The Steve Zappe Eclectic Interest Page
Hmmm... I'll just list these and you see if you can make any
sense out of them...
- Animaniacs
- home of Yakko, Wakko, and Dot Warner. Classic cartoons for the
90's!
- The Simpsons -
irreverent family entertainment. They're dysfunctional, but they
really love each other.
- Futurama - life in
New New York City in the third millennium with Fry, Leela,
Bender, and the whole intergalactic cast of characters.
- VeggieTales - combines
superb 3D computer animation with a unique blend of sincerity,
Christian values, and hilarity. It's not just for the Barney/Mr.
Rogers crowd!
- Looney
Tunes and Merrie Melodies - Bugs Bunny was my hero as a
kid, and my kids grew up watching hours of Warner Bros. cartoons
that we methodically taped from TV.
- Monty Python - I
only became a fan when I got older - Holy Grail is
a classic!
- Spinal Tap - The
world's loudest band, still tryin' to make a comeback. This one
goes to eleven!
- Despair, Inc. :-( - do
"motivational" posters and sayings annoy you? This site markets
to the mediocre in all of us through "demotivational" products
that promise to help you "increase success by lowering
expectations."
- The Onion - "America's
Finest News Source"... yeah, right!
- Weekly World News
- "The World's Only Reliable News"... just when you thought
you'd heard and seen it all...
- This is True - a
weekly column by Colorado humorist Randy Cassingham reporting on
bizarre-but-true news items from legitimate newspapers from
around the world (never "tabloids" like, ahem, the ones above).
- The Darwin Awards -
salutes the improvement of the human genome by honoring those
who accidentally kill themselves in really stupid ways.
- Marfa
Mystery Lights - interesting phenomenon in West Texas.
I've seen them and they're pretty cool, but this site has a
rather mundane explanation for them. Here's another site
entitled "Hyperspectral
Analysis
Near
Marfa, TX " with a much more interesting hypothesis.
- Roadside America -
an online guide to offbeat tourist attractions. Use this to plan
your next road trip!
This stuff is perhaps a little more useful...
- The Internet Movie
Database is a great place to find all the trivia, goofs,
and other types of detailed information on your favorite movies.
- Internet Archive
is a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies,
software, music, websites, and more. Use their Wayback Machine to find
old pages on the web!
- Virtual Guidebooks, over
15,000 Quicktime VR panoramic images of western North America.
I love satellite images - here are a bunch of different sites to
check out:
- JPL Picture Photos
and Images - photos from astrophysics, deep space network,
earth sciences, solar system exploration, and technology.
- Satellite Images from
GOES satellites - a wide variety of full-earth images.
- NOAA Satellite and
Information Service - satellite imagery and videos.
- NASA Image and Video
Library - images from the space program.
- USGS EROS Data Center's EarthExplorer Page
for ordering satellite images, aerial photos, and cartographic
products.
- Google Earth - a free
application that combines satellite imagery, maps and the power
of Google Search to put the world's geographic information at
your fingertips. Fly literally anywhere on earth.
- NASA's Eyes on the Solar
System - think of it as Google Earth in Space. Virtual
journeys anywhere you want to go in the solar system and beyond!
- EarthTime -
interact with visualizations of the Earth's transformation over
time, using images captured by NASA satellites between 1984 and
2016.
- Although not really satellite images, I also love eclipses...
- Here is the lay person's description of eclipses at
Sky and Telescope's Eclipse Page.
- MrEclipse.com is eclipse
expert Fred Espanek's lay person's page for all things related to
eclipses, with helpful suggestions for photographing total eclipses.
- The more technical details are provided at Fred Espanek's EclipseWise Page.
Especially helpful is the 21st Century World Atlas of Central Solar Eclipses with world maps for each decade to find paths of interest near you. Once you have a rough idea
where it will occur, pull up the Google map to select your viewing site.
- TimeandDate.com have an eclipse
calculator - enter your location and see what's visible
coming up!
- Xavier Jubier's comprehensive Solar and
Lunar Eclipses listing website, also with links to Google maps.
-
Jay Anderson's Eclipsophile
website forecasting climatology and weather for celestial
events - because I learned in 2017 how important cloud cover
can be!
- Great
American Eclipse - a page especially for eclipses across North America.
Ooh, earthquakes! I used to be a geophysicists and hunt aftershocks
when I was in grad school:
I used to hang maps on my wall instead of posters:
- MyTopo -
create custom topographic, satellite, and hybrid maps that you
can save as image files and print yourself.
- USGS TopoView -
free downloads in PDF format of all historic and current topo
maps for the entire US.
- USGS National Map - the
online interactive map of the US.
- USGS GNIS
- Geographic Names Information System let you enter place names
in the US and territories, then view air photos, topo maps,
Census Bureau maps, and watershed maps of the feature.
- Google Maps - online
maps, driving directions, street view, real-time traffic
conditions, satellite images all in one.
- Bing - Microsoft's
source for driving maps in the US and Europe, and topo maps for
the world.
- Color
Landform Atlas of the United States - shaded relief,
satellite images, county maps, 1895 maps, black & white
maps, Postcript maps, and external links.
- National
Parks Service Digital Maps - maps by park name, map
resources and information, and digital landscapes.
As I settle into middle age and my older relatives die, I am more
drawn to figuring out who my ancestors were. Here are some genealogy
links:
- Cyndi's List of Genealogy
Sites on the Internet is the ultimate like of links - if
it's not here, it probably doesn't exist.
- Rootsweb - the oldest
site on the web and still free!
- Leister's Reunion
is unquestionably the best genealogical software for the Mac.
- Genealogy.com will
introduce you to some of the aspects of tracing your family
history.
- FamilySearch - the
quintessential source of meticulously documented family history
records by the Mormon Church.
-
California
Digital Newspaper Collection -
a freely accessible repository of
digitized California newspapers from 1846 to the present (my
family is in the Desert Sun from Palm Springs).
We all need to confront our own mortality, as well. Consider these
links:
The community where I used to live - Eldorado, NM - now has a number
of links:
Some other stuff:
Return to my home page
Page modified 4/25/2024
