The Glory of StumbleUpon

It's pretty much the coolest FireFox extension I've found thus far. Using StumbleUpon, which I've had for maybe a year now, you can 'channel surf' the Internet, finding sites that are almost as impossible, strange, and interesting as some of the books you see in a used book store and are pretty sure you're never going to see again. You have some drop downs on what kind of sites to find, things like that, and you vote on what you think of a particular site, but that's not what I really want to talk about here.

What I want to talk about is some of the cool sites it's found for me. Like,

Hungarian Shelf Directions which look so simple and awesome anyone should be able to build them, and yet claim to be the work of a physicist.

play.house a website that tells you all the songs used in all the episodes of House MD.


Squashed Philosophers a site with condensed philosophy reads, which, once read make the original work much more accessible.

Cooking By Numbers which tells you exactly what you can make for dinner, depending on what you tell it you have in the cupboards.

The Letter Project which is basically a guy who will write you a letter. A real, physical letter. And you can reply back if you want.


Thinking Machine which is sort of a chess AI, except you can see what it's thinking. And the thinking is pretty to watch.

And finally,

Tricks of the Trade a message board type site for insider tips and tricks. What kinds, you ask? Any kind. Everything from what kind of bike lock NOT to buy (from a french bike thief) to how to defrost your car windows faster (just put down the sun visors, to trap heat).