100 sci-fi books to read

Yet another list, this time the 100 sci-fi books you have to read. The original is here. I've read a few of these, mostly the older ones. Makes me want to go back and try some of them, like Triton, Zanzibar, and, especially Canticle.

Index of the 100 science fiction books you just have to read

1.	Childhood's End Written by Arthur C. Clarke
2.	Foundation Written by Isaac Asimov
3.	Dune Written by Frank Herbert
4.	Man in the High Castle Written by Philip K. Dick
5.	Starship Troopers Written by Robert A. Heinlein
6.	Valis Written by Philip K. Dick
7.	Frankenstein Written by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
8.	Gateway Written by Frederick Pohl
9.	Space Merchants Written by C.M. Kornbluth & Frederick Pohl
10.	Earth Abides Written by George R. Stewart
11.	Cuckoo's Egg Written by C.J. Cherryh
12.	Star Surgeon Written by James White
13.	The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch Written by Philip K. Dick
14.	Radix Written by A.A. Attanasio
15.	2001: A Space Odyssey Written by Arthur C. Clarke
16.	Ringworld Written by Larry Niven
17.	A Case of Conscience Written by James Blish
18.	Last and First Man Written by Olaf Stapledon
19.	The Day of the Triffids Written by John Wyndham
20.	Way Station Written by Clifford Simak
21.	More Than Human Written by Theodore Sturgeon
22.	Gray Lensman Written by E. E. "Doc" Smith
23.	The Gods Themselves Written by Isaac Asimov
24.	The Left Hand of Darkness Written by Ursula K. Le Guin
25.	Behold the Man Written by Michael Moorcock
26.	Star Maker Written by Olaf Stapledon
27.	The War of the Worlds Written by H.G. Wells
28.	20,000 Leagues Under the Sea Written by Jules Verne
29.	Heritage of Hastur Written by Marion Zimmer Bradley
30.	The Time Machine Written by H.G. Wells
31.	The Stars My Destination Written by Alfred Bester
32.	Slan Written by A.E. Van Vogt
33.	Neuromancer Written by William Gibson
34.	Ender's Game Written by Orson Scott Card
35.	In Conquest Born Written by C.S. Friedman
36.	Lord of Light Written by Roger Zelazny
37.	Eon Written by Greg Bear
38.	Dragonflight Written by Anne McCaffrey
39.	Journey to the Center of the Earth Written by Jules Verne
40.	Stranger in a Strange Land Written by Robert Heinlein
41.	Cosm Written by Gregory Benford
42.	The Voyage of the Space Beagle Written by A.E. Van Vogt
43.	Blood Music Written by Greg Bear
44.	Beggars in Spain Written by Nancy Kress
45.	Omnivore Written by Piers Anthony
46.	I, Robot Written by Isaac Asimov
47.	Mission of Gravity Written by Hal Clement
48.	To Your Scattered Bodies Go Written by Philip Jose Farmer
49.	Brave New World Written by Aldous Huxley
50.	The Man Who Folded Himself Written by David Gerrold
51.	1984 Written by George Orwell
52.	The Strange Case of Dr. Jeckyl And Mr. Hyde Written by Robert Louis Stevenson
53.	Snow Crash Written by Neal Stephenson
54.	Flesh Written by Philip Jose Farmer
55.	Cities in Flight Written by James Blish
56.	Shadow of the Torturer Written by Gene Wolfe
57.	Startide Rising Written by David Brin
58.	Triton Written by Samuel R. Delany
59.	Stand on Zanzibar Written by John Brunner
60.	A Clockwork Orange Written by Anthony Burgess
61.	Fahrenheit 451 Written by Ray Bradbury
62.	A Canticle For Leibowitz Written by Walter Miller
63.	Flowers for Algernon Written by Daniel Keyes
64.	No Blade of Grass Written by John Christopher
65.	The Postman Written by David Brin
66.	Dhalgren Written by Samuel Delany
67.	Berserker Written by Fred Saberhagen
68.	Flatland Written by Edwin Abbot
69.	Planiverse Written by A.K. Dewdney
70.	Dragon's Egg Written by Robert L. Forward
71.	Downbelow Station Written by C.J. Cherryh
72.	Dawn Written by Octavia E. Butler
73.	Puppet Masters Written by Robert Heinlein
74.	The Doomsday Book Written by Connie Willis
75.	Forever War Written by Joe Haldeman
76.	Deathbird Stories Written by Harlan Ellison
77.	Roadside Picnic Written by Boris Strugatsky & Arkady Strugatsky
78.	The Snow Queen Written by Joan Vinge
79.	The Martian Chronicles Written by Ray Bradbury
80.	Drowned World Written by J.G. Ballard
81.	Cat's Cradle Written by Kurt Vonnegut
82.	Red Mars Written by Kim Stanley Robinson
83.	Upanishads Written by Various
84.	Alice in Wonderland Written by Lewis Carroll
85.	Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Written by Douglas Adams
86.	The Lathe of Heaven Written by Ursula K. Le Guin
87.	The Midwich Cuckoos Written by John Wyndham
88.	Mutant Written by Henry Kuttner
89.	Solaris Written by Stanislaw Lem
90.	Ralph 124C41+ Written by Hugo Gernsback
91.	I Am Legend Written by Richard Matheson
92.	Timescape Written by Gregory Benford
93.	The Demolished Man Written by Alfred Bester
94.	War with the Newts Written by Karl Kapek
95.	Mars Written by Ben Bova
96.	Brain Wave Written by Poul Anderson
97.	Hyperion Written by Dan Simmons
98.	The Andromeda Strain Written by Michael Crichton
99.	Camp Concentration Written by Thomas Disch
100.	A Princess of Mars Written by Edgar Rice Burroughs

Technorati Tags: sci-fi+books

July Web Roundup

A web links roundup is long overdue, so let's get right at it:

