History: Britain

Here's a "digital library [from the University of London] of text and information about people, places and businesses from the medieval and early modern period." Explorable by type of history (administrative, ecclesiastical, local, London or parliamentary), place or source, the site includes a 1550 map of London and House of Commons journals from the 16th and 17th centuries. <http://www.british-history.ac.uk>

Music: the computer network as avant art

A joint project of the very hip San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Goethe-Institut NY, ZKM (Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe), and Minneapolis' Walker Art Center, this great-looking site presents the computer network as an experimental medium: as a musical instrument and as tool that enables musicians and music lovers to collaborate. Elements include commissioned “media essays,” ranging from hyperlinked texts to designed interfaces, and live events both in physical space and online, including The Architecture of Sound, Early Network Music Bands in the San Francisco Bay Area, Ten Hours of Sounds from Japan, and Radio Free Linux. <http://www.sfmoma.org/crossfade/index.html>

Design: Levitated Design and Code

I'm not even going to try to explain what's going on here, but check out "Floating Seeds," which is a set of rings that disappear when you mouse over them (start over by clicking the "Regenerate" button). All this stuff is open source, so if you're a programmer, you might be able to improve or personalize the code for your own use.
<http://www.levitated.net/>

Books: Harvard Classics On Line

Bartleby has uploaded all of the legendary 50-volume "Five-Foot Shelf" and the 20-volume Shelf of Fiction, published originally between 1909 and 1917, plus an extra volume of lectures originally prepared to make sure the lay reader didn't miss the primary themes in works as varied as Marcus Aurelius' Meditations, Oliver Goldsmith's She Stoops To Conquer, Thackeray's Vanity Fair and stories by de Maupassant. <http://www.bartleby.com/hc/>

Video: LA to NY in Four Minutes

Enjoy the ride: <http://www.lacquersound.com/english/opener1.html>

Film: Disquisitions on the crummiest movies ever

"The Agony Booth is an ongoing inquisition into some of the worst movies humanity has to offer, and is not for the weak of spirit or the easily disheartened. However, if you think you have the fortitude to completely immerse yourself in a truly awful film, withstanding in-depth commentary and analysis, then the Agony Booth is the place for you. As Mirror Spock would say, you may just find it to be a most effective means of discipline." -- from the website. <http://www.agonybooth.com/>

The Arts: La Biennale di Venezia

"The Venice Biennale is one of the oldest cultural organizations: it was set up in 1893....and today is an interdisciplinary Foundation concerned with architecture, visual arts, cinema, dance, music, and theatre." -- from the website. <http://www.labiennale.org/en>

Art: George Catlin's Indian Gallery

George Catlin's paintings are the focus of this virtual exhibit produced by the Smithsonian American Art Museum. In the 1830s and 40s, Catlin traversed the West documenting the fate of Native Americans, particularly those dislocated by the Indian Removal Act. Thirty-two paintings are featured, including several of prominent Mandan chiefs and a striking portrait of explorer William Clark. <http://americanart.si.edu/catlin/highlights.html>

Pop Culture: Annotations to favorite tv shows

Serious and/or hip programs -- such as John Stewart's, The West Wing, Law and Order, JAG, Boston Legal, The Sopranos, The Simpsons, SNL and South Park -- sometimes make reference to political and cultural issues outside the mainstream, especially the mainstream bounded by Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? and the 11 O'clock News. FootnoteTV provides background dope for the perplexed and the bemused. <http://www.newsaic.com/ftvindex.html>

Radio: Groovenation.net

Soul, R&B, Acid Jazz, Hip-Hop, R&B blended with House beats, and, surprisingly, Spoken Word. Soul Lounge, Groovenation's syndicated Soul/R&B program is regularly updated. Plus related entertainment news. Unfortunately, like many online radio feeds, this site currently streams in Real only. <http://www.groovenation.net/>

American Civilization:The Traffic Cone Preservation Society

"Until the late 20th century, traffic cones were not thought worthy of scientific study. It is the Society's mission to counteract these centuries of neglect. By preserving and studying these 'Helpers of Humanity,' we hope to allow future generations the opportunity to enjoy these magnificent creatures in their natural habitats." -- from the website. <http://animation.filmtv.ucla.edu/students/awinfrey/coneindex.htm>

Search Engine: ...for Satire!

