Best Websites for Elderly Genius
September 2, 2008 7:15 PM Subscribe
Recommend websites for my grandad.
My grandad is finally online, and I'm looking for websites to send him. He's a true polymath and loves learning. He's also a retired physician. What sites would you recommend for him? Thanks!
I am not sending my sweet grandfather any variation of goatse. PG, you naughty people.
My grandad is finally online, and I'm looking for websites to send him. He's a true polymath and loves learning. He's also a retired physician. What sites would you recommend for him? Thanks!
I am not sending my sweet grandfather any variation of goatse. PG, you naughty people.
Best answer: If he's a retired physician, he may enjoy 6YearMed, a site maintained by a brand-new pediatrician. She's a wonderful writer, and seems to have a really sweet nature as well.
Poking around the collection of blogs on Scienceblogs.com and finding his favorites may also be fun.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:31 PM on September 2, 2008
Poking around the collection of blogs on Scienceblogs.com and finding his favorites may also be fun.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:31 PM on September 2, 2008
He would probably like to answer questions on this site.
posted by lee at 7:35 PM on September 2, 2008 [1 favorite]
posted by lee at 7:35 PM on September 2, 2008 [1 favorite]
Best answer: National Geographic
Google News (Even better if you help him set up an iGoogle page that has mostly news about things he likes and/or his hometown)
Astronomy Picture of the Day
Scientific American
I found, when helping some elderly acquaintances get online, that it's easier to start small and with something that they really care about (say, the news from home) and then to branch out from there, rather than trying to offer a huge amount of places to visit all at once.
posted by gemmy at 7:45 PM on September 2, 2008
Google News (Even better if you help him set up an iGoogle page that has mostly news about things he likes and/or his hometown)
Astronomy Picture of the Day
Scientific American
I found, when helping some elderly acquaintances get online, that it's easier to start small and with something that they really care about (say, the news from home) and then to branch out from there, rather than trying to offer a huge amount of places to visit all at once.
posted by gemmy at 7:45 PM on September 2, 2008
Best answer: I find the Big Picture photography blog posts by Boston.com to be fascinating. Maybe you even could explain RSS feeds to him and set him up with Google Reader to get the weekly blog posts as they come down?
posted by sharkfu at 8:22 PM on September 2, 2008 [1 favorite]
posted by sharkfu at 8:22 PM on September 2, 2008 [1 favorite]
Best answer: Here's a miscellaneous list. It would help to know more about his interests...
http://boston.com/bigpicture/"> Boston Globe's Big Picture blog , with large-size pictures on new events of the day.
Newseums' Today's Front Pages with the front pages of hundreds of US and international newspapers, updated each day.
National Weather Service
Wunderground for lots of weather info.
USGS for info on earthquakes, water resources, etc
Live road conditions for your state are probably available - eg Texas road conditions
CDC realtime data on various illnesses across the country
Strange Maps blog, with interesting maps and nice descriptions of them
Arts and Letters Daily - a huge listing of articles on various humanities topics, sometimes sensationalistic, sometimes wonderfully scholarly
weather and position of ships at sea
info and map of current emergencies around the world - kind of cool but frankly not all that useful
Astronomy Picture of the Day
Curious about astronomy? Ask an astronomer
What's that Bug? - great info and pics, a bit hard to navigate
bird identification guides; there are a bunch of these (another guide with songs).
Your state or area government probably has useful sites (eg, Cooperative Extension Service) for gardening, wildlife ID, etc that are tailored to your area. Ditto for the state archives.
Library of Congress
National Archives
Snopes to debunk urban legends or email hoaxes he might be sent
Roads - more than you ever wanted to know about various roads
Abandoned and Little-Used Airfields
Map of impact craters in North America
Knight Science Journalism Tracker
Scientific American, ask the experts columns
Usenet physics FAQ
list of fun math links
interactive mathematics miscellany
math gems
What foods were people eating at various times in history?
Lots of cooking sites eg epicurious
search by ingredient to get nutrition info
There are a lot of great sites about photography
Meccano
building small boats
Lots of educational TV shows have good web content associated with them. PBS's Do You Speak American? is one example. IF he finds a show he likes, he can check online to see if the station offers additional content.
Engineering failures due to water
Sheldon Brown on bicycles
MIT open courses: physics
optical illusions
Satellite images from European Space Agency
A list of sites with daily images of various things
Magazines like The Atlantic and New Yorker etc have some of their content online. Atlantic article about apple cultivation; New Yorker article about Burma
You might walk him through how to get the most from
Google
Google Maps and Google Earth
Amazon
IMDb if he likes movies
posted by LobsterMitten at 8:47 PM on September 2, 2008 [7 favorites]
http://boston.com/bigpicture/"> Boston Globe's Big Picture blog , with large-size pictures on new events of the day.
