Taxpayer-funded Playground

I spend a lot of time on various government websites. NASA, USGS and NOAA, for example, have provided me with hours of opportunity to learn the esoteric and fascinating things we've paid for with our tax dollars. Nothing prepared me, though, for something what I ran across today.



This site could easily absorb every hour in the day for an indefinite period of time. It has tools and datasets from the DoD to the CDC to the USGS all in one place! Hundreds of thousands of images, web widgets, charts, graphs... It's exhausting in extent. If you like data, lots and lots of data, take a look.

Periodic Table of Videos

Just a pointer to a really great website with a really great concept: the Periodic Table of the Elements with a video for each one. The videos range from narratives to demonstrations, and are all interesting and a lot of fun.


Warning! Dangerous(ly fun) Chemicals!

The site is great for kids or adults. Just be sure you set aside some time before visiting because you won't want to stop watching.

Why StumbleUpon Visitors are Not Welcome

Recently I began to notice StumbleUpon as a referrer in the logs for this blog. I had seen it before, but that was to a specific post, and I had no problem tracking down the recommendation someone had made on the site. This time, though, the link was to the front page, and try as I might I could not find such recommendation on the StumbleUpon pages. The referrer link itself was no help since it is just a pointer to a marketing page trying to get me to advertise with them.

A friend mentioned that he recalled a button in the StumbleUpon "toolbar" (really an outer frame) to randomly choose a site. This idea also seemed to explain why many times only some of the images are downloaded (the visitor simply clicked on "stumble" again when the first impression wasn't appealing). So it seems, that this it the source of my StumbleUpon visitors. They are people randomly hopping around the web hoping to find something "interesting".

At first I was basically neutral about this but as I saw more and more such visitors I found I was beginning to feel irked. I write this blog for myself and for people who share an interest in the type of things I think and write about. I don't do anything to "drive traffic" here. I have no interest in increasing the readership. I certainly find satisfaction that my 300 or so subscribers enjoy my writing enough to be subscribers. I am very happy when a post here is publicized on some other site and people visit to read it. Some folks stay around and read more, some even subscribe so they can keep up to date. This is all very nice.

But, I perceive an essential difference between people choosing to read something that looks interesting to them and people randomly "stumbling" in here hoping that I will entertain them. The aren't friends, they aren't like-minded, they are just people filling my logs and using my bandwidth. Even when someone happens upon this blog because of a search engine result that is tangentially related to the content, they at least have a semantic connection to my writing. The aren't just seeking random entertainment. They are pursuing some vector of ideas on which my writing lies.

I didn't ask StumbleUpon to send you here, nor did you. I don't write this blog for you. I am not selling anything, and your stumbling isn't any value to me. You are not welcome here because you didn't intend to come here.

Google Maps Hates UC Santa Barbara

I don't know why but it appears the Google is trying to keep people from getting to UC Santa Barbara, at least people from Torrance. Has Google finally begun to use their hegemony for evil?


You'll need this...

Read the "driving" directions carefully. I'd still like to know the real explanation.

(Part of the explanation is that there is a Santa Barbara in NZ, but this seems like an amateurish joke-gone-bad thing I wouldn't expect from Google. The query is reasonable.)

(screen shot here in case they've "fixed" it.)

The Best Use for Java

In theory, I like Java. Strongly object oriented and platform agnostic, I want to like it. Unfortunately, I don't. Almost* every application I have used written in Java is quirky, bloated and has an unpleasant interface. But, there is one use of Java that I have always applauded: web-based applications for scientific visualization.

Visualizing a ripple tank, animated and fully interactive fascination

Java turns out to be a great way to provide simulations on web pages, and there are quite a few very nice ones out there. Recently, a colleague asked me about antenna radiation visualization software and in the process of researching the question I stumbled into a veritable treasure trove of just the kind of Java applet I appreciate.

Paul Falstad in a fit of prolificacy has produced an impressive menu of math and physics visualization applets and put them on the web for all of us to mesmerize ourselves with. They are very well done, and offer interaction and both 2- and 3-dimensional views. Warning: You might want to be sure you don't have anything important to to do for a while before you visit that link.

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* Cyberduck, the very nice OS X FTP/SFTP client was written in Java but used the Cocoa API to make it indistinguishable from a native OS X application. Cyberduck lives on here but I don't think it uses Java any more. However it is really spiffy and worth checking out as it has grown many new abilities.