"It's like The Onion on Crack!" -- LibraryStuff.net <http://www.satiresearch.com/>

New York: World's Fair 1964-1965

An entertaining, informative and authoritative celebration of the New York World's Fair of 1964-1965, whose theme was "Peace Through Understanding." <http://www.nywf64.com/>

Research: Online Reference Book for Medieval Studies

"The Online Resource Book for Medieval Studies is a cooperative effort on the part of scholars across the internet to establish an online textbook source for medieval studies," including an encyclopedia, textbooks, "What Every Medievalist Should Know" (45 lists of references on particular topics), a guide for the nonspecialist, resources for teachers, alphabetized links to online text resources from Michael Adams through Aesop and Aristotle and Chaucer to Sir Walter Scott, as well as links to other Medieval sites. <http://www.the-orb.net/>

Why We Love the Web No. 5,456,198:The Toilet Paper Museum

"Maybe they should have a toilet paper museum. Would you like that? So we can see all the toilet paper advancements down through the ages. Toilet paper in the Crusades. The development of the perforation. The first six-pack. " -- Jerry Seinfeld <http://nobodys-perfect.com/vtpm/index.html>

Technology: Wacky Patent of the Month

Maintained by registered patent attorney Edward P. Dutkiewicz, the WPM is "devoted to recognizing selected inventors and their remarkable and unconventional patented inventions," and includes the complete original patent document with each item, a gallery of the outlandish. Who knew chickens need eye protectors! <http://colitz.com/site/wacky.htm>

Psych: The Human Nature Review

"Our goal is to bring into communication the variety of approaches to the understanding of human nature which have a regrettable tendency to be less in touch with one another than they might." Edited by Dr. Ian Pitchford of the Creighton University School of Medicine and Professor Robert M. Young, the site includes a mental health glossary, daily news (available as an email) about ongoing scholarship in psychology and psychotherapy, a library of books and papers, and hundreds of scholarly book reviews. <http://www.human-nature.com/>

The Lit'ry Life: Dorothy Parker's New York (and Hollywood)

The Dorothy Parker Society of New York's site is essentially a history of the writer's life in New York and her time as a member of the palaverous Algonquin Round Table. You get a visual tour of her homes, literary hangouts (where she palled around with fellow writers like Robert Benchley) and favorite speakeasies. Parker eventually moved Hollywood to write movies, and another visual tour explores the places she lived and frequented (the real Dollywood). There is an audio archive featuring Parker reading favorite poems, including Men and One Perfect Rose, and info on the organization's activities, including a newsletter and details on the annual Parkerfest thrown in her memory. <http://www.dorothyparkernyc.com/>

The Lit'ry Life: Where's Waldo?(American Transcendentalism Web)

The American Transcendentalism Web is a repository of data about the lives and thinking of Thoreau, Emerson, and lesser-known philosophers and writers like Margaret Fuller and Orestes Brownson. Hypertext linking creates "web study texts" that display the transcendentalist movement as it was: a vibrant community dominated by the interconnecting ideas of its chief proponents. The site crosslinks primary documents from the transcendentalists, including full-text editions of books, essays, and poems, plus essays on such thematic topics as "The Transcendental Legacy in Philosophy and Religion." <http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/transcendentalism/>

Good Eatin': Chocolate, the Exhibition

"From rainforest treasure to luscious treat -- immerse yourself in the story of chocolate. A gift for the gods. A symbol of wealth and luxury. An economic livelihood. Bonbons. Hot fudge. Candy bars. For thousands of years humans have been fascinated with the delicious phenomenon that we call 'chocolate.' Journey through history to get the complete story behind the tasty treat that we crave in Chocolate, an exciting new exhibition developed by The Field Museum." -- from the website. <http://www.fieldmuseum.org/Chocolate/>

Pencil Sharpening: Virtual Dodgeball

Playing dodgeball on line isn't quite the same as clobbering your friends in real life, but it's still pretty cool. <http://candystand.com/games/gamepage.aspx?gameid=145>

Music: The Ralph Vaughan Williams Society

Though he has lost favor somewhat of late, Vaughan Williams was once celebrated as a British composer of symphonies, choral works, and stage and film music. The Ralph Vaughan Williams Society site has a brief biography, a timeline, a complete list of hundreds of compositions, info on upcoming concerts, and excerpts from dozens of recordings (alas in the ever-annoying Real Audio format), including several symphonies and "Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis." Many of his works are available in first rate performances on the budget Naxos label (http://www.naxos.com/). <http://www.rvwsociety.com/index.html>

Research/Technology: Autoindex -- What's a Jod Jod?

