Web Surfing

My type of surfing doesn’t involve a wetsuit, but a mouse and keyboard. Follow along and I will guide you through some of the most popular websites of 2010!

Time Magazine publishes an annual list of what they consider to the best of the Web. I have highlighted three of my personal favorites from that list:

MIT OpenCourseWare: The prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has an initiative to allow partial access to undergraduate and graduate level courses for FREE to anyone. Access to these courses can be found on their website. I have used the Spanish course and dabbled a little in Astronomy. (I am not very good at Astronomy.) But MIT even has their own YouTube channel so you can watch lectures while looking at printouts from their website. Be prepared these are not all full courses, but there is enough pieces to find a very rich education experience...for FREE.

Pogo: Games, games, and more games....what more can I say? Some free games on the internet seem cheap and poorly planned. Pogo offers a variety of bright, and mostly child friendly entertaining games, from the mindless to the slightly educational. I do not recommend using this website at work!

Groupon: One big discount for your area once a day! This website is amazing for helping you find hidden gems in the community. Though there isn’t a Groupon location for Mukwonago, we are so close you can check out Milwaukee, Chicago, and Madison for ideas (triple bonus!). One of my favorite buys from this website was a three month fitness bootcamp in Milwaukee for $60, which saved me almost $200. Also if suggest friends to the website and they purchase something you get a $10 credit. Pretty cool!

Alexa is a Web Information Company that provides an update list of the top 500 internet sites on the web. The top three you can probably guess:. Google, Facebook, and then Youtube. I prefer using the Time List because their ratings are based on enterainment and quality, where Alexa is just amount of visitors. Popularity does not equal quality. Enjoy your surfing!

Pondering Pandora

With over 48 million users you might have heard of Pandora, the online music listening and selection website that caters to your individual music tastes. It is a part of the Music Genome project and it is centered on the user experience and tries to match music to your interests. For example if you type “Elvis Christmas Music”, Pandora will create a special music stations for you that steams music that is all similar to Elvis Christmas music. If you hear a song you don’t like press a thumbs down button and you will never hear it again. Neato burrito!

You can create a music station to fit all of your moods because Pandora lets you make up to 100 individual stations. It also lets you create a user profile and share all of your unique music stations and finds with your friends. The service is also compatible with up to 200 different internet accessible devices, so you can stream music from your Iphone, Nook, home computer, Playstation 3, Wii, X-Box 360, or any other device you can think of. In the car I stream Pandora through my cellphone and then hook it up to my car stereo (sort of like an Ipod).

Why do I love this service? As a librarian I want to give patrons access to the largest amount of information and experience possible for free. Pandora lets you sample new music, learn about the musicians, and even search for concert tickets in your area, and it has a FREE option. You can sign up for an account and listen to 40 free hours of music a month. (Don’t worry no tricks here, there is no credit card required for sign up, they don’t even ask for your address or telephone number.) If you want unlimited streaming music there are subscription services available.

I have over 35 stations and have never used my 40 hours of streaming music in a month. Now I have music to listen to when I clean the house, have a dinner party, or have people over for the holidays. I have discovered some neat new artists that I adore like Iron and Wine, Thievery Corporation, and a few other titles. Though those bands might not be your cup of tea, I bet you can find your own flavor!

Sign O' the Times

3:12 on a Tuesday afternoon and we currently have seven patrons using laptops or netbooks here in the library. On the wired computer stations-- six patrons. It seems that wired, desktop computers may soon be the wave of the past. Indeed, there are some indications that wired anything might be a thing of the past in the not so distant future.

My kids don't remember a time when phones weren't wireless. They were shocked the first time they came to my office and saw a phone that was limited in how far it could go by the wires sticking out of it. Well, not actually shocked. But certainly surprised. Will their kids be surprised to find tvs and lights and other electrical devices that actually have to be plugged in? My money is on yes.

For good or ill, we do live in interesting times.

