Technological Resources
Links of interest to the innovative, inspired, and incredulous
Patent Databases:
Weird Patents and Oddball Technology:
- Creativa list of innovative, oddball inventions. Translation from Italian, with much flavor of language original it is keeping.
- Delphion commercial site with a small listing of obscure patents--biodegradable toothbrush, toe puppet, etc.
- Wacky Patent of the Month, the cream of the loony crop. [Thanks, StarChaser]
- Crank.net has an impressive listing of technologies, listed as fringe, cranky, funny, parody, anti-crank, etc. This link is to their Technology page; check their site Contents page for listings of topics.
- Inventions on the edge of credibility--some free-energy material, also heat engines and other devices.
General Science And Technology:
- Science and technology web report has a range of news stories and brief articles.
- Bottomquark lists science and technology stories posted by members. Archives past stories; searchable.
- Scitech Daily lists more science and technology stories. Searchable; past features are archived. Also has an extensive selection of links to science and technology news sites.
- Mathematical Formulae and tables. Good resource for conversion factors, trig functions, derivitives. The geometry section was still under construction on 6/27/01.
- Univeristy of Adelaide has a great index of technological summaries and definitions.
Properties of Materials:
- MatWeb, an online materials information resource. Comprehensive, searchable, and excellent. [Thanks, bookworm]
- Efunda list of basic properties of common materials. Comprehensive online database, searchable.
- NIST comprehensive technical database of chemical and materials properties. Searchable.
- Sci.chem FAQ, excellent resource for properties of chemicals such as chemicals which change color under certain conditions, etc. [Thanks, mihali]
- Piezoelectrics for actuators and sensors in airframe and aeronautics applications. Some background material.
- Elastic force motor using piezoelectic effect. Rather sketchy, but nice illustrations.
- Actuators and nano-positioning using piezoelectrics. Fairly comprehensive tutorial.
- Fiberglass fundamentals page. Compares aspects of carbon-fiber, Kevlar, and conventional fiberglass.
Energy:
- Free energy machines and perpetual motion. Check here before you go off the deep end.
- Free energy from magnets and wires, an excellent site explaining in detail why one simply can't get free energy no matter how one arranges a bunch of magnets. Read this before getting too excited about your magnetic device.
- Wind power from Denmark: a very comprehensive site with online power calculators and lots of other info.
- US DOE wind energy site (turbine detail page).
- Photovoltaic basics from the IEA. Search and glossary.
- Solar water heating from Sustainable Building. Good source for basic design.
- Solar water heating: commercial site with good information, including system schematics, installation tips.
- Nuclear fusion overview, glossary. Kind of a glitzy site, but useful.
- Simple overview of fusion and the conditions required to attain it. A 5-minute read for those who need a quick gloss.
- Tidal Electric technology page, commercial site showcasing one company's implementation of electric power generation using tidal energy.
- Solaris energy website. Loony alert! Orgone, diamagnetic flying saucer propulsion, and goodness knows what other madness.
Genetic Engineering:
- Genetic Engineering Organization catalogues GE references in literature, science, and public policy.
- Biology and life science news briefs from Biocompare.com, an online product guide for scientific equipment. Hard science.
Physics and the Universe
- Time Travel page by science writer John Gribbin. Likely to be the most readable source for non-mathematical science on the subject of closed timelike loops, wormholes, and time travel. (Site last updated 1996)
- General Relativity FAQ from Usenet. A venerable Web institution with well-grounded science.
- Quantum Mysteries page, also by John Gribbin. Good information on double-slit experiment, quantum tunneling, etc. (Site last updated 1996)
- Physics FAQ from Usenet. Some general info about time, light, and matter, as well as more specific information on particle physics and the quantum.
- The Laws List--an alphabetical listing of natural laws, principles, and effects. Mathematical formulae are given where appropriate.
- Star Trek science, an analysis of the show in light of our understanding of the actual laws that govern the Universe. Fun.
Nanotechnology:
- SPMN Society, Russian Society for Scanning Probe Microscopy and Nanotechnology--good jumpsite with many links to nanotech information.
