Table of Contents for this page:

• Preface.

• A few Pages of Puns and Word Plays and other light-hearted family-oriented foolishness.

• Finding Real and Lasting Happiness Every Day.

• Some Things Astronomical.

• Science & Technology Websites.

• Some Very Interesting Microscopic Images.

• HELP Getting Started and Working Safely on the Internet pages, including an "Introduction to the Internet," Help with Social Networking sites, "Help with Internet Email and Mailing Lists," "Help for New Web Surfers," "Help with web page creation and HTML," "Searching the Internet: Parts I and II," and a "Privacy and Intellectual Property Rights Index."

• The Fabulous Ruins of Detroit - a great picture gallery by a Detroit artist of that great industrial city's buildings from its heyday, This section also includes lots of other Detroit links.

• Photo Collection from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

• Edmonton Temple, Family History, Scripture Searching and Book of Mormon Map.

• Learn Some Elementary Egyptian Hieroglyphics (really!).

• Dacaharma's Tasty Delights (recipes).

• More Mindless Doodles (well, what are you going to do? Somebody asked.) 

• A Few Photos for Relaxation.

  Preface

For queries or further information, e-mail us directly from your forms-capable browser.

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  A Few Puns and Word Plays:

• The original page (was 140+ Kb) that just got too big. Now it is in five parts.

• Its little brother -Ver 2 (this will give you the flavor, too).

• Its other little brothers - Ver 3 or Ver 4 or Ver 5 (as will these).

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  Finding Real and Lasting Happiness Every Day

• This section provides a starting point for almost everybody's quest (throughout the ages in almost every culture) for greater personal contentment and well-being. I add it here because there are many misleading counterfeits and because there is available only now a reasonable body of research and objective thinking that help define what happiness is and how individuals can foster its enduring effects in their everyday lives.

• See Living a Happier Life.

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  Now, Some Things Astronomical

Left is the planetary nebula Mz3; center is the Cat's Eye nebula;
and right is the light echo around V838 Monocerotis.
All are from the Hubble Heritage Image Gallery.

• The "Journey Through The Galaxy" website (posted by Case Western Reserve University) also has an advanced description of our galaxy in the universe, and of our solar system in the galaxy.

• Cal Tech's Cool Cosmos has lots of good information in three levels: beginner, intermediate and advanced. It has a cosmic classroom, a cosmic kids section, games, and lots of good graphics including infrared observations and explanations. Dr. Michelle Thaller manages the site as one of her public education interests.

• View the Doomed Star Eta Carinae - about to explode in a fireball like you have never seen. "A huge, billowing pair of gas and dust clouds are captured in this stunning NASA Hubble Space Telescope image of the supermassive star Eta Carinae," expanding outward at about 1.5 million miles per hour. There are two versions, both with explanations: Version 1 and Version 2. In case the foregoing are unavailable, see also Nebula in Carinae (19 July 1999 Astronomy Picture of the Day [see below]); the doomed star (16 Aug 1998); and lasers in Eta Carinae (29 Nov 1997). Outstanding!

• View another Hubble phenom, the "supersonic exhaust from [planetary] nebula M2-9." This is an example of a "bipolar planetary nebula" and is estimated to be ten times the diameter of Pluto's orbit (or about 100 billion miles). This picture, along with others in the Planetary Nebula Gallery, contributes to astronomers' understanding of the complex processes that can result from the death throes of Sun-like stars. The site contains the M2-9 photo in several resolutions and formats, an explanatory caption and a photo gallery of other planetary nebulas. And if that is not enough, here are a few more Hubble wonders:
• Photo-1: a majestic view of a planetary nebula, the glowing remains of a dying, Sun-like star.
• Photo-2: Looking Down a Barrel of Gas at a Doomed Star.
• Photo-3: huge shell of gas ejected by a star as it nears the end of its lifetime.
• Photo-4: four stunning colorful snapshots of stellar burnout.
• Photo-5: The Final Blaze Of Glory Of Sun-Like Stars (M2-9).

• The Hubble Heritage website (information center) sees the Hubble telescope as "a tool for extending human vision that is capable of building a bridge between the endeavors of scientists and the public. By emphasizing compelling HST images distilled from scientific data, we hope to pique curiosity about our astrophysical understanding of the universe we all inhabit." An overview of the Heritage Project gallery is available. This site and the more recent HUBBLE site are outstanding websites devoted to the most interesting visual images from the Hubble telescope.

• The Kitt Peak National Observatory has an outstanding Advanced Observing Program (AOP) in which amateur astronomers can use their large telescopes. The Best of AOP contains a superb collection of their images. It is definitely worth a visit.

• The Nine Planets Site (maybe 8 after 24 Aug 2006) by Bill Arnett is a "must-see" for anybody even remotely interested in outer space. It provides a "multimedia tour of the solar system," complete with pictures and brief, interesting explanations written for the layman and general reader. For those in a hurry, there is a "Nine Planets just for kids" and an Overview of the Solar System which should not be missed. Watch out, though ... you are at risk of spending all morning there anyway! It is good stuff.

• Calvin Hamilton's Views of the Solar System is a delightful experience. He is a digital image processing engineer; and you can see the results in this outstanding on-line offering.

• The commercial website NorCAL Fabric Shade Structures posts a A Comprehensive Guide to Our Solar System, which is very helpful. It was suggested to us by Chrissy Compton, and contains a brief summary for each planet along with links to other related websites, mainly at universities. Thanks Chrissy.

