Chad Clark's Open Journal : 2010-02-25

1) Wolfram Alpha info about how common names are.

This is neat.  It shows how popular a name was in different years and it 
estimates how many people with a name are of different age right now.

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=named+chad

Wolfram Alpha is pretty impressive.  A few other examples are:

* bar code for 036000291452

* how much sugar is in a banana


2) Build your own spectrometer from a DVD or CD.

This is an interesting project.

http://www.instantfundas.com/2008/11/create-your-own-spectrometer-with-cd.html

http://www.instructables.com/id/Naff-Movie-into-_DVD-Spectra_/

If you google around you can find instructions to make a cloud chamber 
too.