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The Cool Tricks and Trinkets Newsletter #204 7/25/02 |
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Welcome to the 204th 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: -
What's That Stuff? ~~~~~ Cool Tricks and Trinkets is made possible by~~~~~~ <Editor's Note> A1 Discount Hotels is our primary business and source of income. You can support Tricks and Trinkets, by checking us out the next time you're planning a trip. For personal travel needs, write me at info@a1-discount-hotels.com A1 Discount Hotels (an affiliate of Hotels.com) offers discount rooms in over 5000 hotels worldwide with choices from budget to 5 star hotels. Bookmark our site for you next trip. Visit us online or call our operators at 888-511-5743 http://www.a1-discount-hotels.com What's That Stuff? Quick, what's spreadable at 70 F, contains 44 to 60% moisture and has at least 20% milkfat? Gee whiz, it's Cheese Whiz! What's That Stuff? the web site by the geniuses at Chemical & Engineering News, chops away at ignorance to reveal the contents and processes of familiar products, from self-tanners to Spandex. In consumer-friendly style, the site explains chemiluminescent products, known to your kids as those cool light sticks that glow in the dark, and the source of that new car smell --- alkanes, benzenes, aldehydes and ketones. The explanations are simple and thorough, and when your kid asks how come Silly Putty can snap, stretch and bounce, a quick trip to the site will make you look like the genius. http://pubs.acs.org/cen/whatstuff/stuff.html Street Games We all know the Boomers have trouble growing-up. More power to them. At Streetplay.com, the spirit of play - or rather, hanging out with friends and having a great time sans coach, schedule, and equipment - is celebrated in grand style. Stick ball, box ball, slap ball, punch ball - all the balls are here, with rule sheets listing essentials of the games. A Playful World shows kids at play and the games they invent in streets, deserts and forests. The Gallery offers images of skateboarding before it went pro and Cineplex has videos of people like Streetplay's Hula Hoop goddess. With plenty of contests and readers' memories awash with popping cigars and fake I.D.s, the site is unadulterated enjoyment - for adults. News Context Between immigration and stem cell research, it's not easy being an informed voter these days. Get help at NewsBatch.com, where an administrative law judge has taken on the education of the citizenry to fill the knowledge gap with summaries of key policy topics. The site includes illustrations with linked charts and maps: immigration, for example, links users to a pie chart that shows preferential job categories and a graph of immigration patterns since 1820. References to key Congressional votes and how similar issues are tackled by other nations help give the broad view. Based on news and research materials and government statistical sources, the site is a boon to students as well as responsible voters. SHORT TAKES SMS Translations Instantly translate those long, verbose sentences into the economy required of cell phone and instant messaging services at Transl8it.com, where visitors type their message in English, click the transl8it button and see the short form. It's EZ az pie. <><><><> Time Travel Fund Invest in the future … of time travel. At the Time Travel Fund, your small donation today earns piles of interest for the next few hundred years until time travel is perfected and your investment buys you a ticket into that future. Huh? Figure it out: A buck today at 5% interest yields $30 billion in 500 years - and by then you'll be able to afford the trip forward. http://www.timetravelfund.com/ <><><><> Spam Map Unsolicited commercial e-mail, AKA spam mail, is invasive, vast and sneaky - and spammers are an incestuous bunch, cooperating with each other to blanket the Internet with junk. The Spamdemic Map shows how the viral infection that is spam spreads from victim to victim in fascinating, frightening detail. http://www.cluelessmailers.org/spamdemic/index.html Enjoy
the newsletter? Tell your friends to subscribe by sending an email to: The Eighties Club Feed your insatiable thirst for nostalgia at The 80s Club, a vast web site about the decade that gave birth to USA Today, MTV and yuppies. The approach is more serious than most nostalgia fad sites - the content here is well-researched and entertaining, focusing on politics as well as pop culture. Material Things is an online encyclopedia of essays about 80s politics, sports, crime, culture, even natural disasters. Tales from the Eighties offers book excerpts of momentous events like "Rather in Tiananmen Square," or mundane moments like "The Madonna/Pepsi Controversy." The Star Corner has bios of celebs who found fame in the decade, and The Daily News is the start of a compilation of headlines, month-by-month, for the entire decade. http://eightiesclub.tripod.com/index.htm Matt McClintock's Home Matt McClintock is methodically creating a structured, visual record of everything in his house. And he means everything: cat carriers in the basement, Clorox in the laundry room, a wooden paper cutter in the living room are all carefully photographed and documented at Mc.Clintock.com. It feels a lot like you've entered his front door to stroll the room, open closets and handle his stuff. The photos and line drawings join unpretentious text, like his Clorox-inspired paean to his grandfather. Matt could get a lot more done around the place if he didn't document it all, but he's leaving the future a one-of-a-kind chronicle of the life of the common man in 2002. Best of History Websites Good history info on the web is as vast as history itself, so visitors will find a trip to Best of History Web Sites useful preparation for the tour. A portal created for students, history educators and history buffs, the site rates all the other history sites to make it easier to find the most useful and accurate among them. Created by a former Harvard prof and current history teacher, the site has reviewed links to over 700 of the most stimulating history-related web sites, with a focus on those offering multimedia technologies. Categories cover pre-history to 20th century, links send you to lesson plans and multimedia resources, and a special section on technology rates articles that help integrate computers into the classroom. http://www.besthistorysites.net/ **********Advertisement************** THE COOLEST COLOR BUSINESS CARDS These
cards will make you proud to have a business. Create, personalize, http://www.ebusiness-cards.com Late Night with Conan Clips Fans of the redhead with the big head can savor their favorite bits at the Late Night with Conan O'Brien Video Archive, a fan site featuring 88 video clips of the late night talk show host and low key goofball. Watch performances of the fan-fave Christmas 2000 Song, Awesome Dave's Counting Channel and Triumph the Insult Comic Dog as he stands in line with Star Wars geeks and appears on Hollywood Squares. Video clips are MPEG and Real Video files viewable via Windows Media Player and RealVideo Player. Created by a Conan fan, the site also offers a chat room for other Conanoids and Conan FAQs. Boombox Museum
Technical descriptions and photos - including its scenes as a star player in several mid-80s movies - show the evolution of the boombox from the Marantz Superscope of 1976, a $200 marvel of technology with no style whatsoever, to Panasonic's slick crown jewel, the RX-5050. The portable entertainment center, an icon of mid 80s break dancing and street life, got bigger, heavier and louder before fading from view in the late 80s. http://www.pocketcalculatorshow.com/boombox/ 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@tricksandtrinkets.com ~Guerrilla Publicity - Sure Fire Tactics to Get Maximum Sales for Minimum Dollars. ~Virtual Toner - We will beat any price. ~John Stoller, CPA - Making IRS problems disappear. ~Freya Creative Floral Design - The wonderful art of Freya Prowe. ~Champion Market Pro’s Service for Traders ~TV Classics - Retro TV for Me.
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