• The NASA Planetary Photojournal website.

• Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD). Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.
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• The Astronomy Picture of the Day Archive is also available, including the "Galactic Cannibal," a huge cluster that eats nearby stars. The Galactic Cannibal was the featured picture August 31st, 1998. Their infrared Saturn (24 July 1999) with false color is spectacular.
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The photo to the right is Saturn's Hyperion: A Moon with Odd Craters (to say the least). Have you ever seen such a thing? APOD's explanation may help you decipher it. Meanwhile, clicking on the image will yield an enlargement. The photo is from CICLOPS (Cassini Imaging Central Laboratory for OPerationS), et al. Great work! . - And to the left here is a stunning photo of Stickney Crater on the Martian moon Phobos. The crater is so big it nearly shattered Phobos on impact. See the Astronomy Picture of the Day for 10 April 2008 for more details.
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• And while we are in planetary mode here, don't miss the Mars Rovers and Mars Lander websites (one each from the U of Arizona and the Jet Propulsion Lab) to see what they are up to. Here is a quick tutorial, Mars 101, that you can read in a short time to get up to speed on Mars in terms of similar features and measures from our planet Earth.

• The EarthLights Photo of lights over the entire earth from the space station (regular size; jumbo size) is one very interesting way to see global population and development densities.

• The Subaru Telescope (construction, specifications and instrumentation), posts some stunning pictures from the heavens which rival those from the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope. The English captions, written for the general reader, are a delight. The explosion of warm molecular hydrogen gas around the Kleinman-Low nebula in the Orion cloud (M42) is particularly impressive. The enlarged JPG is big (476 Kb), but spectacular--definitely worth the wait for the download. Watch this website for some dazzling stuff!

• The brand new Gemini North telescope will also rival photos from the Hubble telescope, especially for images in the infrared. Lots of links to interesting images, systems, etc. This telescope will have what are called "adaptive optics" which will adjust the mirrors on the fly by bending them just a little to compensate for atmospheric disturbances.

• NASA's "StarChild" website offers descriptions of the sun and planets in our Solar System, descriptions of galaxies, stars and black holes in the universe, etc., for grade 3-8 students. In each category they post level 1 and level 2 information. Lots of good pictures. Their Planets website is very good also.

• NASA's 30th anniversary website commemorating the Apollo 11 moon landing (20 July 1969) has some great photo galleries and much more. And they have also posted a recap of the entire Apollo Program (1, and 7-17).

• NASA's Gateway to Astronaut Photography website has photos you can select from a world grid.

• NASA's "Constellation Program" is getting to work on the new spacecraft that will return humans to the moon and blaze a trail to Mars and beyond." It has some well done illustrations of the rockets and spacecraft.

• The NASA Images website is lots of fun, with its sections on the Universe, the Solar System, Earth, Aeronautics and Astronauts. There are a zillion handy accessible images here. It even has a Spaceflight Timeline where you can see the Explorer, Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs, along with those for Skylab, Viking, Pioneer, Voyager, the Shuttle, Galileo, Hubble, Pathfinder, Cassini, the Mars Rovers, and the International Space Station. Great stuff !!

• Here is a 1:30 video of the assembly of the International Space Station. It even provides module names, dates, and shows where/how they fit together.

• Don't miss the Earth and Moon Viewer, a creation of John Walker at Fourmilab. It contains user specified views of earth from space, etc., that you will enjoy. You will even enjoy his questions and answers section. Lots of fun.

• The Terra Earth Observing Satellite, launched only in December of 1999, posts a very detailed and interesting gallery of photos and other images of the earth. This site will be worth checking often as it grows, having been designed with multiple simultaneous imaging systems "for a comprehensive check up of planet Earth." The Earth Observatory Image of the Day is always interesting, too.

• Another website containing more delightful images is also very informative and easy to navigate. The Chandra X-ray Observatory Science Images, includes a spectacular Shooting Neutron Star that looks like a crossbow.

• Google Earth has a section "Explore the Sky with Google Earth." Lots of fun here, too, looking at a Hubble and other views of the sky overhead where you are, checking out the orbits of the planets and much more. Google Earth gives you maps galore of the surface of the earth, too, of course. The unofficial Google Earth Blog by Frank Taylor describes "the amazing things about Google Earth."

• On a little different level, here is an Astrophysics course you can actually understand. Dr. John C. Evans at George Mason University Physics and Astronomy Department has posted "Foundations of Cosmological Thought," and also the class notes for his Astronomy 103 class. If you want to know more about Astronomy, Physics and Astrophysics, these are very well done introductions. Each topic starts at the beginning, and defines terms as they come up. The result is that you can pick the topics you are interested in without having to read all the others. Dr. Evans has also explained Astronomical Coordinate Systems (the numbers Astronomers use to tell each other where to look for stars, galaxies, etc.). It is also very well written. Thank you, Dr. Evans!
• And here's another one: The Physics Department at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania offers Physics 108, Astronomy in the Physical Universe. Its section on the evolution of stars is just excellent. You can read the whole thing in under half an hour. It is very readable for us non-astronomers and non-physicists. It begins with an introduction, describes all the stages in half a dozen sections, and ends with "Black Holes: Gravity's Ultimate Victory." It even has some illustrations.

