On-line Time Wasters
On-line Time Wasters
Bored at work? It is well known that the Internet can be a great tool for time wasting, be it at home or at work. You can always have an important-looking spreadsheet to maximize at a moment’s notice should the boss happen by while you are perusing that National Enquirer web site.
Here then, in no particular order, are some “time wasters” to add to your arsenal. Be sure to have that Excel spreadsheet at the ready.
Always wanted to be an air traffic controller? This isn’t quite what you’ve been after but it is captivating nonetheless. Watch the air traffic into and out of LAX, Los Angeles International Airport. Wait a minute you say? Wouldn’t the security people be a little unhappy to learn that Internet surfers worldwide can monitor such potentially sensitive information. A caveat on the site notes that flight tracks are slightly delayed and that planes appear closer together than they actually are.
Set your browser to http://www4.passur.com/lax.html and watch the screen come alive with airplane icons. Click on any individual icon to learn a little more about the flight. Follow the altitude as the aircraft climbs or descends. Icons are conveniently colour coded for arrivals, departures and in transit flights.
Zoom out to so the coastal view stretches from Oceanside to Santa Barbara and you begin to appreciate some of the complexities of air traffic control. Replay flight activity from up to three days back if you wish.
Still bored? “When you’ve got nothing better to do,” or at least so the masthead reads, check out bored.com at, where else, http://www.bored.com/. Here you will find links to hundreds of time wasters, conveniently rated in order of popularity.
Want to keep that favourite TV show of yours on the air? Check out the link to SaveMyShow.com. Check out the huge list of oxymorons. Be sure to try MonitorCamera.com. If you still have time to waste at bored.com, visit the Dialectizer. Try it out on this very document, in the Elmer Fudd dialect (you will find it somewhere at bcc.rcav.org). If you are still in control at this point, why not end your visit with the Densa Quiz?
By now you’ve probably wasted a lot more time than you want others to know, so save your visit to Joey Green’s Wacky Uses.com (http://www.wackyuses.com/ ) for another day. Did you know that you can remove rust spots from chrome car bumpers by rubbing the bumper with a crumpled-up piece of aluminium foil dipped in Coca-Cola? Or that Miracle Whip makes a fine hair conditioner (shampoo before heading outdoors!).
Remember that Rubik’s Cube from the early 80s? If yours is lost in some dark recess of the basement, fear not. The on-line version (http://www.eviltron.com/modules/esp/esp.html) is probably more enjoyable in any case. Expertly programmed in Flash as a demonstration for potential customers of a web design firm, this is no ordinary Rubik’s Cube. Have it scrambled, have it solved or work on it one level at a time. Your choice. Click on the astronauts for various options not available with a real Cube.
Feeling a little dejected about missing the high tech stocks boom of a few years ago? Could lightning strike twice in dot com land? Who knows? Even Nortel has bounced back from penny stock territory. DeletedDomains.com (http://www.deleteddomains.com/) might just be your Eldorado.
Every day thousands of dot com domains become available as owners forego renewals. Most are duds (examples: 247payroll.com, accesszero.com). In the past thirty days more than one million domain names had renewals lapse. In the same period about half a million new names have been placed on hold, the vast majority in the dot com category. Pick the next winner now, before someone else snaps it up! More than 1100 domains containing the word “canada” were deleted in the past two months alone.
To round out your batch of time wasters, and to put matters in some perspective, spend a little time exploring the world of microscopy and optics at http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/, a wonderful site operated by Florida State University. Most impressive is Powers of Ten, which uses the concepts of exponential notation to compare the size of objects in our world and in the universe. In 100 seconds you are taken on a journey that begins 10 million light years away from the Milky Way and that ends at the quark level for a single proton inside a leaf of a tree in Florida. Time well wasted indeed.
Bored at work? It is well known that the Internet can be a great tool for time wasting, be it at home or at work. You can always have an important-looking spreadsheet to maximize at a moment’s notice should the boss happen by while you are perusing that National Enquirer web site.
Here then, in no particular order, are some “time wasters” to add to your arsenal. Be sure to have that Excel spreadsheet at the ready.
Always wanted to be an air traffic controller? This isn’t quite what you’ve been after but it is captivating nonetheless. Watch the air traffic into and out of LAX, Los Angeles International Airport. Wait a minute you say? Wouldn’t the security people be a little unhappy to learn that Internet surfers worldwide can monitor such potentially sensitive information. A caveat on the site notes that flight tracks are slightly delayed and that planes appear closer together than they actually are.
Set your browser to http://www4.passur.com/lax.html and watch the screen come alive with airplane icons. Click on any individual icon to learn a little more about the flight. Follow the altitude as the aircraft climbs or descends. Icons are conveniently colour coded for arrivals, departures and in transit flights.
Zoom out to so the coastal view stretches from Oceanside to Santa Barbara and you begin to appreciate some of the complexities of air traffic control. Replay flight activity from up to three days back if you wish.
Still bored? “When you’ve got nothing better to do,” or at least so the masthead reads, check out bored.com at, where else, http://www.bored.com/. Here you will find links to hundreds of time wasters, conveniently rated in order of popularity.
Want to keep that favourite TV show of yours on the air? Check out the link to SaveMyShow.com. Check out the huge list of oxymorons. Be sure to try MonitorCamera.com. If you still have time to waste at bored.com, visit the Dialectizer. Try it out on this very document, in the Elmer Fudd dialect (you will find it somewhere at bcc.rcav.org). If you are still in control at this point, why not end your visit with the Densa Quiz?
By now you’ve probably wasted a lot more time than you want others to know, so save your visit to Joey Green’s Wacky Uses.com (http://www.wackyuses.com/ ) for another day. Did you know that you can remove rust spots from chrome car bumpers by rubbing the bumper with a crumpled-up piece of aluminium foil dipped in Coca-Cola? Or that Miracle Whip makes a fine hair conditioner (shampoo before heading outdoors!).
Remember that Rubik’s Cube from the early 80s? If yours is lost in some dark recess of the basement, fear not. The on-line version (http://www.eviltron.com/modules/esp/esp.html) is probably more enjoyable in any case. Expertly programmed in Flash as a demonstration for potential customers of a web design firm, this is no ordinary Rubik’s Cube. Have it scrambled, have it solved or work on it one level at a time. Your choice. Click on the astronauts for various options not available with a real Cube.
Feeling a little dejected about missing the high tech stocks boom of a few years ago? Could lightning strike twice in dot com land? Who knows? Even Nortel has bounced back from penny stock territory. DeletedDomains.com (http://www.deleteddomains.com/) might just be your Eldorado.
Every day thousands of dot com domains become available as owners forego renewals. Most are duds (examples: 247payroll.com, accesszero.com). In the past thirty days more than one million domain names had renewals lapse. In the same period about half a million new names have been placed on hold, the vast majority in the dot com category. Pick the next winner now, before someone else snaps it up! More than 1100 domains containing the word “canada” were deleted in the past two months alone.
To round out your batch of time wasters, and to put matters in some perspective, spend a little time exploring the world of microscopy and optics at http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/, a wonderful site operated by Florida State University. Most impressive is Powers of Ten, which uses the concepts of exponential notation to compare the size of objects in our world and in the universe. In 100 seconds you are taken on a journey that begins 10 million light years away from the Milky Way and that ends at the quark level for a single proton inside a leaf of a tree in Florida. Time well wasted indeed.
posted by Peter Vogel at 4:56 PM
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