Just had a few days of web downtime, all entirely due to my own rusty internet-fu skills, and some less than optimal internetworking choices made over the past few years.
So, we’re back and better than ever. Hope to start adding new content again shortly.
Enjoy!
OK, here are three links that you might find interesting:
Enjoy–and let me know if you know of other good websites like these!
Strange Maps is one of the reasons for the utter awesomeness of the Internets. It’s also one of the reasons I have such a hard time getting work done. If you have any interest in history or politics or science or ways of looking at the world, go to this site, now. It’s full, not just full of some of the strangest maps you’ve ever seen, but of the strangest maps you can ever imagine!
(Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech; click the pic for a bigger version)
I stumbled across this very neat article on Boston.com the other day: Cassini Nears Four-year Mark. I know, it doesn’t sound very interesting–but look at the link for more pictures even more amazing than the one above.
If you’re interested, you can find more information about Saturn on the Internet. Like the CICLOPS (Cassini Imaging Central Laboratory for Operations) site, for many more spectacular color images from the Cassini and other space probes.
Or, there’s the Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Cassini-Huygens Mission to Saturn & Titan home page, again, full of incredible images.
Enjoy!
I’ve been working with computers for a really long time–and almost from the very beginning, people who do work with computers have also been using those computers to play games.
Up to now, it’s just been a dream to imagine that you could turn boring chores into games: blast aliens instead of cutting the grass, for example.
But now we’ve got Games with a purpose (Gwap). They haven’t yet rendered it possible for me to give up on my job and just play games, but they’re working on getting computers to be better at the kind of problems that have always been tough for computers but easier for people.
What kind of things? For example, being able to pick out objects or people in a picture, or guessing words or describing songs. The games pair you up with another player, and the results go into a big database (I suppose) that will eventually make computers that much more more like people!
I, for one, welcome our new computer overlords!
I can think of few things more exciting than hearing about discovering a new object in the skies that is unlike anything ever seen before. Like this: Strange Ring Found Circling Dead Star. What could it mean? What do you think?
A set of Japanese interchange photos. This is an awesome set of photographs taken in and around a highway interchange, in Japan. It’s mesmerizing, at least to me–and breathtaking in a strange way. For one thing, the whole thing is just so tidy. Unlike the highway interchanges I’ve seen in the US, there aren’t wads of trash everywhere. And it all looks as if it’s very nicely maintained (or else brand new).
Enjoy!
If you think sand is just gritty, brownish, and tiny, you’re in for a surprise: Each Grain of Sand a Tiny Work of Art is a surprising gallery of extreme closeup photographs of sand from around the world, from Discover Magazine.
You might look at this article, Cardboard Playhouse Plans & Instructions, and think to yourself "But I’m too big for a silly cardboard playhouse." Or maybe you’re thinking, "We already have one!"
What I like about it, though, is that it gives me some ideas of how I can re-use (rather than recycling) some of the huge cardboard boxes that seem to accumulate around my house! And, just maybe, the boys could build a really huge playhouse using the technique described.
What would you build?
I never "got" electronics, but that might have been because I never found the right book (or teacher). You’ve got to love the Internet, though, for bringing us things like Tony R. Kuphaldt’s Lessons In Electric Circuits, published freely on iBiblio.
