Pencil Sharpening: Zen Blocks

Cool little game (doesn't work with Mozilla, though):
<http://brothercake.com/>

Pencil Sharpening: ePaperDolls

Admit it, you can think of no cooler way to waste time on the internet than to dress your favorite celebs from their underwear up and administer sartorial makeovers to the already perfect. Plus, you can join a community of folks just as potty as you are. <http://www.paperdollheaven.com/>

The Arts: International Snow Sculpture Championships

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

Media: Vintage Radio

"We offer hundreds of vintage radio shows for you to listen to online in mp3 format, all for free. Before the days of video games, shopping malls, MTV, and the Internet, families used to sit in their living room each night to listen to radio shows such as Abbott and Costello, Superman, Groucho Marx, The Avenger, Gunsmoke, Sherlock Homes, and many others. When TV become popular in the 1950's, most of these shows went off the air, but they now live on at websites such as this one and on weekly nostalgia radio broadcasts worldwide....We do not own the copyrights to any of the shows available on this site. We believe that any copyrights have expired, and that many of the shows are in the public domain because they were never copyrighted." -- from the website. <http://www.radiolovers.com/>

Good Eatin': Wikipes, a wikipedia for recipes

"Launched on January 1st, 2005, we hope this site will become an invaluable resource for food and drink lovers everywhere. Since the site is new and looking to grow, please tell your family and friends about Wikipes. We rely on people like you to contribute and share recipes with people all around the world....Wikipes is a community-contributed recipe database. In other words, we allow anyone to contribute recipes. Our feeling is that this will create a more diverse collection of unique and delicious recipes and in the long run you'll be able to choose from a vast archive of drinks, appetizers, main dishes, desserts; the possibilities are endless!" -- from the website. <http://wikipes.com/>

Cartography: Projections

"Cartography is the science of map-making. It comprises many problems and techniques....One important concern of cartography is solving how to project, i.e. transform or map points from an almost spherical lump of rock (our Earth) onto...flat sheets of paper....Here are informally described important cartographic concepts, how maps are drawn and why there are so many different kinds of projections for world maps." -- from the website. <http://www.progonos.com/furuti/MapProj/
Normal/TOC/cartTOC.html>

Pencil Sharpening: Googletage

Montage-A-Google: "Recycle & create your own images from the web using Google's image search." -- from the website. <http://grant.robinson.name/projects/montage-a-google/>

American Civilization: Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage

The Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage is dedicated to "promoting the understanding and continuity of diverse, contemporary grassroots cultures in the United States and around the world". Activities include producing the annual Smithsonian Folklife Festival, coordinating the distribution of Moe Asch's essential Folkways Recordings, and conducting ethnographic and cultural heritage policy-oriented research. Various online exhibitions cover such subjects as mid-Atlantic maritime culture and the notion of what "borders" are. <http://www.folklife.si.edu/index.html>

The Arts: The Ballerina Gallery

The gallery, created by Jorgen Wilhelmsson, pays homage to great ballerinas of the past and present with photographs and brief biographical sketches of dozens of dancers from Diana Adams to Svetlana Zakharova. Based on The Encyclopedia of Dance & Ballet, The Oxford Dictionary of Dance, and The Russian Ballet Encyclopedia, the illustrated profiles contain links to official and fan-sponsored websites for each dancer. <http://www.ballerinagallery.com/>

Research: EEVL Does Good

The terrific EEVL, the Internet Guide to Engineering, Mathematics, and Computing, has added new topic-focused databases and a metasearch tool the better to dig through them with. <http://www.eevl.ac.uk/>

History: Wisconsin Oddities

Wisconsin is an especially absorbing place. By drawing on its vast holdings of compelling and curious primary documents, the Wisconsin Historical Society offers offbeat historical insight into such categories as odd lives, strange deaths, bizarre events, and animals. <http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/odd/>

Pencil Sharpening: inter-Face

Another
ridiculous
but addictive
waste of time:

<http://www.alterfin.com/domique/>

The Lit'ry Life: No Media Kings

No Media Kings is a blog started by novelst Jim Munroe to showcase and propagate indie press alternatives to the media giants. <http://www.nomediakings.com/>

The Arts: The Unicorn Tapestries at the Cloisters

Here's a chance to get up close and personal with some medieval masterpieces. "A Closer Look" lets you magnify any section of the tapestries, while "Flowers, Plants, and Trees" and "The Birds and the Beasts" provide both close-ups and extensive background information about the provenance of these extraordinary pieces. <http://www.metmuseum.org/>

Why we love the Internet #3,443,213: Latte Art

"A collection of latte art images from Victrola and elsewhere. Many from my cow-orkers, a few from me... -- Tonx" -- from the website.