- Institute for Molecular Manufacturing may have good information but appears unfinished or under construction.
- Nanodot.org has an excellent selection of news stories and articles on nanotechonogy, molecular computing and allied topics.
- Foresight Institute's nanotechnology page has lots of links to information on molecular manufacturing, nano-medicine, essays on possible applications and societal changes, etc.
Transportation:
- Antimatter and fusion as engines for space travel are explained on this NASA page. Excellent overview of current and "reasonable speculation" technology
- Advanced Space Transportation Program, another NASA-sponsored page, will go into greater detail on more speculative propulsion systems. As of 6/19/01 it was very much under construction but beginning to show promise.
- Photoelectric car brief from US Dept. of Energy. Excellent starting point for understanding design considerations.
- Wind-turbine-driven boats, aka autogiro boats. Good info on an innovative technology that did not make a big splash.
- Advance Hybrid Aircraft, a commercial site with pictures and descriptions of some of their aircraft.
- Airship and Blimp Resources has a simple FAQ explaining types of airships, relative lifting capacities of hydrogen, helium, and hot air, etc; also a selection of links and more detailed information on hot-air balloons.
Explosives:
- Nuclear weapons engineering and design. Extensive resource for curious minds, compiled by Carey Sublette.
- Effects of explosives in airblast detonations. Good information on types and effects of five or six common types of chemical explosives.
- The Ordinance Shop's listing of types of explosives.
Robotics:
- Evolutionary robotics site, explaining how one group is using software modelling of evolution to spark hardware robot designs, among other things.
- Robotics FAQ from Carnegie Mellon University. Some good info on control boards, actuators, and sensors.
- Fighting robots website has chapters on electrical control and radio interference and a host of other topics important to tinkers with robots.
- Sensors of all kinds are listed on this page by Brooke Clark.
Programming Resources:
- Catalog of Free Compilers and Interpreters has a comprehensive listing of languages and download sites for tools, some obsolete or of academic interest only, some--like Python--quite widely known and used. Check out this one: "INTERCAL is possibly the most elaborate and long-lived joke in the history of programming languages. It was first designed by Don Woods and Jim Lyons in 1972 as a deliberate attempt to produce a language as unlike any existing one as possible. The manual, describing features of horrifying uniqueness, became an underground classic."
Metallurgy:
Resources for Social Innovation
"Well, you know, we all want to change the world."
General Social Innovations:
- Social Innovation Forum for strongly moderated posting of epapers on social innovation.
- Global ideabank for non-technological ideas--social innovations from drumming circles for the elderly to teacher exchanges.
- ESWIN, European centre for social innovation: appears to be mostly a database of established programs.
- New Civilization Network facilitates connections between people with interests in everything from colonizing space to community caregiving. Lots of links to seperate organizations; active since 1995.
Social Psychology, Social Behavior
Food:
- Weird recipes for strange food. Check out the stuffed camel.
- More strange foods and recipes: rats, cactus, halibut heads, wasps. Scroll down the page to find the weird stuff.
Languages:
- Your dictionary .com, site with links to online dictionaries for 230-odd languages.
- Constructed languages from fiction, academic, idealistic, and miscellaneous sources.
- Langmaker.com is a source for fictional and interesting language development.
- Constructed human languages, an excellent overview for a variety of logical, artistic, and fictional languages.
- The Jargon File is a collection of hacker jargon, techspeak, and Internet slang. Absolutely de rigeur for techies and a blast to read.
Art:
- Kristine Stiles selected comments on destruction art.
- Matta Clarking and deconstructivist architecture. A dissertation, but well-presented online.
- Alt-X Online metafiction and hyperfiction. Also check out their contributors by name at Black Ice.
- The Invisible Library is a list of books which only appear in other books.
- Museum of Hoaxes' name is self-explanatory, but are the hoaxes art, innovation, or just plain silly?
- HypArt, an online gallery of collaborative edrawings. Users are encouraged to collaborate on current projects.