Penguin Stumblings

By Michael W. Muchmore

If you've walked past the idle computers of techies during the past few years, you've undoubtedly seen the colorful bars of the SETI@home screensaver. These geeks are doing their part in the quest for intelligent extraterrestrial life. Taking advantage of PCs' idle time, grid projects like SETI@home are able to do computations that would take many years in less than a day. In fact, SETI@home has already done over 2 million computer-years worth of computation.
But now there are dozens of other massively multiprocessor projects—known alternatively as distributed computing (DC), grid computing, or volunteer computing—that can take advantage of your otherwise unused CPU cycles in an effort to do things like predict global climate change, calibrate particle accelerators, or develop drugs to combat cancer and AIDS.

We decided to look into whether these projects have actually accomplished anything or were just spinning CPU cycles unnecessarily and making their users feel virtuous. After considering the platforms, projects, and how distributed computing works, we'll focus in on three project areas for a closer look to see what kind of results they've produced.

Continued...

Scuba Diving:
Jean-Michel Cousteau at LIDS
Hand signals used by divers approved by RSTC
ARSBC - The Artificial Reef Society of British Columbia, ARSBC, is a non-profit society based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Our mission is to create environmentally- and economically-sustainable "artificial reefs" in British Columbia and around the world for the enjoyment of Scuba Divers, and for the protection of environmentally- and historically-sensitive marine habitats. Since 1991, the ARSBC has sunk 6 ships and one Boeing 737 in B.C.
TURTLE LIVE - Live webcast Of Turtle napping spot.
Live webcasts Of Orca's - They will also notify you at key times when orca are near the camera and mics.
Aquaskipper - Fly above the water with the most popular product from Inventist! Your hopping motion causes the hydrofoil to propel you forward while giving you lift. Since the hydrofoil has very little drag in the water, you can move at speeds of up to 17 mph. With the AquaSkipper, you can ride on waves, try new tricks, and race your friends. Any way you use it, the Aquaskipper fun and a great way to exercise.
Tank of the Month - February 2006 - Reefkeeping.com - Don't personally like Saltwater Tanks...but all I got to say is WOW!
Sea Slugs Madness - Nice Site!
World first? - Diving instructor captures images of divers interacting with killer whales.
Something Fishy - How Humans Got So Smart
Ocean Was a Hot Tub in Dino Era

Kids:
TRAINING TOILET PAPER - Paw prints show kids how much toilet paper to use. Kids follow the prints to the puppy and tear off the right amount.
Adobe Digital Kids Club - Lessons and activities
The MINI-MIZER - Build a Lego You!
StoryNory - Free download of children stories.

Mind:
Simple ways to make yourself far cleverer - Doing 'brain exercises' such as watching Countdown, playing Sudoku or taking a shower with your eyes closed can make us all up to 40 per cent cleverer within seven days, according to research by a BBC programme this week.
A Theory on the Deja Vu Phenomenon - A physiological explanation of the deja vu phenomenon may exist. The optical and neural paths from the two eyes may be slightly different. Or, alternately, a "newer" and "older" brain processing method might be responsible.
Sleep position gives personality clue - If you want an insight into somebody's true personality, then try to catch a glimpse of the way they sleep.
What's Your IQ?

Health:
Strange afflictions - Ever felt the urge to eat dirt or attack the alien impersonating your brother? Megan Gressor can explain why.
Over-the-counter (OTC) Medicines - familydoctor.org
New England Journal Of Medicine - NEJM Handhelds : PDA Home
If I am feeling chest pain, should I call 911?

Odd:
International Earth-Destruction Advisory Board - The International Earth Destruction Advisory Board (IEDAB) is an independent scientific institution which monitors the current status of the Earth and the number of times it has been destroyed. In the event of the Earth being destroyed it will be the IEDAB's job to relay this information to people who need to know and provide advice on how to proceed.
Top 10 Strangest Lego Creations
How to Stop Time
Spirit Project - Palmistry
Tricks of the Trade - Professional secrets from those in the know.
Awesome - A Site about Cool Shit
Aquada - Now this is a cool car!
The Micropolitan Museum - the Institute for the Promotion of the Less than One Millimeter
proudly presents...
Portable Telephone
The Witching Hours - Medieval Through Enlightenment Period European Witch History
The Final Curtain
Nessie on the Net - The Ultimate Loch Ness Monster Live Cam, Scotland
Doodles, Drafts Designs
Sacred Destinations — a catalogue and travel guide to more than 1,500 (and counting!) sacred sites, holy places, pilgrimage destinations, historical religious sites and religious buildings and artifacts around the world.
Statistics - We've all been in this situation before – the meeting's in 5 minutes, and your boss asked you to find a statistic online to prove a point. Like that the tobacco consumption in Brazil is decreasing, or that most seniors prefer cats to dogs. Whatever it is, we're now here to help you create valid-looking statistics in an instant!
The Forbidden Knowledge - Conspiracy Theory
World's most expensive cars 2006
Instructables - step-by-step collaboration.

