Hordes of Useful Links
by The Cole's Home
Page
One description of the World Wide Web said it was like going
to the Library of Congress the day after the card catalogue
burned. There is an ocean of information available out there. The
links in this page can help you sort through some of it. They're
adapted from the New York Times CyberNavigator, which can be
found here,
but you gotta be registered. Plus their site gets hacked from
time to time. Not that this one is up 100% of the time or
anything. Anyway, good luck. Oh, and I have moved many of the
links related to my more obscure areas of interest to Hordes of Nerdy Links, so take a look there is
this all looks too conventional. With all this, keep in mind
Einstein's saying: All the knowledge in the world is not wisdom.
Have fun.
Looking for something? Try These Sites
- Google gives
terrific results by analyzing a page's popularity. It now
includes the search of
Usenet discussions formerly handled by deja.com, as well
as a Government
search and a new Image
search.>
- Yahoo: Subject guide
and free-text searching of the World Wide Web
- Alta Vista
free-text searching of the Web named after a small town in
Iowa. They got Google envy and have gone to a cleaner interface
on their new Raging
Search search engine.
- Excite's concept
searching is highly effective (now with headlines and
stocks)
- Profusion
combines major search engines and filters the results. This
is actually pretty darn handy.
- Ixquick is a new
meta-search engine which quickly returns filtered
results.
- SavvySearch,
Dogpile and Metacrawler are some of the
more venerable sites offering simultaneous searches of multiple
Web search engines
- Fast Search lives
up to its name but on the whole I like Profusion
better
- Northern Light
categorizes search results to help you focus
- Hotbot, from
Hotwired and Inktomi, scored high in a recent study of
completeness
- search.com has the
Infoseek engine as well
as more obscure topic-oriented choices
- Abuzz People with
questions find people with answers. (From Times Company
Digital)
- Ask Jeeves
searching with a human touch
- Ultimate
Bulletin Board actual humans answering questions from
each other
- Magellan
describes and rates Web resources. Also visit Voyeur
to spy on other searchers. I hope you're not this
bored.
- Looksmart
searches a selection of sites chosen by humans
- About.com, formerly
the Mining Co., has humans who assemble mini-sites on a wide
variety of topics.
- Searchmil.com
searches for information in military (.mil)
computers
- Britannica adds
human judgment to searching and now has the whole darn
Encyclopaedia online as well! It was free for a while but now
these bums charge money, darn it.
- Reference.com
searches and archives mailing lists, web forums and Usenet
groups.
- ForumOne One-stop
guide to forum topics around the Web
- Dejanews lets you
search for Usenet postings or posters
- C|Net combines
computer news, reviews, software and services. Also see
their news.com and
Snap! service
- Achoo and The Hardin
Library for the Health Sciences catalog health related
sites
- Archieplex:
Search FTP archives around the Internet
- Net Mechanic
will check your html, load times and links. Use it. I
do.
- PC Pitstop will
check your computer's insides and give you some advice on
system setup, security, et al.
- Palmgear has
software, hardware, reviews, etc. of Palm OS devices. I got a
Handspring Visor and then a VisorPhone, quite the tech dude,
that's me, and actually use it quite a lot. If you want
informed opinions on software from someone not trying to sell
you anything, take a look at Lars Lindberg's
site.
- Liszt and Tile.Net will help you find
Internet mailing lists
Collections for Journalists
- Power
Reporting has a wonderful collection of resources for
journalists, some organized by beat.
- Resource Shelf
Resources and news for Information Professionals, which in
this case means people like writers, journalists and
librarians. This is for reality-based people.
- FedWorld Information
Services: Comprehensive guide to Government
databases
- Federal
Government Agencies, a clean, easy-to-use
listing
- Federal Web
Locator allows searching
- Federal
Information Exchange
- Fedstats collects
and organizes statistics from 70 agencies
- National Archives and
Records Administration catalogs records held by
Government agencies
- DefenseLink
News and live briefings from the U.S. Department of
Defense
- The White
House
- House of
Representatives
- The Senate
- The Supreme
Court Wow. Got all three branches now.
- State
& local government websites from Piper
Resources.
- Stateline has
information and current issues stories from each
state.
- Portals to
the World ,by the Library of Congress, links to
information on various countries.
- GPO
Access searches the Federal Register, U.S. Code,
Congressional bills and other Government publications
- Thomas, the Library
of Congress information service. Also try the experimental Web
catalog
- Census Bureau home
page, 1990
Census tables and Ferret,
for recent population and income data
- National Criminal Justice
Reference Service
- Criminal
justice links assembled by Cecil Greek at the University
of South Florida
- United States Geological
Survey, current earthquake
information and Earthquake Information
Center
- National Hurricane
Center Thar she blows!
