Paper Art: Principle of Design Poster Series

"Turkish graphic designer Efil Türk has created series of paper art posters for her Thesis project called: Principle of Design Poster Series - featuring top 10 design principles; Balance, Hierarchy, Pattern, Rhythm, Space, Proportion, Emphasis, Movement, Contrast, and Unity with their own paper art form."

 View Source - Joquz.com

Smarty Pins

Do you like maps, love trivia, and you know where most cities are on the map, then you're going to love Google's new SmartyPins game. This map-trivia game runs on the Google Maps platform and allows you to spend 1,000 miles trying to mark the correct location to each question asked.

Totally Absurd Inventions & Patents

"Totally Absurd Inventions explores the funnier side of our inventive spirit by featuring actual USA patented products. Obtaining a patent is a costly and time consuming process. Inventors must have unstoppable faith in their vision in order to realize their dream of acquiring a patent. But sometimes these inventions come from a creative place so deep, they can be perceived by some as offbeat, unusual and possibly a bit eccentric. And that's where we step in… unveiling America's Goofiest Patents!"

View more examples: Home - Totally Absurd Inventions & Patents, America's Goofiest Patents

The Rosetta Project

"The Rosetta Project is a global collaboration of language specialists and native speakers building a publicly accessible online archive of ALL documented human languages. The Rosetta digital library is the largest descriptive linguistic resource on the web. We currently serve over 90,000 text pages documenting writing systems, phonology, grammar, analysed texts, typology, core vocabulary, numbering systems, maps, audio files, and demographic/historical descriptions for over 2,500 of the 7,000 languages.

Learn more About the Rosetta Project

Punxsutawney Groundhog

"On February 2, Phil comes out of his burrow on Gobbler's Knob - in front of thousands of followers from all over the world - to predict the weather for the rest of winter. According to legend, if Punxsutawney Phil sees his shadow, there will be six more weeks of winter weather. If he does not see his shadow, there will be an early spring. After Phil emerges from his burrow on February 2, he speaks to the Groundhog Club president in "Groundhogese"(a language only understood by the current president of the Inner Circle). His proclamation is then translated for the world.

The celebration of Groundhog Day began with Pennsylvania's earliest settlers. They brought with them the legend of Candlemas Day, which states, "For as the sun shines on Candlemas Day, so far will the snow swirl in May..." Punxsutawney held its first Groundhog Day in the 1800s. The first official trek to Gobbler's Knob was made on February 2, 1887."

For more information visit: Groundhog .org - the Official Site of the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club

Archimedes Death Ray

"Ancient Greek and Roman historians recorded that during the siege of Syracuse in 212 BC, Archimedes (a notably smart person) constructed a burning glass to set the Roman warships, anchored within bow and arrow range, afire. The story has been much debated and oft dismissed as myth. TV's MythBusters were not able to replicate the feat and 'busted' the myth. Intrigued by the idea and an intuitive belief that it could work, the MIT's 2.009ers decided to apply the early product development 'sketch or soft modeling' process to the problem. Our goal was not to make a decision on the 'myth' we just wanted to assess if it was at least possible, and have some fun in the process."

Learn more at: Archimedes Death Ray

The Nine Planets Solar System Tour

"The Nine Planets is a collection of information about our Solar System intended for a general audience with little technical background. No special expertise or knowledge is needed; all technical and astronomical terms and proper names are defined in the glossary. The bulk of this material should be familiar to planetary scientists and astronomers but they may find a few interesting tidbits, too.
This site consists of about pages, one page for each major body in the Solar System. Each page has: a large picture of its object and usually several smaller thumbnail images (all linked to their full-size originals) some scientific and historical facts about it, if the object has satellites then its page has a table of data on them and links to their pages, links to more images and information about the object elsewhere on the Web, and a list of open issues for which we as yet have no answers."

The Nine Planets Solar System Tour

The Biology of B-Movie Monsters

"Size has been one of the most popular themes in monster movies, especially those from ... the 1950s. The premise is invariably to take something out of its usual context--make people small or something else (gorillas, grasshoppers, amoebae, etc.) large--and then play with the consequences. However, Hollywood's approach to the concept has been, from a biologist's perspective, hopelessly naïve. Absolute size cannot be treated in isolation; size per se affects almost every aspect of an organism's biology. Indeed, the effects of size on biology are sufficiently pervasive and the study of these effects sufficiently rich in biological insight that the field has earned a name of its own: 'scaling.'

In The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957), the hero is exposed to radioactive toxic waste and finds himself growing smaller and smaller. He is lost to family and friends while fending off the household cat and must make his own way in a world grown monstrously large. He forages food from crumbs and drinks from puddles of condensation. In one famous scene, he defends himself against a house spider by using an abandoned sewing needle, which he has to struggle to lift."


Stop the projector! Time for a little analysis. The Biology of B-Movie Monsters

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus

"Eight-year-old Virginia O'Hanlon wrote a letter to the editor of New York's Sun, and the quick response was printed as an unsigned editorial Sept. 21, 1897. The work of veteran newsman Francis Pharcellus Church has since become history's most reprinted newspaper editorial, appearing in part or whole in dozens of languages in books, movies, and other editorials, and on posters and stamps."

Read the letter and see the original newspaper clipping: Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus

In the Line of Duty: Dangers, Disasters and Good Deeds

'Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.'

"The history of America's postal service is filled with stories of those who risked their lives for the mail. The events of September and October 2001 have brought the courage and strength of these workers to light again.