Budget Simulator

The size and growth of our nation's debt is an issue of concern to many, regardless of political affiliations or ideological preference. If you'd like to try your hand at reducing America's debt and developing a fiscally responsible federal budget, then go to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget's (CRFB) new budget simulator and give it your best shot.

It's an interesting exercise, and provides a pretty good overview of the areas where reductions can be achieved (though it makes no provisions for the actual political or social/cultural impacts of the various choices).

Bad Predictions Review

During the NFL football season, I enjoy reading Gregg Easterbrook's weekly column Tuesday Morning Quarterback at espn.com. After the football season is over, I love his annual Bad Predictions Review column-- because many of the things the so-called "experts" and "pundits" predicted were so horribly wrong! And because experts and pundits rarely get called to the carpet for their really awful predictions-- though many are quick to highlight the predictions they nailed.

The whole column is a blast to read, but here are a few of the predictions that were particularly awful, and amusing:

Tom Curran of MSNBC forecast Percy Harvin as a draft bust: Harvin was Offensive
Rookie of the Year.

John Clayton of ESPN Predicted:

... a Super Bowl of Steelers over Giants; neither team made the playoffs. He
used an incredibly scientifically advanced formula to predict the Bears,
Bills, Browns, Redskins, Seahawks and Texans would make the playoffs; none did.
Clayton forecast the Saints to finish 8-8; they won the Super Bowl. He said the
Jets would finish 6-10; they reached the AFC Championship Game.

For kicks, there are some horrendously wrong non-football picks included in the column as well. Including this beauty:

In 2002, Joseph Stiglitz, who had just won the Nobel Prize for Economics, and
Peter Orszag, who is now director of the Office of Management and Budget, wrote this paper which concludes "the risk to the government from
a potential default on [Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac] debt is effectively zero."
Stiglitz and Orszag claimed to have used a computer model to run "millions of
potential future scenarios" and found there could never be any situation in
which taxpayers were harmed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac loans. So far, the
Fannie-Freddie bailout has cost taxpayers $112 billion, with a potential
ultimate loss to taxpayers of $1.9 trillion.

Aye Carumba! Anyway, check out the whole thing. It is well-worth the read, even if you aren't a football fan.

Fun Sites for the Holidays

Here are a few websites to visit for some Holiday frivolity:

• Elf Yourself. From the clever folks at JibJab, with underwriting by OfficeMax to keep it free, elfyourself.com is a fun, and surprisingly easy (they've really improved the interface from last year) way to send funny holiday emails to your friends and family.
• Chin Carolers. They don't sing the entire song, unfortunately, but they do know the refrain from an awful lot of holiday tunes. (Hat Tip: Lois Duckey)
• Tracking Santa Claus. NORAD tracks Mr. C's progress around the world.
• Design Your Own Gingerbread House. Pretty intuitive and inventive. Allows for truly artistic creations, or just plain silly stuff, like adding a fish to your gingerbread house.
• Christmas eCards. A variety of cards are available: some funny, some religious, some animated. 123greetings also has non-Holiday cards-- all for free.
• Christmas Screensavers. If you want to make your computer more festive, this is a good website for you.

Most of these sites have advertising of some sort or other, which is why they are free, but the intrusion level isn't too bad. Have fun!

Genre Links

For those of you who like particular genres of fiction-- mystery, romance, SF, etc.-- this post is for you. The Waukesha Public Library has put together a fine list of genre specific websites for your viewing enjoyment. These websites vary in quality, timeliness and thoroughness. Inclusion of a site on this list does not constitute an endorsement by either the Waukesha Public Library or the Mukwonago Community Library.