Fun:
Cityscape - is a game where you have been assigned to create a new city in a recently discovered region that's prime for development. Using the 18 urban aspects at your disposal, you are able to build your city, but only those who build them in the proper order will achieve the highest ranking: a teeming Cityscape.
Skip Intro
Extreme Survival Quiz - Test your survivial acumen in some extreme circumstances.
So You Wanna Build a Macquarium + Glow in the dark Fish = It's a good match!
Monty Python's Silly Walks Generator - ROFL!
Plane Banner Generator - Cool!
Play Free Online Games - Role Playing Games
How to Fold Paper Into a Secret Note Square - Some people have trouble opening this type of note, so it's perfect for passing secret notes to your friends.
Sketch Swap - Draw One to Get One.
Origami - Cool!
Mystic Pig - Ask the Pig...he knows...lol
The Cleaning Hunk
WALL OF MEMEORY - Walls last a very long time. If you want to remember something forever, scratch it into the wall of memory.
Brittlelactica - Got Milk?

Internet:
Google's Domains - Google this google that, you hear google everywhere. Yes, it is a very useful search engine, but don't you get tired of typing w.w.w...g.o.o.g.l.e...c.o.m every time? the domain name gets boring So, what to do? Google owns a lot of funny names that point to their site!
Nothing for Sale Site - Name your own price.
Chatzy - Chatzy is a free private chat service. Fill out the form to create a chat room immediately - only for you and the people you invite!
FeedYes.com gives rss feeds to websites without feeds - Just type the url of any page, and FeedYes gives you the feed.
Kaboodle - Collect, Save items from across the web onto a single page.
AjaxTrans - Real time translation as you type!
StanaPhone - Free and unlimited calls to any other Stanaphone subscriber, anywhere in the world.
Email graphic traceroute - Paste an email with full headers (we need the 'Received' lines -- we don't need your email addresses, digg). The app will (we hope) trace the path your email message took as it passed through various servers, on Google maps.
Way Back Machine - The Internet Archive is building a digital library of Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form. Like a paper library, we provide free access to researchers, historians, scholars, and the general public.
Find out what Google thinks of you.
Project IP - In addition to your IP address projected above, Project IP lists just about everything a webserver can find out about your computer.
Amazing Webpage Emailer - Very neat toolbar which lets you email a web page, without the adverts and rubbish, with the proper formatting and even if it’s locked behind passworded doors. Fast too. Plug-ins for IE, Firefox and Netscape. They do ask you for your email address while sending though, so be prepared.
Mailnation Email - Free 1000GB Email Services.
Ning -The new free and easy way for you to create your own Social Web Apps - so let the fun begin!
Zeitgeist - Search patterns, trends, and surprises.
Searchdon - Make Personal Search Engine with Famous Themes
How to protect your privacy and security when browsing the web
Comparison Of Web Browsers - From Wikipedia
Wikipedia - What Wikipedia is not

Photography:
Tiltomo - Here you can play with our Visual Search code using two sample databases from flickr.
World In Motion VR - Take a unique trip to some of the most amazing places on Earth with World in Motion VR.
Drop Shot - Video Sharing
JP Trenque - Photography
Lomography - Yup Yup Yup...lol
MyHeritage - MyHeritage.com is one of the world's first services to apply advanced face recognition technology to personal photos and family history; and it's free!
Things that make you go aahh - And awwwwww.....lol
Snowflake and Snow Crystal Photographs - These pictures show real snow crystals that fell to earth in Northern Ontario, Alaska, Vermont, the Michigan Upper Peninsula, and the Sierra Nevada mountains of California. They were taken by Kenneth G. Libbrecht using a specially designed snowflake photomicroscope.`
BubbleShare - Your photos + Your voice = Your Story

Science:
Rainbows - Rainbows have many forms. Multiple bows, bows that cross, red bows, twinned bows, coloured fringes, dark bands, spokes and more. Find out about them here.
Live Science
Encyclopedia Smithsonian
"Lost World" - Found in Indonesia Is Trove of New Species
The Transparent Butterfly

Geography:
Paleogeography and Geologic Evolution of North America
GeoNames
Sacred Destinations — a free online travel guide to the history, significance and features of over 1,100 sacred sites, holy places, pilgrimage destinations, historical religious sites and places of worship around the world.
Saharan Prehistory & Rock Art - Really Nice Site!
World History - Interesting....
Stone Pages - Web guide to Megalithic Europe :Over the last 14 years we have personally visited and photographed all 529 archæological sites you will find in these pages (117 in the six national sections and 412 in our Tours section), creating the first Web guide to European megaliths and other prehistoric sites, online since February 1996
The Roman Empire

Astronomy:
Nordlys - Of all naturally occuring heavenly phenomena, few come close to a night
with a magnificent northern lights display. Flickering curtains of dancing
light against the dark skies, northern lights is certainly one of the most
spectacular of nature's phenomena.
How to discover asteroid impacts - The story of the discovery of two impact craters.
Virtual Reality Moon Phase Pictures
Comet dust sparks scientific intrigue - Samples hint at ancient origins, with tentative signs of organic compounds.
Solar System Simulator