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  Science & Technology Websites.

• TheOnline Guide to Snowflakes, snow crystals and other ice phenomena, hosted by the Information Management Systems and Services unit at Caltech, is a great place to learn about snow. It has "Frequently Asked Questions," several galleries of photos of individual snowflakes, and even a "designer snowflakes" section. You can learn if there are really no two snowflakes that are exactly alike, and if they are always (or even mostly) symmetrical; and you can check out just about anything you ever wanted to know about snow and the perennial 6 arms of a snowflake. Hey, if you are stuck in the snow six months of the year like we are, you might as well learn all about it. They even have some great snowflake wall paper for your computer, and a list of snowflake books.
• The USDA's Beltsville Agricultural Research Center posts a very interesting Electron Microscopy Unit Snow Page that features images from a low temperature scanning electron microscope, including lots of snow and ice crystals at high magnifications. They also post other microscopic images of mites, etc.
• Tiffany Peterson suggested another website with a page "Throw, Catch, and Learn about Snowflakes" which has lots of fun ideas and good links on snowflakes, too. Thanks Tiff.
• The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) is part of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado at Boulder. There is a tonne of stuff at this NSIDC website about the world's frozen realms, ... and lots of photos, too.
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• Ron Hipschman's website on Bubbles is outstanding. In his introduction he wonders about "the precise spherical shape, the incredibly fragile nature of the microscopically thin soap film, the beautiful colors that swirl and shimmer, or most likely, a combination of all these phenomena. Why does a bubble form a sphere at all? Why not a cube, tetrahedron, or other geometrical figure?" He then says: "Let's look at the forces that mold bubbles."  Definitely worth a peek, as are his several other websites. Just Google his name, or see the Exploratorium Webmaster's Page.
• See also the Exploratorium's website on Ice Stories - dispatches from polar scientists.
• See also the Exploratorium's Microscope Imaging Section, particularly their Gallery. Fascinating stuff.
• See also the Exploratorium's Scientific Evidence (how do we know what we know?) website. Very well-prepared.

• For those interested in thermonuclear fusion and the machines needed to contain the very hot plasmas in which these reactions occur, All The World's Tokamaks is a website containing a fascinating gallery of photos (external and internal) from the early Russian TM models in the 1960s (even the very first TMP in 1954), to the present 500 megawatt ITER project in France which may be operational as early as 2018. This international project will provide vital design information for tomorrow's fusion power plants. A Tokamak Discoveries page lists the principal tokamaks (Wikipedia Tokamak page) in date order of their construction. To the left is a cropped photo of a 1987 Russian postage stamp containing an image of one of their early tokamaks, likely from the 1960s.
. The Princeton Plasma Physics Lab posts several good images (internal and external) of their Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor which ran from 1982-1997, along with some explanations for the general reader of the accomplishments which scientists made while using it. They include a ton of links to related material, historic and present. The U.S. National Ignition Facility is working on inertial confinement fusion as a related method of confining the plasma. Their Photo Gallery contains captivating photos of the construction and fabrication of NIF along with conceptual diagrams.

• For those interested in Nuclear Power Reactors such as the boiling water reactors which are in jeopardy at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant in Japan following the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission posts the Students' Corner website which explains nuclear energy, nuclear reactors, radiation, emergency planning, security, decommissioning and radioactive waste. It is written for those who are new to nuclear power and electrical power generation. They also post a number of other informative and helpful pages for those new to the nuclear energy field.
• In addition, the Union of Concerned Scientists (an advocacy group focusing on nuclear and environmental safety) posts on its "All Things Nuclear" website several interesting and informative articles: Possible Source of Leaks at Spent Fuel Pools at Fukushima, More on Spent Fuel Pools at Fukushima and an introductory .PDF slide show showing how a Boiling Water Reactor works in detail.
• Normally seen as a low risk component of the fuel cycle at nuclear reactors, the pools for holding spent fuel assemblies (Wiki's introductory description, with photos) have become perhaps the highest risk at Fukushima after boiling dry or leaking water. [In normal operation the pools keep the spent fuel assemblies cool, and contain their radioactivity while they are cooling after their useful life in the reactor is over. When the water level drops below the tops of the spent fuel assemblies for more than a short time, the zirconium cladding on the fuel rods can become hot enough to ignite causing radiation discharge, generating a lot more heat, and perhaps contributing to the melting of the fuel itself. The combination represents a substantial risk since, absent the water, there is no shielding against the radiation emitted, radioactive aerosols can be discharged into the atmosphere when carried by the smoke from the fire (since the pools have no tops--they are open, much like a swimming pool, and the buildings surrounding them have been damaged significantly), and any undisciplined pile of melted nuclear fuel at the bottom of the pool represents a great deal of uncertainty and risk.]

• The Large Hadron Collider that is just now coming on-line (mid-2008) is another fascinating machine for investigating sub-atomic particles and their properties. The Boston.com blog posts some large and delightfully detailed photos (from Aug 2008) of the tunnel, its components and the detectors, mainly during construction and assembly.
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• Here are links for detailed information and availability concerning the Encyclopedia of Computer Science - Wiley website) and the Concise Encyclopedia of Computer Science, the first edition of which I edited with Dr. Anthony Ralston. The Table of Contents for the 4th Edition is on-line. Here is Dr. Ralston's paper describing the evolution of the Encyclopedia: "Four Editions and Eight Publishers: A History of the Encyclopedia of Computer Science." The article appeared in the IEEE's Annals of the History of Computing in 2004, Vol. 26, No. 1, pp. 42-52.

