Here's a pretty complete blow-by-blow of how the X Prize was won on Oct. 4, 47 years to the day that the former Soviet Union put Sputnik into space. The X Prize is the $10-million booty for the first nongovernmental spaceship to make two consecutive trips into space, considered to be 368,000 feet above sea level. The image gallery is worth a visit by itself. But if you've got the bandwidth, the video is where the action is.
Are you obsessed with who you are? Or obsessed with who somebody else is? If you're curious to see just who Google thinks you are, then this site is for you. It's a smart hack that queries the mother of all Internet information looking for variations on who, what, where and when. It's addictive for, oh, about 20 minutes.
Here's a New York business that allows you to have doze at lunchtime. Very West Coast, no? If you're a cube dweller, have a spare 13 bucks (lunch is extra), and need to sleep off a bit of that nasty hangover, then this place offers facilities for some shut-eye. The next time I'm in the Big Apple and fancy a nice nap over lunch, you'll know where to find me.
Life is all about connections. This area of ThreeTwoOne.org's site holds a particular fascination for me as connections are what makes it tick. Take something seemingly simple as how the states are connected to each other. The map of the USA doesn't offer an at-a-glance synopsis, but this site does. Smart stuff.
English professor Mark Edmundson offers a thought-provoking, if not downright insightful, essay on college-age youth and the unapologetic blandness they exude. It seems we're educating a nation of cool fact peddlers rather than one of thinkers. It's a long read, but perhaps that's one person's MTV generation opinion. It's succinct and rather brilliant stuff.
- Jules Allen has been building Web sites since 1994 and has been writing for Personal Tech since 1997. Send suggestions by e-mail to personaltech@sptimes.com or write P.O. Box 1121, St. Petersburg, FL 33731.
- Direct links to the sites also can be found in the online version of Site Seeing, which can be found at www.sptimes.com/Technology.shtml