'In the Line of Duty: Dangers, Disasters and Good Deeds' is an exhibition dedicated to America's postal workers. The exhibition opened at the National Postal Museum on October 8th, 2003."

View the exhibition: In the Line of Duty: Dangers, Disasters and Good Deeds

Internet Sacred Text Archive

"This is a quiet place in cyberspace devoted to religious tolerance and scholarship. Open Source for the Human Soul.

This site is a freely available archive of electronic texts about religion, mythology, legends and folklore, and occult and esoteric topics. Texts are presented in English translation and, in some cases, in the original language.

This site has no particular agenda other than promoting religious tolerance and scholarship.

The texts presented here are either original scans from books and articles clearly in the public domain, material which has been presented elsewhere on the Internet, or material included under fair use conditions in printed anthologies."


Internet Sacred Text Archive Home

White Earth Land Recovery Project

"The mission of the White Earth Land Recovery Project is to facilitate recovery of the original land base of the White Earth Indian Reservation, while preserving and restoring traditional practices of sound land stewardship, language fluency, community development, and strengthening our spiritual and cultural heritage."

Learn more about the White Earth Land Recovery Project

Abandoned Subway Stations in New York City

Abandoned Stations: Interesting look at New York's subway system. And remember this: "Please don't wander into non public parts of railroad tunnels. It is against the law, and it is dangerous."

Visit: Abandoned Stations

Longest Burning Light Bulb in History

"Welcome to the homepage devoted to the Longest burning Light Bulb in history. The average light bulb lasts for 750 to 1,000 hours. The carbon filament bulb burning in the fire department in Livermore, California has been burning since 1901."

Learn more about this long-life bulb at: Livermore's Centennial Light

View the BulbCam at: BulbCam Updates every 30 seconds.

Roman Numeral and Date Conversion

Ever find yourself wondering as the credits roll on a movie when that movie was made? You wait right to the end for the copyright date and what do you see? © MCMLXXXVII

Help is just a web site away. This site includes a handy Arabic number and Roman numeral convertor. Just enter MCMLXXXVII and press the button, all will be revealed.

Visit: Roman Numeral and Date Conversion with Roman Calculator & Test

ACT, GRE, SAT, Free Test Prep

"Number2.com was founded by professors and graduate students who wanted to make high quality test preparation universally accessible. Vin Crespi, now a professor of physics at Penn State, launched a preliminary version of the site in 1995, but it was in 2000 that Vin joined forces with Eric Loken and Josh Millet to form a company and undertake a comprehensive site redesign. Eric and Josh, who were at that time pursuing doctorates at Harvard, had taught free SAT courses in inner-city Boston and seen first hand the demand for test prep from students who couldn't afford to pay the fees charged by traditional test prep companies. Delivering test prep over the internet, at no charge to students, was the best way to reach as many students as possible. Number2.com is able to provide its courses for free because of the generous support of its sponsors: mostly Universities and student loan companies."

ACT, GRE, SAT, Free Test Prep from Number2.com.

Project Gutenberg's Distributed Proofreaders

"This site provides a web-based method of easing the proofreading work associated with the digitization of Public Domain books into Project Gutenberg e-books. By breaking the work into individual pages many proofreaders can be working on the same book at the same time. This significantly speeds up the proofreading/e-book creation process.

When a proofer elects to proofread a page of a particular book, the text and image file are displayed on a single web page. This allows the page text to be easily reviewed and compared to the image file, thus assisting the proofreading of the page text. The edited text is then submitted back to the site via the same web page that it was edited on. A second proofreader is then presented with the work of the first proofreader and the page image. Once they have verified the work of the first proofreader and corrected any additional errors the page text is again submitted back to the site.

Once all pages for a particular book have been processed, a post-processor joins the pieces, properly formats them into a Project Gutenberg e-book and submits it to the Project Gutenberg archive."

Visit: Project Gutenberg's Distributed Proofreaders

About Daylight Saving Time - History, rationale, laws & dates

"Come learn the history of daylight saving, from Benjamin Franklin to the present...

Just as sunflowers turn their heads to catch every sunbeam, so too have we discovered a simple way to get more from our sun.

We've learned to save energy and enjoy sunny summer evenings by switching our clocks an hour forward in the summer."

About Daylight Saving Time - History, rationale, laws & dates

1918: Babe Ruth and the World Champion Boston Red Sox

"In 1918, the United States was struggling through the first World War. An epidemic of influenza took the lives of more than 650,000 Americans. Fuel shortages and food rationing were daily facts of life. Against this chaotic backdrop, the Red Sox began their quest for an unprecedented fifth World Series title. And a young Boston player named Babe Ruth began his historic transformation from ace pitcher to the greatest slugger the game has ever known."

1918: Babe Ruth and the World Champion Boston Red Sox by Allan Wood [the story of the 1918 Red Sox

The Forgotten Technology

Wallace Wallington says "You do not need to lift weight to move it from place to place." He also writes: "I found that I, working alone, could easily move a 2400 lb. block 300 ft. per hour with little effort, and a 10,000 lb. block at 70 ft. per hour. I also stood two 8 ft. 2400 lb. blocks on end and placed another 2400 lb. block on top. This took about two hours per block. I found that one man, working by himself, without the use of wheels, rollers, pulleys, or any type of hoisting equipment could perform the task."

Learn more about The Forgotten Technology he uses.