• Science @ NASA sponsors Space Weather, which keeps an eye on solar activity, provides an aurora watch predicting good aurora conditions and their dates based on observed solar activity, and the speed of the solar wind. They also report on asteroids, meteors, etc., and provide a good list of "Essential Links." Every week they post something very interesting that is readable; and they have a glossary and an on-line tutorial for those learning about space weather. They often post interesting links to websites with other interesting atmospherics, such as:
• Richard Fleet's section about "Glows, Bows and Haloes" which lists all kinds of rainbows, fogbows, mirages, auroras, glories and many other interesting optical wonders in the sky.
• Les Cowley's website on Atmospheric Optics is also fascinating.

• The Biological Sciences Division of Molecular and Cellular Boisciences at the National Scence Foundation posts a fascinating introduction to cells called A Tour of the Cell, at which you can view the components of cells, learn what they do, and how they operate. It is an easy read with a one-screen description of each component.

• Science Oxford Online demonstrates how the different Science Oxford teams work together, and with diverse audiences to achieve their mission: To encourage the pursuit of science and enterprise. Their new design makes connections between science, enterprise and society. It illustrates connections between different areas of science. It also tries to show the many connections that science has with everyday life; and it does so in a way you can follow and understand. You can see a video on the amazing properties of cornstarch, for example (in which you can ride a bike over a pool of it, but if you stand still you sink in). There are photos of a very big spider, and many other very interesting items: pages and pages of them. It is very easy to navigate, to bring up videos, etc., and to move from one item to another. Don't pass this one up. You can spend five minutes here, or five hours.

• Heather Renyck, a science educator in New Hampshire posts some delightful science, nature and other photos on her websites: Summer 2007 and Last Day of Summer Holiday or other galleries. Check out her aspen leaf with water droplets that was featured on the Earth Science Picture of the Day (EPOD) for 21 Aug 2006 (where there is a stunning full-resolution version, complete with magnified mineral grains in some of the droplets). Additionally, we are indebted to Heather for that terrific New Hampshire sunset in the upper right corner of this page. Thank you, Heather!
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• The HyperPhysics website by Dr. Rod Nave at the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Georgia State University provides comprehensive physics and astronomy information based on concept maps (image, right) or tree structures for easy navigation.
. This site provides simple explanations aimed at High School and College physics students, with links for greater detail on every aspect. Click the "Index" link for a very handy index in a frame to the right on the index page. In addition to being very readable and informative, this website is very comprehensive and stable. Thank you, Dr. Nave.

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• The Smithsonian Institution publishes a free newsletter "Spotlight on Science" to which you can subscribe. It often has interesting articles that are short, well-written and cover a variety of subjects.

• The Infrared Astronomy website features the Infrared Universe. But it also has a ton of infrared images from the everyday world in its World Gallery. Lots of fun here, from steaming cups of hot drinks, to hot and cold running water, geysers, animals, even a just-removed shoe, etc. Dr. Michelle Thaller also manages the site as one of her public education interests.

• The Smethwick Steam Engine (photo) is the oldest steam engine still in working order. It was built in 1779, and is just one of many interesting items at the WORKSHOP of the WORLD website which features invention and innovation in the West Midlands in the United Kingdom.
. Though you will need the Macromedia Flash Player [free download], this site provides short descriptions of many interesting machines, some of which you will not know originated in the West Midlands. . The West Midlands region (map, right, from Wikipedia) of England has been an important center of commerce and industry for well over five hundred years. The city of Coventry was a dominant center of wool and clothing manufacturing in the Middle Ages, and Birmingham was a prime location of industry during the Industrial Revolution. Drawing on the collections of museums in Birmingham, Coventry, Stoke-on-Trent (and others), the Workshop of the World website brings together some of the compelling inventions that came out of the West Midlands region in the 19th century. Visitors can look over several dozen of these inventions, including an automatic wood screw making machine, a button shank making device, and a rotative steam engine. Each object is accompanied by a photo or illustration, and a short essay gives detailed background information about the object's importance and use. [Summary from the Scout Report, Volume 13, Number 16, 27 April 2007].

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• MIT's Open Courseware website. Their objective is to have all their courses available free for on-line auditing within the decade. A laudable objective, to be sure. Somewhere above 1,400 such courses are now available. The Open Courseware Consortium lists other universities and colleges following suit; and the Open Courseware Finder will help you find the one(s) you want.

• The Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia contains plenty of exhibits, reports from expeditions, etc. Their Butterfly Gallery alone is worth a stop, as is Outside-In: The Academy's Children's Museum. Nice Work!

• The Biology Corner "is a resource site for biology and science teachers. The Lesson Plans section contains classroom activities, labs and worksheets, [teachers] can change any of these to suit ... classroom needs. The Webquest section contains inquiry based projects that utilize the Internet. Internet lessons (also called miniquests) are smaller activities that use one or two science related web sites for the students to explore and answer questions about." The site is the creation of Science educator Shannan Muskopf; and she has been "making it a personal mission to locate and compile interactive science education sites. Some web programs like Flash can create some amazing virtual labs that students can really benefit from. You will find many of these places in the section under Internet lessons, all of which utilize fantastic websites to help students understand scientific concepts." Great work, Shannan.

