Talk rubbish
It's very important that teachers learn to talk rubbish and teach children the three R's: reduce, reuse and recycle. That's what Wastewatch is trying to do with Recyclezone, a bright new site for children, teachers and schools. The fun section includes educational quizzes and an excellent graphical Rubbish Challenge game, while the activity section has details on making compost and recycled paper. Pity it doesn't meet the W3C's web content accessibility guidelines. www.recyclezone.org.uk
www.wastewatch.org.uk
Old houses
Once, "reality TV" wasn't synonymous with rubbish, and back in 1999, there was the award-winning 1900 House, which gripped fans tighter than a whalebone corset. This was followed by 1940s House and The Edwardian Country House (aka Manor House). America's public broadcasting service showed the originals, and followed up with Frontier House, set in Montana in 1883. This was also shown on Channel 4. Next month, PBS goes further back in time, with a huge cast in Colonial House: "Indentured servitude. No baths or showers. Public punishments. Welcome to daily life in the year 1628!" The series is another "co-production of Thirteen/WNET New York and Wall To Wall Television in association with Channel 4", so we can expect it to appear here. www.pbs.org/wnet/1900house
www.pbs.org/wnet/frontierhouse
www.channel4.com/history/microsites/F/frontier_house
www.frontierhousemuseum.com
www.pbs.org/wnet/colonialhouse
www.current.org/hi/hi0308house.html
Old cars
If you are still planning this summer's world tour, see if you can go via Madison, Georgia, and visit the Bruce Weiner Microcar Museum. It's by appointment only, but has a fantastic collection of European bubble cars and related vehicles. Alternatively, go to the website and select the Tour Index for a list of exhibits. These include the French Coccinelle (Ladybird), sold as the Atlas Babycar, the 1962 Fiat 500 Jolly or "beach buggy", and the three-wheeled BMW and Messerschmitt bubble cars once familiar on British roads. The museum has a Sinclair C5 and a few Scootacars, but no Reliant Robin. www.microcarmuseum.com
Old flames
Technically, the Athens 2004 Olympic Torch should not have far to go, but it's now travelling round Greece and will be sent to "all past Olympic cities". Its international journey will take it from Sydney (June 4), to London (June 26), on its way to Moscow (July 3). A total of 120 torchbearers will carry the flame across London. You could apply to be a torchbearer via the "official partner", Coca-Cola, but finding details might depend on picking up a leaflet in Asda, rather than battling with Coke's appalling website. www.athens2004.com
www.london.gov.uk/torchrelay
www.coca-cola.co.uk/torchrelay
Old ideas
Much as I love the British Museum, I wish it would not make design mistakes like the ones in its new Ancient Civilizations website. As far as my browser can tell, if it doesn't detect Flash, you just get a blank screen. If it does, you get a "loading..." sign with no button to say "skip this rubbish now". It then inflicts a horrible sequence of dropping and floating words on you - and every time you go back, you are obliged to suffer the torture again. Once you get to the main menu, you can pick one of six themes - Cities, Religion, Trade or whatever - and explore the topics revealed via a world map and a timeline. As you would expect, the menus are in Macromedia Flash, and all the content seems to be in Flash as well. At least, when I clicked where it said "HTML Version", it responded "page not found". Still, if you have a fast web connection and enjoyed using educational CD-Roms in about 1995, you may like it, though Dorling Kindersley would probably have done it better. www.ancientcivilizations.co.uk
www.gsp.cc
Google dots
Google now supports a "number range" syntax so you can search for things between two numbers, such as date and price ranges. The trick is to put two dots between the numbers, such as "Winston Churchill" 1910..1915 or canon $100..$200 (it doesn't work for sterling). Tara Calishain has more at ResearchBuzz. http://www.researchbuzz.org/archives/001560.shtml
New & noted
Land untouched by modern dentistry
www.molvania.com
http://books.theguardian.com/reviews
Americans fight secrecy
http://books.theguardian.com/reviews
Unconventional conventions
www.theunconventionalconvention.com
www.torpedofactory.org
Six of the best: robots
Asimo
http://world.honda.com/ASIMO
Wakamaru
www.wakamaru.net
MIT's Leg Lab
www.ai.mit.edu/projects/leglab/robots/robots-main.html
QRIO
www.sony.net/SonyInfo/QRIO
Lucy
www.cyberlife-research.com/contents.htm
Robot gallery
http://robots.net/robomenu
