 |
 |
|
|
I've been looking all over for a shopping guide to sites with hip baby gear. Not necessarily $1000 Hollywood strollers, but cool onesies and the like. Finally! Dutch's Holiday Shopping Guide for the Anti-Materialist* Indie Sonofabitch Parent. My hero. Many items handcrafted for your wee one.
Awfully weird online who's who NNDB tracks the activities of people we have determined to be noteworthy, both living and dead. I wish this were searchable by the crazy labels the inventors came up with. For instance, see these lists of:
people arrested for driving without a license
people of Jewish ancestry
people on the cover of the Sgt. Pepper album
Did you know Albert Einstein's on two of those lists? Really. Guess which.
A bit bloggity on the bottom of the front page, listing who's who in the news just now. Currently:
25-Nov-2005 · Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey officially splitsville ... Schwarzenegger considers clemency for Tookie Williams ... Robbie Williams tour inexplicably popular ... Goodbye Mr. Miyagi ...
All names, of course, are linked to their NNDB profiles.
I don't really know who the infamous Dr. Sputnik is (since he wrote his own NNDB profile, you'd have to trust him on his own history), but this is easily as hypnotic to browse through as the Oracle of Bacon.
An homage to Google, set to the tune of My Girl; not very work-safe, but hilarious. [via LISNews]
Do you blog? Share your online habits with the folks at MIT. The survey was short and pretty interesting. Plus, they give you your choice of advertising buttons for your blog!
Should I be worried that a search on my state government web site for "find my representative" turns up, as the most relevant result, Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes? Nasty, brutish, and short, indeed.
Don't Panic! If you long for the days of text-based, Zork-style adventuring, you can once again play the original Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. You can even save periodically, so you don't have to go through the annoying babelfish scene over and over again.
I haven't any idea where I saw this linked, but these comic misadventures of medical students are so funny I burst into hysterics at my desk at work. Be prepared. Don't try to avoid laughing, or you may wrench something, and lord knows you probably don't actually want to see any of these doctors for medical attention.
ResearchBuzz's Cookin' With Google is listed among Time's 50 Coolest Websites. Yay for Tara! [via the ever-praiseworthy ResearchBuzz]
After months of spyware and adware trauma, and desperate use of SpyBot, AdAware, and PestPatrol, I've finally given up using the evil IE, and switched to Mozilla's Firefox browser. Despite the recent announcement of security flaws in Firefox, it's still safter than IE. So far, I'm delighted with it.
Yes, I'm sure everyone has linked this by now, but I have to note the coolness of the State of the News Media report that came out the other day.
Alarming statistic:
49% of surveyed Internet users who "use the Internet for news at least once in a typical week" believe "most" of the information they find on the web is "reliable and accurate."
Lots of fun charts and graphs. NPR geeks rejoice!
It's not that I don't think it's great of the CDC to provide brief tip sheets on medical issues for scriptwriters. I'm sure this will help prevent the spread of misinformation. But the suggested scenarios are pretty nasty.
The parents of a young child are awakened at night by strange noises in their child's bedroom. They find a bat behaving strangely: not hiding, making strange noises, having difficulty flying. The parents kill the bat and awaken the child. They find no evidence of a bite or scratch from the bat, and the child reports no contact with or bite from the bat. The father saves the bat in the freezer, "just in case." A few weeks later, the child becomes very ill, with fever and flu-like symptoms. The distraught parents rush the child to a nearby hospital emergency room where they are asked about contact with animals. The parents tell doctors about the bat; the doctors suspect rabies. After consultation with the state health department, the doctor seeing the child asks the parents to bring in the bat. It tests positive for rabies and the parents are told their child will not survive.
[via Libronaut DotGov]
If you need something productive-looking to do during a five-minute reference desk lull, try the Smithsonian's Library & Archival Exhibitions on the Web. Peruse such illuminating sites as The Naked Researcher, which "seeks to reveal the researcher within everyone"; or Defining Her Life: Advice Books for Women, which features classic text like Farming for Ladies; Or, a Guide to the Poultry-yard, the Dairy and Piggery. [via ShelfLife]
I about died when I saw this one. Many thanks to Library Stuff for the link.
IKEA is a fully immersive, 3D environmental adventure that allows you to role-play the character of someone who gives a shit about home furnishings. In traversing IKEA, you will experience a meticulously detailed alternate reality filled with garish colors, clear-lacquered birch veneer, and a host of NON-PLAYER CHARACTERS (NPCs) with the glazed looks of the recently anesthetized.
Read the text-adventure walk-thru. (via Morning News)
Everything you ever wanted to know about the gods but were afraid to ask at Godchecker. (link via ResearchBuzz) A sample entry:
ZEUS: Top God of the Earth and Ruler of Mount Olympus, the lofty cloudland where the Greek Gods live and look down upon mankind.
He is a real high-flyer, an Olympic champion, battling with the giant TITANS, casting thunderbolts and engaged in all manner of gut-busting glorious Godly pursuits.
ZEUS is married to the long-suffering HERA, but spends most of his time lusting after Goddesses, mortals, animals, and indeed anything that will keep still long enough.
It's tough at the top being the most fantastic hunky irresistible God of all time and having constantly to prove it. And never a quiet night in with slippers and a mug of cocoa because he has to keep his long-suffering wife HERA happy too. Their trials and tribulations form the basis of half the entries in our database.
ZEUS has had so many mistresses and fathered so many children that there's no point in giving a list here. Just take our word for it. See also CRONUS, RHEA, HEPHAESTUS, ATHENA and most of the other Greek Gods.
Moving on to more Godly matters, ZEUS was also known to the ancient Greeks as Epiphanes, the Magnificent One, whenever a certain star appeared in the east. This was celebrated with piph-ups known as epiphanies.
When he's not running around after nubile Goddesses in the form of a lusty animal, ZEUS looks after Law, upholds Justice, and casts thunderbolts on those deserving it.
As a reward for checking my blogs thoroughly this week, I found that Steven Cohen linked to me on LIS Blogsource! Yay! Thanks, friend. :)
Wired gives us 101 Ways to Save the Internet:
#54
Ship antivirus wizard Why can't the paper clip guy tell us something important, like "This message is infected with Sobig"?