• The Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History posts Farmers, Warriors, Builders: The Hidden Life of Ants, a really good website about ants, how they live, what their nests look like, what they eat, etc. Their Photo Gallery is worth a stop all by itself. Don't miss this one if you have any interest in ants. Lots of fun.
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• The GeoBirds website provides lots of good information for teaching and learning about birds and birding.
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• The Butterflies and Moths of North America website at the Big Sky Institute of Montana State University is full of fascinating images and information. Their Gallery for Gossamer-wing Butterflies alone is worth a stop.

• The WebExhibits website "is an interactive, web-based museum [about] that challenges visitors to think and explore scientific and cultural phenomena in new ways. Using innovative and intuitive data interface designs and multimedia content, WebExhibits helps visitors formulate questions and examine issues from several points of view. The success of WebExhibits has led to collaborations with museums around the globe." Current exhibits include the Causes of Color (birds, butterflies, glaciers, gemstones, color vision, pigments through the ages, and many more), Daylight Saving Time, Calendars Through the Ages, the History and Making of Butter, and lots of other interesting topics. You can sign up for their newsletter (issued a few times a year) to learn about new exhibits.

• Learn all about the ABACUS at The Art of Calculating with Beads website. It was created by Luis Fernandes and is posted by the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Ryerson University. Lots of fun here; and you may learn how to use this ancient calculating machine that can add, subtract, multiply and divide, ... not to mention calculating square roots AND cube roots. Amazing. A similar website about the Slide Rule is posted by The Museum of HP Calculators.

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  Some Very Interesting Microscopic Images.

Pollen grain   ||   Tip of ball point  pen   ||   Ant's claw

• The Centre for Microscopy and Microanalysis at the University of Queensland (Australia) provides over one hundred scanning electron microscope (SEM) and transmission electron microscope (TEM) images in nineteen categories (gallery), including blood, cellular ultrastructure, hair, insects, materials, pollen, and yeast. Images are black and white .gifs and .jpgs, with file sizes provided. Color enhancements of selected images are available. Above left is a pollen grain; at center is the tip of a ball point pen; and at right is the tarsal claw of a small ant. Lots of fun here.
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• Darlyne Murawski, Photographer, Writer and Biologist, hosts a gallery of outstanding photos of butterflies, fungi, parasites, and others, that will keep you interested for quite a while. Very interesting, all with captions, etc.
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• MicroAngela's Electron Microscope Image Gallery. MicroAngela is the outstanding creation of Tina (Weatherby) Carvalho of the Biological Electron Microscope Facility, part of the Pacific Biomedical Research Center at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Tina has done a terrific job with this very accessible and informative website. Thank you, Tina.
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• The Museum of Science's Image Gallery contains many images from its Scanning Electron Microscope.
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• The BioGalleries at the University of Arizona are exceptionally well done, thanks to Douglas W. Cromey. He also posts Images from the Microscope, which lists a great many good microscopy websites.
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• A Gallery of 3D images by U of Delaware's Roger C. Wagner is also very well done, and includes some Imaginary Life Forms and Imaginary Worlds. Lots of fun here.
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• See also the Exploratorium's Microscope Imaging Section, particularly their Gallery. Fascinating!
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  Getting Started and working safely on the Internet.

[Since these are all internal links, they do not open new pages in your web browser. To return here, just use the "Back" button. Some of these are fairly old, now; but they still contain useful "getting started" information.]

• An excellent (though longish) Introduction to the Internet (115 Kb) is contained in the Appeals Court decision overturning the CDA on June 12th, 1996. This page is worth the investment if you want to know all about the Internet, how it is accessed, how it works, etc. It has an extensive Table of Contents (TOC) for easy access to individual explanations, and contains quick links back to the TOC from every section. It is written for the general reader, and is the best introduction to the Internet which exists (my own view, of course).

• Social Networking Websites and Living in a Digital World.