<http://www.flickr.com/photos/tonx/sets/48921/)

The Arts: Pigment through the ages

"Paintings are made from mud and a stick with hairs....Pigments are the basis of all paints, and have been used for millennia. They are ground colored material. Early pigments were simply as ground earth or clay, and were made into paint with spit or fat. Modern pigments are often sophisticated masterpieces of chemical engineering....his exhibit includes most important pigments used through the early 20th century." -- from the website. <http://webexhibits.org/pigments/>

Healing Arts: Online Archive of American Folk Medicine

"For more than fifty years, folklorists associated with the University of California, Los Angeles have systematically documented beliefs and practices relating to folk medicine and alternative healthcare. In order to make the data more readily available to the worldwide community of researchers and medical practitioners, the Online Archive of American Folk Medicine was established in 1996 under the direction of Dr. Michael Owen Jones, a professor of folklore and history at UCLA." -- from the website. <http://www.folkmed.ucla.edu/>

Language: Eggcorns

"This site collects unusual spellings of a particular kind, which have come to be called eggcorns. Typical examples include free reign (instead of free rein) or hone in on instead of home in on), and many more or less common reshapings of words and expressions: a word or part of a word is semantically reanalyzed, and the spelling reflects the new interpretation....The word eggcorn was coined collectively by the linguists who write at the excellent group blog Language Log. [Linguists] are not picky: the actual, real-life use is what counts..." -- from the website. <http://eggcorns.lascribe.net>

The Life of the Mind:The Encyclopedia of Diderot & d'Alembert

A crowning achievement of the Enlightenment, the Encyclopedia edited by Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d'Alembert has been an inspiration to intellectual pack rats for more than two centuries. Published between 1751 and 1777, the project included 32 volumes amply illustrated with engraved plates. The online version is in English with hyperlinks to the original French editions. The project is based at the University of Michigan Library, although contributors to the project are scattered across the virtual globe. Don't miss the "Map of the System of Human Knowledge," the Syntopicon of its day. <http://www.hti.umich.edu/d/did/>

American Civilization:The Dr. Demento Show Archive

95.3%
of past shows
are on line
and free
to download:
<http://www.thedoctordementoshow.com/>

Movies: Star Wars Episode 3 Trailer

For those who love it, a taste toot;
for those who hate it,
more than you'll ever need:

<http://24.104.40.88/star-wars-ep3.mov>.

Why We Love the Internet #3,443,212: Blinkorama

The
Blinking
Celebrities
Site:

<http://blinkorama.blogspot.com/>

American Civilization: Classic Car Commercials

Come see Cal, come see Cal, come see Cal (and his dog, Spot) on this terrific website chronicling the heyday of automobile advertising on television. RealPlayer and a decent amount of bandwidth will enhance your navigational gratification, but even the text describing these vintage ads is a hoot. <http://www.tvparty.com/vaultcomm.html>

Tools: Browser Phone

"Our plan is to create the easiest to use, free, browser to browser internet phone. How is the switchboard different from other internet phones?

• it does not run silently in the background using up resources
• it does not allow third party access to your computer
• it does not require any installation

"Many other internet phones use your computer as a node in a vast computer network. This may seem like a good idea, except for the fact that they are using your bandwidth and CPU resources to route other people's calls through your computer. This means that even when you are not using these other internet phone applications they are still using you! Slowing down your computer, and your downloads.

"The switchboard only uses your internet connection and CPU when you are placing a call. Plus, when you leave the site the switchboard does not run covertly in the background. We are dedicated to preserving your computing privacy, thus our revenue streams will consist of advertising on the site, and licensing to other web sites, not utilizing your computer as a resource for other customers. Therefore, the switchboard will always be free for the individual user." -- from the website. <http://www.theswitchboard.ca/>

History: Simon Wiesenthal CenterMultimedia Learning Center Online

The Simon Wiesenthal Center has published a comprehensive and authoritative multimedia archive offering access to some of the past virtual exhibits sponsored by the Center's Museum of Tolerance, plus teacher's resources, an interactive glossary, a timeline, and answers to frequently-asked-questions. <http://motlc.wiesenthal.com/>

History: 100 milestone American documents

"To help us think, talk and teach about the rights and responsibilities of citizens in our democracy, we invite you to explore 100 milestone documents of American history. These documents reflect our diversity and our unity, our past and our future, and mostly our commitment as a nation to continue to strive to 'form a more perfect union.'" -- from the website. <http://www.ourdocuments.gov/>

