Best Internet Sites

Week Ending 1st Oct'05

2005-09-30T22:44:00.000-07:00

If that's given you a taste for tweaking your browser then you're going to need some more plug-ins. The beauty of these free, open source packages that are becoming so popular is that a healthy community of software coders is building up around them. Take a look at Mozdev.org to see what I mean.
Mozdev is the home of a large software development community who are dedicated to making quality free software to complement Mozilla's browsing technology.

Finally, for those who like to indulge in an intellectual battle of wits online, here's a gaming website, challenge match on kurnik.pl.

Week Ending 24th Sept'05

2005-09-28T23:10:00.000-07:00

One of the lecturers at Colorado State University - Dr Dave - has uploaded high speed video clips on its website. Not interested? OK, then ever wondered what an egg dropped on a mouse trap might look like at super slow speed? Oh, now you're interested. So you want to see these Interesting High Speed Video Clips

Week Ending 17th Sept'05

2005-09-16T04:49:00.000-07:00

http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/sleep/sheep/
To finish you off with a proper mental work-out, here's a sampling from our own website at the BBC.

I was taking a look around the Sleep section inside BBC Science & Nature and came across this reflex challenge game called Sheep Dash.

The purpose is to stop the sheep from running away by clicking on the tranquilliser button as soon as you see one move. Be careful not to click too soon though, or you will suffer a 3 second penalty.

The game is measuring your response time, and gives you a score at the end comparative to the average. The fastest score I got was 0.2048 seconds.

Week Ending 10th Sept'05

2005-09-12T03:14:00.000-07:00

http://www.feric.com/
Eric Feng is a Taiwanese artist who has achieved some notoriety in recent years for his hugely individual work, which is on display at his website.

Influenced by Chinese brushwork and calligraphy from his early studies in Taipei, and then encouraged to define his own unique style when he studied further in New York, his work manages to somehow capture the beauty and serenity of classic tradition and combine it with the cogs and bolts of modern machinery.

The website itself is wonderfully composed too. Just select the gallery you want from the top menu bar and use the arrow buttons to cycle through the various works. Check out the animations in the Inside Out section - especially the Inside Out movie that is linked at the bottom of the page. Incredible.

There isn't much information on this site other than the images and a rather odd written statement from the artist himself, but then you don't really need information when you're looking at art, do you?

These intricate studies are beautiful, and the crisp cleanliness of the website only serves to enhance their overall appeal.

Week Ending - 3rd Sept'05

2005-09-05T03:54:00.000-07:00

http://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/
Now that every one has gone crazy for Google Earth here's another download you can go crazy over. This time it's from the people at NASA and is called World Wind. It is a hefty download I'm afraid, but worth every one of its 184 megabytes.
Once you've installed it you will still need a broadband connection to use it because, like Google Earth, it takes data from the main server as and when you need it to display the landscape.

http://www.michaelbach.de/ot/index.html
From visual imagery to optical illusions now, with Micheal Bach's extensive collection of optical illusions.

The layout here is uninspired but does the job just fine. You can either click a particular illusion on the right, or just dive straight in with the whole tour, which can be found at the top of that list.

Each illusion page contains a detailed description of what you should be seeing and the science behind the phenomenon. The text looks pretty daunting but is well worth a read as I found it fascinating. In most cases there are additional controls to help explain the science, the usage of these is also explained to the left.

http://www.googlefight.com
It's time to settle all those age-old disputes between friends and colleagues with another great little GoogleHack at Google Fight.