• Parents and others wishing to learn more about social networking websites and Smartphone interfaces such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Habbo, Friendster, MySpace  and others (Wikipedia's list), might like to read Danah Boyd's well written piece "Identity Production in a Networked Culture: Why Youth 'Heart' MySpace," or her other papers. They will provide you with some degree of understanding why teens visit these sites in droves, viewing them as some sort of social imperative; and they will offer insight about social networking in general that will not likely be articulated by your teen. Her paper "Social Network Sites: Public, Private, or What?" [.PDF] may help parents and educators with these questions.
• Bob Rankin's Top Sites for Kids gives parents some ideas for suggesting social networking and game sites for their pre-teens. He describes the sites from a parent's point of view. His entry on Facebook Privacy is also helpful for parents and grandparents who want to join their kids at a social networking site, but are not sure about the risks.
• PBS's Frontline program "Growing Up Online" contains some fascinating observations and stories from kids they interviewed. Their "What We Learned" section will give you some hints of the profound generation gap between adults only in their 20s and high school students in the mid-2000s [e-mail is seen as archaic and backward by the teens, for example--nobody uses it; "it is not even in the picture"]. The program's producers mentioned that ubiquitous Internet access has created "the greatest generation gap since rock 'n' roll;" and they comment on some of the implications they have considered. In their "Interviews" section, Dr. C.J. Pascoe, a Berkeley Sociologist talks about her discussions with teens, and notes the fundamental shift to social networking that she has seen in only the last few years. She also speaks of the new freedom and independence that the online world provides, including a few of the implications.
• My advice to parents and grandparents with empty (or near-empty) nests is that it is past time to get on-line with your kids using a social networking site. It is today's equivalent of the dining room table; but everybody participates when and as they can, swapping plans, trip reports, and photos; engaging in social, political and economic commentary; discussing the latest movies, concerts and home renovations, etc. Parents and grandparents can no longer afford to be out of this loop; these sites are no longer just for the up-coming generation. Talk to your kids; they can bring you up to speed. By my reading, Facebook and Twitter are safer than most, and it is widely used by 20-somethings, as well as many others. Facebook has lots of options for users to control who sees what (but you should still post only information that you would be comfortable if anybody saw it--see Danah Boyd's paper referenced above, her other papers, and our notes on the lengthy lifetimes and potential wide distribution--and especially privacy issues--concerning Internet posts of all sorts).
• The Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project has posted a report Social networking sites and our lives (pdf): How people’s trust, personal relationships, and civic and political involvement are connected to their use of social networking sites and other technologies (June 2011). The report, authored by Keith N. Hampton and Lauren Sessions Goulet of University of Pennsylvania and Lee Rainie and Kristen Purcell, of the Pew Internet Project, seek to answer questions "about the social impact of widespread use of social networking sites (SNS) like Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, and Twitter. Do these technologies isolate people and truncate their relationships? Or are there benefits associated with being connected to others in this way? The Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project decided to examine SNS in a survey that explored people’s overall social networks and how use of these technologies is related to trust, tolerance, social support, and community and political engagement." The Summary of findings is only three pages, and is a quick, informative read.
• An article, "Why Gen Y Is Going to Change the Web" by Sarah Perez will give you additional insight about this up-and-coming generation. It has a list of follow-on reading, too (at the bottom).
• And a Business Week article Social Media Will Change Your Business provides a good introduction to social networking and blogging from a competitive and business perspective.
• Note: All the above links open new pages in your browser, unlike other links in this section. To return here, just close the new window. If the above link to the Danah Boyd tome on MySpace has gone AWOL, try this.

• Our Help for New Web Surfers page (55 Kb) is for those using Netscape, Internet Explorer or Mosaic for the first few times. It is a tutorial explaining how to get around, how to find a web page, how to make and use bookmarks and favorites, how to print a web page, save it to disk, etc.

• Our Help with Internet E-mail, Mailing Lists and Other Internet Postings page (140 Kb). Includes sections: What's Different about E- mail?, What Does Access to E-mail Mean?, Emotional Content in E-mail Messages, notes on the costs of e-mail messaging (separate page; 70 Kb), containing cautions about mailing lists, privacy in e-mail and other Internet postings, a caution about cookies (with reasons to avoid them), help finding e-mail addresses, etc.

• Our Index of pages on HTML (50 Kb), which contains lots of helpful links for creating web sites, publicizing web sites, searching for web sites, critical evaluation of Internet resources, and help in finding e-mail addresses. An associated page of Web Page Style Guidelines and Suggestions has a ton of ideas about web page development for developers at all levels of experience, including beginners.

• Searching the Internet: Parts I and II (55 Kb), containing some Basic Considerations and Automated Search Indexes, Subject Catalogs, Annotated Directories, and Subject Guides. This page contains some very good tips on using search engines, how to find what you want, etc.

• Privacy and Intellectual Property Rights Index (55 Kb), links concerned with privacy, intellectual property rights, copyrights, remedies, fair use, myths, etc. Also contains Fair Information Principles and Practices from the U.S. and Canada, and provides a hint of the impending world-wide privacy crisis.

• A Background Paper - Strategic Planning for Information Technology and Telecommunications: Exploiting Global Information Exchange in the 1990s and Beyond, explores the background and context of computer and electronic network use in the Information Age. As very significant amounts of data and information are increasingly being developed and exchanged by individuals, businesses and governments, a strategic view of its importance is becoming necessary. Both the amount of data and the speed with which it can be moved have the potential to overtake those who are not now preparing to participate in and exploit its use. As we switched from an agricultural society to an industrialized society, we had somewhere between 100 and 200 years. In this century alone (and mainly in the last half) we have seen infrastructure and technology developments which have profoundly affected our circumstances.
.     .. the National proliferation of conventional and nuclear electric power and telephone services,
    .. the emergence of network broadcast radio and television services, and
    .. the internal combustion engine, the automobile and the Interstate highway system, to name only a few. . Other technologies (all developed in the last 50 years) have revolutionized our ways of thinking and living. The jet engine, supersonic flight, rocket propulsion, space travel and satellites come to mind, along with the defeat of many communicable diseases, the use of ultrasound, heart surgery, organ transplants and electronic medical scanning procedures. The development of the transistor, the microwave oven, digital watches and calculators, lasers and, of course, the advent of nuclear armament have also occurred during that time. The office copier, facsimile machine and the cellular telephone come to mind in communications; credit cards, automatic teller machines and electronic data interchange come to mind in the conduct of commerce. But the development and networked use of the general-purpose stored-program computer may have been the most significant development of the period.

