Wikipedia, the online free content encyclopedia, has several sister projects. All Wiki's are work in progress with varying degree of completion, but quality should constantly improve over time. All sites are free:

Wikiquote: a online compendium of quotations

Wiktionary: a multilingual dictionary

Wikibooks: dedicated to developing and disseminating open content textbooks

Snippets:
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CD: George Winston: Autumn (1980). Piano solo. Beautiful and relaxing.
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Lyonel Feininger: Exhibition at the 'Hamburger Kunsthalle' in Hamburg, Germany. Before becoming an artist, Feininger was a caricaturist for the Chicago Tribune. Later, he became renowned through cubist paintings of medieval churches and ships.
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Web Site: Nation Master: Statisitcal information about each country compiled from various sources. Many categories. Incredible resource!
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Video: The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939). 116 min. w/ Charles Laughton (Quasimodo) and Maureen O'Hara (Esmeralda). Directed by William Dieterle. Probably the best and most memorable version of the Victor Hugo classic. Gripping.
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Katabatic winds = winds that flow from the high elevations of mountains, plateaus, and hills down their slopes to the valleys or planes below. E.g., Foehn.
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A thought: One can perceive a piece of art in ways of increasing intensity: 1.) it can make you think, 2.) it can move you and whirl you around, bring out the best or the worst feelings in you, or 3.) it can carry you away leaving you breathless for hours, carving itself into your mind, growing in you the desire to never part with it again.

Snippets:
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Video: Notre Dame - Witness to History (1996). 56 min. New River Media Inc. A documentary around of the gothic cathedral in Paris and its history. Informative. Also covers some of the history of France.
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Book: Albert Camus: Der Fremde (1942; in German; English: The Stanger). Story of a young man who lives detached from his life, and is seemingly unaffected by pretty much everything that is going on around him. After killing an Algerian for no obvious reason, he stands trial not only for his deed, but for his character. Sad story, lacking any love, faith or hope. Camus presents a superb analysis of an indifferent personality, and raises many fundamental questions.
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The Mongoose is a member of the family that includes ferrets, weasels and martens. It is a rather small, weasel-like carnivore native to Africa, southern Europe, and Asia. It is famous for its snake-fighting abilities, where it is almost always victorious because of its speed, agility and timing, and also because of its thick coat. The mongoose is resistant to alpha-neurotoxins contained in snake venoms. It has been shown that the mongoose acetyl-choline receptor (AChR) does not bind alpha-bungarotoxin (BTX) [Barchan et al., PNAS 89, 7717 (1992)]. The most 'famous' mongoose is Rikki-Tikki-Tavi in The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling.

Snippets:
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Digipac®: CD packaging consisting of a sturdy plastic tray and high-quality cardboard. Alternative to Jewel Case. Allows more fancy cover designs. Usually more expensive than the Jewel Case.
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Video: Taxi Driver (1976). 114 min. w/ Robert DeNiro, Cybill Shepherd, Jodie Foster. Directed by Martin Scorsese. Set in NYC during the dangerous 70s. The lonely, mentally unstable, psychotic cab driver Travis Bickle (DeNiro), in looking for his own identity, feels he needs to "sweep away all the scum from the streets." After a failed date with a beautiful political campain worker (Shephard), he arms himself and decides to violently 'rescue' a child prostitute (14-year old Foster) from the street. Film noir. Great cast, great acting. Disturbing story.
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The Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY, is recognized as one of the most important university museums in the country. The museum hosts Asian, African, European, and American art. Click here for links to the Permanent Collection.

The building was designed by world-renowned architect I.M. (Ieoh Ming) Pei, who also built the East Wing of the National Gallery in Washington DC, the Pyramide du Louvre in Paris, France, the Hancock Tower in Boston, and the Javits Convention Center in New York City. The museum building looks like a giant sewing machine and overlooks the valley and Cayuga Lake.

Other Links:
Other buildings by I.M. Pei
Pei Cobb Freed & Partners, Architects LLP. w/ lots of pictures

Snippets:
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Book on Tape: Michel Ondaatje. The English Patient. [Abridged] (1993). Read by Michael York. 3 hours.The book on tape helps understanding the intertwined story better. Good abridgment: contains all parts essential for the story and a lot of beautiful passages.
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Video: Churchill - The Finest Hours (1964). 111 min. Narrated by Orson Welles. Academy Award nomination in 1964 for Best Feature Documentary. Biography of Winston Churchill mostly from original film footage. Gives a good overview of Churchills life, and also the key events in both World Wars. Contains plenty of Churchill quotations. Well done.
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An intriguing thought from 'The English Patient' by Michael Ondaatje: "Tell me, is it possible to love someone who is not as smart as you are? [...] Could you fall in love with her if she wasn't smarter than you? I mean, she may not be smarter than you. But isn't it important for you to think she is smarter than you in order to fall in love? Think now."

Snippets:
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Video: Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994); 123 min; w/ Robert De Niro (The Creature), Kenneth Branagh (Victor Frankenstein), Helena Bonham Carter (Elizabeth); directed by Kenneth Branagh. The Classic with a great cast.
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Video: Young Frankenstein (1974); 108 min; w/ Gene Wilder (Dr. Frederick Frankenstein), Peter Boyle (The Monster), Marty Feldman (Igor), Teri Garr (Inga); directed by Mel Brooks. Very funny! Teri Garr looks like an earlier version of Lisa Kudrow.
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Video: The Fall of the House of Usher (1960); w/ Vincent Price. Thrilling horror movie after the novel by Edgar Allan Poe. A young suitor comes to visit the family of his bride-to-be in the House of Usher and tries to rescue her from the madness of her brother. Well done, even though the story itself is a bit slow.
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Book: Michael Ondaatje: The English Patient (1993). The intersection of four damaged lives in an Italian villa at the end of World War II. Complex story. Jumps between times and places. Need to pay attention to detail. Need to read slowly! Full of many hidden treasures.
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Video: The English Patient (1996). 162 min. w/ Ralph Fiennes, Juliette Binoche, Kristin Scott Thomas, Willem Dafoe. Directed by Anthony Minghella. Received 9 Oscars, including Best Picture. Gripping. Tragic. Sad. Deviates from the book in many points, but in itself a good movie. Great cast.
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Video: Rebecca (1939). 130 min. Directed by Alfred Hitchcock. w/ Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine. Restored version. Based on the novel by Daphne Du Maurier. Young, inexperienced girl marries the rich widower Maxim de Winter, but soon realizes that the 'shadow' of de Winters first wife, Rebecca, is all around. First hour is much too slow and, though Fontaine's acting is superb, her role is annoying. Olivier alternates between macho, temperamental, and depressed. Overall a good movie, but story could just as well have been told in less than an hour.
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Video: Girl, Interrupted (1999). 127 min. w/ Winona Ryder, Angelina Jolie, Whoopi Goldberg. Directed by James Mangold. Girl (Ryder), after attempting suicide, checks into a mental hospital and quickly makes friends among the patients. But she learns that she needs to make a choice between them and the 'sane' world outside. Good movie, dramatic at times. Good tempo (most of the time). Plot reminds of 'One flew over the cuckoo's nest'. Jolie is quite scary and won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress.
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Dynamic Planet Blog
TOC: Table of Contents
October 2003

1.) Brown Dwarfs
2.) Virtual Observatories
3.) Alexander the Great
4.) Robert K. Merton: The Matthew Effect in Science
5.) More on Dido & Aeneas
6.) Roger Bacon
7.) Funny computer stories
8.) Khaos / Erebus / Elysian Fields
9.) Some numbers about Blogs