One of the most acclaimed political resources on the Web, Project Vote Smart features a mammoth database of over 13,000 candidates for public office, from the White House to your local state legislature. Each candidate is profiled in five subject areas: backgrounds, issue positions, voting records, campaign finances, and performance evaluations made by various liberal and conservative special-interest groups. Enter your zip code to find regional candidates, or take a simple diagnostic test that aligns you with similar-minded politicians.
Sister site to the New Zealand-based Arts & Letters Daily, a source of literary and cultural news, SciTech Daily wants to be your intelligent filter for science and technology journalism. Smart editors provide quick, articulate links to newswires, newspapers, a myriad of magazines (from American Scientist to Wired), and other arcane resources. A recent look at the front page led us to interviews with science fiction writer Ursula LeGuin and "Sims" creator Will Wright, articles on the ecological impact of shade-grown coffee, and musings on artificial intelligence.
Chappy Hardy is the man from H.U.N.G.E.R. (Helping Uninhibited Nibblers Get Exact Results). Besides having an unbelievably great name, Chappy has a very healthy appetite and enjoys frequenting out-of-the-way eating spots throughout the South. Mr. Hardy has a very simple rating index -- divide the cost of the meal by the number of bites it took to eat. The lowest number wins. From the Hopkins House in Pensacola, Florida, to the Boudin Shop and Country Store in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, Chappy has put away some serious food. He's also a great writer who's not afraid to take the occasional tangent. Dig in.
American Experience: The Rockefellers
This companion to the PBS chronicle of the Rockefeller dynasty takes a long, close look at America's emblematic power family -- several generations of titans we loved to hate. A detailed three-part timeline tracks the early fortunes of young John D. Rockefeller, his extraordinary rise, and the predatory business practices of Standard Oil, his monopolistic empire. It follows the Rockefellers through the anti-trust trials of the early 20th century into decades of philanthropy and public service that included the restoration of Colonial Williamsburg, the opening of New York's Museum of Modern Art, and other projects through the Depression years. Don't miss the Flash map, which charts the Rockefeller's philanthropic impact across America.
Georgetown University's Lauinger Library presents this eclectic and impeccable collection of luminous illustrations from the likes of Thomas Hart Benton, Leo Meissner, and Lucien Bloch. As host Joseph Haller elucidates, "The exhibition's title was chosen to accommodate our intent to present a brief survey of some of the famous, and some of the not-so-famous prints in the University's fine print collections, without recourse to some unifying theme, letting the alphabet impose the only loose constraint needed." Got that? Be sure to look at Merrit Mauzey's 1946 portrait of Andrew Goodman, a freed cotton-farm slave.
The tasty pointers to samples of pop culture insight, analysis, and top-ten lists ought to be reason enough to check out this newly hatched and plainly patched together archive of rockin' journalism from the late 20th century. Near the very bottom of the main page, past Steven Ward's rambling, eclectic conversations with rock 'n' roll's legendary critics and chroniclers, like metal maven Martin Popoff and not-so-hip J.D. Considine, we found a link to Martin Scorsese's Guilty Pleasures -- the maestro's comfort movies. Let the good times roll!
This immensely entertaining catalog of "old-school" calculators includes such standout hits as the 25-pound Comptometer, the provocatively titled Addiator, and a beautiful pinwheel contraption dubbed the Muldivo. All of these models feature actual working gears and levers that can be viewed with the naked eye. When's the last time you fixed your Palm Pilot by replacing a worn washer? You're also invited to browse a timeline of calculator history (beginning with the abacus and ending in 1978) and peruse an array of early pocket calculators that appear roughly the size of toasters.
"The Topos of the Monkeys and the Typewriters" refers to that oft-quoted metaphor of monkeys banging away on typewriters used to illustrate the probability of great writing (à la Shakespeare) being produced from randomness. This page, created as an AT&T research scientist's personal project, collects references to the typing monkeys, beginning with a 1913 cite from a French physics journal and continuing with authors like Isaac Asimov, Douglas "Hitchhiker's Guide" Adams, and Scott Adams, author of Dilbert. We used Babelfish to translate the first reference from French: "...conceive that one drew up a million monkeys randomly to be struck the keys ... and that, under the monitoring of illiterate foremen, these monkeys typists work with heat ten hours per day." Right away, we could see why this parable has acquired Internet urban-legend status.
