Fun, Culture, and Interesting Things
(Time-out for the intellectually-inclined)
Australian
TV and Radio over the web from the national broadcaster
(ABC)
www.abc.net.au/broadband
ABC Radio podcast home page
www.abc.net.au/rn/podcast/default.htm
BBC
live radio online (all the UK stations)
www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/index.shtml
NASA's
collection of images of the earth
http://visibleearth.nasa.gov
NASA's
multimedia site with video channels of space exploration
documentaries
www1.nasa.gov/multimedia/highlights/
NASA's
World Wind project (see "Travel section")
Need
to know if a famous personality is dead or alive? Look
them up on:
www.deadoraliveinfo.com
or on the very similar:
Who's Alive and Who's Dead www.wa-wd.com
The Internet Archive
Want to see what a website looked like in the past? The Internet Archive snapshots and preserves websites, making past versions searchable and available to all Internet Archive visitors. The library now holds about 151 billion archived Web pages in a 3 petabyte (that's 3 million gigabytes) database that is expected to expand at the rate of 100 terabytes a month (that's 100,000 gigabytes). That database is tapped up to 500 times a second by some 200,000 visitors a day.
http://www.archive.org
Translation
- rough automated translations between major languages.
It actually sort of works!
http://babelfish.altavista.com
Dr
Karl Kruszelnicki
Julius Sumner Miller Fellow at the University of Sydney,
font of knowledge and general good guy. As well as being
a distinguished scientist, Dr Karl is a popular broadcaster,
science commentator, and author. Get answers and inspiration
off his home page at:
www.abc.net.au/science/k2
A
snapshot of Australian inventors, innovations and icons
over the last 100 years, from 1904 - 2004) is provided
in a very interesting book published to commemorate IP
Australia's 100 Year Anniversary "Imagination
- 100 Years of Bright Ideas in Australia" (can download
as PDF).
How
everyday things are made
Stanford University site which gives simple explanations
and demonstrations of manufacturing processes. Extensively
uses video, so broadband is needed.
http://manufacturing.stanford.edu/
Music in TV Commercials
This site tell you what song is used in TV commercial adverts shown in the UK.
www.commercialbreaksandbeats.co.uk
Newsfilm Online
An archive of historic newsreel footage, with free access to many clips.
http://newsfilm.bufvc.ac.uk
World Economic Forum (organisers of annual conference at Davos)
www.weforum.org
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Culture and History
National
Geographic's Genographic Project
The National Geographic Genographic Project is a research project which everyone can participate in.
This 5 year program is collecting genetic information
from populations in all parts of the world in an effort
to understand the development and migration patterns of
the human race over thousands of years. Find out more,
including how you can be included in the study at:
www.nationalgeographic.com/genographic
Captain
James Cook's Journal
The Journal of the H.M.S. Endeavour, 1768-1771, a manuscript
written by James Cook, can be viewed online at the National
Library of Australia's website. Many other documents and
other records about Australia have been digitised and
are available online at this website.
http://nla.gov.au/nla.ms-ms1
The
Internet Public Library
www.ipl.org
Art
galeries and museums from around the world
http://vlmp.museophile.com/galleries
The
British Museum
www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk
Ancient
China
www.ancientchina.co.uk/menu.html
The
Louvre online
The Parisian art gallery and museum.\
www.louvre.fr
The Open Video Project
This site is really for research purposes, but contains
a lot of historic footage (with a distinctly American
slant) freely available for download. Includes such things
as early cinema and TV advertisements, historic moments,
NASA footage, wartime propaganda, and early 1900s entertainers.
This is free to download, but copyright permissions are
still needed for commercial use. Because of the large
MPEG file sizes (often 50+MB), you really need broadband
to use this site.
www.open-video.org
World Wind
NASA's (downloadable) suite of Open Source applications
which incorporate satellite imagery into a 3D version
of the globe. Can zoom in to specific areas / places and
much much more. Warning - this is a 188+MB download! World
Wind home page has system requirements, etc:
http://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/
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Travel
Skyscrapers
What Skyscraper (or "famous" building) is that? Look
them up by street location or from the pictures provided.