Newseums' Today's Front Pages with the front pages of hundreds of US and international newspapers, updated each day.
National Weather Service
Wunderground for lots of weather info.
USGS for info on earthquakes, water resources, etc
Live road conditions for your state are probably available - eg Texas road conditions
CDC realtime data on various illnesses across the country
Strange Maps blog, with interesting maps and nice descriptions of them
Arts and Letters Daily - a huge listing of articles on various humanities topics, sometimes sensationalistic, sometimes wonderfully scholarly
weather and position of ships at sea
info and map of current emergencies around the world - kind of cool but frankly not all that useful
Astronomy Picture of the Day
Curious about astronomy? Ask an astronomer
What's that Bug? - great info and pics, a bit hard to navigate
bird identification guides; there are a bunch of these (another guide with songs).
Your state or area government probably has useful sites (eg, Cooperative Extension Service) for gardening, wildlife ID, etc that are tailored to your area. Ditto for the state archives.
Library of Congress
National Archives
Snopes to debunk urban legends or email hoaxes he might be sent
Roads - more than you ever wanted to know about various roads
Abandoned and Little-Used Airfields
Map of impact craters in North America
Knight Science Journalism Tracker
Scientific American, ask the experts columns
Usenet physics FAQ
list of fun math links
interactive mathematics miscellany
math gems
What foods were people eating at various times in history?
Lots of cooking sites eg epicurious
search by ingredient to get nutrition info
There are a lot of great sites about photography
Meccano
building small boats
Lots of educational TV shows have good web content associated with them. PBS's Do You Speak American? is one example. IF he finds a show he likes, he can check online to see if the station offers additional content.
Engineering failures due to water
Sheldon Brown on bicycles
MIT open courses: physics
optical illusions
Satellite images from European Space Agency
A list of sites with daily images of various things
Magazines like The Atlantic and New Yorker etc have some of their content online. Atlantic article about apple cultivation; New Yorker article about Burma
You might walk him through how to get the most from
Google Maps and Google Earth
Amazon
IMDb if he likes movies
posted by LobsterMitten at 8:47 PM on September 2, 2008 [7 favorites]
I'm with lee. Get him a Metafilter account.
posted by turgid dahlia at 9:24 PM on September 2, 2008
posted by turgid dahlia at 9:24 PM on September 2, 2008
Best answer: My new favorite site for stimulating the old grey matter is Mirabilis.ca.
posted by roger ackroyd at 9:26 PM on September 2, 2008
posted by roger ackroyd at 9:26 PM on September 2, 2008
Best answer: Check the answers in this one, too: What websites will my 80-year-old grandfather love?
posted by mediareport at 5:55 AM on September 3, 2008 [1 favorite]
posted by mediareport at 5:55 AM on September 3, 2008 [1 favorite]
Best answer: I Am Not A Grandad but man, do I love to learn. I'd recommend the Open University's Open Learn site. They've got a ton of short courses in myriad subjects taken from accredited wider degrees.
Users don't have to register but he might need some help navigating the site, depending on his comfort with surfing etc, but the content itself is mostly just text pages with next and back click-throughs, so really simple format for newbies but fantastic content with structured outcomes. Caution - it can be addictive ;)
posted by freya_lamb at 6:29 AM on September 3, 2008
Users don't have to register but he might need some help navigating the site, depending on his comfort with surfing etc, but the content itself is mostly just text pages with next and back click-throughs, so really simple format for newbies but fantastic content with structured outcomes. Caution - it can be addictive ;)
posted by freya_lamb at 6:29 AM on September 3, 2008
Best answer: Strange Maps
BBC News in Pictures
3 Quarks Daily
posted by lukemeister at 7:47 AM on September 3, 2008
BBC News in Pictures
3 Quarks Daily
posted by lukemeister at 7:47 AM on September 3, 2008
Best answer: Because sometimes it shouldn't be about the practical:
Time Cube
Aluminum Foil Deflector Beanie
Google Books
Reptilian Agenda
Stupid.com
ReligiousTolerance.org
Google Images: Rube Goldberg
posted by notashroom at 2:52 PM on September 3, 2008
Time Cube
Aluminum Foil Deflector Beanie
Google Books
Reptilian Agenda
Stupid.com
ReligiousTolerance.org
Google Images: Rube Goldberg
posted by notashroom at 2:52 PM on September 3, 2008
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by Countess Elena at 7:25 PM on September 2, 2008 [1 favorite]