http://www.cnwcentral.com/charities/best.shtml lists websites that donate 100% of their advertising revenue to great causes. I urge you to add at least one of these websites in your favorites and try clicking once or twice throughout your day. These websites make closing out elusive pop-ups and annoying advertisements a heart warming and fulfilling activity. My favorite website is "thehungersite.com":http://www.thehungersite.com/, which includes links to sister sites for "breast cancer":http://www.thebreastcancersite.com, "child healthcare":http://www.thechildhealthsite.com, "literacy":www.theliteracysite.com, "rainforest preservation":www.therainforestsite.com, and "animal rescue":www.theanimalrescuesite.com. This provides an effortless, yet effective way to contribute.
Homemade 3-D printer
“TreeHugger.com”:http://www.treehugger.com/ posted an “article”:http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/04/downloading_des_5.php the other day about a cool DIY project at the “Evil Mad Scientist blog”:http://www.evilmadscientist.com/. It’s all about a home-made “3-D or CNC printer”:http://www.evilmadscientist.com/article.php/3printerpreview that uses sugar as the primary building material. TreeHugger already did a cool review of the machine with their post, but they neglected to mention the really cool “toaster mod”:http://www.evilmadscientist.com/article.php/cnctoast pictured below.
http://reprap.org/bin/view/Main/WebHome and "Fab @ Home":http://www.fabathome.org/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page, both really good places to find out about the grassroots of this revolutionary technology. For a really great treatment about just how revolutionary 3-D printing could be, read Charles Stross' "Singularity Sky":http://www.librarything.com/work.php?book=14432707.
Save Money – Get Your Free Financial Report Card and GPA
One of your most important things in your financial life is your “FICO score”:http://www.myfico.com/Downloads/Files/myFICO_UYFS_Booklet.pdf. It is essentially fiscal GPA that measures how worthy of credit you are based upon several factors. It is imperative to know what yours is. Unfortunately, each time your FICO score is “officially requested”:http://www.myfico.com/Products/Products.aspx it “decreases”:http://www.fico.org/HowScoreCountsInquiries.aspx. Thanks to a great “FICO score estimator”:http://bankrate.com/brm/fico/calc.asp?lpid=BKRATE29 at “bankrate.com”:www.bankrate.com, you can get an accurate estimated range of where you’re at so you can “learn to improve it”:http://www.realtor.org/realtororg.nsf/pages/myFICO2?OpenDocument and compare yourself to the “median”:http://www.creditscoring.com/. Another thing you should get annually is your “free credit report”:www.annualcreditreport.com from one of “three agencies”:http://www.legit411.com/credit-card-bureaus.html. By monitoring both your GPA and report card, you’re more secure from “identity theft”:http://duenos.net/article/156/UseProtectionAgainstIDThieves and exponentially more attractive to loaners.
Photoblog Perfection
Every once in a while you stumble across something so beautiful that your jaw drops and stays ajar. Now imagine having that experience repeatedly as you page photo by photo through a stunning exposition of verdant vistas, stark machinery, luminescent locales, and shadowy cityscapes. Exploring Julien Roumagnac’s variegated adventure through some of the most visually appealing scenes that life has to offer has truly been a joy.
I simply cannot get enough of the above picture, and it will live as my desktop background for a long, long time. Roumagnac utilizes Adobe Photoshop to create some of the effects seen in his photos, but I believe that this adds an interesting layer to the art. The photoblog is well-organized and easy to navigate; visit it at “http://www.j-roumagnac.net/”:http://www.j-roumagnac.net/
Killer Apps for Mac – Darwiin Remote
Gamers rejoice! If you are one of the lucky bunch who snagged a Nintendo Wii in recent months, “Darwiin Remote”:http://sourceforge.net/news/?group_id=183966 is a neat, helpful program that utilizes your Mac’s Bluetooth technology to read the Wiimote’s signals and utilize them for good and awesome. For example, Darwiin Remote can map the Wiimote’s buttons to your keyboard, making it easy to use the Wiimote as a wireless controller for emulating video games, a method for navigating a slideshow while standing at a podium, or a control for iTunes when sitting on the couch studying.
http://sourceforge.net/news/?group_id=183966.
Russians plan Bering Tunnel
Russian engineering seems to be thinking pretty highly of itself these days. First it was the “floating power plant”:http://duenos.net/article/173/FloatingnuclearreactorbuiltbyRussians and now this, a 64 mile tunnel connecting Asia and North America across the International Date Line. The tunnel could revolutionize international trade, lowering the price of freight, passenger, and fiber-optic traffic between the world’s largest producer countries in east Asia and the largest consumer base, the United States.
The plan calls for two separate lengths of tunnel to meet halfway on the Diomede Islands pictured above. Of course this isn’t the first time a Bering Tunnel has been proposed. Before World War I, Czar Nicholas II had the idea to connect the two land masses and the “TKM-World Link tunnel”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TKM-World_Link has been on the table for over 5 years. Still, there are a lot of hurdles to jump before this idea becomes reality. In the meantime we should all consider how great it would be to take a train through Arctic waters in the world’s most active volcanic/earthquake zone.
The “Times article”:http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article1680121.ece that reported the most recent moves towards tunneling. The picture is from “Wikipedia”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diomede_Islands.
London gets more coverage
Almost all of central London will soon be under the heavy, “potentially harmful”:http://www.wi-fiplanet.com/columns/article.php/3095831, and comforting blanket of wireless internet. The Cloud Network has just “flipped the switch”:http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=39113 on their wireless network covering the Financial District. Combined with the WiFi on the Thames “previously reported”:http://duenos.net/article/101/wifi-on-the-river-thames on duenos, it’ll be hard to find a place where you can’t access the internet.
(via the “Inquirer”:http://www.theinquirer.net/)
You'll want to know what's in that treasure box, too.
I recently discovered Treasure Box, a “beautiful little flash game”:http://www.senggeng.com/wada/compe/main.html, and I could not help become engrossed in simple, stylish puzzles that it offers. The premise is straightforward: guide the bright, red ball through the various quirks, twists, and turns of this bizarre world to a well-hidden and mysterious treasure box.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_Submarine_(film)
This Week In Ridiculous Bands – Bardcore
Not actually a consistent feature of Duenos, This Week In Ridiculous Bands chronicles some of the more absurd, yet awesome, music groups to grace this fine planet. This installment features the notable bellowing of the hardcore Shakespearean band creatively titled (surprise!) Bardcore.
http://www.myspace.com/bardcore also mentions the fact that they are more than willing to play at your next BDSM club gathering--but you might be able to convince them to play at your beloved English major's graduation party as well.
Image courtesy of the amazing webcomic "Married to the Sea":http://www.marriedtothesea.com.
House M.D. – Medical Reviews
I recently became completely hooked on the show “House”, which in my mind is extremely fascinating for the medical puzzles that drive the plot (and come on, the personality of Dr. House is awesome). The blog “Polite Dissent”:http://www.politedissent.com/ chronicles the veracity of medical elements in popular media, including television and comics.
In particular, the blog features some excellent “reviews”:http://www.politedissent.com/house_pd.html of the medicine practiced by the misanthropic Dr. House and his overly attractive group of doctors. Given the reviews it seems that, in general, the show does a reasonable job of featuring accurate medicine (though it most certainly remains a work of fiction).