• Foxit Reader : Are you as tired as I am with the bloated Acrobat Reader from Adobe? Well, fear no more, as a the free Foxit Reader comes to your rescue.  A lightweight, easy to use program that does just what it is supposed to do - accurately display the ubiquitous PDF files.
• WeatherMole : A great mashup which combines a Google Map with NOAA forecasts.
• Snap : As they say, "The other way to Search.". Using lots of fancy Web 2.0 technology, you get prompts, samples and snapshots of what you are searching for.
• Computer Languages History : A genealogy chart of computer languages
• Horsename-O-Matic : Exactly what the name promises - an easy way to generate horse names like "Hustling Overblood" and "Minimalistic Moonlight Kentucky". Other suggested uses include Boybands, Cruiseships and Snowboarding Tricks.
• The Lotus Esprit Fact File : If you're looking to buy me the car of my dreams, here's a hint - make it a Lotus Esprit Turbo. I'll accept any color.  I've been in love with this wedge-shaped car ever since I first saw it, and it starred in many James Bond movies (Roger Moore era).  When they blew up the beautiful white one in Spy Who Loved Me, it broke my heart.
• Paper Crafts | YAMAHA MOTOR : Way neat paper models that you can print out and fold at home.  Not for the faint of heart, though.
• Thanks. No. : A simple page with a simple purpose - reply with this link when you get the "boy needs a postcard" hoax for the umpteenth time.  I get these forwarded messages all the time.  One hint - if it has more than one level of forwarding, I almost certainly don't want it.
• Motivator: Inspire! Motivate! Mock! : Using your own picture and text, you too can create one of the motivational posters. Or you could mock instead. Up to you!
• TheOpenCD : A simgle, burnable ISO file to let you enjoy a full range of Open Source software on on CD.
• Sphere : Although I sincerely doubt the hyperbole on the first page ("Add this to your browser and change your life!"), this is another one of the community surfing things, where you can share interesting blog tidbits.  I have a bunch of these on my toolbar, but I never use them. This also includes Stumble and Furl. Maybe some day I'll figure out how to best utilize these.
• In search of the One True Layout: This one is for you CSS geeks out there, where she talks about how to best use CSS to get a flexible, portable layout.  Nice tutorial on CSS too.
• Guess Which Movie : Shows you a still from a movie and, yup, you have to guess which movie it is from.  A whole series of games.
• Why Bush Won the Election : A whole series of side by side images which show Bush vs. Kerry.  Pretty funny stuff, like these:
  
  
  
• Relate-a-zon: The Related Products on Amazon Game : Another mashup but this time as a game - try to work your way through the "Related Products" on Amazon.com from the starting item to the destination item. Pretty fun!
• REAL TIME SATELLITE TRACKING : One of the coolest mashups I've found, this shows, in real time, the location of satellites drawn over a Google Map.  Pick your satellite and see where it is.  This includes the International Space Station too.
• wikiHow - The How-To Manual That Anyone Can Write or Edit : A bunch of user contributions on how to do a whole range of interesting things, from useful ("Save Money on Auto Insurance") to the arcane ("How To Squeeze An Egg Without Breaking It").

Well, I guess that will have to do for now.  I have a bunch more that I will try to throw out there in the next couple of weeks.

Web Puzzle

For you puzzle fiends out there, here's a web puzzle for you. I needed a hint to get started even, and I didn't get too far.

Web Puzzle

Technorati Tags: puzzle

Expensive books

Some cool lists about AbeBooks, the used book aggregator and seller.  The first one is the most expensive books ever sold on AbeBooks.com, with a US$65,000 top prize, for a first edition of JRR Tolkien's The Hobbit. Ten years of sellings gives them these lists:

Abebooks: Powers of 10

More Radiohead

Cool - here's some pictures, the complete set list and a complete recording of the Monday night Radiohead show I was at. And yes, it was definitely "There There" that was the multi-drum song.

bradley's almanac

Technorati Tags: radiohead mp3

Worst Technologies

Pretty cool article on the 25 worst tech products of all time. Number one on the list? AOL. Very appropriate, because I've been exchanging some email about AOL problems on one of our mailing lists. I love this quote from Bill:

“We designed AOL so any idiot could get online… and a lot of them did”

PCWorld.com - The 25 Worst Tech Products of All Time

Technorati Tags: pcworld

What Kind of English

One of those silly web quizzes. I'm not sure which one of the questions that I answered had me speaking "Dixie". The rest makes sense, being pretty much a born and raised New Englander.

Your Linguistic Profile:

45% General American English

45% Yankee

5% Dixie

0% Midwestern

0% Upper Midwestern

Free Booze Schwag

Here's a couple of cool giveaways I've come across over the past week or so, for cocktail related stuff:

First up is a couple of free videos from Ketel One. Just go here and fill out the form. There are two different videos, both of which are available on DVD and one can also be had on VHS. Not sure exactly what they are, but hey, how can you go wrong when they say "free"?

Secondly is a book called "Wines From Spain". It's put out by a marketing firm, but Days That End In Y gives it a good review nonetheless. But again, it is really free, as in Free Beer - no "shipping" charges, no "handling" charges, nothing. So what do you have to lose? Just go here and ask for it!

So get out there and get those forms filled out!

Technorati Tags: spanish+wine ketel+one

Woot Wine

I've been a pretty big fan of Woot : One Day, One Deal for a while now. It isn't perfect. I'm not a big believer in "refurbished" hardware, which is common on Woot. And the prices do need to be checked, although the thriving forum often has plenty of folks doing the checking for you. Just be sure to check out the forum before you purchase. But it's fun to see what is for sale every day. In fact, I'm awaiting my next Woot delivery any day now - a new mouse.

Still, I was please to read about Woot's new venture, Wine.Woot. Here, they put up a few bottles of wine for your wooting pleasure. Of course, given the crazy patchwork quilt of liquor laws in this country, there are all sorts of catches and gotchas and places they can't mail to. But I was glad to see that Massachusetts is one of them, albeit with the caveat "(expect longer delivery times)". Not sure why.

Woot Wine : One Week, One Wine

What's in a name?

Gelf Magazine has an interesting short article doing what it does best - tweak the Main Stream Media for being lackadasical. In this case, it is the reporting done on the annual Social Security Administration list of the most popular baby names from last year. The media says dumb things like :

"When kids born in 2005 head to kindergarten in a few years, a lot of them will be raising their hands when the teacher calls out 'Emily' or 'Jacob'"

Which is, as you might imagine, a vast overstatement, seeing as how it is only about 1% of the boys were named Jacob and a similar percentage of girls were named Emily. And, in fact, the percentage of babies named using the top 100 names has fallen rather dramatically over the last 60 years:

2005:
Percentage of Boys given a Top 100 Name: 48.0%
Percentage of Girls given a Top 100 Name: 34.2%

1985:
Percentage of Boys given a Top 100 Name: 67.1%
Percentage of Girls given a Top 100 Name: 51.6%

1965:
Percentage of Boys given a Top 100 Name: 72.7%
Percentage of Girls given a Top 100 Name: 57.9%

1945:
Percentage of Boys given a Top 100 Name: 75.4%
Percentage of Girls given a Top 100 Name: 65.8%

Geflog: Keeping Up With the Jacobs

When it came to naming our babies, we had two very different processes. The first, like the process of labor, was long and arduous. The second, again very much like the birth, was relatively quick and easy.

