Welcome to the 181st issue of the Cool Tricks and Trinkets Newsletter offering weekly insights into new, cool, useful, fun, unusual and interesting sites on the Internet. 

In this issue:

- Tuning The World 
- Mercury Rising
- Internet Archive Movie Collection 
- Short Takes
- Road Sign Rites 
- Broken Saints
- Speak Out 
- Bad Science Projects 
- The Olympic Storyteller 
- Subscribers' Sites 


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Tuning The World 

Next time you're in traffic trying to order ahead for pizza and can't get a signal on your cell phone, pause to consider three dots of Morse Code --- the first received sound signals snatched in 1901 by Guglielmo Marconi via a kite on a Newfoundland mountaintop. Tuning the World is the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's celebration of that singular event 100 years ago and how very far we've come.

At The Marconi Game, you can match yourself against the master's feat via your PC, but best of all is a visit to the Global Sampler, where visitors select one of six international cities, like Prague, and use their keyboard to sample, mix and playback its sounds and images.

http://www.tuningtheworld.com/center.cfm

Mercury Rising

Is it getting hotter in here? Definitely, and at Mercury Rising visitors can join a 10-day photo-documentary trip with an eco-photographer and a journalist as they explore the Monteverde Cloud Forest of Costa Rica to discover what global warming is doing to plants and animals. 

Field dispatches weave sounds and images from the trip as it unrolls, and the Eco-Gallery bears photographic witness to the effects of global warming, from tiny adaptations to great big shifts, like the appearance of a lake that used to be a glacier. With lessons and activities for students, the site is a teacher's paradise … lost, if we ignore the signs.

http://www.OneWorldJourneys.com/climate/

Internet Archive Movie Collection 

A 16-minute film on a 1945 newspaper strike and a 1965 ad called "Parade of Homes" by the National Association of Home Builders- where do they find this stuff? At the Internet Archive Movie Collection, where 956 "ephemeral" films made by trade groups, industry, schools and governments have been digitized for public viewing for the first time.

These mini-movies, never intended for a long shelf-life, are the flotsam of daily life that becomes precious over time for what it reveals about ourselves. Yours to view free via RealPlayer, the large files require DSL speed or higher to download and save. Perhaps the closest ancestors to today's Internet - a rich stew of social and cultural junk that together becomes treasure.

http://www.archive.org/movies/

SHORT TAKES

Being Stephen King

People who share a name with famous author Stephen King, haunted by daily questions like "Are you the REAL Stephen King?" now have a place to share their torment about Being Stephen King, as the poor souls air their grievances in real life horror stories.

http://www.beingstephenking.com

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Marry Theresa

Theresa is a girl who is looking for love in one great big public place. The 34-year-old rented a billboard on Interstate-24 in Nashville to proclaim her husband search and then launched a web site, Marry Theresa, to spell out what she wants in a man and what she's willing to give. Can't blame a girl for trying … really hard.

http://www.marrytheresa.com

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Kill Your PC

A gruesome yet delicious site for those inevitable times - usually when a deadline looms - when you want not just to kill your computer, but to make it suffer first. The Illustrated Guide to Killing your PC details how to torment the thing, whether smashing the smirk right off its irritating little monitor or taking a pocket blowtorch to its motherboard. Revenge is sweet.

http://members.aol.com/spoons1000/break/index.html

Road Sign Rites 

"Many signs are worth a closer look," writes Bartolomeo Mecánico at his site devoted to collecting and examining roadside signs warning about falling rocks, schools and road work ahead - all on an international scale. 

Mecánico writes about the loss of diversity and the dangers of iconization, while other site contributors, like a French hairdresser, note sexism in signs - playground signs always show boys with balls, girls in dresses. Animals in ads get the same analytical treatment, and links to other sites point you in new directions if you get bitten by the road sign bug.

http://www.elve.net/

Broken Saints

It used to be, that stories were told by books, movies and TV. Welcome to a whole new world. From the first screen, Broken Saints is clearly something new in the universe of storytelling -- an animation, but sure not a cartoon; a novel, but sure not Dickens. The online graphic novel created in Macromedia Flash is part art, part philosophy, part dream underscored by compelling images and sound that immerse the viewer.

Sixteen episodes later, the viewer will still be saying Wow. Slowly. Follow the stories of Shandala, Oran, Raimi and Kami, the novel's main characters, and then click over to the B.S. section with its FAQ for an interview with one of the creators and bios of the main and supporting casts. 

http://www.brokensaints.com/

Speak Out 

One thing about the good old US of A … you can say what's on your mind. At Speak Out, opinions are taken to the digital level. Billed as America's leading non-partisan Internet activism web site and opinion research company, Speak Out launched two years ago to help citizens express themselves. 

Users can read news and information, and then follow up with activism tools that send the message to officeholders, candidates, business and news executives. Visitors can learn about issues from abortion to animal rights, gun control to race relations, and react via online polls, email messages to politicians, petitions and other passive and active forms of expression.

http://speakout.com/

Bad Science Projects 

Aiming for a Science Fair project that really pushes the envelope? From jet-powered go-karts to an autopsy performed on the all-knowing Magic 8 Ball, Bad Science Projects is a blog -- or personal web site collection of links and posts -- about the oddball things people do in the name of scientific discovery.

The site is loaded with classic cases of Why? Because I Could…" as visitors are sent to sites that feature weird stuff like Star Wars transformed into a series of letters and punctuation and step by step instructions on how to please a horny porpoise. 

http://www.badscienceprojects.com/

The Olympic Storyteller 

The Olympic spirit moves across the land as we watch young people the world over slide down, glide over and leap from snow and ice at the 2002 Winter Olympics. Every picture tells a story, and filmmaker Bud Greenspan, who has followed the games for 30 years, shares them at The Olympic Storyteller.

In addition to stories about past Olympians like Michael Johnson, an interview with Greenspan goes inside the rigorous filmmaking process, as when a week of research goes down the tubes when the athlete gets injured on day one. The stories, more than the medals, "speak of a dignity and humanity that inspires, awes and helps us understand the Olympic spirit." 

http://www.kodak.com/US/en/corp/features/greenspan/

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SUBSCRIBERS' SITES - Many of our subscribers have fascinating on-line projects. This weekly section will introduce you to some of these sites. Please let me know about your project so that I might mention it in this section. Write me at  info@a1-discount-hotels.com

~Snoopy, Charlie Brown and Peanuts Gang e-Greeting card Site.

~Dr. Vincent Marinara Success Guru Videos

~Linda's Special Naturist Place

~Great Ideas on forming a HomeBiz

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We part at the crossroads,
You leave with your joys and problems,
I, with mine. Alone, I look down the road.
Each one must follow one's own path.

Tao

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Have a great weekend.

Charles