- United Nations and
U.N. Web locator
- The
European Journalism page
- FindLaw has an
extensive collection of legal links
- KnowX Free and
low-cost information about lawsuits, bankruptcies, U.C.C. and
other public filings for businesses and individuals
- WebGator
has a variety of useful investigative links
- Federal Aviation
Administration databases of airline safety
reports
- Landings
Comprehensive aviation site offers databases of plane
registrations, service difficulty reports, pilot
certifications
- UniSci gives updates on
scientific research at U.S. universities
- Top 200 Government
contractors from Government Executive
- Individual
Contributor Page lists contributions over $200 from
individuals to candidates for federal office. The Federal
Election Commission stuff has always been public record, now
it's easy to search too!
- Reporters Committee for
Freedom of the Press has links and information,
including a fill-in-the-blanks Freedom of Information request.
This list of Federal
freedom of information officers may be useful, as well as
this New
York State FOI page)
- The Freedom Forum
Journalism, journalism education and first amendment
issues
- Telecommunications
information resources: social, economic,
political
- The Smoking Gun
presents (undigested) documents obtained from court files
and through freedom of information requests
- EPN World
Reporter by the European Press Network, is an online
journal that celebrates the profession of freelance journalism
in remote areas and those who send dispatches that trigger
coverage by mainstream media.
- How
To Do Journalism is a set of links by Poynter.org with
links organized by job, e.g., Copy Editor, Photojournalist,
etc.
- John
Makulowich's list of web resources
- The Wayback Machine
archives many Web pages back to 1996.
- Business & Finance references are available
from Business
Connections. Also, Weiser's Links is a
decent set of links to Economics topics.
The Reference Desk
- Research
It all-in-one reference desk: dictionary, quotes,
translators, more
- LibrarySpot
has an extensive guide to online reference works in a nice
clean interface, kind of like...
- refdesk.com ,
which also has links to all sorts of reference sources brought
together in one crowded place.
- YourDictionary.com
and Onelook
give access to hundreds of dictionaries, specialized and
general
- Encyclopedia
Brittanica has the whole set on line for your perusal.
There go a few more hours!
- Roget's Internet
Thesaurus
- Information Please
Almanac Almanac, dictionary and the full Columbia
Encyclopedia
- Cambridge Biographical
Encyclopedia brief, cross-referenced biographies of more
than 15,000 notables, but not me.
- Biography.com
offers brief, cross-referenced biographies of more than
25,000 notables, but still not me. The NY Times site lists only
this bio site.
- Travlang
language-to-language translation dictionaries are handy
unless you're travelling to South Central, in which case you
may wish to consult...
- The Rap
Dictionary will help you, um, get down wid de lingo,
dog. Bizzarely, it's maintained by a Dutch computer guy. Wassup
wid dat?
- At the other end of the scale, there's nothing like
a Latin
Maxim to make you sound eloquent: "Bibamus, moriendum
est!" sounds really good, but all it means is "Let us drink,
death is inevitable". The author, Johanna Hansdotter Sundberg,
is from Stockholm and has separate pages on Mottoes
and Short
Phrases as well as brief bios of the original
authors
(you know, Virgil, Cicero, Cato etc.).
- Babelfish
basic (and sometimes amusing) translations of Web pages or
text. Running the entire Canadian national anthem in French
into this yielded an English translation which left me helpless
with laughter.
-
Shark
Talk: Nolo's Law Dictionary
- The
Elements of Style The 1918 version
-
The Economist Style Guide is another one I like but you
may have to be a subscriber.
- C.I.A. World
Factbook
- Library of Congress,
including Marvel and Locis
- The New York Public
Library
-
The World Wide Web Virtual Library
- National Library of
Medicine and Medline
- Carl Uncover Free
citations from 17,000 publications; charge for full
articles
- The Merck Manual,
guide to diseases cough cough
- RxList: The Internet Drug
Index Extensive information on prescription and
over-the-counter drugs
- Nutrient
database from the U.S.D.A.
- Law Guru gives
access to hundreds of legal search engines and the Internet Law
Library
- Lawoffice.com from
West's Legal Directory and Martindale-Hubbell's
Lawyer Locator
-
The U.S. Constitution
- U.S. Patents
since 1971, from Delphion or the Patent and Trademark
Office
- The
Bible Browser
- I.R.S.
information and publications. For more tax sites, try
taxsites.com.
- Saint Ambrose University (home of the Fighting Bees) has
organized Web Sites by
College Major which is pretty convenient.
- Metroscope city,
business, entertainment guides for major cities
- Mapquest gives a
street-level map for any U.S. address. It also does driving
directions in Britain based on postal code, and it's very cool,
although it could displace a major topic of conversation in
that country.
- Mapblast does much
the same thing in the U.S.
- Terraserver
is Microsoft showing off SQL Server by running a massive
database of satellite images. It seems a lot more stable
than my Windows 98. I can find my house no problem. See if you
can find yours.
- Social
Security death index
- Consumer World
has consumer finance rates, company contacts, consumer
information
- Currency
converter from Olsen & Associates converts from any
currency to another
- ConvertIt
converts measurements, currencies, timezones and
more
-
Cost-of-living calculator and other useful
tools
- How Far Is It?
gives the distance between two cities as the crow flies.
Your mileage may vary.
- U.S. Naval
Observatory clock can suffer from Internet delays of a
second or two, so if you're really anal about it you might
instead want to call (202) 762-1401 although it gives you
Washington DC time.
