatively natural, conversational way. The so-called "Einstein Robot," which was designed by Hanson Robotics of Dallas, Texas, recognizes a number of human facial expressions and can respond accordingly, making it an unparalleled tool for understanding how both robots and humans perceive emotion, as well as a potential platform for teaching, entertainment, fine arts and even cognitive therapy.

Advertising: Classic Ads from the Golden Age of Television

From the website: AdViews is a digital archive of thousands of vintage television commercials dating from the 1950s to the 1980s. These commercials were created or collected by the ad agency Benton & Bowles or its successor, D'Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles (DMB&B). Founded in 1929, Benton & Bowles was a New York advertising agency that merged with D'Arcy Masius McManus in 1985 to form DMB&B. Major clients included are Procter & Gamble, Kraft, Schick, Vicks, and Post, among others. Commercials will be added in phased batches over several months in 2009. The commercials are a part of the D'Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles Archives found at the John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising & Marketing History in Duke University's Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library.

AdViews: Thousands of television commercials created or collected by the D'Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles advertising agency, dated 1950s - 1980s. John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising & Marketing History

Search: worldwide virtual library catalogue

WorldCat call itself the world's largest network of library content and services. Linked to libraries that are committed to providing access to their resources on line, WorldCat.org enables searching of the collections of book repositories around the world:

* Search many libraries at once for an item and then locate it in a library nearby to borrow it
* Find books, music, and videos to check out
* Find research articles and digital items (like audiobooks) that can be directly viewed or downloaded
* Link to "Ask a Librarian" and other library services
* Post your review of an item, or contribute factual information about it

You may need to have an active offline membership with some libraries to view/download content or check out materials by downloading.

Illustration: Click on WorldCat icons to search for books, music CDs and videos -- all of the physical items you're used to getting from libraries. You can also discover many new kinds of digital content, such as downloadable audiobooks. You may also find article citations with links to their full text; authoritative research materials, such as documents and photos of local or historic significance; and digital versions of rare items that aren't physically available to the public. Resources are available in many languages.

Go. Read. WorldCat.Org

Why We Love the Internet (still): Tay Zonday's “Chocolate Rain”

Lest we forget:

Art and Society: 100 Years of Design Manifestos

"Since the days of radical printer-pamphleteers, design and designers have a long history of fighting for what’s right and working to transform society. The rise of the literary form of the manifesto also parallels the rise of modernity and the spread of letterpress printing.

"This list...is largely drawn from Mario Piazza’s presentation at the Più Design Può conference in Florence, though [the blog Social Design Notes edited and added to it." -- from the website.

Transportation: The World's Fastest Amphibious Vehicle

WaterCar's Python Edition (YouTube)

Talk: Al Seckel says our brains are mis-wired

Al Seckel, a cognitive neuroscientist, explores the perceptual illusions that fool our brains. Loads of eye tricks help him prove that not only are we easily fooled, we kind of like it.
Go to Al Seckel says our brains are mis-wired at TED.

Why we love the Internet #3,244,693: The Evolution of Dance by Judson Laipply

Still wildly popular and very funny:

Design: Rocking Chairs, a History

This illustrated history of rocking chairs from Designboom covers origins ("We all know that the rocking chair is a distinctly American passion; its origins, however, are less clear"), precursors (such as the Swedish gungstol and the British Windsor rocker), and modern and contemporary chairs (such as Thonet bentwood rockers, Eames rockers, or an Italian rocking stool), and includes images of rocking chairs from a 2002 design competition. Designboom.

Design: Perspectives on Architecture and Urbanism From Around the Globe

The material collected by The Architectural League of New York about architecture and urban development for five cities around the world, including Beirut, Lebanon, and Caracas, Venezuela, has maps, statistics, timelines, background about architects, and illustrated essays and interviews on topics such as the San Diego/Tijuana border wall, women at work in Dhaka, and population density in Oslo. <http://www.worldviewcities.org/>

The Brain: Cognitive Daily News

"Cognitive Daily reports nearly every day on fascinating peer-reviewed developments in cognition from the most respected scientists in the field....The research isn't dumbed down, but it's explained in language that everyone can understand, with clear illustrations and references to the original research." -- from the website. <http://scienceblogs.com/cognitivedaily/>

Californio: Los Angeles Historic Resources Survey

SurveyLA from the L.A. Department of City Planning's Office of Historic Preservation, "Los Angeles' first-ever comprehensive program to identify significant historic resources" for historic preservation purposes, identifies and evaluates historic properties and districts and offers a guide to using the Zoning Information and Map Access System to find historic preservation information, preservation resources, and related material. <http://preservation.lacity.org/survey>

Design: Eye Project

Eye Project, a branding site for KDDI, the Japanese telcom, uses a new server-side video generating system to create original ideas for digital visual presentations.
A very different clock: <http://www.yugop.com/ver3/stuff/03/fla.html>
Be sure to explore the site: <http://www.yugop.com/>

Beastiary

"This web site deals with any and all aspects of the general topic "animals in the Middle Ages", though there is an emphasis on the manuscript tradition, particularly of the bestiaries, and mostly in western Europe. The subject is vast, so this a large site, with well over 3000 pages, and perhaps the best way to explore it is to just wander around." - from the website. <http://www.bestiary.ca>

Tools: Check your symptoms

Except for hypochondriacs, who might be prone to abuse it, WebMD's Symptom Checker is a useful tool: "Need information as you determine what to do about your symptoms? Get help figuring them out by answering a series of questions. To get started, click on male or female, regardless of age, then the part of the body that is troubling you. Use the Symptom Checker to select parts of the body where you are experiencing symptoms." Why pay a doctor to misdiagnose you, when you can do it yourself? <http://symptoms.webmd.com/symptomchecker>

Why We Love the Internet # 3,443,222: Internet Pinball Database

The Internet Pinball Machine Database, also known as the IPD or IPDB and originally compiled as part of the Pinball Pasture site in the mid-1990s, "is a comprehensive, searchable listing of virtually every pinball machine ever commercially made. It is an ad free, popup free, registration free resource.....The database is constantly expanding, but currently includes 35,533 images of 4,981 games and 2,964 other game related files, as well as links to other pinball websites, all arranged by machine. The database also includes pitch & bat baseball games, cocktail table machines, bingos, and payout machines, when they have a pinball theme. It may also include information on some obscure games that are not pinball machines but sometimes are confused as them.

"The data in this database has been laboriously gathered by the Editors, over many years, from books, photographs, flyers, web sites, pinball manufacturers, collectors' personal records, and of course the pinball machines themselves. Most of the actual photographs in the database came from various collectors — over 1,172 different contributors to date." <http://www.ipdb.org/>

Communication: Free Online Radio

A company in New Jersey will house your online radio show for free, making it available live and as podcasts. Just phone it in. "BlogTalkRadio is revolutionizing both social media networking and radio broadcasting. For the first time in history, anyone from anywhere in the world - as long as they have access to a phone and internet connection - can broadcast their voices internationally." <http://www.blogtalkradio.com/>

Books: New Online Talk Show

Former Random House editor Daniel Menaker is the host of Titlepage.TV, a new online talk show about books and writers. In the first episode, You Always Remember The First Time, four first-time authors -- two novelists and two memoirists -- talk about their maiden voyages and the decision to write fact or fiction. <http://www.titlepage.tv/>

Outdoors: Glen Canyon National Recreation Area

The website for Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, the national park that "stretches for hundreds of miles from Lees Ferry in Arizona to the Orange Cliffs of southern Utah, encompassing scenic vistas, geologic wonders, and a vast panorama of human history" features material for planning a visit, photos and webcams, plus news, background about history and culture, and nature and science info. <http://www.nps.gov/glca/>

Tools: Mosio Explains It All for You

I previously recommended Jott in conjunction with Xpenser, but Mosio, when integrated with Jott, brings you just a little bit closer to that internet implant for which you long (it also powers Twitter Answers). Call Jott and say "what day is Bastille Day" and, lo, you'll get back a text message with the answer. If you ask something more complicated, like "If I'm on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 23rd Street, where is the nearest Starbuck's?" you'll get that answer, too. Of course, you can text Google at 46645 with the same questions, but its quicker and easier and more fun just to hit Jott on speed dial and ask Mosio. Mose. The Mosester.
Jott: <http://www.jott.com/> Mosio: <http://www.mosio.com/>

Health and Exercise: Early Cycling Books at the Lilly Library

The World Awheel, from the Lilly
Library, Indiana University
Bloomington Libraries, of
images of cycling-themed books,
features cycling in fiction and
titles about early bicycles,
bicycle touring, women and
cycling, and cycling music,
with brief historical essays.

<http://www.indiana.edu/>

Do It Yourself: WonderHowTo.com

"WonderHowTo.com is a community-fueled search engine and directory for Free How-To Video. With an index of more than 100,000 videos (March 2008), we provide the largest, most contemporary, and most diverse resource in this increasingly vibrant space." - from the website. <http://www.WonderHowTo.com/>

Animation: The History of Evil (YouTube)

The animated history of evil in western civilization from Ancient Greece the to present day:

<YouTube>

Health: Walkit for exercise

Walkit is a website that promotes the power of walking as a healthy way to get around urban areas. The UK-based site helps people make more informed decisions about whether travel by foot is a viable choice in particular situations. So far, the site has walking routes for London, Birmingham, Edinburgh and Newcastle/Gateshead, and plans to cover all the UK's big towns by the end of this year. Plans are afoot to add US cities soon, with Boston projected as the port of entry. A user enters starting location and desired destination just as it would be done to return driving instructions at a site like Yahoo! Maps, along with such refinements as the route that is the most direct route or the least busy; there's an option to request a route that passes through another location on the way; and thanks to a feature just added, users going through inner London can request the trail with the lowest amount of pollution. Walkit returns a detailed map and written directions, plus travel time, calories burned, and carbon dioxide avoided by choosing walking over riding in a car, taxi or bus. <http://www.walkit.com/>

Modern Warfare: Food Fight!

War is, um, messy:

AtomFilms.com: Funny Videos | Funny Cartoons | Comedy Central

<http://www.atomfilms.com>

Blogging: Interior Decorating

Tchochkes by Shira Abel Shvo is a showcase for ideas about "interior design - furniture construction, fabrics, hinges, handles, flooring, colors, all of it...," with an emphasis on Israeli designers and retailers, "[b]ecause a little decoration is such a nice thing." <http://www.tchochkes.com/>

Super Heroes: Who's the Best?

Superest

The rules: Artist 1 draws a character with a power. Artist 2 then draws a character whose power cancels the power of that previous character.
Repeat.

The earliest are at the bottom. Start there and follow the progress up. Or work back from the current superest winner by placing your cursor over the "Vanquished" button and clicking your way down.

<http://thesuperest.com>

Good Eatin': On a tight budget

Here's a site that may be a sign of the times:

Hillbilly Housewife features "low-cost, home-cooking from scratch. The recipes are all tested in a real kitchen with hungry children, stalking cats, begging puppies and a playful husband underfoot. The ingredients are affordable and readily available in most areas.

"Many of us are feeling the squeeze at the supermarket these day, and all of us are feeling it at the gas pump. The government continues to deny inflation, but I see the results of it in my grocery bill and my gas tank. The official USDA cost of food has risen to $500 a month for a family of 4 on the Thrifty Plan! As most of us tighten our belts, we may be wondering how to juggle expenses that only seem to rise.

