Slightly Off Kilter

The Universe Has a Wry Sense of Humor

Rich was trying to find some new bolts for a floor lamp that we got at a garage sale. (The vertical pole was loose from both the flexible neck and the base). We also have one complete lamp, so he had a couple of sample bolts to measure.

His thread gauge said the bolts were a match for #8-36. But when he tried to find that size, everyone he called (including a specialty store for bolts) said they'd never heard of #8-36 bolts.

Hmmmm; could they be metric? ...
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Fairy Doors

Fairies are settling in the Michigan college town of Ann Arbor. At least, that's what artist Jonathon Wright would like you to believe.

All across the city, "fairy doors" are popping up. The miniature openings into imagined fairy homes are unsponsored, unauthorized works of public art that have captured the imagination of the city.

-- The Wee Fairy Doors of Ann Arbor, Mich.

The first "door" to make media headlines appeared on April 2005 outside Sweetwaterz Cafe at 123 West Washington in Ann Arbor...Six inches tall, white wood, with a jamb carved in miniature bricks...

"Fairy Doors" in Strange Corridor

Internet Scout

The Scout Report is a weekly publication of the Internet Scout Project, available by email and on the web. Each issue of The Scout Report provides an overview of interesting sites and resources on the Internet. ...
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Avatar

Candybar Doll Maker

I tripped over this cute web toy on Laume's weblog. You can build and save your own "e-paper doll" for your website. Choose background details, body (standing, sitting, ...), clothing, hair color and style, face... Add accessories such as scarves, jewelry, glasses, and pets.

InsPURRation

I have a Group I started over a year ago which I call "InsPURRation".

InsPURRation is a group for sharing inspirational and motivational stories, photos, poems, and thoughts. The initial group was made up of people who understand how soothing, helpful, and inspirational animals (and particularly cats) can be. However, you don't need to have a cat to join or participate! :-) People with dogs, rabbits, or just backyard birds & squirrels are very welcome!

Fair Measures

One of the websites I have had bookmarked for a long time is Fair Measures, an employment law company site.

Fair Measures specializes in training executives and managers in management practices that prevent costly employee lawsuits, and in training all employees to create fair and respectful workplaces.

Circle of Elders

Grandparents to the Cyber-world

What a nifty idea! Circle of Elders is free web-based service "providing practical advice and guidance from empathetic volunteer seniors." ...
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Popgadget

Technology magazines ignore women and women's magazines ignore technology. Popgadget is a lifestyle magazine that embraces technology as a regular and essential part of women's lives.

English Anguish

Discover the Sphynx

I've recently discovered Evoca. I got there through digg and an excellent little audio essay called English Sucks, recorded by a woman who calls herself "The Sphynx." ...
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Welcome to Evoca

Fun With Words

Fun-with-words.com, the Wordplay Web Site

Oooh. I've got to check this out. It's my kind of place! For people who love words as much as I do: Fun-with-words.com is dedicated to amusing quirks, peculiarities, and oddities of the English language: wordplay. Playing with words and language is both entertaining and educational. Here you can have plenty of fun with words with over 500 pages of word puzzles, games, amazing lists, and fun facts. Not to mention a book store, a gallery of funny signs, a wordplay articles index, puzzles, games, tongue twisters, and So Much More.

Imagining Ourselves

"Imagining Ourselves: a global generation of women" is a new website and idea from the International Museum of Women. ...
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Learning From OXO

Our wrong assumptions lead to the best learning.

You're probably familiar with OXO from your grocery store's kitchen tools aisle. OXO makes those interesting spatulas, ice cream scoops, potato mashers, and vegetable peelers with the thick, black rubber handles that fit so nicely and ergonomically in your hand. They're not cheap but they're obviously well made and a pleasure to use. ...
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April is Poetry Month

We each carry lines of poetry with us. Words that others have written float back to us and stay with us, indelibly. We clutch these "Life Lines" like totems, repeat them as mantras, and summon them for comfort and laughter. ...

The Academy of American Poets is now asking poets and readers to share the lines most vital to them, along with notes about the precise situation that summoned them to mind. A selection of the lines collected will be published on Poets.org throughout the year.

[ Life / Lines ]

Fun With Print

MIT has a blog on the future of advertising technology. Knowing MIT, it can only be interesting. ...
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Do You Digg It?

I have started to use digg.

Digg is a technology news website that combines social bookmarking, blogging, RSS, and non-hierarchical editorial control. With digg, users submit stories for review, but rather than allow an editor to decide which stories go on the homepage, the users do.

Damn Interesting

I have discovered a very... interesting... website. It's called DamnInteresting.com and it's well, damn interesting! Categories include Alternative Energy, Computing, Disasters, Medical Science, Mysterious, Rights & Privacy, Space Exploration, Wonders of Nature, and Your Tax Dollars at Work. ...
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Smog Blog

In the News

It was only a matter of time. After Google started using Pigeon ranking, naturally the pigeons would start campaigning for their own blog! ...
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Linking Up With LinkedIn

I have had a LinkedIn account at the free (aka "Personal") level for almost a year, since February 10, 2005. I joined because a former co-worker suggested it on one of the mailing lists I subscribe to. He queried the list wondering if we had enough mass to make a LinkedIn "group". I was curious, as were others, and we entertained a brief flurry of membership and connection requests.

Things slowed down for a while. Then I began to notice a steady increase in LinkedIn invitations in my Inbox. At this point I have 89 connections and 17 outstanding invitations pending. ...
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Waiter Rant

I found a fun new weblog to read. Apparently it's been around for a while — the archives go back to April 2004. Recently (November, 2005) moved from Blogspot to its very own domain.

It's called Waiter Rant (subtitle "Do you want pommes frites with that?" :-) The author is a real waiter, sharing anonymous (and often funny stories of life in the food service biz.

Start here ...

Simpy

If you're interested in web-based bookmark management, take a look at Simpy. I already knew about del.iciou.us (love the name, even if I can never remember how to spell it), but I wanted something with "group" access.

Most of these web-based bookmark managers allow you to keep your bookmarks private or share them with the world. I want to share with a specific group of people. Simpy will let me do that.

Use Groups if you have friends or colleagues or family or classmates or ... and want to share links with them. You can share them via a Group, which can be handy for any type of collaboration that needs to bookmark and/or tag links. Once you create a group, you can invite others to join it. You can invite both people who are existing Simpy members (just use their Simpy usernames), as well as people who are not in Simpy yet (just use their email addresses).

Spy vs. Spy 3D

I find that a great part of the information I have was acquired by looking up something and finding something else on the way.
-- Franklin P. Adams

I've always found new words this way, browsing the dictionary, looking up something else. Now, with the WWW I find all sorts of wonderful gems on the way to looking up something else.

Recently, while searching for ways to syntax-color code and turn it into web pages, I found a link to Ned Batchelder's blog and there, I also found this:

I saw a new TV commercial for Mountain Dew a few weeks ago, and was flabbergasted: it was the old Mad magazine "Spy vs. Spy" cartoon, translated into 3D. Bob Congdon found online copies of the ads. I think they've done a stellar job of capturing the feel of the cartoon, both in terms of the elemental plotting and violence, and the stripped-down black and white look of the strip. One of the ads ends "to be continued". I hope there will be more...

Share Where - World66

Origami paper sculpture

I ran across a reference to Michael G. LaFosse almost three years ago, when I found an issue of Bats magazine in our doctor's waiting room (apparently a doctor at the clinic subscribes). Mr Fosse does incredible paper scuplture and fantastic origami; he was featured in an article entitled Origami and the Art of Bat Appreciation . ...
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