Autoindex, a list of links to info on auto companies all over the world, has the answer to the question, what's a Bronto? Same with, what's a ZhongHua Zunchi, what's a Robin Hood, what's a Prinzing? (As a teenager, my first car was a three-wheeled NSU Prinz from Germany, seemingly no relation to the American-made Prinzing.) There are an amazing number of car manufactures, designers, customizers and replicators just in the US, let alone those from Argentina to Zimbabwe. Search by manufacturer, country, alternative energy powered vehicles, microcars, off-roaders, street rods, and body type (3-wheeler, microcar, amphibian, hatchbacks, liftbacks, etc.). <http://www.autoindex.org/>

Research: National Geographic Image Collection

You can search, view and purchase from National Geographic's collection of thousands of digitized photographs. The + icon adds a picture to a "light box;" to take advantage of this feature you'll have to register (free, but requires name, address, phone number, and e-mail). <http://www.ngsimages.com/>

Technology: Time's Coolest Inventions 2004

Saw Sir Harold Evans yesterday at the Milken Institute give a lame talk on the history of American innovation. Time Mag's survey of current innovations and inventions is much cooler: Mini-cars, snow boats and other innovative forms of transportation; computerized shoes, strapless goggles and one amazing yacht; machines that perform tasks both dangerous and amusing; technologies that heal and help the body; technology that changes food, both inside and out; novel ways to put food on the table; the Jawbone, a device for preventing cell-phone static; audio flowers, a piston-driven watch and CD skin; a fire-supressant liquid that doesn't get anything wet; translucent concrete and a relaxation room you can take with you; new ways to keep your kids (and your house) clean and comfortable. <http://www.time.com/time/2004/inventions/>

Geezerdom: Living Healthier, Living Longer:Parts I & 2

From Harvard@Home, these two sites make available videos from an Alumni College and Harvard Med School event, "Living Healthier, Living Longer," at which doctors discussed a variety of health issues, including aging, menopause, prostate cancer, Alzheimer's, cardiology, nutrition, stress management, etc. The presentations, which also include a history of Harvard Med and reports on new cancer research, are 15 to 30 minutes long.
<http://athome.harvard.edu/dh/lhl.html>
<http://athome.harvard.edu/dh/lhlb.html>

Pencil Sharpening: Create Your Own Band

Be your own Phil Spector or George Martin. Not worse than a lot of bands you've seen:
<http://www.createbands.com/>

Technology: World Community Grid"Technology Solving Problems"

Hosted by IBM, the World Community Grid is a public-computing network designed to bolster humanitarian research using a vast network of computers, each contributing their idling time to large research projects. The current effort is the Institute for Systems Biology's Human Proteome Folding Project, which will ultimately contribute to disease prevention by developing a greater understanding of the shapes of human proteins. The Grid site has a downloadable RFP, project archives, simple instructions for joining the Grid, several forums, and Grid statistics. <http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/>

Public Policy: Microlending

"The mission of ACCION International is to give people the tools they need to work their way out of poverty. By providing 'micro' loans and business training to poor women and men who start their own businesses, ACCION's partner lending organizations help people work their own way up the economic ladder, with dignity and pride. With capital, people can grow their own businesses. They can earn enough to afford basics like running water, better food and schooling for their children.

"In a world where three billion people live on less than $2 a day, it is not enough to help 1,000 or even 100,000 individuals. Our goal is to bring microlending to millions of people - enough to truly change the world. We know that there will never be enough donations to do this. That's why ACCION has created an anti-poverty strategy that is permanent and self-sustaining." -- from the website. <http://www.accion.org/>

Entomology: insect types (illustrated)

"This online database contains records for primary types in the entomology collections of the Museum of Comparative Zoology (MCZ) [at Harvard]. The MCZ insect type collection, one of the largest in North America, currently preserves the primary types of more than 28,000 species, representing 29 orders, 565 families, and 7,578 genera. In addition to such information as type label data, type stage and status, current species name (if available), the database includes high resolution images of the type specimens." -- from the website. <http://mcz-28168.oeb.harvard.edu/mcz/index.htm>.
Also, check out the fabulous pictures in "Greatest Hits: A selection of some of the best MCZ type specimen images": <http://mcz-28168.oeb.harvard.edu/mcz/best_images.htm>

