Mike Mayer of Cleveland Area Mensa works with me and suggested the first site. It's called "How Stuff Works" at www.howstuffworks.com. There are many subjects covered; the first I looked at was "How Caffeine Works". You can check out such diverse subjects as "How CDs Work", "How Gum Disease Works" or "How Toilets Work". You can also ask questions; if they select yours, the answers are posted for all visitors to view. A couple that I liked are "How many teaspoons in a cubic light year" (1.7 x 10 to the 53rd power) and "Can water go bad?" There are quite a few questions already answered, varying from fairly silly to quite intruiging.
I love good quotes. The best distill a lot of wisdom into a few words. There are many good web sites for quotes; one of my recent finds is "Mfx' World-renowned Quotations File" at mfx.dasburo.com/quotations.html. This site is a bit heavy on technology-related quotes - very heavy at the beginning - but there are also many general quotes here. These aren't just famous quotes; many are from people you might not have heard of (yet), but who have said something poignant, arresting, hilarious or profound. It's a very big list; here's one to give you the flavor of the collection.
The scientific name for an animal that doesn't either run from or fight its enemies is lunch. - Michael Friedman
Next on the list of sites you might like is www.uchronia.net. It's "Uchronia: The Alternate History List". This is a site devoted to alternate histories, often called "what ifs". Specifically, an alternate history might be based on "What if Germany had won World War II" or "What if the South had won the Civil War". There are alternate histories based on other concepts, like what if there was no Moon or what if the Romans had invented the bicycle, but much of it tends to revolve around the outcome of wars or other types of power struggles. Most of this site consists of bibliographic references. In the past, I think there was an active mail list associated with this site, but it doesn't seem to be around anymore. If the idea of such alternate histories appeals to you, try visiting this site. It might really get you started.
Do you know about SETI@home? You can get a screen saver at setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu that uses the idle time of your computer to look for unusual extraterrestrial radio sources that may indicate intelligent life. They were expecting a few hundred thousand might download the software when they first put the project together; I think they're up to nearly a million downloads now. We've processed over 120 work units, requiring over 2400 CPU hours, in the last few months. It's kind of fun to look at for awhile. If this interests you, try it out.
Do you like owls? As our Mensa mascot, the owl implies intelligence. If you visit "The Owl Pages" at www.owlpages.com, you can find out a lot more about them. Sounds, pictures, mythology, artwork, physiology and other info is here. There are also links to many other sites related to owls and other birds.
To end the article, we 'upgraded' both of our PCs to Windows 98, Second Edition, from the original Windows 98. Hopefully, I'll be able to continue writing these articles, but both computers have suffered from slowly degrading functionality since the installation, even after uninstalling it and in spite of all the brain surgery I've tried on them. Your mileage may vary, but needless to say, I don't recommend it from our experience.
CATBAR - Brain Candy #26 - Whatever, Part I / Brian Rock / December 6 1999