"...We teach you the best foods to buy on a budget and how to cook them so the family will be better fed than they've been in years. You'll find tips and techniques here that you won't find anywhere else on the web. Everything here is free, provided by God's grace. If the information you find here helps you and your circumstances, then please share what you have learned with others, so they too can benefit from your new knowledge." -- from the website.

<http://www.hillbillyhousewife.com/>

The site outlines in detail how to feed a family of four+ and maintain nutritional requirements on a budget of $45.00/wk. The Hillbilly Housewife has great tips on living and eating inexpensively without sacrificing your well being.

Reading: LitLovers

"LitLovers...An online community dedicated to books and book clubs -- because both enrich our lives. We've got great resources to enhance your book club experience. Whether you're selecting books, or thinking & talking about them, LitLovers is the place to come....What can you do on LitLovers? What can't you do! Find a book. Find a review. Find a discussion guide. Take a course. Whip up a recipe (to match your book, of course)! Buy a gift for your host...buy one for yourself. There's so much to do -- and so much fun -- you won't want to leave." - from the website. <http://litlovers.com/>

The Arts: Don't move

Absolutely brilliant -- and funny -- performance piece:

<http://www.youtube.com/>

American History: From Revolution to Republic in Prints and Drawings

This exhibition about the American Revolution is drawn from "the deep and diverse holdings of early American prints and drawings in The New York Public Library," with brief historical essays accompanying the images. <http://www.nypl.org/>

ZenCam (something happens...or not): Old Faithful Geyser - Live!

"This full-motion, live-streaming webcam is located near Old Faithful Geyser and brings online visitors views of several other geysers in the area. When geysers such as Beehive, Lion, or Giantess are erupting, the camera will be aimed at them and zoomed in for optimal viewing enjoyment. When bison, elk, coyotes, or the occasional bear wander into the camera’s view, live video images will be transmitted." -- from the website.
<http://www.nps.gov

Advertising: Japander

Japander is the place to go to see what American celebrities will stoop to (the Kiefer Sutherland videos alone are worth the trip) when they think no one here is looking:
Pander: n., & v.t. 1. go-between in clandestine amours, procurer; one who ministers to evil designs. 2 v.i. minister (to base passions or evil designs, or person having these)
Japander: n.,& v.t. 1. a western star who uses his or her fame to make large sums of money in a short time by advertising products in Japan that they would probably never use. ~er (see synecure, prostitute) 2. to make an ass of oneself in Japanese media.
<http://www.Japander.com/>

Video: "Secret Space"

"A masterful documentary it cracks on at a tremendous pace. A subject that at first seems too ridiculous to contemplate leaves you nodding in agreement....I always thought there was something suspicious about NASA's attitude to UFOs. Now I know why.' - Jason Cooney, K-Drive Radio, Los Angeles.

Exhibitions: Get Lost - Artists Map Downtown New York:

Created by the New Museum, New York, NY, "Get Lost is a collective portrait of downtown New York. Twenty-one international artists were invited to create a personal view of the city and draw a map of downtown New York, uncovering a territory that is both real and imaginary....Get Lost brings together fictional landscapes, utopian visions, private memories, and obsessive instructions to explore Manhattan, its past, present, and future." <http://www.newmuseum.org/assets/general/getlost/>

Design: Emory Douglas at MOCA (Los Angeles)

Black Panther: The Revolutionary Art of Emory Douglas, an exhibition "traces the graphic art made by Emory Douglas while he worked as minister of culture for the Black Panther Party from 1967 until its discontinuation in the early 1980s," includes examples of his work in posters, pamphlets, and newspapers. The Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art website also includes a gallery guide, audio of a talk with Douglas, and suggestions for further reading. <http://www.moca-la.org/emorydouglas/>

Pencil Sharpening: Who's doing what to Wikipedia when

There may be no practical purpose for this app showing you -- on a world map and in almost real time -- who is editing what Wikipedia entries where, but it's fascinating anyhow: <http://www.lkozma.net/wpv/index.html>

Music: A Short History of Guitar Riffs

Bill Kirchen is the former lead guitarist of Commander Cody and his Lost Planet Airmen, best known for Hot Rod Lincoln and Down to Seeds and Stems. This is a live version of H.R.L., with a twist.

Jazz: Django

From Jerry Jazz Musician, "a website devoted to jazz and American civilization," comes this 2005 interview with Michael Dregni, author of Django: The Life and Music of a Gypsy Legend, a book about French jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt, who was "born in a gypsy caravan at a crossroads in Belgium...[and] almost killed in a freak fire that burned half of his body and left his left hand twisted into a claw."
<http://www.jerryjazzmusician.com/>

Audio: Earideas

"Earideas is a collection of the best thoughtful audio available on the web...shows from public and other broadcasters, magazines, newspapers, museums, as well as individuals. You can find it all here (to subscribe, download, or listen on our site), updated daily with the latest shows, organized by category." -- from the site. <http://earideas.com/earideas/explore>

Pencil Sharpening: Darth Vader Has a Nervous Breakdown

Star Wars re-edited using James Earl Jones' voice from other movies:

Good Eatin': Salt + Artistry = Saltistry

Artisan Flavored Sea Salts

"By itself, salt is one of the oldest and most crucial minerals to human life. At Saltistry, salt is elevated to an exquisite art. Sourcing the finest sea salts from around the world, salt artist and chef Joni Fay Hill infuses salts with blends of fruits, herbs and spices, creating a complex marriage of flavors and aromas.

"As a former chef, Joni approaches artisanal salt from a cook’s perspective, meticulously handcrafting her salt infusions in small batches to create a depth of flavor while preserving the texture and integrity of each grain. The unique collection of finishing salts season all types of dishes, both sweet and savory, and add a brilliant flavor dimension to anything and everything edible." -- from the website. <http://www.saltistry.com/>

The Popular Arts: The Cultural Gutter

The Cultural Gutter "is updated Thursday at noon with a new article about an artistic pursuit generally considered to be beneath consideration. James Schellenberg probes science-fiction, Carol Borden draws out the best in comics, Chris Szego dallies with romance, and each month we feature a Guest Star writer on a gutter subject of their choosing. While the writers have considerable enthusiasm for their subjects, they don't let it numb their critical faculties. Tossing away the shield of journalistic objectivity and refusing the shovel of fannish boosterism, they write in the hopes of starting honest and intelligent discussions about these oft-enjoyed but rarely examined artforms...." <http://www.theculturalgutter.com/>

Resources: Intute Research Portal

I think too many of us, me included, are lazily coming to depend too much on Wikipedia, even though there are other, as easy to use, but much more scholarly sources of information on the www. One such is Intute, a free service that provides "access to the very best web resources for education and research. The service is created by a network of UK universities and partners. Subject specialists select and evaluate the websites in our database and write high quality descriptions of the resources. The database contains 120536 records." <http://www.intute.ac.uk/>

Good Eatin': Soup, The Ultimate Comfort Food

"There's something extremely satisfying about a hot, bubbling pot of soup on the stove on a cold winter's night," says Simply Soups: The Ultimate Comfort Food, a handsome site with dozens of recipes for broths and stocks, chilis, chowders, cream and cheese soups, onion soups, vegetable and meat soups, dessert soups, fruit soups, and cold soups. <http://www.simplysoups.com/>

Resources: Business Data Portal

globalEdge, a business information portal designed by MSU, provides links to news, industry profiles, and diagnostic tools to aid business research. <http://globaledge.msu.edu/>

Artists: Edvard Munch Museet

When he died in 1944, Norwegian Expressionist artist Edvard Munch bequeathed the works still in his possession to Munch Museet in Oslo, Norway. The institution's site has a Munch biography and timeline, illustrated essays about his paintings and other graphics, details about specific works such as "The Scream," online exhibits on such topics as "The Frieze of Life" and the artist's palette, conservation information, images of paintings stored on rolls, and munch else. <http://www.munch.museum.no/>

Wellness: Brain Fitness Center

Sharpbrains -- "our mission is to provide individuals, companies and institutions with the best science-based information and guidance for Brain Health and Fitness" -- has links to articles on such topics as mental exercise, stress management, improving memory, nutrition, and workforce training and leadership, a blog, newsletter and glossary, plus puzzles to help keep you mentally agile. <http://www.sharpbrains.com/>

Music Videos: Sharon Jones and the Dab-Kings

I know I've touted Sharon Jones before

but I plan to keep it up until her name is as familiar as Aretha's or Madonna's. Sha-ron. Sha-ron. Sha-ron....

More Sharon Jones and the Dab-Kings live:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3UqzuOtAfo>
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5oWJEJBmxE>
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJtXE8PDm2A>
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhWiQXOgo9M>
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8X7nVZhqb04>

Maps: Mormon Expansion

And here is a swell map from the Church of Latter Day Saints depicting the organization's growth since 1830: Google Video

Resource: Assistants, Do My Stuff

Darren Berkovitz and his partners were experiencing a familiar problem: too much to do and not enough time to do it. Somehow, though, they found the time to create a solution: DoMyStuff.com is an online community where busy people can quickly find assistants to handle their errands and tasks. People who need help — called "buyers" — post a task they need completed, anything from mowing the lawn to chartering a private jet, no job too big or too small. Individuals or businesses bid on tasks by providing such information as how much they’ll charge, how the task will be accomplished, and when it will be done. Buyers review bids and choose the best assistant for the job. The site is free to buyers; DoMyStuff.com keeps a percentage of the assistant’s winning bid. <http://www.domystuff.com/>

Creativity: WantsForSale.Com

Along the lines of Million Dollar Homepage in the “are you kidding me?” department, Wants For Sale illustrators Justin and Christine create pictures of stuff they want and then sell them for the retail price of the item depicted. Their desiderata range from an order of buffalo wings ($12.70) to a month’s rent ($1,056.07). So far they've "bought," among other things, food, clothes, video games, a Nintendo Wii, a gym membership, and sushi at the trendy New York eatery Nobu. They’re still waiting for someone to fund the iPhone they covet and to pony up $1 million for “financial security.” They also do commissions off other people's wish lists. Wants for Sale has been successful enough to inspire a spin-off, Needs for Sale, using the same basic premise to benefit charities. <http://www.wantsforsale.com>

Community: Islamic Law in Today's World

A crucial new addition to our political dialogue: Islamic Law In Our Times - A Realistic Assessment of Islamic Law in Today's World by Asst. Prof. Haider Ala Hamoudi of U.of Pittsburgh School of Law: <http://muslimlawprof.org/>

Graphics: Grim Natwick

A really cool exhibit at the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive:

You may not know his name, but you've seen his work....Woody Woodpecker, Snow White, Betty Boop, Mr. Magoo and Mickey Mouse were all brought to life by the same remarkable man -- Grim Natwick.

Grim was mentor to Chuck Jones, Walter Lantz, Marc Davis and Richard Williams; and no other animator had a greater impact on the artform. Grim's first animation was for William Randolph Hearst's Krazy Kat Studio in 1917. His last credit was on Richard Williams' "The Thief & the Cobbler" in 1995. Natwick's career spanned the entire 20th century, and it defined the whole history of animation.

The ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive has mounted an exhibit of artwork from Natwick's personal collection. Included are gag drawings depicting life around the cartoon studio, caricatures of co-workers, and the preliminary sketches that give us a peek behind the creation of some of the greatest cartoons ever made.

The online exhibit catalog consists of five articles:
Introduction: Grim Natwick's Scrapbook
Part One: Early Years In New York (Hearst, Fleischer)
Part Two: The Golden Age of Animation (Iwerks, Disney, Lantz)
Part Three: The Modern Era (UPA and beyond)
Part Four: The Greatest Animator Who Ever Lived (Studio Gag Drawings)

Resources: A website for balloon professionals

With the arrival of the Balloon Resource Center, "a new window to the industry for all Balloon Professionals...[to] stay up to date with products, design ideas, activities and industry issues," can licensing, regulation, correspondence courses and professional associations be far behind? I hope so, before someone really gets hurt. <http://www.balloonresourcecenter.com/>

Pablo Picasso, the Official Web Site

Fitting that there is something called the Pablo Picasso: Official Web Site. The artist, known for his style-a-minute development of cubism, blue and pink period works, "Guernica," et al, was the Bob Dylan of 20th Century Art (the Mick Jagger, too, but that was on another field of play). The site has an illustrated timeline, a genealogy (showing his many amours), material about his studios (in France, Spain, and elsewhere), illustrated essays on selected works, and a list of exhibitions around the world. In English, Spanish, and French, natch. <http://www.picasso.fr/anglais/>

Good Eatin': Mmmmm, Bugs!

Sooner or later, global warming and overpopulation will force even faint-hearted Americans to turn to entomophagy, that is, to eating bugs as a source of nutrition and, yes, pleasure, as people in so many other parts of the world already do. You might as well get prepared, and a place to go for some examples of edibles that are already table-ready, such as spicy crushed giant waterbug paste from Thailand Unique or chocolate-covered scorpions from Lazybone, is the list of 32 Edible Insect Foods You Can Buy Online from SenseList. For practical information about bugs in your kitchen, including recipes and shopping advice, visit the Manataka American Indian Council, Food Insects Newsletter, Sunrise Land Shrimp or Iowa State University. To learn more about the history of the phenomenon, visit the University of Kentucky Department of Entomology or download Why Not Bugs? (pdf) from The Southern Herbalist's Stalking the Wild. You can see pictures of your future meals at the Thai Bugs site, Zack’s Bug-Feasting Page, and the USDA Agricultural Research Service. Cookbooks that provide recipes for cooking insects include Creepy Crawly Cuisine: The Gourmet Guide to Edible Insects, the Eat-A-Bug Cookbook, Man Eating Bugs: The Art and Science of Eating Insects, and Bugs for Lunch. And pay careful attention the next time you dine at that fine Asian-Fusion restaurant you like so much. Bon appetit.

American Civilization: Benjamin Banneker, 1731-1806

These sites about Benjamin Banneker, born on November 9, 1731, in Ellicott's Mills, Maryland, a largely self-taught African American "author, scientist, mathematician, farmer, astronomer, publisher and urban planner [who] was descended from enslaved Africans, an indentured English servant, and free men and women of color," discuss accomplishments and key events in his life, and include between them an essay on Banneker's "Almanac," letters to and from Banneker and Thomas Jefferson, links to exhibitions, digitized documents, and other images and writings.
<http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part2/2p84.html>
<http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/today/nov09.html>

The Museums: National Farm Toys Museum

The National Farm Toy Museum in Dyersville, Iowa "features thousands of toys and exhibits....Tractors, implements, trucks, miniature farm dioramas, toy manufacturing information, and pedal tractors are on display around the museum. Also displayed are two Doug Schlesier sculptures, plaques honoring inductees into the National Farm Toy Hall of Fame, and a plaque honoring the founders of the world’s largest farm toy manufacturer headquartered in Dyersville, the Ertl Company."
<http://www.nationalfarmtoymuseum.com/>

Nature: Natural Disasters

The Guardian, the British newspaper, collects news articles about recent natural disasters around the world on its website. Highlights include the November floods in Tabasco, Mexico, the wildfires in Southern California, and an earthquake in Manchester, England last August. The site also has links to interactive guides on earthquakes, volcanoes, hurricanes, and Mount Etna. The Guardian UK

Pencil Sharpening: Frank Sinatra sings "MySpace"

Labor: Working Class Studies Association Website

"The Working Class Studies Association aims to develop and promote multiple forms of scholarship, teaching, and activism related to working class life and cultures.

"Association Goals:

• Promote awareness, growth, and legitimacy of working-class studies internationally
• Promote models of working-class studies that actively involve and serve the interests of working-class people
• Promote critical discussions of the relationships among class, race, gender, sexuality, nationality, and other structures of inequality
• Promote interdisciplinary, multi-disciplinary, and disciplinary approaches to studying and teaching about the lived experience of working-class people
• Provide opportunities for academics, artists, activists, workers, independent scholars, students, and others to share their work, make connections with colleagues and professional organizations, and learn about resources
• Facilitate conversations and critical debate engaging diverse intellectual and political approaches to scholarship, teaching, and outreach in working-class studies
• Create partnerships that link scholarship with activism in labor, community, and other working-class social justice organizations" -- from the website.

<http://www.wcstudies.org/>

Californio: Tejon Ranch

The next time you make the mind-numbing run between and L.A. and the Bay Area on the I-5, the information on this website for Tejon Ranch, "the largest contiguous expanse of land under single ownership in California," will give you something to talk about. The site has a historical timeline of the expanse (established by a Mexican land grant in 1842), details about conservation and wildlife (condors, wildflowers, oak trees...), background on ranching and farming and on a controversial planned development (an industrial complex and a residential community), maps, photos, and a list of movies filmed on location. <http://www.tejonranch.com/>

Mathematics: Dangerous Knowledge (BBC documentary)

In this BBC documentary, David Malone profiles four mathematicians -- Georg Cantor, Ludwig Boltzmann, Kurt Gödel and Alan Turing -- whose genius profoundly informs us, but which tragically drove them mad and eventually led each of them to commit suicide. The film talks to contemporary thinkers, including Greg Chaitin and Roger Penrose, who continue to pursue the question of whether there are things that mathematics and the human mind cannot know.

Cantor, whose work proved to be the foundation for much of 20th-century mathematics, believed he was God's messenger and was made insane by trying to prove his theories of infinity. Boltzmann's struggle to prove the existence of atoms and probability eventually drove him to suicide. Gödel, the introverted confidant of Albert Einstein, proved that there are problems that will always lie outside human logic; his life ended in a sanatorium where he starved himself to death. And Turing, the great Bletchley Park code breaker and the father of computer science, died trying to prove that some things are fundamentally unprovable.

Dangerous Knowledge outlines some of the profound questions about the true nature of reality that mathematical thinkers are still struggling to answer. Google Video, 1 hr 29 min.

Backyards: Your Friend, Moss

Living With Mosses, by students and faculty at Oregon State, has the worthy goal of enhancing "public awareness of the effects and benefits of mosses in our everyday environment." In addition to basic moss biology, the site discusses moss on sidewalks and rooftops, pros and cons of mosses in lawns and gardens, physical and chemical moss control methods, and moss encouragement.
Mad About Moss: The Simple Art of Moss Gardening, from the newsletter of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, recounts one gardener's bold experience of replacing a lawn with a carpet of moss, lays out the conditions for moss growth, describes how to start and maintain a moss garden, and oh so very much more. Living with Mosses and Mad About Moss.

Ancient History: The Psychedelic '60s - Literary Tradition and Social Change

The tireless folks in the special collections department of the University of Virginia Library have assembled an exhibit of materials about the social movements of The 1960s in the United States, emphasizing the literature of the period, featuring articles and images on the Beats, Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, Timothy Leary, the Black Mountain Poets, hippies, Woodstock, illicit drugs, political protests, et cetera, plus handbills, posters, and other memorabilia from those bygone and nearly forgotten days.
<http://www.lib.virginia.edu/small/exhibits/sixties/>

The Lit'ry Life: The Gore Vidal Index

This unofficial fanzine about essayist and novelist Gore Vidal, by a journalism instructor at the University of Pittsburgh, has a brief biography, thumbnail reviews of the writer's books, images of the covers of editions in translation, the transcript of a 1991 interview, and links to related material and sites. <http://www.pitt.edu/\>

Resources: Real answers from real people

At Amazon's free satellite site, Askville, you can ask any question on any topic and get real answers from real people who apparently have a huge amount of time on their hands. What's in it for Amazon? They take the opportunity to offer products related to the topic of the question. <http://askville.amazon.com/>

Shopping: Sales On Line

For current deals on a variety of products, go to SalesCircular, select your state, then pick a category of interest. Best to review this late Saturday or Sunday morning because Best Buy and Circuit City sales start then -- go to their web sites directly, too. <http://www.SalesCircular.com/>

Astronomy: Fantastic Pictures from NASA

George Lucas,
eat your heart out:

Flickr

DIY: Free Personalize Ring Tones

If you're tired of digging out your phone whenever someone else's cell rings, you could buy a couple of commercially available "customized" rings. But if you really want to personalize your phone, why not create your own at Phonezoo.com? Creating a ringtone is as simple as uploading a favorite sound file, selecting the part of the file that you want answering your phone, and downloading your mini-masterpiece to your cell through the service. Other Phonezoo users have already created some terrific (and some truly awful) ringtones, and you can also use them on your phone to save time and effort. <http://www.Phonezoo.com>

Creativity: 10 Most Brilliant Gadgets of 2007

"Big Ideas for a Better World....For [Popular Mechanics] third annual innovation celebration, we honor...10 cutting-edge products." -- from the Popular Mechanics website.

Good Eatin': How to Consume a Kiwano

The Kiwano (aka, the Horned Melon, melano, African horned cucumber, jelly melon, hedged gourd, or English tomato) is a fruit native to a region of the Kalahari Desert. When picked green and allowed to ripen, the fruit tastes like a mix of cucumber and kiwifruit. When it's picked fully ripe, it has a banana-like taste. Here's some help from wikiHow.

Transportation: NYC Subway Sites

Here's a cool animated time-lapse map of the NYC subway system showing the order in which the lines were built. If you're a real train nut, you will also want to look at the history of the NYC subway, photos of the IRT's first stations, and -- though be warned that you'll probably get hooked -- a treasure trove of historical NYC subway maps.