For our first, we read books, talked about it constantly, surfed the web, checked lists, you name it. With a last name of Arnold, we really needed a consonant at the end for it to flow easily, so that help whittle the list down. We eventually narrowed it down to ten names in each list, boy and girl. We did as recommended, and actually practiced using the names during the day, just to hear how it sounded out loud.

I don't remember all the names in the girls list. I'll bet Gabrielle has it written down somewhere. We wanted a name that was different, yet not too far out there. The most helpful book was the classic "Beyond Jennifer and Jason", with all kinds of great lists and comments. Both of us love our own names but have also had issues with them. For mine, people have tried far too hard to spell it. There are a few variations on "Jonathan", but I'd have to say mine is probably the most common. Other ones include "Jonathon", "Johnathan" and "Johnathon". So we were certain we weren't going to go with a unusual spelling of a common name. For my wife, "Gabrielle" is reasonably easy to spell but you'd be surprised at exactly how hard it is to pronounce for many people. It isn't the case as much any more, because it is becoming more common, but, much like the spelling of my name, people try way too hard to pronounce it.

So we practiced names on the list. Some from the girls list I remember include Spencer and Bailey (which had the extra attraction of it being my mother's maiden name). We also refused to discuss it with anyone else. You only get into trouble when you ask the opinion of others. When word leaked out about us considering Bailey, my sister got all up in arms because she was thinking of using it (and she eventually did with one of her twins). You get all kinds of unneeded comments if you try bouncing it off other people. We kept it pretty close to the chest and didn't regret it in the slightest, despite pressure from all side.

But we just couldn't get to one name. It wasn't like I had a favorite and Gabrielle had a different favorite. We just couldn't decide on one. It's a very early indication of the pressure you get as a parent, making lifetime choices for your child, and so it was a good introduction for us. We actually didn't decide until the middle of the night, during the long, hard labor, when Gabrielle said to me "It's going to be Rhiannon". Which is a cool name, don't you think? And it fits in a lot of ways. While she isn't named "after" the Fleetwood Mac song, we probably wouldn't have heard of it otherwise, and the song has the added benefit of making it familiar to others. I always thought it was a cool name. And her oldest brother was something of a Celtic scholar, who died the previous year in a fishing boat accident off the coast of Ireland, so it seemed a fitting tribute. And the folklore Rhiannon is something of a moon goddess (as well as a fairy tale witch), and her horoscope (which is, of course, a crock) sign is the Moon; they often call it "Moon Child" now, instead of Cancer the Crab, for obvious reasons. So it is a lovely name and fit in a number of interesting ways. And the day we brought her home from the hospital, there was a Rhiannon pictured on the front page of the local newspaper! She was a high school student, pictured working on something. Too funny!

Rhiannon's middle name was much easier. Both of us wanted to avoid those middle names that you are embarrassed to talk about in school, that become something of a talisman to guard against exposing. And "Elizabeth" was perfect - her mom's name, my sister's name, and a good solid name all around.

But for our second child, the process was much smoother. I'm not sure where it came from or who first proposed it, but "Adrienne" was an immediate hit, and we never varied from it. We each had one other top contender. I liked the name "Cam", for a boy or a girl (or "Cammi"). Cam Neely was, and probably still is, my favorite hockey player and it is a great name. Gabrielle wanted "Lucy", but I wasn't crazy about it. Funny thing is, I don't think any of those names, but especially Adrienne, was on the top ten list for Rhiannon! But "Adrienne" was the top pick all along, and when she showed up 20 minutes after we got to the hospital, we were ready with a name at least. Gabrielle still says, though, that Adrienne would make a good Lucy too. And it does give you a pretty clear picture of her personality.

And her middle name also was pretty easy. Christine is my mom's name, and relatives on both sides have the same or variations on it. And, oddly enough, Rhiannon Elizabeth and Adrienne Christine have the same number of letters - 17. I hate the idea of some kind of cutesy pattern for names, like Roger Clemens' kids' names all beginning with the letter K, but it just worked out that way.

And another thing we liked about the first names - there are no obvious nicknames. Gabrielle and I both have obvious ones, but both prefer to go by the long version of our names, although we're not sticklers. But with Adrienne and Rhiannon, the default is the full version, and so far it has worked. Rhiannon used to call Adrienne "Ay-Ya", and it is still in occasional use. But luckily, Adrienne's early name for her sister, Rhi-Rhi, hasn't come up since then.

Technorati Tags: names rhiannon adrienne

Spy Humor

I found a site (shoutout to JoHo for the link) where our own National Security Agency will answer your questions.  Have any for them?

Dear NSA

Cocktail blogs ahoy!

I went on a Web oddyssey and all I got in return were these links:-) I was looking for some interesting Blog Carnivals to join and before you knew it, I was wandering around in some simply fascinating cocktail blogs, with dozens of great sounding recipes - phew, I'm simply dizzy with the possibilities.  Anyway, here's a sampler of the ones I came across:

• The Art of Drink
• The Cocktail Chronicles
• Cocktail Jen
• Days That End In "Y"
• Kaiser Penguin
• The Bottom Shelf

And a couple of the "Carnivals" I uncovered:

• The Bottom Shelf » Carnival of Drinking #2
• Mixology Monday II: Round Up :: The Art of Drink

And even a new magazine to subscribe to, Imbibe. Phew!

Technorati Tags: cocktails imbibe

Free Calls from Skype

Skype has just announced that you can now make outgoing calls for free using their new software.  Yup, it doesn't look like there are any strings attached at all.  Seems to work fine, with the caveat that the incoming caller ID is strange - 000-012-3456. Very odd!  And it's a little weird to figure out how to add a new number.  When you click "Add Contact", you need to click the "link" to add a "SkypeOut contact".  Then it works fine.

The one catch is that they say it will only be free until Dec 31, 2006.  But hey, why not?

