Brain Candy #86 - A Quick One

We have a short deadline this month, so I'll just pass on a few sites you might be interested in visiting.

Last month's article concerned building your own computer. I'm still waiting for my copy of the book "Building the Perfect PC," but I've already got a pretty good idea of what my perfect PC will be like. I've reviewed the components I am interested in using on the web, often at manufacturers' web sites, but I've also used NewEgg (www.newegg.com) extensively to help me choose. They sell the hardware, have good prices and an excellent reputation, but they also allow user feedback on components, including a place for users to post their wish lists. You can review many complete systems that site visitors have specified, to see what others value in a personal computer. I've found this feature to be quite valuable in making decisions on what to pursue and what to avoid. If you want to buy computer components and related items, you might want to take a look at their web site.

I've been doing a lot of geography-oriented web browsing in the last few months. One thing that I often need to do is get information for really obscure place names in the US. I spend a lot of time at geonames.usgs.gov. That's the USGS Geographic Name Information System (GNIS) web page. This site lets you access information on over two million named physical and cultural features in the United States and its territories. It won't let you access a map, but it can provide latitude and longitude values so that you can get a map from another site that can use latitude and longitude input.

Another geographic site that I've just discovered is E-Podunk at www.epodunk.com. This site presents all sorts of things related to 25,000 American communities - small and large. Information on airports, cemeteries, parks, museums, historic sites and even images from old postcards are available here - all kinds of basic community data. Their belief is that there is no such thing as a small, unimportant town. It's pretty surprising what you'll find sometimes when you type in a small town name. It's worth a look.

Yet another source for maps and related information is worldatlas.com. It bills itself as a site "helping parents, students, teachers and travelers worldwide." I was able to locate maps and information very quickly for three test locations: Louisiana, Luxembourg and the Pitcairn Islands. There is quite a bit less information provided for the latter, but the permanent population is just 47, so this is not surprising. Speed is a primary advantage of this site - a few clicks and you've got a fair chunk of information about the location you're interested in. Make sure you click on the name of a location, especially if it is small. Clicking on a non-text part of a country or city won't always work.

I like sites where people explore "what ifs." I've found a new one: "What if 'Lord of the Rings' had been written by someone else"? You can visit the site exploring this topic at www.teemings.com/extras/lotr/index.html. I knew there were some interesting possibilities when I saw that there were entries covering St. Thomas Aquinas, William Blake, H.P. Lovecraft, Ayn Rand, George Orwell, Bram Stoker, and most surprisingly, J.R.R. Tolkein. There are also musical, television, movie and Broadway adaptations of LOTR in various styles. These are contributed by a large number of authors, so they vary from poor to outstanding. It looks like a good place to kill off a rainy day, if you're so inclined.