neat toy

As if I didn't have enough distractions taking up my time, I have discovered a really cool toy. I have no idea how I found out about this.. I guess you can say I just "stumbled upon" it. But basically, it's "Stumble Upon" - www.stumbleupon.com . I've seen these kind of things in the past, but I have to say, this one does it right. The main premise is that you select which categories interest you the most. You are then presented with pages that match your interests, and, depending on how you (optionally) rate the sites, you will be presented with sites that even closely match what you like. Some of the work we're doing at Quantum Leap Innovations involves getting the right information to the right people at the right time, so these kinds of sites are fun to play around with over here.

If you're technically inclined, you might sandbox this. I run the toolbar and all of the new sites through a VMWare virtual machine running XP. (yes, everything is legal.)

Here are just a few sites that I have really enjoyed so far through this tool:

niyaz - fantastic conglomeration of indian, turkish, american, persian, etc. music all rolled into one awesome groove. very, very good. a bit religious, but i don't understand any of the lyrics.

Espresso Stories - a set of short (and when I say short, I mean two sentences or less) stories. Here are a couple of my submissions that might show up eventually:

Ambiguous Orders
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by ben perry

"Which wire?!?", I pleaded to the transmitter.

4... 3...

"The blue one!", it barked back.

...1

Not a good day to be colorblind.

snip.

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and here's the other one:
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final moment
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by ben perry

Holding my hand, Dad uttered his last words: "Son, I need to tell you
something...".  He breathed no more.  But I know he loved me.

(no, that last story has nothing to do with me, my dad, or any psychological craziness. it's just an attempt to cram emotion into two sentences. you'll be happy to know that my dad loves me, he's alive, and all is well. *sniff*)

Arrow of time - a really cool and powerful photo essay. very cool.

Milgrim story - a commonly-told psychological experiment. I saw it before a long time ago, but it's still a moving and disturbing story to read.

ASA Photos - Make sure you turn your speakers up for this one - the sound track is part of the main allure. Nice interface and awesome sound track. The intro movie is excellent.

Spheric Lounge - great collection of techno ambient music, completely free and downloadable. Very talented musicians and computer junkies.

ansiform - another good set of ambient music.

The list could go on and on. These are some of the links that interest me. They might not interest you, but the cool thing is that you can "stumble upon" things that you really like.

Check it out.