Audio: Download readings of science fiction short stories

MindWebs, a radio series produced in Madison in the late 70s and early 80s, features semi-dramatized readings of stories by the likes of Norman Spinrad, Arthur C. Clarke, Gordon R. Dickson and Ray Bradbury.
<http://www.archive.org/details/MindWebs-SciFi>

The Arts: Degas

"Edgar Degas (1834 -1917)
was an outspoken proponent of a new sensibility....
Degas's style, subject matter,
and artistic sensibility
set him apart from the other Impressionists....
Learn more about Edgar Degas,
his times, his work, and his collection
through this on-line exploration...."
-- from the website.
<http://www.metmuseum.org/explore/Degas/html/index.html>

Tools: expense tracking on line

One of the biggest problems with maintaining an up-to-date record of expenses is that it is hard sometimes to remember and to record correctly expenditures that you incurred this morning, let alone weeks ago. It makes sense to document them as soon as they occur, and an online service like Xpenser makes that much easier to do. There are a variety of ways in which you can record payouts with Xpenser, including e-mail, SMS, IM, even verbally via phone. Once recorded, you can manage your expenses on line. <http://www.xpenser.com/>

By the way, phone input to Xpenser is done with the help of Jott, a service for creating voice-to-text-messages and voice-to-emails. Very easy to use and occasionally handy. <http://www.jott.com/>

DIY: It's A Do-It-Youself Life

DIY Life is a recipe book of great do-it-yourself projects, how-to's, ideas and tips -- how to get a perfect tan without the sun, chill a bottle of wine in under 10 minutes, propagate new plants from cuttings, turn a light bulb into a Sea Monkey condo, get spilled paint off the carpet, conserve water while irrigating or use your digital camera as a PDA, plus reviews and safety recalls, in such areas as home improvement, hobbies and crafts, technology projects, and home and family ideas. <http://www.diylife.com/>

Roots: America in the 1930s (UVA)

America in the 1930s, created by the American Studies department at the University of Virginia, brings to life "...a decade of unparalleled contradiction and complexity...marked by the depths of the Depression on one end...and the height of the modern age at the other...a dance between regional movements and culture...and the alphabet soup of big government projects...." -- from the website. <http://xroads.virginia.edu/~1930s/front.html>

Good Eatin': The Avocado

All About Avocados has a history and recipes featuring this fruit native to the New World. The history section discusses how 16th century Spanish explorers described the fruit, how the first avocado tree was planted in Florida in the 1830s, and the popularity of the Hass avocado here in California. Recipes include guacamole dip with cilantro, avocado-olive dip, avocado pie, and more. <http://whatscookingamerica.net/avacado.htm>

Reading: Classics via Email

DailyLit has over 400 classic public domain titles, including some in in French, Italian and Spanish, that can be read in their entirety for free via email. You can browse by title, author, or category. The entry for each work includes a preview of the first chapter and the number of installments (such as 675 for "War and Peace" and 149 for "Pride and Prejudice"). <http://dailylit.com/>

See also, LibriVox: Literary Classics as Podcasts (lol:libray of links)

Pencil Sharpening: Music from Unexpected Objects

The comedian Rick Overton has said that art was invented when the first man realized that if he banged a stick on the ground, women would dance. With that inspiration, it's understandable that early music making evolved to include handy everyday objects, including natural materials still used today like rocks, animal bones, and hunks of wood. The creation of instruments has gotten much more complex since then, of course, and professional music along with it, but a folk tradition of homemade instruments has continued, as anyone who has ever visited the boardwalk on California's Venice Beach can testify, with instruments ranging from the jug through the spoons to various stringed contraptions. In the 20th century, composers and musicians have readopted the idea that worthy music can be made with found objects. Some of these tools you will never be able to look at again as simply utilitarian:

Bash the Trash: Plays for kids and teaches them how to make musical instruments out of recycled materials.
Car Music Project: Bill Milbrodt, with the help of various musical and mechanical experts, turned a 1982 Honda into a set of unique musical instruments, including a bass made from the gas tank, 55 percussion instruments, flutes made from tubes, a huge drum out of the trunk, and an “air guitar” using the car’s air filter.
Scrap Arts Music: A Vancouver-based group that makes music with instruments fashioned from scrap metal.
Blue Man Group: A performance art group whose creation of instruments out of PVC pipes and boat antennae carried them to Broadway, Vegas and across the world.
Stomp: Another Broadway and Vegas favorite, the members of the troop perform intricate coordinated rhythms using objects from garbage cans and lids to matchboxes.
How to build a rubber balloon bass guitar: About which, seeing is believing.
And don't forget Playing with Your Food, an earlier posting on Library of Links about the Vienna Vegetable Orchestra, an Austrian musical aggregation that plays on instruments made from, well, veggies.

Pencil Sharpening: Virtual Fish Tank

You get to create your own fish (using Shockwave) and to release it into the virtual aquariums of the St. Louis Science Center and the Museum of Science in Boston. Once you've unloosed your fish, stats are generated about its impact on the aquarium's ecosystem. If you happen to visit either museum after creating a fish on line, you can retrieve your fish and release it into the museum exhibit on site. Registration is required to participate, but no personal information is extorted. <http://www.virtualfishtank.com/>

Le Mot Juste: Language Resources On Line

The estimable Dictionary.com and venerable Babel Fish are doubtless in your bookmarks, but too frequently you find yourself searching for the meaning of a word that is peculiar to some social or professional subset, medicine, say, or plumbing, or is in another language, and neither site, nor Google's definition function, can help. Needless to say, out there, beyond Merriam-Webster and American Heritage, is the answer.

eGlossary <http://www.eGlossary.com/>, our own effort, helps locate specialized glossaries, dictionaries and word lists on particular topics and occupations. It is quick and easy for visitors to add databases they favor. And a specialized Google function at the bottom of the homepage enables searches for more word tools on the web.

Freelang.net <http://www.freelang.net/>, enables the downloading or viewing of language dictionaries. The site has links to translation resources,including tools for hand-held devices if you're traveling, plus free online translation software and even free human translation for short texts.

FreeTranslation <http://www.freetranslation.com/> has text and website translation in several European and Asian languages. The company sells a desktop translation tool by subscription.

InfoPlease <http://www.infoplease.com/dictionary.html> includes more than 125,000 entries, from aalii to zymurgy, plus Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable.

Omniglot <http://www.omniglot.com/> is another database of language- and translation-related resources. For translation, you can access online dictionaries as well as online translation and localization tools, some free.

OneLook Dictionary Search <http://www.onelook.com/> looks for your term everywhere: "11,254,217 words in 966 dictionaries indexed."

PROMT <http://www.online-translator.com/text.asp?lang=en> is a free device that enables you to translate text, websites and email between English, French, German, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish .

WorldLingo <http://digbig.com/4tqjr> provides free translation of up to 150 words for text, webpages and email covering 15 languages. In addition, you can direct the tool to use specialized glossaries to produce more accurate translations.

Periodicals: MyWire virtual newsstand

I find myself turning more and more frequently to "MyWire...your one-stop source for the best from hundreds of worldwide publications. We bring in relevant content from the most reliable publishers without the clutter of typical search results. It's all conveniently in one ad-free environment. With free tools to manage and personalize...." Much of the content is free, and for what isn't, you may find it more convenient and cheaper to buy specific articles on line than to purchase an entire periodical from a magazine vendor to get that one story you want. <http://www.mywire.com/>

Notes from the Road: Clean Bathrooms in NYC

<http://gonyc.about.com/cs/atozinde1/a/bathrooms.htm>

Outer Limits: Andy Kaufman (1977)

Shopping: What did they pay for that?

Find out the price other people are paying for every kind of goods at CostHelper.com:
<http://www.costhelper.com/>

Community: NeighborWorks America

NeighborWorks, a "...national nonprofit organization created by Congress to provide financial support, technical assistance, and training for community-based revitalization efforts," has news, case studies, and reports on subjects such as aging in place, disaster preparedness, foreclosure solutions, home equity protection, manufactured housing, predatory lending, refinancing, materials about such outreach as a free telephone consultation service on foreclosure solutions, and listings of local NeighborWorks member organizations. <http://www.nw.org/>

Spoken Word: BBC Radio 4

I've been listening to Radio 4 on a feed to Google Desktop:
"Bringing the UK to the world and the world to the UK: the BBC supports the UK's global role by being the world's most trusted provider of international news and information, and by showcasing the best of British culture to a global audience." -- from the website. <http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/>

Good Eatin': The science behind pickles

In LOL's continuing effort to answer your most deep-seated questions, here is a site where you can learn about the science underlying pickling, "the ancient culinary craft of preserving foods in salt brine or vinegar." How does a cucumber becomes a pickle? The site has a gallery of international pickle suspects -- kimchi, chutney, pickled eggs, pickled herring; pickle facts; pickle recipes -- fried dill pickles, ceviche; pickling tips; in short, everything you wanted to know about pickles but were afraid to ask. <http://www.exploratorium.edu/cooking/pickles/>

American Civilization: Whites only! Coloreds click here

The Remember Segregation website, honoring civil rights martyr Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, is meant to be an antidote to the pablum that is served up about the history of race relations in this country. The site is divided into "white" and "colored" sections, the latter urging that "…for your protection and for the sake of decency, please remain within your side of this web page. If you should happen to move into an area designated for persons of the white race, your safety cannot be guaranteed." Once you get past the chilling opening pages, you'll find a bio of Dr. King, a photo gallery, a civil rights timeline, audio versions of the "I have a dream" and "I've been to the mountaintop" speeches, and a selection of other writing. <http://www.RememberSegregation.org/>

The Law: Quick and Dirty Tips for a More Lawful Life

"Legal Lad offers concise, useful information from a practicing [California] attorney to help you decipher the laws that govern your daily life. Cover[s] areas of constitutional law, employment law, privacy rights, liability, criminal law, international rights, family law and wills and estates," plea withdrawal, arbitration clauses, store security and shoplifting, drug screening, minimum wage, power of attorney, and the ever-popular nudity in public places. <http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/LegalLad/>

Religion: Religious Themes in the Movies & Television

This videography, from the Media Resources Center of UC Berkeley's Moffitt Library, of movies with religious overtones, primarily Christian, includes a bibliography on religion in the movies and a videography of films with Jewish themes.
<http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/>

Japonica: The Art of Polishing Mud

Polishing rocks is one thing, but mud wouldn’t appear to be hard enough or dense enough to lend itself to being polished. With the application of the right technique and the patience of Job, however, you can do it. Leave it to the Japanese to raise mud balls to high art: Dorodango.

The process couldn't be simpler: you start with a lump of mud, squeeze out most of the water, and slowly and gently add layers of ever-finer dry dirt to the exterior, shaping it into as perfect a sphere as you can by smoothing off any rough spots or irregularities. Over a period of hours, as the ball dries and you continue to work the surface, a hard shell (or “capsule”) is formed.

If you’ve executed and timed the procedure correctly, this crust can be buffed to a high gloss with an ordinary rag. The goal is to create a shiny orb about the size of a billiard ball; its color will result from the kind of soil used, and can vary from nearly white, through yellow, red, and brown, to nearly black, with subtle shadings that make it look like it was carved from the finest marble.

Kyoto University of Education developmental psychologist Fumio Kayo devised a simple method of making dorodango that can be taught even to young children. Professor Kayu’s instructions, including several videos, can be found on his dorodango site. Bruce Gardner, an artist living in New Mexico, shows truly gorgeous globes at dorodango.com; the site includes background information on the art form and helpful instructions for creating your own.

