Sci-fi wordhunt
The science fiction genre has its own vocabulary, and a project is now underway to help gather citations for the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) for words that were first used in science fiction stories. A huge number of words are covered, from 3-di to zero-gravity. There are also guidelines to help you contribute your own citations, and a graph to show which decade has been responsible for the most new words. www.jessesword.com/SF
Spot back
First everybody goes nuts over Google's share offering, and now the Spot - a smash-hit online soap opera from the mid 1990s - is back. Is this a warning that we're about to go through another boom/bust cycle, or are we merely moving to a higher life stage where extremely popular IPOs (initial public offerings) and online soap operas can live without fear of an economic meltdown? And as long as we're talking about booms, check out the Google IPO Central site for the latest on the big stock offering. www.thespot.com
www.google-ipo.com
Eats cars and leaves
Robosaurus 40-foot robot eats cars! (Well, it's car-nivorous.) Robosaurus spouts 20-foot flame! Robosaurus can come to your event, eat cars and hold a banner! Robosaurus sells videotapes and oddly 1970s T-shirt at website! You fear Robosaurus! www.robosaurus.com
Quiz time
If you want to get into your own head, don't bother with those "Who Am I?" questions. They're so 20th century. Instead, explore what you are. Just ask Google: "What Kind of * Are You?" (including the quotes). You'll get pointers to hundreds of quizzes, including What Kind Of Frog Are You?, What Kind of Coffee Are You? and What kind of VW are you? Don't you feel so much better? http://allaboutfrogs.org
www.yournewromance.com/coffeequiz.html
www.crackedwindshield.com/vwquiz.html
Music mix
If you like the musical mash-ups that are drifting all over the net, check out this Flash application. It's a nice little jam concocted entirely out of Windows sounds and some goofing around with the Sound Recorder utility. If only the default error sound could always be this entertaining. If you like this sort of thing, perhaps you would enjoy the Videogame Music Archive, which offers more than 16,000 video game music files in glorious Midi. http://pyandre.free.fr/windows_mix.swf
www.vgmusic.com
Romance covered
Not all romance books have swooning women and swarthy men on the covers but, after reviewing the winners of the All About Romance worst covers of 2003 contest, you may wish they did. Winners include an oddly posed baby, a sheep-headed wolf and, oh yeah, a swarthy pirate. Arr. Arrgh. If that contest completely bent your brain, bomp it back to normal by checking out what books people are talking about in their blogs: a minimum of romance, a maximum of geekiness, politics and the occasional representation of pop culture. http://www.likesbooks.com/coverballot/2003
www.technorati.com/cosmos/products.html
Fruit stickers
When I think mellow music, I don't think about mango and banana stickers, but this site does, so turn your speakers down, or groove like a muppet while reviewing this collection of more than 10,000 banana, mango, citrus, and melon stickers. http://users.belgacom.net/fruit.stickers
Hello Earth
The Cities Collection is a collection of city photographs taken from outer space. For the most breathtaking photos, check out the registered cities list first. Niagara Falls from up high is quite a sight. http://users.belgacom.net/fruit.stickers
New & noted
Home Food Safety
TextMonkey Text Utility
www.boxersoftware.com/textmonkey.htm
Kwickee Bitesize
Six of the best: Online games
Yeti Sports
www.yetisports.org
Orisinal Games
http://ferryhalim.com/orisinal
Adult Swim: Carl's Strip Poker
www.adultswim.com/games/athf_strippoker
Bejeweled
www.popcap.com/gamepopup.php?theGame=diamondmine
Makai Media
www.makaimedia.com
Killer pool
www.redsquarepool.com
· Tara Calishain publishes the ResearchBuzz! Newsletter, runs the PR Bop! website and co-wrote the book Google Hacks.l