Free calls to all landlines and mobile phones within the US and Canada - Skype Blogs

Free online course from B&N

This is pretty cool - free online course from Barnes & Noble. I haven't check them out much, and they probably have a "required reading" section (wonder why?), but hey, you can do with it as you want.  The first three in the featured course list look interesting:

Featured Courses:
		Discover Dungeons & Dragons
		From Planets to Pulsars: Astronomy Basics
		Writing Science Fiction with Gotham Writers' Workshop

I'll probably check one out.

Barnes & Noble.com - Barnes & Noble University

Thanks to This Mama Cooks for the link

Your Momma was a lobefinned fish

Very funny song about evolving from fish:

Every single girl and every little boy
Was born from the clan of the wayward dipnoi

Don't let the preacher man spoil all the fun
Took a lot more than 6 days to get the job done

Amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals and man
All belong to the fish tribe, doncha' undertsand?

Your momma was a lobefinned fish
My momma was lobefinned fish

Devonian Blues

Special Google searches

Came across this page showing all the various special kinds of actions you can do in the Google search box you can do with Google.  This includes stuff like currency conversion, math equations, file types and music searches.  I knew you could do most of these, but I was looking for a spot where it was all spelled out.  Well, here it is!

Google Help : Search Features

Firefox Quick Searches

There's a cool liltle feature in Firefox that I've been using a lot lately. And that is using "Quicksearchs". These are keywords you type into the address field (where the web site URL normally ends up), add a search term, and it immediately does the search, without having to first go to the search page. So, for instance, you can create a keyword called "map" that does a Google Maps search. Now I can type in:

map 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Washington, DC

And up pops the map of the White House. Very cool and easy to use.

To create your own, just right click on any search edit box and select the "Add a Keyword for this Search..." option. Type in a name ("Google Maps") and a keyword ("map") and save it in your bookmarks (maybe create a folder called Quicksearch). Now you're good to go! LifeHacker.com has a bunch of prepackaged ones for you to add to your bookmarks. Start quicksearching today!

Geek to Live: Fifteen Firefox Quick Searches - Lifehacker

Technorati Tags: firefox lifehacker.com quicksearch

Wears the Trousers

Wears The Trousers is an excellent online PDF music interview and review "magazine". Lots of great interviews with female singers and groups, as well as dozens of CD reviews. This is exactly the sort of thing that could cost me a lot of money, as just a quick glance through the reviews adds about ten CDs to my "buy" list. Be sure to check out the excellent reviews in the new issue three of two CDs featured prominently here - Spider's The Way To Bitter Lake and the Dresden Dolls' Yes, Virginia.

Wears The Trousers magazine :: a women in music compendium

Technorati Tags: wears+the+trousers

Scalzi's letter to teenage writers

John Scalzi's Whatever blog is a regular stop on my blog reading. He writes some cool things, and this is a long letter to teenage writers, brought on by the whole Kaavya Viswanathan plagarism thing, is something more writers should read.  I have my own novel(s) to write, if only I had the time, energy and perseverance to write them!

Whatever: 10 Things Teenage Writers Should Know About Writing

MySpace.com is odd

In my admittedly very limited exposure, I've found MySpace.com to be very creepy for some reason.  I have a page there, but only because you need to be a "member" if you want to read someone else's blog there.  And as I'm into everything Spider, I had to read her blog there, as sporadic as it is, so I created a site. My quote, "Batman of the Internet", is what Spider called me after I pointed out a second web problem of hers.  I thought it pretty funny.

So MySpace.com is just a strange spot in cyberspace.  First off, "Tom" became my "Friend" to help me on MySpace.com, without me even asking.  I guess he's an official greeter or something.  Then I got a few more "Friend" requests - just what I need is another way to be spammed. The ads themselves are all creepy Personal ads. And just looking through some of the pages is weird.  I'm just not much of a joiner, and this feels like a spot for lonely geeks to band together against the world or something.  Obviously, I'm not a target demographic, but still, it's a little too cultish feeling for me.

Anyway, it turns out I'm not alone in this anti-MySpace.com feeling.  There's a whole anti-cult going on too.  And this page does a good job of summing up the oddities to MySpace.com :

A Scientific Approach to Myspace’s Failure

May Links of the Month

Time for another web roundup.  This is a list of interesting links I've gathered up since the last posting:

• eSnips.com - Let your content take you places : Another uploading place, only it purports to be a more general thing. You have 1gb of room to put up stuff that can be publicly downloaded.
• The Movie Timeline : A way cool project - the history of everything, as told in the movies, both fact and fiction.  C'mon, help out!
• Listible! Quick way to get resources : I'm a sucker for lists, and this is a site dedicated to user created lists.  Things like Best Linux Distributions and Best free GTD software. But not only is it lists, but you get to vote on the things in the list to move them up and down the rankings.  Pretty neat.
• Remember The Milk : A simple, web-based ToDo list.  Added in my quest for the perfect time management software.  Although I leave a browser open at all times, I don't think a browser-based piece of software is really going to work.  But I need to look at it more.
• co.mments - Track your conversations : I visit a lot of blogs.  I comment in various places.  Some places have RSS feeds for the comments, but even better, I'd like to track the blog posts where I've made comments.  This site will let you do that.  I've added a link to it to automagically track the comments to posts on my blogs. 
  
• ROTTEN TOMATOES: Movies and Games, Reviews and Previews : A good place to get movie and video game review collections.  They give you snippets of all kinds of reviews and give a movie an overall rating, for whatever that is worth.  It's nice to get a quick glance at what the "pros" think of a movie.
• Brammo Motorsports - Ariel Motor Company for USA (Flash site) : An amazing looking little car.  Closer to a motorcycle really.  I don't think you can get these in the US, but I'm not exactly sure.  No roof, just an external rollbar and a serious horsepower-to-weight ratio.
• 101 Greatest Screenplays : as voted on by the Writers Guild of America.  The top ten is interesting.  Casablanca (1942) at number one is, of course, the correct pick.
• Award Winning Honda Car Commercial (Flash required) : A link to the awesome Honda commercial, a brilliant version of a Rube Goldberg device. And speaking of Rube Goldberg, apparently there is a Japanese television show a la American Idol, where people compete building their own devices and filming them. Some of them are pretty amazing.  You can see videos of them here : Rube Goldberg Machines
• Room art - Wall patterns from a single viewpoint : Amazing wall painting jobs, where patterns turn 3d when viewed from the right angle.
• PIRT - CastleCopsWiki : The Phishing Incident Report and Termination Squad home page.  Let's band together to eliminate Phishing.
• Trivia_Challenge_Homepage : The International High IQ Society's 2006 Trivia Challenge.  Take it if you dare.
• Truth in Movie Titles : very funny hacked up movie posters, saying what is the real truth, like "Sharon Stone is Pushing FIfty : Risk Addiction"
• DropSend | Email large files easily and securely : It can be hard to email large files (and often that is a good thing!). But sometimes, you just need to email that funny video, and this site will let you do it.  Files up to 1gb in size can be emailed. But let's be careful out there, shall we? Nothing is more annoying, even to us broadband users, than when a 1gb file drops out of the sky, holding up email delivery for 30 minutes or more.
  