Romance

• The Romance Reader (www.theromancereader.com)
• All About Romance (www.likesbooks.com)
• Romance Writers of America (www.romancejunkies.com)
• Romance Reader at Heart (romancereaderatheart.com)

Horror

• Monster Librarian (www.monsterlibrarian.com)
• Horror World (www.horrorworld.org)
• Horror Writers Association (www.horror.org)

Mystery

• Mystery Ink (www.mysterinkonline.com)
• The Mystery Reader (www.themysteryreader.com)
• Stop, You're Killing Me! (www.stopyourekillingme.com)
• Mystery Writers of America (www.mysterywriters.org)
• The Hidden Staircase (hsmb.omnimystery.org)
• Reviewing the Evidence (www.reviewingtheevidence.com)

Science Fiction and Fantasy

• SF Site (www.sfsite.com)
• Speculative Fiction Reader (www.sfreader.com)
• Locus Online (www.locusmag.com)
• SciFan (www.scifan.com)
• Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America (www.sfwa.org)

Workshop Completed

We had our second two-day workshop with Uihlein-Wilson Architects yesterday and Tuesday. Very good sessions, lots of information. I'll try to post a more substanative summary in the near future, but there is a lot to digest. Sorry for the light blogging. Okay, non-existent blogging.

To fill the void a little, what could be more appropriate than celestial bodies in the void of space.

Perfect:

These are only a few of the amazing images you can view at the Hubble Site. If you like space, the final frontier, you can spend much happy time at the Hubble web page.

School's In For Autumn II, Humor Edition

Doesn't seem like summer can be over, but there you have it. Part of the problem is that it rarely got warm enough to seem like summer. Which was great in many ways-- I'm a big fan of temps in the 70s and lower humidity, but June, July and August really did feel more like an extended spring rather than actual mid-summer.

At any rate, if you now have some more time on your hands with the kiddies off to school, feel free to waste some time at the Museum of Animal Perspectives' flickr site. Truly a mind-bending experience-- who would have thought sticking a camera on an animal's head or back could be so fascinating?

Tres Cool

The Louvre is now available online. Simply visit: http://cartelen.louvre.fr/cartelen/visite?srv=crt_frm_rs&langue=en to explore the musuem's vast collection. You can search by keyword, by room or by department (paintings, sculptures, etc.). Additionally, there is a special area for new acquisitions.

The search engine itself is a little clunky-- it took me about 15 minutes to find the Mona Lisa room (room 6 of the Grande Gallerie-- that's her waaaayyyy at the end), and there is no actual image or information on the Mona Lisa or many of the other prominent holdings of the Louvre. Which is odd-- wouldn't da Vinci's works be some of the first, if not the very first, works you'd include? The only reason I can think that they haven't is preservation concerns, but there must be a way of getting a good image of the painting without damaging it, right?

Finding the Venus de Milo was easier, though still a little awkward. The close-up shots are also very cool, though not necessarily easy to spot-- they pop up off the tiny links below the image of the sculpture herself. And the captions are all in French, unfortunate but not surprising.

Despite these shortcomings, the ability to virtually "tour" much of the Louvre is very cool, and the close-up imagery of many of the world's most famous artwork is extremely cool. Hopefully, they will add the other premier works of art in the future.

More Kid Suggested Web Sites

After initially poo-pooing, and then becoming instantly addicted to, thisissand.com, I restrained my knee-jerk reaction to my daughter's pronouncement that linerider.com was "super way cool" and that I had to try it. My initial reaction was "line rider"? What the heck is that and why would I care?

Turns out, line rider is a fairly simple little flash game that allows you to create a "course" for this little sled riding stick figure. Simple, but fun. You have the option of blue "normal" lines, on which the little dude accelerates downhill and decelerates uphill, and red "acceleration" lines, that give the sledder a pretty substantial momentum boost.

Keeping him on the sled is more than a little challenging, though I did manage to launch him into space, do a complete 360 flip, and land back on a line to continue sledding. For extra kicks, check out some of the movies of the truly fantastic-- and mindbogglingly complex-- courses others have developed for the little line rider. Like this one, for instance.

linerider.com. Check it out.

Additionally, my daughter and her best friend had quite a good time over the weekend at: Architect Studio 3D, a website created by the Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust. It allows you to design a house, furnish it and even landscape it. You can view your creation as a floor plan or in a basic 3-D model.