Other resources include:

• Shiny Mud Balls at Web Japan
• Polish your mud balls at 37days
• dorodango-sensei and me at Giant Jeans Parlor
• Dorodango in the Wikipedia

Rehabilitation: Over 1,500 Inmates Perform "Thriller"

This video shows 1,500 plus inmates of the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center, Cebu, Philippines performing Michael Jackson's Thriller:

Media: Picturing Business in America -- Hedcuts in the Wall Street Journal (National Portrait Gallery)

This exhibit, by the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, exploring "the development, the technique, and the implications" of "The Wall Street Journal's distinctive portrait heads, known as 'hedcuts' or 'dot-drawings,'"offers examples of hedcuts of business leaders and the context in which the portraits ran, details about the process of creating the hedcut, and a section featuring hedcuts of women (such as Oprah Winfrey and Mary Kay Ash). <http://www.npg.si.edu/exh/journal/>

Science: ...and Surfing (NPR's "TheWorld" and the Exploratorium)

"When you hear the words 'technology' and 'surfing' in the same sentence, you might think of the internet before you think of the ocean. But those two words go together to help wave riders predict whether worthwhile swells are heading their way. By looking at satellite and climate data that's available on the web, surfers can follow storms into shore and be there in time to catch the biggest waves." -- from the website. <http://www.exploratorium.edu/>

Good Eatin': Tap water is the new black

Bottled water has lost its cool. Top-tier beaneries are doing away with imported brand-name eaus in favor of filtered municipal tap water. Do the same, and save a bundle.

Battling Bottled Water
Evian Criminals:
The New Snob Appeal of Tap Water
Bottled Water: No Longer Cool?
Fancy Tap Water Is the New Trend
Some Restaurants Are Selling Their Tap, Filtered
Some Bottled Water Is Tap Water
Chez Panisse Turns On the Tap
"Your best bottle of TAP water, please"
“Local tap water bubbles up in restaurants”
“Give me whatever is on tap”
“I feel silly buying bottled water”
Which Bottled Water has a bigger Carbon Footprint?
Drinking Tap Water is Your Christian Duty

Writing: Mark Twain's Mississippi

"This web site [from Northern Illinois University Library] provides a fully searchable and indexed digital library...placing special emphasis upon Twain's Mississippi novels and reminiscences (The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Life on the Mississippi). These works serve as lenses through which the public may explore additional text, image and sound materials...describing the Mississippi Valley that Mark Twain remembered and imagined in writing his classic works of literature." -- from the website. <http://dig.lib.niu.edu/twain/>

Photography: latest World Wide Panorama show (needs Quicktime)

"The World Wide Panorama began in March 2004 and has become an ongoing series of events. Photography takes place on the solstices (longest and shortest days of the year) and equinoxes (day and night of equal length). Photographers all over the world are welcome to participate.

"A VR panorama (VR for virtual reality) is a specially created computer image that goes all the way around the viewer. It is a revolutionary way to document a particular place and time – the next best thing to being there." -- from the website.
<http://geoimages.berkeley.edu/wwp/index.html>

Writers: Anthony Trollope

For nearly two decades, I penned a weekly column on books for the Sunday edition of New York Newsday. During much of that time, two publishers, Penguin and Oxford, put out competing complete editions of the works of everybody's second-favorite writer, Anthony Trollope. And that gave me an excuse to read lots of Trollopes that I covered in a regular feature of the column, "Trollope Watch."

"Anthony Trollope is a new website which aims to introduce readers to Trollope, a website for an author as relevant to the modern day as to the Victorian reader....The Anthony Trollope website is a place for everyone interested in Trollope to share their enthusiasm for this great Victorian author....Whether you're new to Trollope or already an enthusiast you can enter competitions, win books, join reading groups and much more." -- from the website.

The site includes free downloads of virtually all of Trollope's works.
<http://www.anthonytrollope.com/>

Performance: Avril Lavigne and Lil Mama Remix "Girlfriend"

Avril Lavigne and Lil' Mama have teamed up for a new remix by Dr. Luke of Avril's single Girlfriend:

If you haven't seen the original video of Girlfriend, you can watch it here, and if you think you don't know Lil' Mama, if you've ever seen her Lip Gloss, you'll remember who she is.

New Media, Old Style: The Morning Brief

Don't miss the weekly Los Angeles online periodical -- newsletter? diary? journal? magazine? blog? website? -- written and edited by David Loomstein, a tireless observer of local music, movies, media, mores, and more. To read this week's edition of The Morning Brief (shouldn't it really be called The Monday Morning Brief?), please point your browsers to: <http://www.morningbrief.net>

Resources: Niche Music Social Networks

You've heard of the big social networks like Facebook and MySpace, but some of the niche music social networks are starting to be very popular, too. Mashable has a post that describes what it claims are the twelve best music social network. Here is their list:

Flotones

Radio 2.0 from Mercora

MOG

Last.fm

iLike

JamNow

MusoCity

Haystack

Sonific

Midomi

iJigg

Sellaband

Last.fm with its 15 million users was recently bought by CBS. iLike's widget has become very popular on Facebook. MySpace and YouTube probably should probably be included on the list, because both are frequently turned to for music and music is one of the main reasons each became so popular.

Books: A "myspace" for readers

GoodReads: Not that anybody needs another social networking site, but this one's just for readers and the books they've read...and want to rate, review and share. <http://www.goodreads.com/>

Art School Video: Franz Ferdinand 's "All My Friends" (YouTube)

Bunuel meets Warhol in Franz Ferdinand's cover of LCD Soundsystem's All My Friends:

Good Eatin': Watermelon, the Fruit That's Really a Vegetable

"The watermelon is of the Cucurbitaceae (or Gourd) family. It's origin, Africa, was established by David Livingstone (noted missionary explorer), in the 1850's. He found great tracts of watermelon growing wild in the Kalahari desert of Africa. Cultivation by man dates back at least 4000 years to the Egyptians." -- from the website of the North Carolina Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services.

Customs: Interment

Happened to be doing some research on caskets and discovered this: The National Museum of Funeral History (you knew there had to be a National Museum of Funeral History, because, whatever the topic, as the Visine ads have it, there's a museum for that). Check out the fantasy coffins, like the Mercedes, above. <http://www.nmfh.org/>

Astronomy: Night Sky Planner (Jet Propulsion Library)

"The Night Sky Network is a nationwide coalition of amateur astronomy clubs bringing the science, technology, and inspiration of NASA's missions to the general public....Your one-stop planning resource for astronomy events....Find out why the full Moon is not the best time to see craters and how to make more exciting observations at other times of the month." -- from the website. <http://nightsky.jpl.nasa.gov/>

Conspicuous Consumption: The celebrity contract rider (The Smoking Gun)

On a show I did with him years ago in Detroit, the great rhythm and blues singer James Brown drove us nuts by only getting in one kind of limousine. If by mistake you sent a Lincoln instead of a Caddie (or maybe it was the other way around), no "Hardest Working Man in Show Business."

If you want to know how pampered some of the richer entertainers can be, visit Backstage Pass, provided by the equally hard-working folks at The Smoking Gun. A section examines the contract rider, the part of entertainers' agreements that makes it known what they expect at venues where they are performing. Contract riders include specifications on stage design, sound systems, lighting setups, and other professional matters, but also artists' wish lists -- from transportation and billing to dressing room accommodations and meals. In some cases, a promoter will bravely refuse a demand (crossing out the request on the document), though stars usually get what they want (it's how they know they're loved), whether it’s clean boxer shorts (Jane’s Addiction), prune juice (Kansas), or an arrangement of tulips, roses, gardenias, and lilies (Janet Jackson).

“Over the past couple of years, The Smoking Gun has published excerpts from the backstage riders of a few dozen performers. But that assemblage has not been extensive enough for demanding TSG visitors, so we’ve gone out and obtained loads of new riders. So many, in fact, that our backstage collection now covers a whopping 142 acts–everyone from Frank Sinatra and the Rolling Stones to Kenny G and KC & the Sunshine Band.”

Some examples:

Limp Bizkit: Need dressing rooms with an apartment “vibe.” And, remember, the lights “MUST BE DIMMABLE!!!”

Snoop Doggy Dogg: Security is a must (he’s gotta watch his back); atmosphere, vanilla ice cream, and dinner rolls are also important - hey, a Dogg’s gotta be comfortable up in that shiznit. But when it comes to “very important” matters, only one thing qualifies - a Sony PlayStation.

Paul McCartney: “Very fond of flowers,” won’t travel in a stretch limousine with leather seats, and will not stand for backstage furniture made of any animal skin or print (even if it’s of the artificial variety).

The Sea: Everything You'd've Wanted to Know about Coral Reefs If You'd Thought to Ask

Coral Realm is "a community of members from more than 60 countries and 48 states that come together to share a passion for coral reef marine life....learn and see more!" -- from the website. <http://www.coralrealm.com/>

Americans Who Tell the Truth

Painter Robert Shetterly has published a book of portraits of 50 Americans who have stood for what he calls “the promise of America,” presenting them in a series of paintings with their names and an apt quotation scratched into the paint. His selections, equally divided between men and women, range from the iconic -- Martin Luther King, Jr., Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Emma Goldman, Dwight David Eisenhower -- to the worthy and interesting -- child peace activist Samantha Smith, political columnist Molly Ivins, author Frances Moore Lappe (Diet for a Small Planet), education writer Jonathan Kozol. From an eloquent introduction to the biographical comments on each entry, this gallery of writers, politicians, rabble-rousers, troublemakers, scientists, celebrities and activists will inspire not only the youthful readers for whom it is intended, but anyone in this leaderless nation. The publisher has made a curriculum available for classroom teachers. <http://www.americanswhotellthetruth.org/>

Africa: Interactive Map

Here is an extremely handy interactive map of Africa from Vanity Fair providing basic historical and cultural data about each nation on the continent, plus links to other sources of information: <http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/africa/map>

Environment: The Green Guide's blog

National Geographic's The Green Guide, a source of green home tips, eco-product reviews, environmental health information and green living advice on such topics as earth-friendly products, green building materials, organic food and bottled water, the latest research is on mercury in fish, flame retardants, healthy wellness products or food-safe plastics and cookware (about The Green Guide) has added a blog, updated weekly. Here are links to topics in the current Green Guide: environment facts, green garden tips, summer reading, summer salad recipes, safe play sets, volunteer abroad, FSC wine corks, rent a hybrid, summer energy saver, plant a tree, food labels guide, find a green hotel, save water lawn, green laundry supplies, recycledpaper products, local foods guide, global warming and hybrid cars.
<http://www.thegreenguide.com/blog/lowdown>

Smackdown?: James Joyce vs Ayn Rand

For a good laugh, check out The 100 Greatest Novels lists at Random House

(the experts' top 10:

1. ULYSSES by James Joyce
2. THE GREAT GATSBY by F. Scott Fitzgerald
3. A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN by James Joyce
4. LOLITA by Vladimir Nabokov
5. BRAVE NEW WORLD by Aldous Huxley
6. THE SOUND AND THE FURY by William Faulkner
7. CATCH-22 by Joseph Heller
   
8. DARKNESS AT NOON by Arthur Koestler
9. SONS AND LOVERS by D.H. Lawrence
10. THE GRAPES OF WRATH by John Steinbeck

the people's top 10:

1. ATLAS SHRUGGED by Ayn Rand
2. THE FOUNTAINHEAD by Ayn Rand
3. BATTLEFIELD EARTH by L. Ron Hubbard
4. THE LORD OF THE RINGS by J.R.R. Tolkien
5. TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD by Harper Lee
6. 1984 by George Orwell
7. ANTHEM by Ayn Rand
8. WE THE LIVING by Ayn Rand
9. MISSION EARTH by L. Ron Hubbard
10. FEAR by L. Ron Hubbard

- and you wonder how George Bush became the leader of the Psychlos).