• Windows XP Themes : Themes and purty pictures for WinXP.  Many of them, unfortunately, require the shareware program DesktopX.
• Democracy - Internet TV Platform : a free "browser" for watching videos.
• FireAnt: Better than Television : Very similiar to the above - another free "rich" content viewer.
• Blogdigger Local : Enter in your zip code and you'll get links to local blogs, or at least those that are registered to users nearby.
• gethuman : This is the site Paul English, of the IVR list fame, started to continue his "IVR" ("Interactive Voice Response") effort.  Figure out how to talk to a human being, rather than a machine, when you call a company. Of course, these days it is apt to be in India or somewhere...
• HTML Dog : (Geek warning!) HTML and CSS Tutorials, References, Articles and News
• Pictures of Pennies : More examples of people with far too much time on their hands. This time, they are stacking pennies.

Technorati Tags: web+links

Chinese Menu

Very funny dissecting of a Chinese menu, very loosely "translated" into Engrish.

rahoi.com

Technorati Tags: humor

Blog to riches

Interesting story about trying to make money while blogging. Doesn't matter to me, I'm very happy with my job, but it is pretty interesting nonetheless. I remember reading a case story from Google Ads about a guy running some home improvement site, and claiming to make like US$10,000 a month in just Google Ads. Amazing!

Blogs to Riches - The Haves and Have-Nots of the Blogging Boom -- New York Magazine

Technorati Tags: new+yorker blogging

Web Links of the Month

This is The web link of the month: Zillow.com - Your Edge in Real Estate - data gone crazy. Put in your address and see a quick map view of all the houses in your neighborhood, overlaid with their estimated value.  Click on a house and get all the tax info imaginable - how big, last sales, estimated price history, everything. Scary and amazing.

More links:

• Electronic Frontier Foundation Store : Buy some cool stuff, including a pocket-sized, metal edition of the Bill of Rights.
•  A life online: living decentralised (Mercurytide) : links to cool "Web 2.0" technology
• Bootdisk.Com : All kinds of cool PC boot disks, support programs and nice utilities.  Good if your computer is in serious trouble!
• Scanning Basics 101 - All about digital images :Good page with lots of excellent advice for using your scanner.
• Microsoft Linux - the premier linux distro :Yup, it's a joke. But a pretty funny one!
• The Why Files | The Science Behind the News : Just what it says - an in-depth look at the science in the news.
• World's Smallest Political Quiz : where do you fit in on the political spectrum? Not surprisingly, I'm a flaming liberal:
  
• NewspaperARCHIVE.com
  : A premium site, but it has lots and lots of data, including plenty of newspapers to search, all at a pretty reasonable price. Let me know if you try this and how it works out.
• Gas Prices : enter your zip code and find the cheapest gas in your neighborhood. Not necessarily 100% complete, but it at least gives you some good ideas, especially with the rapidly changing prices these days.
• Traffic Reports and Alerts : generate your own personal traffic reports. Pretty cool stuff. Ain't the web grand?
• Convert files and data online : drag and drop files to convert them. Useful for line-ending conversions between DOS, Unix and the Mac, as well as converting PDFs and Excel files.
• BookFinder.com : Very similar to Abebooks - search booksellers for out of print books.
• FCKeditor - The text editor for Internet : put these web pages on your web site, and, voila, you have your very own online editor.
• Identifont - identify fonts and typefaces : answer a few questions about a font and it will try and guess the name of it. Good if you see a font you want to try and use, but you don't know the name. Or type in a name and see a sample.
  
• When The Long Tail Wags The Dog : you hear alot about the "long tail" these days in regards to Internet commerce.  Here, Dan Bricklin, a god among software entrepreneurs, tells you all about it.
• Who's on First : the full transcript of the classic skit by Abbot & Costello.  Still funny after all these years.
• Microsoft Interview Questions : a list of actual Microsoft interview questions. Many of them are dumb and I just don't see the relevance. Glad I've never had to answer these!
• The T.W.I.N.K.I.E.S. Project : Tests With Inorganic Noxious Kakes In Extreme Situations
• PDP Planet : Microsoft mega-billionaire Paul Allen's tribute to the PDP
• Book-A-Minute Classics : dozens of classic books, boiled down to a one minute synopsis. Very funny stuff.
• : buy more of these for your car at EvolveFish.com
• Gelf Magazine: 'Bad Movie, Good Actors' : Examines the "critical" blurbs found on movie ads.
• NNDB: Tracking the entire world : I'm not sure what this is.  It's a massive, interlinked "Who's Who" of some sort.  You could browse for hourse, I think.
• A couple more editors for you to check out, following up on last month's links:
  • ConTEXT Programmers Editor : freeware editor with lots of syntax coloring options. Recommended by some as a Javascript editor.
  • Boxer : Text Editor for Windows : an old friend of mine wrote and sells this editor. It's got a million different options, has been around forever, and Dave Hamel is a fanatic when it comes to software, so it is good stuff. I'm an GNU Emacs man myself, so I've never felt the need to move on. But if I did, and I worked solely on Windows, I would probably use this one. Also, be sure to see the wicked cool Text Monkey product while you are there. It massages badly formatted text into usable forms, working seamlessly with the Windows clipboard. I've been using the Lite version (very slimmed down feature set) for a couple of days now, and am ready to pony up for the Pro version. It's that good! If you've ever gotten one of those gazillion forwarded jokes and would like to nicely pass it on, this will do the job for you.
• Brilliant Button Maker : easily and quickly make those little "brilliant buttons", found on many web pages, that look like this:
• And a couple of links to help keep Google's prying eyes off of your computer:
• Scroogle : a web page that "scrubs" Google's prying cookies clean
• Anonymizing Google's cookie : remove private data from Google's cookies, making you more anonymous to the ever-present Google eye.

Technorati Tags: web+links

Math Test

I'm embarassed to say I got one of these wrong. How will you do?

