I'll start off with www.corbis.com, Bill Gates' web-based image service. This is a commercial site, so much of what is here is for sale, but there are some free things and it doesn't cost to window shop. At least by my reckoning, the prices aren't too high, so if you find something you like, it won't cost much to get a legal, personal copy. Corbis has bought huge numbers of pictures for this venture, including many famous photographs and drawings. I did a few searches on the keywords "Almeria" (looking for the Spanish region) and "Oberon" (looking for the actress Merle). I got a ton of beautiful, appropriate hits for "Almeria", a few for "Oberon", two of which were of Merle, but one was a William Blake illustration for "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and one was for the moon of Uranus. From the search results screen, you see a tiny thumbnail, which you can click on to see a somewhat larger version of the work. If you want to buy a full-sized version, you click on a button and pay the fee, usually $3. You can send e-cards of the picture for free (and of course, you're sending an ad for the Corbis web site at the same time) and you can print the mid-sized version (which on our laser printer wasn't very impressive). There are other things of interest, like cheap screensavers. Even if you don't want to make Bill any richer, it's definitely an interesting site.
Next, point your browser at www.onelook.com. This is a dictionary server that currently accesses 580 dictionaries. Many of these are specialty dictionaries, but there are also some general ones available. It has some pedestrian uses, but one of the more interesting things I found to do here is to browse the list of available dictionaries. You'll find such tomes as "A Handbook of Rhetorical Devices", "Basic Chaucer", "Electronic Music Terms", "Derivative Financial Instruments", "Tao of Divorce (Annotated Divorce Law Dictionary)", "Epidemiology", "Castle Terms", "Acronym Finder", "Feudal Terms of England" and "WCO Prison (prison slang)". The site is a goldmine for specialized terminology. Do you want to know what "Leonine Verse" is? There are two humanities dictionary definitions and one legal definition that defines a "Leonine Clause". This is a facinating site for word junkies as well as folks with broad interests, like most Mensans.
Have you ever wanted to go nuclear? At ippex.pppl.gov/ippex/pages/virtual_tokamak.html, you can go thermonuclear, by operating a virtual tokamak. It's a pretty simple model, actually; you can control plasma preheating and density and magnetic field strength as you try to maximize your score without blowing out the plasma. After a few minutes of tinkering, I managed to score 54 out of 100 without really knowing much about what I was doing (well, I did do a little plasma physics work in grad school). There's also a Plasma Drift Applet (yes, you have to have Java enabled for these) which is quite challenging; confine an unruly plasma using only eight magnets that you can turn on or off. I didn't look around much in this site; I suspect there are more fun and games there, as well as information so you can understand what the fun and games represent.
I love poker. I haven't done much looking on the web for poker sites, partly because I found a very good one: Ken's Poker page at www.gocee.com/poker/. It has a lot of information, like book recommendations, magazines, movies, rules and strategy, software, jokes, humor and stories about poker. It's a good starting point if you want to find poker info on the web, since it also has many links to other poker sites. Ken also has a link to his blackjack page, if you like blackjack.
The next site is specialized, for those of us who like to program for fun. At www.robotbattle.com/home.html, you can download a program called RobotBattle. This program creates a software arena where you can unleash virtual robots that you program to combat other virtual robots. There are tournaments and all sorts of other things I haven't had time to check out yet. Getting involved with this properly may be hazardous to your spare time.
The final site is www.sedonawebcam.com. It features several controllable web cameras in the Sedona, Arizona area. If you're not familiar with Sedona, it's one of the prettiest places in the Northern Hemisphere, in Arizona's Red Rock Country. They've just upgraded and relocated the cameras. Besides being able to pan the cameras, you can zoom them. If you find a memorable photo, you can send an e-card of it to a friend (again, probably advertising the site in the process). The images are live, so you won't see a lot if you visit at an inappropriate time, like 3 am, but remember - this is Arizona, so they are two hours earlier this time of year (three hours during Daylight Savings Time - they don't observe it). I think that the old system let you see more, but the new one lets you see better.
That's all for now. Happy hunting.
CATBAR - Brain Candy #28 - Attractive Web Sites / Brian Rock / December 6 1999