(Note that the presence of the amateurish To Kill a Mockingbird and the dated 1984 among the top 10 may be accounted for by the fact that for decades they were force-fed in high school, apparently the last time many people encountered anything that passably resembles literature.)

(Not that "the people" are afraid of big books: Mission Earth has got to be 4x the length of Ulysses.)

Speaking of Ulysses, it may be not only the greatest novel ever written (it is a masterpiece, though I'd plump for The Great Gatsby as near-perfect), but also the greatest dirty novel every written, so if you are allowed only one book on that desert island...

If you want to reread Ulysses, download it to your computer for free here (there's a hypertext version here). If you don't ever intend to read it, but you still want to pick up dates at Barnes & Noble, there's a quick overview of the book here and a really quick version (almost no words at all) here. Should you want to suffer the book in its entirety without actually reading it yourself, you can have it read to you here (it's only 32 hours long, perfect if you happen to be driving to Los Angeles, say, from Chicago).

Performance: Connie, 6, on "Britain's Got Talent " (YouTube)

On Britain's Got Talent, will mean-spirited Simon Cowell, already in a foul mood, be able to endure six-year-old Connie's assault on "Somewhere Over The Rainbow"?

For the record: George W. Bush

The Health and Medical History of President George W. Bush: <http://www.doctorzebra.com/prez/g43.htm>

Gaming: Spore

The video-game designer Will Wright demonstrates his long-awaited game Spore and discusses the art of game design with John Seabrook at “2012: Stories from the Near Future,” the 2007 New Yorker Conference.
The rest of the story: Seabrook’s Profile of Wright in The New Yorker.

Security: Firewalls

Check out the comprehensive Windows Personal Firewall Analysis to see how your firewall stands up to others. Best of show?: the free Comodo Firewall.

Pencil Sharpening: Women Depicted in Fine Art

New Media: Turn Your RSS Feeds into Podcasts

TalkR enables you to listen to your favorite text sources and blogs instead of reading them. Point it to an RSS feed and TalkR will convert the text to speech and provide you with a podcast to download at your leisure. Talkr can also keep tabs on your RSS feeds and send audio files to your device as they become available. The subscription options include both free and paid services. <http://www.talkr.com/>
<http://www.talkr.com/faq/what_is_talkr.html>

Anals of Commerce: Pee and Poo Dolls

Oh, yes, they did: <http://peeandpoo.com>

Search: FindSounds

You've got a surfeit of search engines to choose from if you're looking for articles on line. Photos and graphics, too, are easy enough to find with Google, Yahoo and NetVue image searches. But what if, amid the cacaphony of competing search engines, you're looking for a sound, a train whistle, say, a jackhammer like the one on the Lovin' Spoonful's "Summer in the City," or something more esoteric? FindSounds scours the web for AIFF, AU, and WAV files. From among its findings, you click on the nearby speaker icon to sample a returned suggestion, then choose the "Sounds Like" button to refine your search with a new list of noises that are related to the one you listened to. <http://www.findsounds.com/>

Pencil Sharpening: The Stickman Murders

"In the 'Stickman Murder Mystery Games' you play the role of a homicide detective who must solve one of five murder mystery cases. The murders have taken place in the crime-riddled city of 'Stickville'." -- from the website. <http://www.normandcompany.com/>

Photography: Teenie Harris Archive

Charles "Teenie" Harris' "photographs are unsurpassed in the range of subjects they portray and for their ability to evoke the spirit of an era and to display the humanity of a people. Harris' 40-year career with the Pittsburgh Courier, one of the largest and most influential Black newspapers in the country, began as the nation emerged from the Depression and ended with the Civil Rights Movement. Numbering upwards of 80,000 images, this archive represents the largest single collection of photographic images of any Black community in the United States -- or the world for that matter....in its breadth and in its rich documentation of the life and community spirit of Black urban America, the Teenie Harris collection surpasses that of any other African American photographer. In the long run, his photographs may cause Pittsburgh's Hill District to join New York City's Harlem in forming our view of urban Black life from the 1930s to the 1960s....Using the [Carnegie M]useum's online collection search page, you can now view over 18,000 images in the collection...." -- from the website. <http://www.cmoa.org/teenie/info.asp>

Periodicals: McSweeney's et al

McSweeney's, you need to know, is not so much a website as it is an "Internet tendency." The site aggregates the online presences of "Timothy McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, a journal created by nervous people in relative obscurity;" The Believers, a monthly magazine "where length is no object;" and Wholphin, a quarterly DVD of short films, docs, instructional videos, foreign sitcoms, and other cinema hybrids "designed to make you feel the way we felt when we learned that dolphins and whales sometimes, you know, do it." <http://www.mcsweeneys.net>

Words: Digital Libraries

Here are some of the more prominent library research projects, open archives and book lists on the web:

Google Book Search: <http://books.google.com/>
Project Gutenberg: <http://promo.net/pg>
The UK Electronic Libraries Program (eLib): <http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/services/elib>
The Environmental Electronic Library (UCBerkeley): <http://elib.cs.berkeley.edu>
The Alexandria Project (UCSB): <http://www.alexandria.ucsb.edu>
Informedia (Carnegie Mellon): <http://www.informedia.cs.cmu.edu>
Federated Repositories of Scientific Literature (U. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign): <http://dli.grainger.uiuc.edu>
Intelligent Agents for Information Location (University of Michigan): <http://www.si.umich.edu/UMDL>
Internet Public Library (University of Michigan): <http://www.ipl.org/>
Bibliotheca Universalis: <http://www.bl.uk/gabriel/bibliotheca-universalis>
The Online Books Page (University of Pennsylvania): <http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/>
Questia: <http://www.questia.com/Index.jsp>
Gateway to Library Catalogues (Library of Congress): <http://www.loc.gov/z3950/>

Notes from the Road: The Ethical Traveler

Ethical Traveler is dedicated to educating travelers about the social and environmental impact of their decisions, showing how travel can be a potent form of diplomacy....There is a growing need for travelers to play an active role in the world we explore....[T]ravelers, with an understanding of our planet's social and environmental concerns, can be instrumental in creating a better world." -- from the website. <http://www.ethicaltraveler.org>

Tools: full-function screen capture

MWSnap is a free Windows utility that can capture shots of an entire screen, a highlighted window or a defined area of a desktop, with a zoom function to enlarge a specific section. Various image formats that are supported include BMP, JPG, TIFF, PNG and GIF. The app does double duty as a quick image viewer. A useful ruler measures objects on the screen and there is a printing component to generate hard copies. With a user-configurable interface, MWSnap does not require installation nor any particular dlls or system files. The download size is a modest 643 KB.

Good Eatin': Acorn Springs Farm miniature fruit trees for your patio

Acorn's Extreme Containerized Citrus:
Fruiting-Age Specimens Sent to Your Door



"Be it our Kaffir Lime, Improved Meyer Lemon or Nagami Kumquat, we’re proud to offer you the healthiest, most fragrant grafted dwarf citrus specimens in the US. Choose from these, or our other popular dwarf citrus tree varieties and we’ll ship them directly from our Texas farm – in soil – to your door via FedEx. Our containerized dwarf citrus trees are ready for display, right from the box. And we include expertly written care instructions with every order, along with the toll-free telephone number to our farm. Free gift card with your message included!" -- from the website. <http://www.acornsprings.com/>

Astronomy: Strange alien world made of 'hot ice'

"A bizarre world of scorching hot ice shrouded in a steamy atmosphere may have been found, according to new observations. Characterising the Neptune-size planet is an important milestone on the way to detecting and characterising Earth-like planets that could harbour life....[T]he planet's width, which provides clues to its composition and structure...turns out to be about 50,000 kilometres wide, roughly four times the width of Earth and about the size of Neptune...too compact to be made mostly of hydrogen gas, like Jupiter, the researchers say, but not compact enough to be a rocky 'super Earth', as some had speculated. Instead, they believe it must be made mostly of an exotic form of water...the surface must be a blazing hot 300° C or more, keeping water in its atmosphere in vapour form. But the high pressures in the planet's interior would compress the water so much that it would stay solid even at hundreds of degrees Celsius – the expected temperatures inside the planet. There are a variety of exotic 'hot ice' states possible in such conditions, with names like 'Ice VII' and 'Ice X'...."

The rest of the story: New Scientist

Nature: Battle at Kruger

Here is an endlessly watchable confrontation between buffaloes, lions and a crocodile. Guess who wins?

Music: Jeff Buckley alt Hallelujah and unseen footage (video)

This month marks the 10th anniversary of the death of singer-songwriter Jeff Buckley, who drowned at the age of 30. He is more popular than ever and a career retrospective will be issued soon. To commemorate this milestone, here is heretofore unseen footage of the performer talking about his inspirations and of an alternative version of his popular Hallelujah. Click on the image to watch the video.

Webmastery: Browser-based Tools and Toys

"Toolbot.com is a collection of small, browser-based internet tools and toys [see, Labels]....The mission of toolbot.com is to keep the implementation fast and the interface clean; to have fun making stuff; and to encourage the discovery and use of publicly available information." <http://www.toolbot.com/>>

Good Eatin': Shrimp!

Shrimp recipes,
plus nutritional and dietary information
about the ubiquitous
entree, appetizer and snack
from the Shrimp Council:
<http://www.eatshrimp.com/>

The Avant Garde: Playing with Your Food (YouTube)

Currently, the most popular video on YouTube is of a shirtless, inebriated David Hasselhoff trying to eat a hamburger. Instead, LOL offers you this: a video from the Vegetable Orchestra, an Austrian musical group that plays with instruments made from, well, vegetables. Amazon.com describes the band's fragile handmade devices thusly: "Their unique instruments include the carrot recorder, the cucumberophone, and the leek violin among many others. Musically falling somewhere between avant-garde classical and electronic music without actually sounding like either one, the performers have created what they consider to be a new genre: vegetable music." Frank Zappa would've loved it. <http://youtube.com/watch?v=hpfYt7vRHuY>

Lifestyle: Outsource Your Life

DoMyStuff is an online community where busy people like yourself can quickly find assistants to complete their chores. You can find someone to do anything on DoMyStuff: picking up your dry cleaning, mowing your lawn, cooking your dinner...any task can be posted. Individuals and businesses located near you will compete to run your errands, and the competition assures that you get the service at good price. <http://www.DoMyStuff.com/>

American Civ: The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy

Minimum cultural knowledge: "The manifestation of one of the most influential modern educational theories, the 6,900 entries in this major new reference work form the touchstone of what it means to be not only just a literate American but an active citizen in our multicultural democracy...." -- from the website. <http://www.bartleby.com/59/>

Music: Memorial performance of 4'33" dedicated to the memory of John Cage (YouTube)

The top link on the YouTube page below is to a video from a concert in memory of John Cage, a live performance of his 4'33". A work that consists of three movements of ambient noise, it must lose some of the impact intended by the composer when it is announced in advance; instead of generating surprise, shock and outrage, it tends to inspire the audience to four and half minutes of whispered pretention. Still, it makes you think.