The site even provides you with "clients" around whose needs you can design your creation. Or you can just do what you want and see how it looks. My kids, for instance, took great pleasure in placing hot tubs in the hallway. But it is fun, and creative, and does get the kids thinking about how things fit together and why.

Listen to the 2nd Graders

My eight-year-old son wanted to visit a website yesterday. I figured it was a page full of various flash games, or perhaps something along the lines of Club Penguin. I asked him what the website was, and he replied, "Thisissand.com." Leaving me puzzled and wondering if I had misheard him.

"This is sand?"

"Yup."

"What's it about?" I ask.

"Sand," he replies. Totally deadpan. Sometimes I wish I hadn't taught my children the concepts of sarcasm and facetiousness.

"What do you do with the sand?"

"You can change its color and make little mountains and stuff."

"Okay," I said, thinking that it sounded rather dull and wondering what the attraction of sand is for a second-grader. A sandbox, sure, both he and my daughter both still enjoy the sandbox, but a website for colored sand?

Turns out, it's a hoot. It shouldn't be-- make sand-looking pixels appear on the screen with your mouse and let them "fall" down the screen to make hills and such. Change the colors if you'd like (using the C key). Repeat. Sounds dull.

It's not. Try it out-- it really is a lot of fun. Very creative, yet amazingly simple and a lot of fun to mess around with. Then check out the gallery. And imagine how long it must have taken to create some of the images. Yikes! I did this one last night.

thisissand.com Who thinks of this? Well, go to the blog to find out.

A Cool Place to Waste Some Time

ted.com has some of the coolest, most interesting, flat out fascinating webcasts I've ever seen. Get a bunch of smart, talented people together and see what happens. What a great concept! This guy's 37 minute juggling/learning/space/art/motion/rhythm segment is mind-blowing.

Actually, most of the stuff on the ted site probably can't be considered a waste of time-- it's too informative and useful! But it is a great way to spend some time.

Goodreads and Library Thing

Two different patrons have recently asked me if it is possible to track what they've read using Library circulation records. My standard response was that no, of course not. Though the Patriot Act allows an authorized federal, state or local law enforcement official to access circulation records with a court order, we don't give that information out to anyone without a court order and we do not keep those records long term.

In both cases the individuals were disappointed, not reassured. They weren't concerned about privacy issues, but instead were hoping they could take a look at their own record to see what they had already read. In one case, keeping track of the many Nora Roberts books and series was the difficulty, since Ms Roberts has written over 150 novels.

Fortunately, though the Library's circulation records cannot be used for this purpose, there are two online websites that can do what these patrons want to do-- Goodreads and Library Thing. Goodreads allows people to "add" titles to their "bookshelves", thus creating a list of books already read and also a "to read" list. It is pretty slick, though there is some front-end work of loading in the books you've already read during your life. This can be kind of fun, however, since you can also rate the books as you go and it may remind you of a few titles or authors who had drifted out of your conscienceness over time.

Library Thing is a little different, though it can also be used to track what titles have been read or which are on the "to read" list. It is essentially a "self-cataloging" web tool, allowing members (free for the first 200 titles, and only $10 a year or $25 for a life-time membership) to create their own personal catalog of book titles owned. You can also check out other member book lists, finding others with similar tastes. Indeed, one of Library Things selling points is that it is the world's largest book club. There is also a review function, genre specific groups, a blog and various other nifty bells and whistles.

Both sites are well worth your time to check out if you like reading and books. I know I spent a good two hours yesterday creating my own bookshelves at Goodreads yesterday. And it was a good two hours. Quite a lot of fun and an interesting romp down memory lane, adding books to my list that I had nearly forgotten I had actually read, yea these many years ago.

Both sites also offer members the opportunity for social interaction with other members if they desire. But it is all optional, and you do not have to interact with anyone if you choose to use the sites just for keeping track of books owned and read.