Stumble upon this

[witch]

Found this site in a magazine. I've already posted this at Laverwinklesims, but I think it's such a cool tool I wanted to share it here too. Got a spare pair of lips just in case.

http://www.stumbleupon.com/

It had good reviews & I checked it out. Great idea, people select areas of interest and click a stumble button, get a random page. I played with it for hours last night. It learns what you like and buddies you up with other users if you wish. You can say whether you like a site or not, that helps rate it. I thought it worked very well.

It only works for Firefox. 

Here's a couple of cool sites I found via this tool.

61 Optical Illusions & Visual Phenomena
(Visual Illusions · Optische Täuschungen)
by Michael Bach, University of Freiburg, Germany
http://www.michaelbach.de/ot/

Kaleidoscope
http://www.zefrank.com/byokal/kal2.html

Find out the size of your ecological footprint and that of your neighbours in your own country. Compare that to a sustainable fooprint. Then have a drink or drug of your choice when you realise just how bad things are.
http://www.myfootprint.org/

Move from macro to micro with the most amazingly clever use of technology.
Quote
View the Milky Way at 10 million light years from the Earth. Then move through space towards the Earth in successive orders of magnitude until you reach a tall oak tree just outside the buildings of the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory in Tallahassee, Florida. After that, begin to move from the actual size of a leaf into a microscopic world that reveals leaf cell walls, the cell nucleus, chromatin, DNA and finally, into the subatomic universe of electrons and protons.

http://www.micro.magnet.fsu.edu/primer/java/scienceopticsu/powersof10/

Here's another cool site: http://www.vectorpark.com/levers.html
Make the weights on the levers balance.

WOW!   

[Avie]

And any of this is relevant?
Belive me I DO sympathise but these folk are nasty and scary. Take my advice and go hide under something solid,

[cheriem]

It looks like it might be kind of fun.  I'll have to check it out when I have some time tomorrow.  School District is out due to Martin Luther King Holiday.

[sara_dippity]

I used to do that. Seems I found a plug in for Firefox for it. It was fun, I wonder if the plugin works with the latest Firefox...

[witch]

And any of this is relevant?

Sorry, do you mean the links? Relevant to what?

Belive me I DO sympathise but these folk are nasty and scary. Take my advice and go hide under something solid,

What folk are these? I'm a bit at sea here.

[Lythdan]

Hmm, I remember the ecological from a few months back. We would still need 3.9 worlds if everyone lived like me. 

[cheriem]

Witch this was fun.     I ran through some this morning.

[witch]

check this out - I think it fits this AWESOME site very well...

http://www.terrorready.net/index.asp

[Myth]

It may or may not be, but in the past I have found those type of plugins to be spyware related.  (And to say it before JM does...) Not that they don't spy on every move we as it is. 

* Myth looks over her shoulder as the hairs on her neck rise

Anyone remember "Bonzo Buddy".  OMG he annoyed the crap out of me.

[nectere]

Pretty much anything you use as a browser "aide" is gonig to be spyware.

[simmiecal]

Anyone remember "Bonzo Buddy".  OMG he annoyed the crap out of me.

Ugh! Bad memory. I was on dial-up and it took forever to download that thing. And then it didn't do what it said it would and kept redirecting my browser where I didn't want it to go. Had a hell of a time trying to get that crap off my hard drive and wound up having to do a re-install.

[Ellatrue]

Move from macro to micro with the most amazingly clever use of technology.
Quote
View the Milky Way at 10 million light years from the Earth. Then move through space towards the Earth in successive orders of magnitude until you reach a tall oak tree just outside the buildings of the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory in Tallahassee, Florida. After that, begin to move from the actual size of a leaf into a microscopic world that reveals leaf cell walls, the cell nucleus, chromatin, DNA and finally, into the subatomic universe of electrons and protons.

http://www.micro.magnet.fsu.edu/primer/java/scienceopticsu/powersof10/

That sounds like the idea from that old movie, Powers of Ten

[angelyne]

It may or may not be, but in the past I have found those type of plugins to be spyware related.  (And to say it before JM does...) Not that they don't spy on every move we as it is. 

