Glimpses of the websurfing habits of a computer science professor, obsessive crafter, occasional gamer, and all around geek
I haven’t finished my 2002 book list yet, but I just put together the Screenshot 2002 Photo Album of all of the images from the past year’s entries. I’m pleased with the collection as a whole. (If you’re interested, there is also a 2001 Photo Album.
I love groups that use their web page to not just organize themselves but to offer quality content to outsiders. The American Society for Microbiology has a wonderful timeline of what they consider the significant events of the last 125 years, in microbiological terms, with overviews of the “events” and bibliographical links for each one (many to online sources). Nicely done.
Okay – this is killing me, so I’m going to ask for help. When I was playing around with the puzzles on Confusion last week, I got stuck on the following rebus and my mind’s been mulling it over ever since. Who can think of a one-word of nine letters represented by the following: J K 10 Q A I am totally stumped and it’s making me nuts.
Permanent is an independent (i.e. government-independent) project to travel and settle in space, using materials from the moon and asteroids for development. It’s an interesting browse, particularly the information on the legal and political issues of governments and individuals using stellar materials.
I don’t know as much about architecture as I feel I should – it seems like an area I should be interested in, with its balance of design and engineering. It’s not a great site for beginning reading, but the collection of images of buildings at The Great Buildings Collection (some of them 3D models, though you need to download special software to view them) is very extensive and detailed. If I get some projects off my plate I might have to order one of the basic books off the bibliography list.
I was dubious at first, but my friend J seems to have stumbled across the definitive evidence that the Simpsons is set in Springfield, Michigan. In the second season episode Three Men and a Comic Book, Bart turns in a soda bottle for recycling to Apu and declines to credit the cash towards a purchase, saying “No, not today, I need the dime”. And as you can see in this chart of Beverage Container Deposit Systems in the U.S., Michigan is the only state with 10 cent deposits. Q.E.D. Very nice work, J!
I stumbled across this little puzzle site, Confusion, last night and I’ve been working through the first trails over my morning coffee. The site is arranged with five collections of puzzles that need to be solved to collect keys and access the final set, which is the most difficult. They are mostly rebuses, riddles, and other “tricky” puzzles, and they definitely get harder as the path progresses, though you’ll probably recognize many of them if you’re a puzzle enthusiast. I haven’t finished the site yet (just starting Metal World), but it seems very kid friendly – I’d have loved it … Continue reading “Confusing” Puzzle Maze
Weather Photography is worth checking out for the images alone, but there’s also a really nice, and expanding, collection of articles about techniques for photographing weather and nature. There’s some good technical weather information as well, on selected topics (the photographer is a atmospheric physics grad student). I love his ice photos, but was most impressed by the lighting photos – reading the technical information behind taking them was very enlightening.
Driving into Pittsburgh from the west today, an official PennDoT lit sign (of the type that normally warns of bad traffic) read “Brownie Fans – Welcome to Mordor”. How nice to see my hometown taking a literary turn to its sports fanaticism. One almost hesitates to point out that in the stories surely being alluded to, those who went into Mordor emerged triumphant.
Looking for a hobby? Why not try Modern Moist Towelette Collecting. You can get a peek at the beauty and variety this hobby could expose you to in this site’s Gallery or enjoy a rousing game of Moist Towelette Concentration!