Travel: Libraries with Wireless Networks

An incomplete but growing list from the Wireless Librarian:
http://people.morrisville.edu/~drewwe/wireless/wirelesslibraries.htm

Science: Order From Chaos -- Linnaeus Disposes

"Carolus Linnaeus (also Carl von Linne, 1707-1778) was a Swedish botanist, physician, and zoologist whose work laid the foundations of modern biological systematics and nomenclature....Drawing on the work of his predecessors and contemporaries, Linnaeus developed a coherent system for describing, classifying and naming organisms. Linnaeus' students traveled the globe to explore and collect information and specimens. Aspects of the Linnaean system have enabled amateurs and professionals worldwide to identify, name and describe plants for more than two centuries." -- from the website. <http://huntbot.andrew.cmu.edu/>

History: Doctrine and Heresies in the Early Church

I know not everyone will approach this site with the same degree of enthusiasm that I do, but this is great stuff: essays on the Councils of Nicea, Chalcedon, Constantinopal and Ephesus, Arianism, "Defending the Cannibals: How Christians responded to their critics' often strange accusations," "Devotion and Dissent: The Practice of Christianity in Roman Africa" during the second through seventh centuries, a 38-volume collection of writings from the first 800 years of the Church, "How the earliest church decided Marcion and the Gnostics, among others, were wrong," "Fine-Tuning the Incarnation," "Four Notorious Heretics," "Monophysites," Nestorius and the Chaldeaeans, Pelagius and Pelagianism, St. Pachomius Library: "uncopyrighted English translations of the Church Fathers, the acts of the Christian marty," Hilaire Belloc's "The Great Heresies," and "What Did the Montanists Read?" by Nicola Denzey, for starters. <http://www.silk.net/RelEd/earlydoctrine.htm>

Fashion: Biba

"Biba remains the most evocative name in post-War British fashion....Born as a small boutique in 1964 just as London started to swing, its upward mobility followed a path diametrically opposed to that of the society around it. As the amphetamine rush of optimism wore off, and the country found itself heading inexorably towards the come-down of the three-day week, Biba -- now filling all seven storeys of the old Derry & Toms store with own-brand produce -- provided the escapism that Britain craved....Drawing on Art Deco, Nouveau, Victoriana and the golden age of Hollywood, it was more than just fashion: it was a whole world, a lifestyle choice. At the height of the store's glory, the committed shopper could buy not only a new wardrobe, fully co-ordinated from head to toe, but also a complete range of cosmetics and soft furnishings, together with the washing powder to care for her clothes, and food for both herself and her pets, all presented in the distinctive Biba packaging. Alternatively she could just hang out, either lounging in the shop-windows (Biba didn't do window-displays), or sipping cocktails upstairs amongst the flamingos that lived in the Roof Garden, or in the Rainbow Room, where on a good night there might be a live performance by the likes of the New York Dolls, Liberace or the Manhattan Transfer....It was not so much a department store as a theme park devoted to elegantly wasted decadence." -- from the website. <http://www.thebibaexperience.com/intro.html>

Public Policy: Racial Profiling

Racial profiling "occurs when race is used by law enforcement or private security officials, to any degree, as a basis for criminal suspicion in non-suspect specific investigations." The 2004 from Amnesty International USA report on racial profiling not surprisingly "found that the unlawful use of race in police, immigration, and airport security procedures has increased since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001." <http://www.amnestyusa.org/racial_profiling>

Public Policy: Radiation Effects Research Foundation

"The Radiation Effects Research Foundation is the scientific research institution focused on the study of health effects of radiation in the survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Careful analysis of the accurately recorded cancer incidence and mortality data for the large study population is contributing fundamental risk information for radiation protection standards worldwide. Routine clinical examinations provide further health observations and contribute to the well-being of the participants. RERF is a binational organization supported by the governments of Japan and the United States, but it welcomes scientists from all countries to participate in its epidemiological and radiobiological studies. RERF's research is conducted for peaceful purposes to understand the health effects of radiation for the benefit of all people." -- from the website. <http://www.rerf.or.jp/>

Public Policy: Support for Straight Spouses

"The Straight Spouse Network...is an international support network of heterosexual spouses and partners, current or former, of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender mates. Members provide confidential personal support and resource information to spouses, or partners, and mixed-orientation couples nationwide and abroad....the network offers information about spouse and family issues, mixed orientation marriages and spouse resources to professionals, community organizations and the media. -- from the website. <http://www.ssnetwk.org/>