* Myth looks over her shoulder as the hairs on her neck rise

Anyone remember "Bonzo Buddy".  OMG he annoyed the crap out of me.

Bonzo Buddy was pure unadulterated spyware.  It was detected as such by anti-spyware programs.

Plugins for Firefox are generally spyware free, for now anyway.  I mean spyware in the broader sense of malware (Malicious software"; a generic term covering a range of software programs and types of programs designed to attack, degrade or prevent the intended use of an ICT or network.).  No doubt a plugin like stumbleupon will track whatever activity you do while you are using it, but that's necessary for the service they offer.

As a general rule however,  if you are considering installing an "aid", google the program name +spyware.  See how many people are complaining about it.   That usually tells you quickly if that program is spyware or not.  Favor downloading from know sites like tucows.

Oh, and never ever EVER download a program from some random pop ups that appear.  That's like opening your door to random strangers.  Advertising is not free, so if they are offering you something for "free", you can bet there are strings attached.

[Grater]

check this out - I think it fits this AWESOME site very well...

http://www.terrorready.net/index.asp

hahahah, plastic and duct tape mummies.

[Kristalrose]

Ugh!  Spyware=bad memories!  Angelyne is right, if something pops up and wants you to download it for free, watch out!  I had Bonzo Buddy for a short while, and had another one named gator that really played havoc with my old computer.  Oh, and Kazaa!!  Now, that is a program that just opens the door and lets anything come marching onto your hard drive and track every click you make.  I am much more careful now.  I run Nortons plus Spybot plus Ad-aware to keep that stuff at bay.  

[Assmitten]

As a general rule however,  if you are considering installing an "aid", google the program name +spyware.  See how many people are complaining about it.   That usually tells you quickly if that program is spyware or not.  Favor downloading from know sites like tucows.

Ah, good tip. People on the internet are always faster than me, which I'm glad about. I can learn from the guinea pigs.

[witch]

As another poster pointed out, Firefox plugins are more likely to be safe and not spyware. The wikipedia thinks stumbleupon is NOT spyware.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StumbleUpon

PS I had my own bonzi buddy and gator experiences. There was even a parrot at one point. I found they froze and hung my PC on a regular basis and now I very rarely install any toolbars - in fact stumbleupon is the first one since Google released the firefox toolbar.

Kazaa is in court at the moment, the file sharing is minimal, it's mostly viruses and porn now.

[angelyne]

Well I'll bet you anything the wikipedia article was written by the people who made the software, but I don't think it's spyware anyway.  Not in the malicious  if-I-lay-my-hands-on-the-guy-who-wrote-this-piece-of-garbage-I-will-strangle-him way

[witch]

wikipedia is written by anyone who wants to - they just have to be able to defend their position if someone else disagrees.

[J. M. Pescado]

It doesn't seem like spyware to me, since the only information it knows is what you tell it. It is, however, undoubtedly a demographic and marketing data collection tool, which has come up with a clever means of coaxing useful information out of people (since your "stumbles" would be pretty useless if you lied about it).

As such, it seems to be of no real use to me since I'm unwilling to part with my info. I do not, however, believe it engages in any other suspicious behaviors.

[witch]

It doesn't seem like spyware to me, since the only information it knows is what you tell it. It is, however, undoubtedly a demographic and marketing data collection tool, which has come up with a clever means of coaxing useful information out of people (since your "stumbles" would be pretty useless if you lied about it).

It doesn't act like spyware either, it's not rude, naggy or pushy.

I don't care if it captures my preferences, I don't buy anything on the Internet and this tool doesn't try to sell me anything, so it can capture what it pleases if it's meaningful to the creators in any way, it's all damned lies and statistics... 

[PlaidSquirrel]

I am such a loser. I got to a page with singing horses and was having so much fun with it that I opened a second window and tried to get them all timed to harmonize. lol. I got all of them but the poom chh chh horse to synch up. woohoo.

Thanks for posting this.

[witch]

singing horses?!? I remember some singing reindeer one xmas - what's the URL?

[PlaidSquirrel]

no idea what the original site url is but within stumbleupon it is here

http://www.stumbleupon.com/demo.php?site=8

[witch]

singing horses? How about performing reindeer...

http://www.inndesign.com/Flash/christmasdeers.html