Other links on the page take you to additional performances, including adaptations for other instruments (it was written for piano), such as guitar and recorder. It's probably the only music that you'd really like to hear Kenny G* do.
http://youtube.com/results?search_query=4'33"&search=Search

* Gratuitous aside: The masterful guitarist and songwriter Richard Thompson once wrote a song, "I Agree With Pat Metheny, Kenny's Talents Are Too Teeny," that went in part:

A meeting of great minds, how nice
Like Einstein and Sporty Spice
Digitally fused in an abortion
Oh, Kenny fans will doubtless rave
While Satchmo turns inside his grave
Soprano man's bit off more than his portion.

Games: Play with Your Mind (mind games, brain puzzles and IQ tests)

"This site started in fall of '04 with a pathetic website and a dysfunctional game. Since then, the site has gone through considerable growth and now offers more than 100 original mind games....among the largest such collections on the internet. Challenging abilities as diverse as memory, focus, logic, spatial sense, perception, verbal skill and numerical prowess, the brain games here provide plenty of opportunities to play with your mind." -- from the website. <http://playwithyourmind.com/>

American Civ: The 100 Greatest Americans

"Who are the ­most influential figures in American history? The Atlantic recently asked ten eminent historians. The result was The Atlantic's Top 100 -- and some insight into the nature of influence and the contingency of history. Was Walt Disney really more influential than Elizabeth Cady Stanton? Benjamin Spock than Richard Nixon? Elvis Presley than Lewis and Clark? John D. Rockefeller than Bill Gates? Babe Ruth than Frank Lloyd Wright? Let the debates begin." -- from the website. <http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200612/influentials>

Good Eatin': How to Avoid Poisonous Mushrooms (California Poison Control System)

"There are no non-scientific tests or rules that can accurately determine the safety or toxicity of a mushroom....'poisonous mushroom' means any mushroom or toadstool that causes an adverse or negative reaction when eaten. Symptoms can range from 6 hours of vomiting to lethal liver or kidney failure....There is no antidote for mushroom poisoning!" -- from the website.

<http://calpoison.org/public/mushrooms.html>

Good Eatin': Everything You Wanted to Know about Sushi but Were Afraid to Ask

"What is sushi? What is sashimi? We'll answer those questions and more at SushiFAQ.com....devoted to answering all your questions about sushi (and sashimi), its history, and the related Japanese dining experience. We will answer the simple questions such as 'what is sushi?,' 'what is sashimi?,' 'why would I eat raw fish?' and 'how do I use chopsticks?' as well as enlighten diners as to the history, etiquette, terminology, and artistry that surround this simple and artful food." -- from the website. <http://www.sushifaq.com/>

Americana: Ford's Theatre National Historic Site

This website from the National Park Service, displaying government archive material about the theater in Washington, D.C., where Abraham Lincoln was shot on April 14, 1865, and about the president's assassin, John Wilkes Booth, includes historical data and photos of the theater, a biography of Booth and a map of his escape route, images of the chair Lincoln was sitting in and the gun used to shoot him, and much more.
<http://www.nps.gov/archive/foth/index2.htm>

Games People Play: World Without Oil

"World Without Oil aims to help fill a huge gap in our nation's thinking about oil and the economy. As people everywhere grapple with the problem of growing global demand for petroleum, no one has a clear picture of oil availability in the future, nor is there a clear picture of what will happen when demand inevitably outstrips supply. That will depend in large part upon how well people prepare, cooperate, and collectively create solutions. By playing it out in a serious way, the game aims to apply collective intelligence and imagination to the problem in advance, and to create a record that has value for educators, policymakers, and the common people to help anticipate the future and prevent its worst outcomes. 'Play it, before you live it.'" -- from the website.

Pencil Sharpening: Cats That Look Like Hitler

"Does your cat look like Adolf Hitler? Do you wake up in a cold sweat every night wondering if he's going to up and invade Poland? Does he keep putting his right paw in the air while making a noise that sounds suspiciously like 'Sieg Miaow'?...We're looking for that tiny, unfashionable moustache...or the flock-of-seagulls hairdo? An evil glint in its eye?...that implies a secret longing for world domination." -- from the website. <http://www.catsthatlooklikehitler.com/>

Environment: The World's Biomes (Museum of Paleontology, UC Berkeley)

"Explore our planet's biomes - environmental divisions defined by the community of organisms adapted to live within them. This includes forest, desert, tundra and more....Biomes are defined as 'the world's major communities, classified according to the predominant vegetation and characterized by adaptations of organisms to that particular environment' (Campbell 1996)....Biomes have changed and moved many times during the history of life on Earth. More recently, human activities have drastically altered these communities. Thus, conservation and preservation of biomes should be a major concern to all." -- from the website. <http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/>

DIY: Mona Lisa in MS Paint (YouTube)

This video shows how to use Microsoft Paint to create The Mona Lisa. The original digital version took two hours and a half to make. Playing time for the video is less than five minutes. In response, a few YouTubers who made an effort to try to do the same thing show there stuff here, here, here and here. Find the original at YouTube.

Cleping: Baby Name Wizard's NameVoyager

What matters when choosing a name? Rarity, familiarity, originality? Can naming trends be charted? Looking for an alternative to Heather, Ryan and Blake? Lois, Zulma and Clem aren't being used much these days. As an aside, why are people named April, May and August but not January, February or September? For that matter, are there actually twins named Oranjello and Lemonjello? And does anyone really answer to Joesph? The site tracks only the top 1000 names in any decade -- so no Jerrald, no Conway, no Moose, but it's fascinating anyway. <http://babynamewizard.com/>

Big Brother: Spend time with your children so Peyton Manning doesn't (SNL/YouTube)

Peyton Manning for the United Way (SNL):
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZpPf-q2_es>

Good Eatin': The Complete & Utter Idiot’s Guide to Making a Baloney Sandwich

I've had an affection for bologna since my 9th grade year at L'École de la Prétention where it was served several times a week; I remember with especial fondness breakfast, at which the mysterious lunchmeat was presented fried as a substitute for bacon. At The Complete & Utter Idiot’s Guide to Making a Baloney Sandwich, you'll find an in-depth analysis of the steps needed to prepare this staple of the American table. Step by step directions are divided into bits so small that even those of us completely unfamiliar with the mysteries of the kitchen can prepare this epicurean delight. This site will solve all of your lunching needs, and answer questions you never knew you had about baloney.

Smart TV: The net as an intelligent alternative to the tube

Fora.tv is repackaging speeches, panel discussions and lecture series from the nation's think tanks, civic groups, bookstores and similar venues as online video programs on an easily searchable website. A great resource intended by the company to be for ideas what ESPN is for sports. <http://www.fora.tv/>

Instructions, manuals and guides: Wiki How

"wikiHow is a collaborative writing project to build the world's largest how-to manual. With your contributions, we can create a free resource that helps people by offering clear, concise solutions to the problems of everyday life. wikiHow currently contains 17,160 articles written, edited, and maintained primarily by volunteers. Please join us by writing a new page, or editing a page that someone else has started. How to[, for example]:

• Dress in a Sari
• Set Up an Art Exhibition
• Choose a Credit Counseling Agency
• Tie a Silk Scarf
• Make a Sideways Room
• Walk Like a Diva
• Succeed at Any Home Improvement Project
• Help Your Child Accept a New Baby
• Read an Aviation Routine Weather Report (METAR)
• Get Served Quickly at the Bar
• Do the Samoan Fa'ataupati (Slap Dance)
• Make Ricotta Cheese
• Make a Friendship Bracelet
• Hack a Coke Machine
• Consolidate Loans..." -- from the website.

<http://wiki.ehow.com/>

Health: Who's Sick?

Who's Sick?: A new way to keep track of what's going around <http://whoissick.org/sickness/>.

Getting Around: Go, D.C., Go!

"At last you can explore Washington DC and look like you actually know where you're going (even if you still insist on wearing that fanny-pack). Our site and interactive map effortlessly compares all the different ways to navigate greater Downtown DC. Whether you are eager to catch a museum tour, catch a glimpse of 'W', or even catch a ride to work -- this site is the one-stop shop for getting straight to your destination." -- from the website. <http://www.goDCgo.com/>

Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics: The "Who Owns the National Debt" Pie Chart

From The Skeptical Optimist:

"The chart below is an update, using the latest estimates from the Treasury. (To make it easier to dispel the popular-but-false rumors about China’s share of our federal debt, I added some percentages in the bigger slices. To end the suspense, the Chinese own 4% of it.)

"I assume this chart is mostly self-explanatory. Seems to me that we have a diverse and inclusive array of Treasury-security owners spanning the globe, but concentrated in the USA. Click to enlarge.



"Here are clickable links to the data sources:
• Estimated foreign debt holdings
• Page to lookup total debt and intragov. debt
• Fed (“US Monetary Authority”) share of debt"

Astronomy: Cosmic Journey - A History of Scientific Cosmology (Center for History of Physics at the American Institute of Physics)

"From the ancient Greeks to the Hubble Space Telescope - the story of the colorful individuals, startling ideas and ingenious tools that brought us knowledge of the vast and strange universe we inhabit. Written by leading historians of astronomy, richly illustrated." -- from the website. <http://www.aip.org/history/cosmology/>

Good Eatin': What you need to know about beer

Prosit! L'Chayim! Sláinte! À votre santé! In Vino Veritas, In Cervesio Felicitas! Igfenn, hei skål! Salud amor y pesetas -- y tiempo para gustarlos! Cheers!
Everything You Wanted to Know About Beer, But Were Afraid to Ask:
Don’t know a lager, from an ale, from a stout, from a bock? This brewer's bible will provide you with a description of every style of beer known to man: Brewers Assoc. Guide to Beer Styles (pdf)

Environment: The Daily Green website

On April 22, Earth Day, Hearst Magazines will launch thedailygreen.com, aimed at 'green consumers....While content will be an important element of The Daily Green, it is the community of followers of the green [Photo]movement that will inform the sensibility of the site," blahblahed Hearst, offering as an example a feature called 'Weird Weather Watch," a "user-generated" photoblog documenting climate change on which, in other words, surfers will be invited to provide the Hearst Corporation with content for free. House Beautiful will offer editorial coverage on the site, and The Daily Green will have profiles at MySpace and Facebook. <http://www.thedailygreen.com/>

Good Eatin': Grocery List Generator

The GLG (Grocery List Generator) is a tool that will help you to keep in stock the recipe-ingredients and other groceries that you use regularly. It creates a well-organized list to help simplify grocery shopping.

Features:

• 7 international sample dishes from LXweb.nl
• Never forget an ingredient needed for a dish anymore.
• Easy to maintain database with all your favorite dishes,
  and other items you often need.
• Items are grouped by super market department type.
• Organize your list based on your supermarket's layout.
• Keeps a running list of items selected, even after you restart Firefox.
• Directly print your list, or export it to disk/pda.
• Supports unicode data (UTF8).
• Available in a dozen languages

<Grocery List Generator>

Astronomy: Stereo's Extreme Ultraviolet Imager Views the Sun

As they near their final positions, the Stereo orbiters will study violent solar eruptions, known as Coronal Mass Ejections, that shower Earth with energetic particles that can disrupt power grids and satellite communications. Stereo data, from panoramic views from the Sun to the Earth created by combining images from a suite of telescopes on board the two spacecraft, will give scientists the ability to predict "space weather" and track "solar fronts." BBC article. NASA's Stereo website.