• Finally, here are a few external links to miscellaneous reference and other services that I have found helpful. These external links will open a new window in your browser. To return here, just close the new window. These are not endorsements, of course. This is just a list of websites and software I found helpful for my purposes. You should do your own due diligence in selecting all software you use.
• Dictionaries:
• OneLook Dictionary Search provides a quick definition and links to that word in many dictionaries, some of them specialized; also provides links to a reverse dictionary, translation services, provision of word lists from word fragments, etc.
• Memidex provides a dictionary and thesaurus combined, audio pronunciations, quick definitions from lots of sources (and with links for more complete definitions when you want to pursue meaning in greater depth). Memidex also provides a handy "word definitions on-the-fly" feature (called a dictionary bookmarklet) that allows you to highlight a word on a web page and click for an instant on-screen definition. Delightful.
• Thesaurus - Roget's Thesaurus [free lists of synonyms, antonyms, etc., with premium content for paid subscribers].
• Encyclopedia - Wikipedia [free encyclopedia, frequently updated, comprehensive, includes slang and street terms, etc.].
• Mailing lists - Internet TourBus and Internet Scout Report [all contain free reliable, interesting and helpful information on a timely basis].
• AdWare, SpyWare, MalWare and Virus Protection - Ad Aware, SpyBot, SUPERAntiSpyware, AVG Anti-Virus [all are free, automatically update themselves and do a reasonably good job without leaving their own ads or other malware]. Steve Gibson's Internet Security and Shields Up pages are very helpful, and his projects and newsletter are interesting.
• Web page trinkets - FavIcon and WebCounter [These help to add your own icon to a web page like the  in the address bar in this page above, and to display a count of the number of visitors to your web page like the one at the bottom of this page. Both contain instructions and examples.]
• Screen Capture - ScreenHunter is free and reasonably easy to use to capture a .JPG or other format image of whatever is on your screen.
• Web browsers - Firefox, Avant and Opera. All are free, fast and better than IE in many respects. Opera has a handy speed dial feature for up to 9 sites you visit often. After IE, Firefox is used by the most people by a substantial margin (see Wikipedia's web browser comparison page). I found the Firefox add-ons "FlashBlock" and "AdBlock" to be very helpful.
• Web page Change Detection watches specified web pages and e-mails you if they change. It is free, no software runs on your computer, and change logs are very intuitive and helpful.
• Thunderbird E-mail (goes with Firefox browser) and is much safer than MS Outlook.
• SpeedTyping is a real time saver. You enter abbreviations in the phrase book; then every time you type that abbreviation it expands to whatever you want. It also has a clipboard history, that gives you a dozen clipboards. Once you have used this thing (or its equivalent), you will not know how you ever did without it.
• Recuva and Freeraser are two utilities which are used to recover pieces of a file which you have deleted by mistake (Recuva [for "recover"]), and to over-write or erase files (or fragments recovered by Recuva) so that the original contents are actually gone from your disk or flash drive, or wherever you had them stored. The need for these utilities arises because when you delete a file, your computer doesn't actually remove the contents from your storage device, it just flags the disk sectors as available for something else. Eventually, of course, those sectors are over-written when you save other files; but if your disk is far from full, it could be quite a while until that happens. Indeed, most of them could still be reasonably intact when you recycle your computer or that storage device. You might consider using software like this for your old tax or banking files, etc., or anything that could give an identity thief or other least-favorite person a leg up in harming you. There are lots of free or modestly-priced utilities like these. None is guaranteed, of course; and some are better than others. I found these worked for my purposes. You never completely remove everything from your hard drive, unless you drive over it with a truck, then set fire to it, smelt the ashes and fire the result into outer-space, preferrably aimed at the sun. What you are doing is adding to the cost and the need for expertise which will be required in order for somebody to retrieve what you might think you have deleted.
• Recuva comes from the download site (http://www.piriform.com/recuva) at  Piriform (http://www.piriform.com/).
• Freeraser comes from the download site (http://freeraser.en.softonic.com/download) at Softonic (http://freeraser.en.softonic.com/).
• Office suite - OpenOffice.org (have not used it much; lots of raves from users). It is free and compatible with most others. Writer has an Export to .PDF format, which worked well for my purposes.
• The plain text editor DocPad (from Gammadyne; downloads) is a big step forward over NotePad and WordPad for those who don't want editing software to be "too helpful."
• The Portable Document Format reader Foxit from Foxit Software is an independent, small, free, reliable and fast PDF reader that will open a PDF file automatically in your Firefox or Internet Explorer browsers; or it can stand alone. They also market a PDF creator, editors, etc. Despite the "Fox" name, they are unrelated to the Firefox browser developers. They are also unrelated to Adobe. "Five Best PDF Readers" may also be of interest.

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  The Fabulous Ruins of Detroit

• The Fabulous Ruins of Detroit, by artist Lowell Boileau. Take the "express" tour of Detroit's buildings from its heyday. When you see an interesting one, take the "detour" for more detail. You could spend a half hour doing lots worse.

• See also DetroitYES for a zillion delightful things about Detroit. Lowell also participated in this project. Lowell Boileau's personal web page is also on-line, along with a Table of Contents for his other work.

• See also Forgotten Detroit ... from author Davig Kohrman (about) - "Detroit is known for one of the most stunning collections of pre-depression architecture in the world. The past two decades have seen several of these treasures sit vacant, waiting for economic revival. On these pages you will find information about the past, present, and future situations of a few of these landmarks. It is my hope that this information helps you gain an appreciation for the importance of both the history and continued survival of these buildings."

