How are your reading habits? Do you savor rereading your cherished volumes and shun interference from new sources? Then you'll loathe this site. It's an excellent way to get a grip on new, possibly compatible reading material. There are two modes: a flashy, slightly annoying Macromedia Flash powered interface and a more sedate, modem-friendly text version. While the latter isn't as exciting, I prefer it. Watch out for the borrow button: That's for Brits. I suppose you could borrow the book from over there, but let's face it, who wants to face an extradition order for late fees?
Yahoo got its start by categorizing the fledgling Web and was an instant success. It has moved away from that approach in favor of a Google-fueled solution, because the Web is just too big. So it's interesting to see Business 2.0's rather useful, hierarchically organized directory of the best business sites. Rather than cramming an index to the whole Web on a single site, it has cherry picked an investor- and business-friendly set of highly useful links. It's worth bookmarking for research projects.
You either understand the basics of the theory of gravity, or not. Perhaps you are among those who think that you're stuck to the Earth because of that chewing gum you stepped on. Either way, you'll get a charge out of this site because it covers both groups. For the physics types, it's chock full of superlative science experiments and pseudo gravity. And for the hard of thinking, it has lots of pretty, clickable animations. Luckily I want to be in both groups, so it's double the fun.
Thank your lucky stars that your day gig isn't painting the entire universe. It would take you forever, and you'd never be caught up enough to enjoy vacation. If you do happen to be offered a job doing this, take a trip to Aroostook County in Maine to get some idea of what you'd be up against. Here you'll find a brilliant scaled-down rendition of just our teeny solar system. It starts with the sun at the Northern Maine Museum of Science and winds down with Pluto on Route 1 at the end of Interstate 95, about 40 miles away.
This might not be the first documented case of unsolicited commercial e-mail, but it's one of the best. It's a discussion by an early user of ARPAnet, the primitive precursor to the Internet, and it talks of a message from a sales rep. What's interesting is that a lot of recipients were as outraged by the spam as you probably were when you got your first one. It's fun to fire up a slice of marketing history.