Good Eatin': Coffee and Espresso Information

"Your source for coffee and espresso tutorials, reviews, and original java-related content....Our intention is to improve coffee quality through education and research. This 300-page coffee website was developed as a platform to share our passion for specialty coffee." -- from the website.
<http://www.coffeeresearch.org/>

Tools: RSS via eMail

With R|mail, you can subscribe to any rss feed via email. Copy and paste the feed link into the rss field and enter your email address; it's equally easy to unsubscribe. A Top Feeds list suggests 100 popular sources. Bloggers can add an R|mail icon to their sites. <http://www.kbcafe.com/Rmail.aspx>

RSS: Newzie

(In its own estimation) a powerful news monitoring and aggregation tool, Newzie is a new software application that allows you to:

* Subscribe to RSS content containing text, audio, and video
* Manage and access your bookmarks
* Monitor web pages for content changes
* Capture online page content while surfing
* One page access to all major search engines
* Unicode Support
* Bloglines Synchronization Support
* Full Backup facility

<http://www.newzie.com/>

Environment: Volcano Hazards (USGS)

"More than 50 volcanoes in the United States have erupted one or more times in the past 200 years. The most volcanically active regions of the nation are in Alaska, Hawaii, California, Oregon, and Washington. Volcanoes produce a wide variety of hazards that can kill people and destroy property. Large explosive eruptions can endanger people and property hundreds of miles away and even affect global climate. Some...volcano hazards...can occur even when a volcano is not erupting." -- from the website. <http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/fs002-97/>

Resource: The Blues Database

"Search in the blues database for all your information about all blues artists with discographies and festivals, all you ever need to know from Albert Collins right up to ZZ Top and ZZ Hill!!!" -- from the website.

FYI, the most popular music listed in the Blues Database:

10 most visited albums:
1: Phyllis & Lawrence - Phyllis & Lawrence
2: Complete Recordings, Vol. 2 - Robert Johnson
3: Grow Fins: Rarities (1965-1982) - Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band
4: V-Disc Recordings - Harry James
5: Man in Black: 1954-1958 - Johnny Cash
6: Complete Prestige/Bluesville Recordings - Lightnin' Hopkins
7: Complete Aladdin Recordings - Lightnin' Hopkins
8: Golden Years of Nat King Cole - Nat 'King' Cole
9: Whose Truth, Whose Lies? - Doug MacLeod
10: Blues on the Bayou - B.B. King

10 most voted songs:
1: Malted Milk - Complete Recordings, Vol. 2 - Robert Johnson
2: Same Old Pain - Phyllis & Lawrence - Phyllis & Lawrence
3: Norfolk County Line - Whose Truth, Whose Lies? - Doug MacLeod
4: Love Is Ours - Phyllis & Lawrence - Phyllis & Lawrence
5: Angel from Montogomery - Just Won't Burn - Susan Tedeschi
6: Bad Love - Journeyman - Eric Clapton
7: Sanctuary - Sanctuary - Charlie Musselwhite
8: Just Turnaround and Go - Phyllis & Lawrence - Phyllis & Lawrence
9: I Just Wanna' Be - Phyllis & Lawrence - Phyllis & Lawrence
10: Tears in Heaven - Unplugged/Clapton Chronicles - Eric Clapton

The Blues Database: <http://www.bluesdatabase.com/>

The War: Baghdad - Mapping the Violence 2003-2007 (BBC)

"Since the US declared the end of major combat operations in Iraq in May 2003, the capital, Baghdad, has seen the worst of the ongoing violence. Our animated map details the city’s key locations, ethnic divisions and major bomb attacks of the insurgency and sectarian violence." -- BBC Online <http://news.bbc.co.uk/>

Tools: Computer-On-a-Stick

is a USB Flash Drive with its own operating system and a suite of MS Office-compatible applications. The Computer-On-a-Stick also comes with Mozilla Firefox, Evolution email, and Yahoo- and MSN-compatible instant messengers. When you plug the C-O-a-S into any desktop or portable PC, you activate a personal and private operating environment that is small enough to carry in your pencil holder. Price starts at $ 149. <http://www.fingergear.com/>

Tools: Can we talk?

LetsPowwow is a Java-based cross-platform screen-sharing software that enables anyone to make a computer screen available to a group of other computers, to text chat and to allow live attendees to take control remotely of the host computer at an unbeatable price: free (well, for up to 10 users, it's free; "pro" versions start at $50). While LetsPowwow isn't as easy to use as GoToMeeting, the tool lives up to its promises. And in an improvement on GoToMeeting, LetsPowwow works not just on Windows but also on Linux and Mac OS. Up to 30 participants can simultaneously view and/or edit a document or file in any file format, and LetsPowwow records and archives meeting sessions. <http://www.letspowwow.com/index.aspx>

Special Report: The 15 Richest Fictional Characters (Forbes)

It had to happen. Our pathological fascination with the super-rich has reached the point where we now venerate even their fictional counterparts. Why not? Don't we already devour the biographies and hang on the advice of made-up people like Donald Trump? Forbes took only the tiniest of next steps in elevating fiction’s caricatures to the status of real people. "To qualify for the Fictional 15, we insisted that members be both fictional (in the sense that we excluded mythological and folkloric figures) and characters (meaning they are part of a narrative story or series of stories). Great wealth was required to be one of the primary attributes of the characters on this list--in other words, we looked for characters that were known, within their universes, for being rich. For the record, here is The List" (and where is John Beresford Tipton, btw):

1. Santa Claus
2. Oliver "Daddy" Warbucks
3. Richie Rich
4. Lex Luthor
5. C. Montgomery Burns
6. Scrooge McDuck
7. Jed Clampett
8. Bruce Wayne
9. Thurston Howell III
10. Willy Wonka
11. Arthur Bach
12. Ebenezer Scrooge
13. Lara Croft
14. Cruella De Vil
15. Lucius Malfoy

Forbes Fictional 15 Methodology

Tools: Passwords Management

Thanks to computerized warfare, you can now get enterprise grade password management endorsed and tested by the U.S. military. Mandylion Research Labs developed this gadget under a Department of Defense research program seeking practical solutions to a uniquely modern battlefield problem: password overload. And the winner is?: A simple, relatively inexpensive ($49.95 list), keychain-sized device that aids in the generation and secure management of any password-based login record:

-> Manages Up to 50 Login Records Simultaneously
-> Schedules new passwords on a regular basis
-> Generates Cryptographically Strong Passwords
-> Complies with All DoD, Govt. & Industry Password Security Policies
-> Manages Root and Group Passwords
-> Approved, Trusted Technology; Recoverable
-> Enterprise Grade
-> Pre-Configurable for User
-> Flexible Design
-> Multi-Layer, Defense-in-Depth Approach

Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance? Gramm Leach Bliley? HIPAA? FACTA? FISMA? Regulations now mandate reporting on controls that safeguard your enterprise’s computing systems. Merely having a policy in place is no longer adequate. Management and Governmental entities must now certify that these policies and controls are also operating effectively. Your dog's d.o.b. will no longer suffice.
<http://www.mandylionlabs.com/>

Games: Babble

"Babble is a free online word game with a friendly community. Stop playing those boring old word search puzzles and join the global Babble web community." -- from the website. <http://www.playbabble.com/>

New Media: Typorganism

is a set of Flash-based animated visual communication experiments exploring interactive designing based on the metaphorical notion of typography. Among the experiments: ASCII-O-Matic, a web application that can convert any digital image into an ASCII artwork that can be copied and added to a personal web page; Good news, Bad news, an animated visual display of current breaking news divided in two contrasting groups; Visual Composer, a digital timeline music editor that plays your selected notes in sequence; and (you're gonna love this) EmoType Chat, an experimental tool that enables you to chat with yourself. <http://www.typorganism.com/>

NWO: Complete data destruction on your hard drive

Disk Redactor is a WIPE utility that lets you securely erase any deleted files and prevent them from being recovered. All your private sensitive insecurely erased information will be wiped from free unused space on your drives to ensure complete data destruction. Download

The Holocaust: International Tracing Service

A few months ago, 60 Minutes profiled the International Tracing Service in Bad Arolsen, Germany. Created by the Red Cross shortly after World War II, it is the largest Holocaust archive in the world, with 16 miles of shelves housing 50 million documents about 17 million victims of the Holocaust, including:

The paper trail for "Frank, Annaliese Marie" as she was sent from Amsterdam to her eventual death at Bergen-Beslen;

A list of 700 men and 300 women ordered to Brnenec-Brunnlitz in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia to work in the munitions factory owned by Oskar Schindler;

A "Totenbuch" ["death book"] for a single month recording the execution of one prisoner every two minutes.

During the episode, 60 Minutes accompanies Walter Feiden, Miki Schwartz, and Jack Rosenthal, the first Holocaust survivors to enter the archive.

International Tracing Service: <http://www.its-arolsen.org/>

The rest of the story: 60 Minutes [13 minutes].

Pencil Sharpening: Obadiah Parker's "Hey Ya" cover

Obadiah Parker's folk-hop version of Hey Ya:

More O.P. at <ObadiahParker.com>.
Here's the original by Outkast.

It's a DIY World: WikiMusicGuide

Similar in spirit to Wikipedia, WikiMusicGuide is a free music information site for music lovers by music lovers. <http://www.wikimusicguide.com/>

Search: Build your own Searchbot

"A Searchbot is your own personal search robot that continuously searches the Internet trying to find all the best websites it can on your behalf. When you build a Searchbot you give it a personality and then program it's search circuits with all the things you want to find. You can search for websites based on factual information like tags and locations, or more creative ways like colour and the mood you're in. You can even ask your Searchbot a question and it will talk to other Searchbots to find you an answer....Searchbots.net is an experimental search engine that investigates the use of mythology, personification and game theory as motivational strategies in creating a sustainable search community. Searchbots has a rich history and is unique in that it allows you to search using more 'human' and entertaining types of information like colour and mood. If you picked the colour red you might get a website about tomatoes, communism or angry people." -- from the website. <http://www.searchbots.net>

Science and Technology of Ancient Egypt: Mummies, Tombs and Pharaoh Gold...

"Mummies, elaborate afterlife preparations, buried tombs that require painstaking excavation, mysterious hieroglyphs and wall paintings...a few of the many legacies of ancient Egypt that have captured the attention of people throughout history. You can
explore them further on this site!" -- from the website. <http://www.mos.org/quest/>

Rhetoric: Winston Churchill Speech Interactive

"...Churchill Speech Interactive – an online educational resource that allows you to explore Churchill’s renowned ‘Iron Curtain’ speech, delivered on 5th March 1946 in Fulton, Missouri.The speech is organised along a number of themes, each of which is colour-coded to enable ease of access. The Speech Player synchronises the audio of the speech with analytical tools, supporting commentary and a wealth of rich media resources." -- from the website. <http://www.churchillspeeches.com/>

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Separated @ Birth: What celebrity do you look like?

"Has anyone ever told you that you look like a famous celebrity? Now it is easy to find your celebrity look alike. Just upload your picture and we will search the world for your celebrity face match... and it's FREE!" -- from the website. <http://www.starsinyou.com/>