Covers many of the world's cities.
www.emporis.com/en
(formerly skyscrapers.com)
Things to do in Sydney
www.thingstodo-sydney.com
Beijing Parks bureau
www.bjbpl.gov.cn/WZGB/en/Show.aspx
TrekEarth
Marvelous photographic site. The underlying theme of
TrekEarth is learning more about the world through photography.
TrekEarth fosters this by allowing photographers to display
their work grouped by regions in a supportive and orderly
environment.
www.trekearth.com
Pub Crawl in North America? Your journey starts here:
www.pubcrawler.com
Golf Link Directory
Reviews of over 20,000 golf courses in the USA.
www.golflink.com/golf-courses
Also see World & City Guides
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Comedy and Cartoons
Martin
Lukes and a-b glöbâl
Martin Lukes has problems... Currently assigned to "special
projects", he is a forty something marketing director
of a-b glöbâl (UK), a subsidiary of the well-known US
multinational. (Fictional column, published each Thursday
in the Financial Times)
http://news.ft.com/comment/columnists/martinlukes
BBC
Radio Comedy - online, and on-demand
www.bbc.co.uk/bbc7/comedy/index.shtml?Today
Prairie
Home Companion - Garrison Keillor
Forget Dr Phil - this is the only therapy you'll
need to stay grounded. Garrison Keillor's wonderful radio
variety show is one of the best things ever to come out
of Minnesota and the US mid-west. The live radio show
includes touching dialogue, comedy skits, musical guests
and commercials for imaginary products. Its website features
newsletters, scripts, and (drilling down through the the
"Old Shows" tab) you can replay your selection
from hundreds of shows. On the air since 1974, these radio
programs give us a window into an alternative, more comforting,
middle-America - particularly through the regular segment:
"Tales from Lake Wobegon".
http://prairiehome.publicradio.org
UK
Comedy Guide - comedian reviews, venue information, etc
www.chortle.co.uk
Cartoons
from Australian Financial Review newspaper
http://afr.com/cartoongallery
Garfield
the Cat official cartoon site
www.garfield.com/comicscartoons.html
DC
Comics - Batman, Superman, JLA, Green Latern and more.
www.dccomics.com
John Cleese
He of Monty Python and Fawlty Towers fame's own web page
(subscription needed for most areas).
www.thejohncleese.com
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Cooking
How
to Cook the Turkey
Maybe you only do it once a year, so here is the famous
butterball "infomercial" site from the US which tells you
everything you need to know (and some things you don't!).
As featured on "The West Wing" TV show.
www.butterball.com
Pet Care
Australian National Kennel Council
The Australian National Kennel Council has an excellent guide to the characteristics of different breeds of dog. It is a national organising body, coordinating 8 State canine councils and is the national body through which the breed standards for pure bred dogs are defined and recognised in Australia.
http://www.ankc.org.au
American Kennel Club
The American Kennel Club (AKC) is the largest and second oldest purebred dog registry in the world. Founded on September 17, 1884, the AKC was formed as a "club of clubs" to promote the sport of purebred dogs and breeding for type and function. Today, the American Kennel Club comprises 584 member clubs and over 4,000 licensed and affiliated clubs. The AKC registers 155 dog breeds (newest additions include the Tibetan Mastiff and the Plott). The American Kennel Club sanctions more than 18,500 events (mainly dog show competitions) each year - drawing over three million entries annually. The AKC is the only purebred dog registry in the U.S. that conducts kennel inspections to ensure the health, safety and welfare of dogs. Today, nearly 5,000 kennel inspections are conducted each year.
www.akc.org
Puppy School
Very useful site for dog owners (and people planning to get a new puppy). Puppy School has lots of advice and resources for dog owners. Puppy School contains an excellent guide to different dog breeds.
www.puppyschool.org
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