You Passed 8th Grade Math

Congratulations, you got 9/10 correct!

Technorati Tags: math+test math

Web Links of the month

• Home Heating Systems - HeatingHelp.com : Contracting web site for heating problems, with a lot of information on solving your steam, hot water and other heating problems, plus how to get in touch with a pro.
• defective yeti: Xyzzy : Very funny post, done in the style of the old text adventure games like Zork, explaining the Bush foreign "policy".
  
• Logan Intl Airport - AirportMonitor : very cool (Java-powered) site showing near real-time view of the Logan air traffic.  You can rewind time to pretty much any point and see what was flying around when.  It was used by a recent poster to the
  
• Bill Mauldin : Some very funny combat-oriented cartoons by the dean of them, Bill Mauldin.
• anti-telemarketing counterscript : very cute flowchart to help you out when called by telemarketers, to turn the tables on them and have you follow a script!  Of course, these days it isn't quite as important.  Since signing up with the various "do not call" lists, our spam phone calls have dropped to almost nothing.
• IP Spotting - How interesting is your IP address? : this page takes your  IP address and tries to figure out how "interesting" it is.  Mine is a 4, darn near a record low for uninteresting IP addresses.
• MailBigFile.com : a site that does one thing, and one thing only - allow you to send big (up to 1gb) files via email! If your ISP puts unreasonable limits on the size of file you can email, this is the place to go.
• dafont.com : Fonts. A gazillion of them.  And all for free!
• Images - 30 Great Westerns : Yet Another Film List. This time, it is a list of 30 great westerns.  I'm disappointed my favorite one (Winchester '73) isn't on here, but still a very interesting list.
• C.O.R.E. : The Center for Orsten Research and Exploration. Orstens are Cambrian sea fossils and this page has some really beautiful pictures.  See the Gallery link.
• Gather.com : Join your blog to lots of other blogs and spread some content!
• John Allen Paulos Home Page : Author of the fascinating book Innumeracy as well as a professor at Temple University, this page contains lots of his writings, and how people are generally statistically clueless.  See especially his critical view of the exit polling errors in the stolen 2004 election (his view - it wasn't the exit polling that was in error).
• crates and barrels : pictures of crates and barrels as found in video games.  I've seen lots of them:-)
• THE WORLD QUESTION CENTER 2006 : Each year, The Edge asks a provocative question to many leading thinkers. This year, the question is "What is your dangerous idea?" and there are some fascinating answers.
• And finally, a couple of freeware specialized word processors you might find useful:
  • Tranglos software: KeyNote : a tabbed notebook, where different files are kept in different tabs, rather than new windows, like Microsoft Word does.  It also includes the idea of hierarchical notes, kept in a tree view.
  • RoughDraft : a word processor specifically geared towards screenplay and novel writing.
    

New Blog Worm

Technorati Tags: blog.worm

Web Links of the Week

Here are some cool links I've found over the last couple of weeks. I figure I'll just document them here, saving them for future reference, and if someone else finds them interesting, all the better!

• Ask Yahoo : they answer one question per day, with a nice archive of previous questions. It's pretty fun, and I have it added to my RSS subscription on Bloglines.
• For the computer programmers out there, the full text of the classic software engineering title, "Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs", and associated lectures from MIT.
  • Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs
  • Lectures by Sussman and Abelson
• Alternet.org's 10 best Top Ten lists : in honor of the season, a top ten lists of top ten lists.
• Flickr.mov : A very cool Quicktime movie; a song that uses free Flickr pictures to illustrate the lyrics. It was written around the images, and not vice-versa.
• Perils of Java Schools : Joel Spotsky, software developer and entrepreneur, writes an excellent column on software engineering. In this one, he rails against college CS courses that make it too easy on the students by using Java.
• Microsoft Codename Max : a beta version of Max, which is a photo album/sharing net application.
• Live.com : Microsoft's take on a Start page, using fancy AJAX technology, for a real live Web application. Be sure to check out their take on Google Maps, Windows Live Local.
• Writely.com : an online browser-based word processor. Publish to your blog, save as a real web page, whatever. More fancy AJAX technology.
• Start.com : yet another Microsoft Start page. Not really sure how this differs from Live.com.
• MSN Sandbox : previews of upcoming Microsoft web and Windows apps, like Virtual Earth and Microsoft Windows AntiSpyware.
• Protopage.com : Some really fancy AJAX technology at work here on this personalizable start page. Drag and drop windows, add views, etc.
• Extracts from the Club Diary : cute short story about coffee.
• this WEEK in TECH : a very cool podcast featuring Leo Laporte, great ex-host of Tech TV before they screwed it all up, John Dvorak and other tech nerds. That's where a lot of these links from this week come from.

Technorati Tags: web+links

Email security test

Interesting article spelling out a test to see if the NSA is snooping on your emails. Set up a couple of test email accounts, and include a URL you can check on. Seems like a cool idea.

For more on the most egregious abuse of executive powers since Watergate, read Schneier's article here: Schneier on Security: The Security Threat of Unchecked Presidential Power

Who is snooping on my email?

Technorati Tags: nsa schneier email+snooping

My (scientific) hero

A great interview with my favorite scientist, Richard Dawkins, done by a religious site of all things! Some audio clips and typical straight talk on evolution, "intelligent" design, and god:

Interview with Richard Dawkins

Technorati Tags: richard+dawkins evolution intelligent+design

Best off.... books

A couple of lists from the Boston Phoenix, the local alternative weekly newspaper:

Books | It�s all true - favorite non-fiction books

Books | Speeding through life - best in fiction

Technorati Tags: books

Firefox hacks

Cool feature in Firefox that I didn't know about. Called "Quick Search", it allows you to type in a keyword and phrase and immediately go to a particular search engine and execute the search. Firefox comes with two built in - one for google and dict, to look something up on Dictionary.com. Here's a page that quickly adds a bunch more:

Geek to Live: Fifteen Firefox Quick Searches - Lifehacker

Thanks to Babak for the heads up : Geek Style: Firefox Quicksearch tricks

Edit: Another cool quicksearch page: Quicksearches -- Samples and Instructions

Technorati Tags: firefox quicksearch

Another favorite blog - Deltoid

Another one of my favorite blogs is Deltoid, by Tim Lambert. An Australian, he does a great job of demystifying subjects like the Lancet study estimating civilian deaths in Irag, and generally trying to keep people straight on numbers.