Free Downloads:
Desk Projection v1.0.6 - Allows you to project a transparent image of your choice on top of your desktop using alpha blending. I can be controlled either through a tray icon or with comand line arguments.
NoSleep! v2.18 - Allows you to temporarily deactivate the screen saver and any standby feature directly from the system tray. NoSleep! is minimal in size, yet provides remote control capabilities, a full (un)installation routine and - as a bonus feature - Swatch Internet Time.
TheBeat v1.07 - Displays the Internet Time from Swatch as a system tray icon (near Windows' own clock).
fd's Flickr Toys - Helping you do fun things with your digital camera since 2005. ;-)
OldVersion.com
Torrents sites - WEB OF KNOWLEDGE
Open Source Windows - Free and open-source software is good for you and for the world. This is the best Windows software that we know of. No adware, no spyware, just good software.
Peer to Mail - Store and Share files on any Web-Mail account!
Microsoft USB Flash Drive Manager (Standard)- Use this application to backup and restore presentation, pictures, songs and applications from and to USB Flash Drive devices and take them with you. Use USB Flash Drives to store personal data, to keep your network configuration and to share information with your friends. Microsoft USB Flash Drive.
List of open source software packages - From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Assassin II - When malicious software invades your system, the most invasive ones will ensure that they are malignant. Some malware can even startup with the system in Safe Mode and regenerate using a new set of credentials. Thus, your everyday scanner will fail to remove these processes. However, Assassin v2.0.0 has been equipped with the necessary features one will need to terminate and remove almost any hostile process from ones system within minutes and all without rebooting or changing the system configurations.
FastKake - Will create a set of handy and useful shortcuts which will give you full control of your Windows operating system and simplify your computing life.
Public Domain Torrents - Lot's of Free Movies and Legal too.
tinySpell - Spell checker.
Outlook Express Tweaker 1.01 - Some useful Outlook Express settings are not exposed in its Options dialog and the only way to change them is to tinker with registry. That is if you don't have OE Tweaker. Once you get this handy utility customizing the hidden Outlook Express settings becomes a snap.
Sun Clock 6.5 - world map is subtly different every day. As the seasons change watch the polar sea-ice expand and contract, the snow cover on land extend and recede, and the vegetation of the Amazon jungle, sub-Saharan Africa, and elsewhere change in intensity. Using satellite imagery taken throughout 2004 the annual cycle is simulated.
Nullsoft Beep - is an application that makes your computer sound like computers sound in the movies. It requires Windows 95 or later with DirectX 3 or later.

Portable Apps:
Portable USB Drive Apps - Wiki Wiki Wiki
Dirk Loss' Win-Tools
Portable Freeware
SysInternals
Tinyapps
del.icio.us tag usb

Government:
RFID Tags in New US Notes Explode When You Try to Microwave Them - This article has been linked all over the Internet. We want to make it clear that $20 bills will only 'pop' or 'explode' in certain microwaves. We've had E mails saying they do, they don't, 'you're all kooks' etc etc. What is confirmed is the public policy to embed US and European money with high tech tracking devices as part of the hulking surveillance society.
Immigration and Nationality Act (8 USC)
Ellis Island - Passanger Records

Dogs:
Mystic Dog - Dog Horrorscopes
Doggles - Sun Glasses For Cool Dogs.
Peta Catalog - 'Songs to Make Dogs Happy' CD :Hehehe...should get Sitara one of these...lol
Making Bath Times Fun for You and Your Dog

Gadgets:
HAL - Control Your Home by Voice From Anywhere!
LAZER SCISSORS - Laser Scissors You can cut a straight line! Just aim the pin-point laser and follow the line. No marking, no crooked cuts.
Tiny USB IrDA Adapter - Talk about small!

Computer:
Images: Windows Vista - Here's the new stuff.
Browser Security Test - How did you do ?

Books:
BRAVE NEW WORLD - Aldous Huxley (1894-1963)
Blurb Home

Food:
Monterey Bay Aquarium: Seafood Watch Program - All Seafood List

Music:
Find Music You'll Love - Pandora
Star Trek Music
Desktop Blues

Mobile Phone:
Skweezer - Is both a mobile-optimized browser and a fully functional Web portal, with features such as e-mail, contacts list, RSS reader, and more.
Gadget17 - Series 60 Freeware

RSS:
FeedYes - gives rss feeds to websites without feeds.
Feed43 - Your favorite site doesn't provide news feeds? This free online service converts any web page to an RSS feed on the fly.
FeedBlitz - RSS, Blogs, XML, readers and aggregators can be confusing. Adding email services to your blog isn't. Email RSS feed and blog subscriptions powered by FeedBlitz.

Internet:
Pageflakes - Personalized Internet that lets you do everything from reading blogs and news to checking your email and to managing to-dos and contacts, all from one page.

Scuba:
DAN Research Newsletter February 2006
Additional Resources Feb06.pdf
Divings 7 deadly sins