Site Seeing

I'll Never Love This Way Again

www.ThreeDegrees.com/

Oh my goodness, a Microsoft product I actually like! What is the world coming to? This is a great idea and will surely spawn a bunch of feel-alike sites. This service, if you can call it that, is an MSN messenger-based way of bringing a corporate-type workgroup to your hipster friends. The music sharing feature is killer, dude.

Balancing a budget

www.BudgetSim.org/nbs/

I get my national and international news from Comedy Central's Daily Show. That's not entirely true (neither is the show). But if you are a fan of this brilliant satire and biting political commentary, you'll probably have more than a passing interest in rolling your own national budget. Alas there's no write-in areas for buying the entire population new hats, but it is fascinating to juggle the numbers and see where you come out. If you think you can do better than the fools on the Hill, here's the place to knock yourself out.

Numero Uno

www.01issue.com/

First issues of magazines are beloved by collectors and regular humans alike. They hold that so-sweet status of being there before the curve. I lovingly fondle my first issues of Wired and Fast Company on a regular basis, admire my self-professed good taste and a wonder how I consistently look so good in black. This site could be your very own virtual paragon of hip just in case you're lacking the early adopter gene. Here you'll find descriptions of first issues of magazines such as Macworld, The Face and Jane.

What a pair

www.LonelySocks.co.uk/

I continue to obsess about a number of things. Missing socks is one of them. Where do they go? And what do they do when they get "there"? Maybe it's a British thing, as this site's creator suffers from a similar passion. Here you'll find a lonely hearts database of single foot warmers, discussion groups and the results of polling a national retailer on the possibility of purchasing a single sock. Hilarious.

Come on, feel the noise

www.G4noise.com/

home.swipnet.se/tr/silence.html

My last PowerBook stayed around all of 12 hours before it was boxed up and sent back. The issue was the video card fan; it switched itself on and off with wild abandon. And it distracted me to the point where I'd get mad at the thing while trying to work. I've been spoiled. My pair of 800Mhz PowerBooks and the G4 Cube are about as close to quiet as you can get. So I really can see how a site such as G4 Noise would be a hit with the Apple desktop faithful. Imagine a desktop computer that's so loud you have to drill a hole in the wall and store it in another room. There are pictures on this site to back the claim. Apple has relented, though, and certain models are eligible for power supply replacement. The second link is the mother lode of information on the quest for aural nothingness and is a fascinating read.

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