Anyway, he has a couple of fun "bingo cards" you can use if you read along a wingnut article on either global warming or DDT. Check off the boxes as they trot out yet another false canard - get four in a row and you win!

Deltoid � DDT ban myth bingo

Deltoid � Global Warming Sceptic Bingo

Technorati Tags: tim+lambert deltoid global+warming ddt+ban

Dialogue?

Very funny cartoon about what the "dialogue" between right and left feels like these days:

WorkingForChange-This Modern World: You're a moonbat!

Technorati Tags: this+modern+world cartoon

JibJab's 2005 Round-Up

Those crazy fellas who did the brilliant "This Land" flash movie (did you know they got sued by Woody Guthrie's, that proud borrower himself, estate for it?), have done a very funny 2005 (or 2-0-5 as they call it) retrospective:

JibJab.com

Technorati Tags: jibjab flash

Optical Illusion

Another one of those wacky optical illusions (thanks once again to Joho the Blog:

Very cool illusion

For more optical illusions, see this page:

Akiyoshi's illusion pages

Technorati Tags: optical+illusions

Too much time on their hands

A classic example of someone with too much time on their hands - an ASCII movie depicting a scene from The Matrix. Truly impressive (requires Javascript):

ascii-movie

(Hat tip to Joho the Blog)

Technorati Tags: ascii the+matrix

30 Second movie reenactments

A collection of Macromedia Flash movies, where bunnies reenact famous movies like "The Shining", "Titanic" and others, all in 30 seconds or less. As a special holiday treat, be sure to check out their version of "A Christmas Story".

Angry Alien Productions, Sase and Topsie

Technorati Tags: angryalien flash

Talk to a human

Paul English, someone who I vaguely knew when I worked at Interleaf, has a really cool web page. It's called the "IVR Cheat Sheet", where IVR stands for... hmm, I'm not sure! But basically it is a list of numbers so you can avoid voice recordings and jump straight to a human being. It's on my quick links bar now:-)

IVR Cheat Sheet(tm) by Paul English

Technorati Tags: ivrcheatsheet

Free Software

I've come across a couple of great lists for free software. As a real "application-aholic", who can't resist installing new software, these are real shots of opium for me!

The 46 Best-ever Freeware Utilities

Pricelessware 2006

Some cool stuff - some things I know about and some things I've never heard of. Sometime soon, I will put together a list of all the Windows software I use on a regular basis. It includes several things from these lists (like 7-Zip and especially PowerPro, which I've been using since it was called Stiletto.

Technorati Tags: freeware pricelessware windowssoftware

Protect your data

A very nice list of easy things to do in order to minimize the amount of your data getting out into the wild. Ten things to do that aren't all that hard.

The only one I would quibble with is #8, having to do with the supermarket "loyalty" cards. Up until recently, the idea of swapping my card with others in order to confuse the data collection seemed like a sweet idea. You are supposed to be able to opt out of the data collection part, but I haven't seen any results from doing that. In fact, they proudly crow how much I've saved, so I know they are still keeping track. But even if they didn't do that, I would never know if they kept quiet about it.

But lately I've been finding that it is useful to me to have them track my purchases, despite how "Big Brother"-ish it feels. Now they can send me a personalized web circular, that lists everything that I've bought that is on sale. And as I've started to use Peapod, their online delivery partner, that too can show me all my purchases in one big list, making it very easy to buy all my regular stuff. So I suppose as long as I'm getting value for my data, I'm okay with that.

Still, the rest of the things in the list are fairly easy to do. It seems almost pointless, these days, to try and safeguard your social security number, as it gets used all over the place. I did opt-out of having it be my Massachusetts drivers license number. So I guess every little bit helps. It's like the old joke about two guys getting chased by a hungry bear. One turns to the other and asks if he thinks he can outrun the bear. The other one says probably not, but I don't need to outrun the bear; I just need to outrun you! So if you can make your data a little bit harder to get at then the next person, perhaps that will save you some headache down the road.

EPIC West: Electronic Privacy Information Center West Coast Office: Hoofnagle's Consumer Privacy Top 10

Technorati Tags: privacy datasafeguards EPIC

Anti-religion Bumper Stickers

Some very funny bumper stickers. If I put bumper stickers on my car, these would be some of them:

" So Many Right-Wing Christians So Few Lions "
" God: A Make Believe Friend For Grown Ups "
" Evolution is a FACT God is just a theory "
" MILITANT AGNOSTIC I Don't Know And You Don't Either "
" Don't Pray In My School And I Won't Think In Your Church "
Check'em out!

Religion (Anti) Bumper Stickers

Technorati Tags: atheist bumperstickers

Cool Flash animation

Not like I can get Flash to work in my Firefox browser, but by using a couple of extensions, I can easily view a page in either Opera or (shudder) Internet Explorer, so I can view this incredible Flash show. It is a recording of someone drawing a reclining woman, from the inside out (brief nudity):

http://fcmx.net/vec/get.swf?i=003702

Technorati Tags: drawawoman flash

Another Google hack

You can enter two destinations and Google will give you a link to travel search engines with those two destinations pre-selected. See here for flights from Boston to Washington, DC;

boston washington,dc - Google Search

Technorati Tags: googlehack google

New Baubles

Like a bird distracted by a bright new bauble, new Internet technology keeps me jumping all over the place!  Like my previous post on Tiddlers, there's sooooo much neat new stuff out there that I just can't keep playing with it.  Two new things have attracted me:

• Ning- Something very hard to describe, but basically a community of cool web apps, where you can "clone" apps to create your own.  Started by an early Internet pioneer, Marc Andreesen, it's hard to quantify, but as an inveterate hacker, it's too much fun to play in the "Playground"! I'm working on a TiddlyWiki adpatation using the Ning storage as a back end.
  

  And then there is a new browser called Flock, which is based on the Mozilla Firefox browser, only with tightly integrated blogging and photo interfaces.  I'm posting from Flock now, so we'll see how this works. I can't figure out how to start a new entry in this list though!  It's early in the dev stage, with a "consumer" released due in December.  From what I see, though, it looks like a winner.
  