Resource: WhoYouShouldKnow.com -a new world leader every weekday

"Your FREE subscription includes weekday e-mails that highlight a significant international leader and their country. Each weekday WhoYouShouldKnow.com sends you a free teaser e-mail. The teaser is a brief statement and a few facts about that day’s profiled leader, and if you’re interested you can click through to the complete profile." -- from the website. <http://www.whoyoushouldknow.com/>

Photo Archive: Airliners

"We are the absolute authority on aviation photos, hosting the biggest aviation photo database in the world with over 700,000 shots online. Our quality standards are extremely high and the photographers that contribute to our database are some of the best in the world. Hundreds of photos are added daily....Airliners.net is the primarily source of aviation photos for the major global news agencies....Photos from Airliners.net have appeared in thousands of publications all over the world." -- from the website. <http://www.airliners.net/>

Topology: Earth from space in 3-D

"World Wind lets you zoom from satellite altitude into any place on Earth. Leveraging Landsat satellite imagery and Shuttle Radar Topography Mission data, World Wind lets you experience Earth terrain in visually rich 3D, just as if you were really there. Virtually visit any place in the world. Look across the Andes, into the Grand Canyon, over the Alps, or along the African Sahara...." -- from the website. <http://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/>

Images: NYPL Digital Library

The New York Public Library will make 500,000 images available on line over the next few months. The project includes everything from illuminated manuscripts to historical maps to vintage photographs. <http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/index.cfm>

History: England in the Middle Ages timeline

"Follow the history of Medieval Britain from the time of Alfred the Great, through the Norman Conquest and up to the start of the Tudor Age. Detailed Timelines contain events for years between 800 and 1499AD. Maps show the locations of castles, abbeys and cathedrals in England, Scotland and Wales. Every person and building on this site has its own timeline and links to related subjects." - from the website. <http://www.btinternet.com/~timeref/index.htm>

The Arts: Jacques-Louis David (Getty Exhibition)

"Image-maker to Napoleon. Political exile. Jacques-Louis David was the most famous — and controversial — artist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Jacques-Louis David: Empire to Exile takes a fresh look at the artist's career from the mid-1790s until his death in 1825, a time when he created some of his most complex images. This exhibition is the first chance to see many of these works outside Europe." -- from the website. <http://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/david/>

Music: MiniLyrics song lyrics viewer

"The 1 million user, most powerful, most flexible Song Lyrics Viewer that automatically displays the lyrics of the currently playing songs timed with the music in Winamp, RealOne, iTunes, Windows Media Players, matchbox, Quintessenial Player, Foobar2000." -- from the website. <http://www.philocode.com/minilyrics/index.htm>

Space: The first solar sail

"The Planetary Society has teamed up with an international team of scientists and engineers to build and fly Cosmos 1, the very first solar sail. This is the first space mission of a public interest organization and it is being done without government funding....Solar sails can be used to boost or decrease the orbits of spacecraft, travel between the planets within our solar system, and someday take us to worlds around other stars." -- from the website. <http://www.solarsail.org/>

Good Eatin' (well, drinkin'): Passport to the Puba guide to british pub etiquette

"By all means visit Stonehenge and Buckingham Palace, but if you want to see what real life in Britain is all about, you have to go to the pub. Pub-going is by far the most popular native pastime. The 61,000 pubs in Britain have over 25 million loyal customers. Over three-quarters of the adult population go to pubs, and over a third are ‘regulars’, visiting the pub at least once a week. The pub is a central part of British life and culture. If you haven’t been to a pub, you haven’t seen Britain." -- from the website. <http://www.sirc.org/publik/pub.html>

History: Palaeography

"Palaeography is the study of old handwriting. This web tutorial will help you learn to read the handwriting found in documents written in English between 1500 and 1800. At first glance, many documents written at this time look illegible to the modern reader. By reading the practical tips and working through the documents in the Tutorial in order of difficulty, you will find that it becomes much easier to read old handwriting. You can find more documents on which to practice your skills in the further practice section." -- from the website. <http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/palaeography/>

The Arts: Poetry magazine

In its 93-year history, Poetry, the oldest monthly devoted to verse in the English-speaking world, has published the works of many of our greatest versifiers, including Ezra Pound, Amy Lowell, Carl Sandburg and T.S. Eliot. The site has selections from recent issues, background on the eight annual prizes it awards to work by its contributors, pieces by a featured poet and audio files of poets reading from their works, and reviews. <http://poetrymagazine.org/>