The first site is an entertainment site called RinkWorks Online Entertainment, at www.rinkworks.com. RinkWorks describes itself as "an expansive collection of entertainment-related features that you may browse together or independently." A good starting point, from which you can access any of the pages I mention, is the site guide which you can find at www.rinkworks.com/guide/.
The areas I found most interesting were the "Humor," "Games and Puzzles," "Movies," and "Humor Bites" sections. My very favorite pages are the "Book-A-Minute" and "Movie-A-Minute" links. We're all too busy these days. As the pace of life continues its inexorable rush toward having no time for anything, we yearn to find time for the better things in life. The concept of spending a minute digesting the essence of a book or movie in ultra-condensed form fits perfectly into the modern lifestyle.
There are three sections within "Book-A-Minute," dedicated to science fiction and fantasy, children's books, and classics. Since we're all in a hurry, I won't spend a lot of time on detail. From the science fiction and fantasy page, sample "The Collected Works of H.P. Lovecraft," from the kids' books, you might try "The Nancy Drew Series," and from the classics, take a look at "The Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe." In just a few minutes, you've sampled a large body of literature. Take a minute to ponder how much you've learned. Somewhere, perhaps elsewhere on the site, someone suggested that they ought to produce these ultra-condensed versions for "Cliff's Notes."
There are lots of strange-looking features in "Humor Bites." "The Filmmaker's Exam" is targeted at budding filmmakers. If you answer "yes" to any of its 75 questions, you definitely shouldn't ever try to make a movie. Two examples: question 43: "Is the average length of the lines in the script three or fewer words?", while question 44 is "More than 150?"
"The Duel of the Ages" is a battle of collaborative fiction between two writers, each with a hero that opposes the other writer's hero. Calling it "a duel between warriors and writers," each writer alternated contribution of chapters, seeking glory and success for his hero, at the expense of the other. The final result wasn't meant for public consumption, but with the addition of some annotation to explain some points they consider obscure, you can read it at RinkWorks. One further point that might interest you - the whole exercise started as a disagreement over grammar!
Puzzle fans might wish to take a look at "Brain Food." I've done some peeking at some of the puzzle categories, such as lateral thinking puzzles, logic puzzles and number puzzles, and sampled quite a few in the section called "Scrambled Equations." There is also a "Puzzle Games" section that you may find interesting.
A somewhat different, but equally interesting web site can be found at www.fourmilab.to. The main focus of "Fourmilab Switzerland," written by Autodesk, Inc. founder John Walker (no, not that John Walker) is science and computing, but most of these links are neither beyond the abilities nor the interests of the average Mensan. One example you might find interesting is a page devoted to historical documents about Charles Babbage's 1837 Analytical Engine which also features a Java emulator which promises to give you a feel for how it might have felt to program a steam-powered computer in the early 19th century. There is also a page called "C-ship" that discusses what the universe would be like if the speed of light was 100 km / hr. This page also discusses the legendary "Oh-My-God" particle, a proton that crashed into the Earth's upper atmosphere on October 15, 1991 with as much force "as a brick dropped onto your toe." A little paper napkin estimate I made is that this single subatomic particle had about the same energy as would a golf ball hit by a (slightly below) average strength golfer. The relativistic time of travel for a particle with this much energy to cross the entire 17 billion light-year universe would be 19 days (from the particle's point of view, of course!)
Fourmilab has humor links, too - one gives instructions on how to load the "Ferengi Rules of Acquisition" into your palmtop. You can also find out what the "Ferengi Rules of Acquisition" are, if you don't know. There are sections devoted to original stories, language learning, a section on business, economics and politics, and one on books on-line. You can also find out why the site is called "Fourmilab," although if you're up on your Latin, you might have already figured it out on your own.
CATBAR - Brain Candy #56 - Fun with Lists, Pt. 2 / Brian Rock / Jul 3 2002