• Some Detroit sport pages: the 2008 Stanley Cup Champion Detroit Red Wings,
• Other sports teams include the Detroit Tigers, the Detroit Lions and the Detroit Pistons.

• Don't miss Visit Detroit - lots of interesting stops, event schedules, maps, chat, ... the whole nine yards.

• And some other interesting Detroit stops:
• Click On Detroit - national and local 4 news, weather, etc., and Detroit Public TV's website.
• Belle Isle Botanical Society, including the  Anna Scripps Whitcomb Conservatory, etc.
• Forgotten Detroit - one of the most stunning collections of pre-depression architecture in the world.
• The Detroit Opera House, including some great interior views.
• The Detroit Symphony Orchestra website contains event lists, and sections on planning, support, education and more.
• The Henry Ford Museum, with Greenfield Village, Ford Rouge Factory Tour, Benson Ford Research Center.
• The New Detroit Science Center, with its "our body" exhibit, Dassault Systèmes Planetarium, etc.
• The new Detroit Institute of the Arts: more gallery space, more art, more fun.
• The Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, with its current and permanent exhibitions.
• The Motown Historical Museum - preserving the music and legacy of Motown Record Corporation.
• The International Gospel Music Hall Of Fame And Museum - Historical and contemporary music and sounds.
• The Detroit Zoo, with its Australian outback, its "Out of Africa" section, etc.
• The Monuments of Detroit - a Detroit News item on the sculptures and monuments of historic Detroit.
• The Heidelberg Project for urban renewal has a tonne of fun down-to-earth ideas.

• ... and there are many others !!  Have fun exploring Detroit.
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  The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Photos.

• See also their National Marine Sanctuaries website, which contains information on a rich variety of marine habitats.
• See also their Aquarius website, it describes the World's Only Undersea Research Station. Aquarius is owned by NOAA and is operated by the NOAA Undersea Research Program’s (NURP) Undersea Research Center at the University of North Carolina Wilmington.
• See also their Ocean Explorer Lophelia II 2010: Oil Seeps and Deep Reefs website. It documents the interesting voyages of the NOAA Vessel Lophelia II conducting important experiments and analyses looking into the world of deep-water coral communities, etc.

• And The Science Education Resource Center at Carleton College posts some related information in "Teaching About the Ocean System Using New Research Techniques: Data, Models and Visualization." They also post a tonne of links to other oceanographic, petrology and other science websites.

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  The Edmonton Temple, Family History,
Scripture Searching and Book of Mormon Map.

• The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints [cookies (cookie caution], the LDS church, or the Mormons [more cookies (cookie caution)]) have built a Temple in Edmonton. For those interested in the progress of its construction (from ground-breaking in February 1999 through the installation of the statue atop the spire seven months later, and including the renovations of mid- and late-2011), seeThe Construction of the Edmonton Temple website.
. The Church's Family Search [cookies (cookie caution)] website seems to be a real hit. It provides information on starting your own family history projects (see their How to Start Your Family History page); and it allows searches for your ancestors through a world-wide collection of genealogical and family history records. . The unrelated Obituaries Help website (about), by the way, posts a number of helpful genealogical tools, including a selection of printable family tree templates and a host of other useful articles.

The church's Internet edition of The Scriptures is a big help. The LDS Tech website provides information on computer and website technical services, and involvement ideas for the technically inclined. And unofficially the LDS General Conference Scriptural Index at the BYU.eBusiness Center provides an invaluable modern aid. And BYU now hosts the Encyclopedia or Mormonism. Also unofficially, the More Good Foundation sponsors MormonWiki, an encyclopedia of positive LDS content about Mormons. Other church links may be seen in the Sources of Related and Other Information section of theConstruction of the Edmonton Temple website.

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• We also post a generic Book of Mormon Map of Nephite, Lamanite and Jaredite cities and other place names, and showing major features, such as the Narrow Neck of Land separating the Land Northward from the Land Southward, the Narrow Strip of Wilderness, etc. Accompanying the map is a list of ~100 Book of Mormon place names with their geographic scriptural references, and a Book of Mormon Timeline of Dates, Locations and Events. The map is available to download in several sizes and formats.
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  Learn Some Elementary Egyptian Hieroglyphics (really!).

...  ...  Have lots of fun:

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  Dacaharma's Tasty Delights

• A few of Dacaharma's recipes to try.
• See Dacaharma's Tasty Delights.

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  More Mindless Doodles

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For some delightful drawings, see the Imaginary Life Forms from the 'severly board mind' of Roger C. Wagner.
His Imaginary Worlds and Gallery of 3D images (computer art from biology) are also very well done. Great fun!
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• In a quite different vein, Canadian artist Alma Rumball (bio sketch) created, in the mid-20th century, a number of inspirational drawings aided by 'The Hand' as if outside her consciousness. Wendy Oke, her biographer, "who is divinely inspired to be the one to take the drawings to the world” posts the drawings at the Alma Matters website, and uses them in her ministry.

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  A Few Photos for Relaxation

• Well, there seem to be a few bytes of web space yet unplumbed, so we include a few photos, in case you like them. Click on any to see an enlargement.

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Caution: This website may contain traces of peanuts ... but more likely just binary coded zeros and ones.
All images and other content on this website © Chet Meek, 1996-2012. All rights reserved.
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