  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  

Technorati Tags: ning tiddlywiki

Tiddlers

Okay, I've just discovered some really cool, geeky, technology. I'm not sure exactly about its application, or at least how I might use it, but it is still some cool stuff. It's called a TiddlyWIki, and basically, it's a single, dynamic, web page that you can use in a remarkably varied number of ways - a blog, a To Do list, a Getting Things Done page, etc. It's a little hard to wrap your head around it, but here's the best one page description of a TiddlyWiki I've found:

Euicho on TiddlyWiki

It's some pretty amazing browser technology, all done with HTML, CSS, and Javascript. The main web site is here:

http://tiddlywiki.com

Technorati Tags: tiddlywiki gtd

Sci-Fi Movie list

John Scalzi, author of The Rough Guide to Sci-Fi Movies has a list (of course!) of the 50 most "influential" science fiction movies of all time. Now, I no longer consider myself a card-carrying member of the science fiction fan club, either in book or movie form, but I am a movie geek (see my movie / home theater weblog here), so I've seen plenty of these. I'll put them in bold:

• The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension!
• Akira
• Alien
• Aliens
• Alphaville
• Back to the Future
• Blade Runner
• Brazil
• Bride of Frankenstein
• Brother From Another Planet
• A Clockwork Orange
• Close Encounters of the Third Kind
• Contact
• The Damned
• Destination Moon
• The Day The Earth Stood Still
• Delicatessen
• Escape From New York
• ET: The Extraterrestrial
• Flash Gordon: Space Soldiers (serial)
• The Fly (1985 version)
• Forbidden Planet
• Ghost in the Shell
• Gojira/Godzilla
• The Incredibles
• Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956 version)
• Jurassic Park
• Mad Max 2/The Road Warrior
• The Matrix
• Metropolis
• On the Beach
• Planet of the Apes (1968 version)
• Robocop
• Sleeper
• Solaris (1972 version)
• Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
• Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
• Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back
• The Stepford Wives
• Superman
• Terminator 2: Judgement Day
• The Thing From Another World
• Things to Come
• Tron
• 12 Monkeys
• 28 Days Later
• 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
• 2001: A Space Odyssey
• La Voyage Dans la Lune
• War of the Worlds (1953 version)

Not too bad, and a couple movies I'll have to add to my Netflix queue (by the way, if you have a Netflix account, feel free to add me to your Friends list). Mind you, several of the movies I've not marked as "Watched", I've seen bits and pieces of, including Buckaroo Banzai, whose ommission might require that I turn in my nerd membership card! I'm also pretty sure I've seen Bride of Frankenstein, another ommission that might make some question my true geekdom!

I was disappointed that T2 and not the original Terminator made the list. I'm not sure I'm interested enough in the subject to buy the book, although I am a real sucker for movie books.

I have to get back to watching more movies. As you can see from my movie blog, I've haven't been watching too many lately. Too busy, which makes me too tired to even watch a movie.

The Rough Guide to Sci-Fi Movies -- Officially Out!

Technorati Tags: scifimovies scalzi movies

Coupla links

A couple of cool links thanks to Joho the Blog:

• Microsoft: We were railroaded in Massachusetts on ODF : very long and detailed report on my state of Massachusetts' decision to ban Microsoft from its state offices due to the proprietary formats Office uses. It is a bold move and one I'm glad to see. And this article goes into great depth on the public discussion of the ODF (Open Document Format) declaration of war found in the Ma. "ETRM" (Enterprise Technical Reference Model).
• Camp Katrina : An interesting blog by a soldier helping with the Katrina cleanup. Some pretty funny stuff.




Technorati Tags: etrm odf katrina joho

Posted by jdarnold at 7:36 AM on web | Comments (0)

American Idiots

I'm sure most of you already read Pharyngula (if you don't you should!), but there's an excellent post on a column by Charlies Pierce, who writes a pretty mean column in the Sunday Boston Globe magazine too. This one is from Esquire, so you need to pay to read it, but PZ does a good job of extracting the essence of the dumbing down of America. We need to push back the borders of Enlightened America, taking all the lost territory back from Idiot America, where soundbites rule and facts only count if you have faith.

Pharyngula::Idiot America

Technorati Tags: idiotamerica pharyngula

Tie your shoelaces faster

A "revolutionary" new way of tieing your shoelaces! See the flipbook version for an animated frame by frame guide to performing this feat:

Ian's Shoelace Site - "Ian Knot" = Ian's Fast Shoelace Knot

Technorati Tags: shoelaces

The Needs Meme

A silly blog meme going 'round - type in "[your first name] needs" (with the quotes) in Google and show the first 10 results:

1. Jonathan needs to be redeemed, or made completely evil
2. Jonathan needs a tray to position his arms properly
3. will not meet Jonathan's needs since it is too low to the ground
4. Pelican Events was founded in 2000 by Jonathan Needs
5. Jonathan needs to draw up a business plan
6. Jonathan needs to restructure his portfolio.
7. Jonathan needs an experienced, skilled family that is understanding of his special needs.
8. Jonathan Needs - Director James Burke - Director Jonathan, also a veteran of Blenheim Group
9. Jonathan needs improved fine...
10. jonathan needs to start drinking more beer.

I like some of them! But hitting on "Jonathan Needs" as person's name is kind ofa drag.

"jonathan needs" - Google Search

Technorati Tags: needsmeme

New Miers Blog

Bet you didn't know that Harriet Miers, the erstwhile Supreme Court nominee, has her own blog, now did you?

Harriet Miers's Blog!!!

Pretty funny!

Technorati Tags: harrietmiers

Skeptics Circle

The 18^th Skeptics Circle is up and has 12 very interesting articles:

WolverineTom: You can't spell idiot without 'ID': Skeptic's Circle #18

Technorati Tags: skepticscircle

Library Thing

Here's a cool new web site called Library Thing. You enter your book collection, and it does stuff with the information. Like recommend other books, share your library, show what you are reading. I'm going to enter in a few books as we speak!

LibraryThing | Catalog your books online

Technorati Tags: librarything books

Press Your Luck

Funny page on a man destined to be a born loser:

Press Your Luck

Katrina from a satellite

Here's a page from the NOAA (finally, our tax dollars at work) with links to amazing satellite imagery of Katrina's aftermath:

KATRINA PART 2 PHOTO INDEX COVERAGE AREAS

Funny animations

Some excellent and very funny animations on this site. A couple of caveats though:

• You need to have Flash enabled. Seeing as how I haven't been able to get it to work with Firefox, I need to open it in Internet Explorer. Of course, given the nice loophole in Flash that will open up new windows for you, maybe I'm in no hurry to get it to work in Firefox.
• Conservative or religious zealots will be wildly offended. Myself, I found them very funny.

Homeland Stupidity 7/27/05
Supernatural 8/24/05