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>