Telephone, E-mail and Zip Code Directories
- Anywho from
AT&T has fast, clear directory service, and a reverse
directory
- Switchboard
nationwide telephone and address directory
- InfoSpace
personal, business and goverment phone, fax and
e-mail
- Directory of
toll free numbers from Infospace
- Superpages.com
(was Big Yellow) National business yellow pages and
residential listings from Verizon
- Zip
Code and Zip+4 Finder Simple and efficient.
- Go Postal and use the
U.S. Postal service's own site. You can confirm Zip codes here
too. Go to The Royal Mail to
do the same for the UK. So why do we have the Postal Service
with mailmen and the Brits have the Royal Mail with
postmen?
- Links to Postcode
Pages is a bit garish, but it is very useful if you need
to know the correct format for postal codes from around the
world, like I do from time to time.
href="http://www.improbable.com/airchives/paperair/volume6/v6i4/postal-6-4.html">Postal
Research relates a set of experiments where the researchers
mailed various unwieldly, disgusting and valuable items and
recorded what happened. Useful if you ever desire to mail, for
instance, a deer tibia.
- Thomas Register of
Manufacturers
- WhoWhere
and Yahoo People
Finder help find email addresses.
- Network
Solutions Domain Name database will let you find out who
owns hotasianbabes.com or the domain names you want.
Publications on the Net
Breaking News & Daily
Publications
- ABC News offers top
news, including the current ABC radio report, and (large) video
clips.
- Agence
France-Presse world report from Yahoo Asia
- BBC News British
Broadcasting Corporation
- CNN Interactive and
CNNfn
- Fox News Clean, simple
search of AP and Reuters wires
- NPR Online from
National Public Radio
-
MSNBC, from Microsoft
and NBC News
- Appalachian
News-Express ...and my sister Liz, in Pikeville,
Kentucky. The News-Express URL used to be www.newsexpressky.com
but it kept getting blocked by filters because it had "sex" in
it, so they inserted a hyphen and are now cool.
- Boston.com, from The
Boston Globe
- City Pages is
the local Twin Cities alternative newspaper. It has articles
with attitude and loads of ads for strip clubs and drug
treatment.
- CNet combines
technology news, reviews, software and services. Tech news is
at news.com
- The Electronic
Telegraph from The Daily Telegraph of London
- The Gate, from the
San Francisco Examiner and Chronicle
- Los Angeles Times
- Minneapolis
Star-Tribune It's got better comics than the Saint Paul
paper.
- The New
York Times is great. You have to register, but it is
free.
- Philadelphia
Inquirer
- Redditch
Advertiser Keep up with Auntie Margaret...
- Saint Paul Pioneer
Press We live here.
- San Jose Mercury
News
- The Times of
London where my cousin Robert works
- USA Today the
McPaper, always associated in my mind with hotels.
- Yahotties keeps
up with babes in the news, with photos.
- The Wall Street Journal
These scum charge money. Figures. They do have DowJones.com, a free business
portal)
- The Washington
Post
-
The Miami Herald Dave Barry Stuff I like Dave Barry
and his Booger Journalism.
- MediaNews
Jim Romenesko's MediaNews used to be Mediagossip. It's got
media news from everywhere, and a link to The Obscure Store with
all sorts of weird actual news items.
- NewsHub culls
technology business headlines from major Web sites
- News Index and
TotalNews search for
breaking news on the Web
- 1stHeadlines
offers headlines from 50-some news organizations.
- Newspaper
archives on the Web from the Special Libraries
Association
- Wired News and
Newsbot
Magazines & Features
Business Publications
- The Economist is
usually interesting. You need to subscribe to get to all the
site's features, though.
- Forbes Digital Tool
is another rag I read.
- Barron's Online
from the ink-stained wretches over at Dow Jones.
- The Dismal Scientist
has lots of data and analysis.
- Fund Alarm I
quote: "The mutual fund industry is full of broken promises,
arrogance, greed, hypocrisy -- the list goes on. We try to
shine a light in the darker corners, and poke holes in balloons
that could use some poking." This is a great site.
- Reuters Moneynet
shows lots of data and breaking market news.
- Wachowicz'z Web
World is sub-titled, Web Sites for Discerning Finance
Students, whose links track the chapters of Professor
Wachowicz's finance textbook.
Guides to Many Publications
Politics
Education
- Mathematically
Correct, a California site about math education with
relevance nationwide.
- PRESS, a
Wisconsin parents association about education, has a decent
site.
- The Core Knowledge
Foundation Read about CK.
- The
Community Learning Network is a Canadian site with links
by topic on all sorts of interesting things for kids to learn.
Take a look because the sites are really nicely done.
- Going to be teaching soon? Take a look at Teaching
Tips from the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. Assess
your chalkboard skills, learn the kids' names. It's aimed at
college teaching, but has wider applicability.
- Greenleaf
Press is a site which sells lots of study materials for
home schoolers. I like their history sequence and some of the
grammar things.
- Speaking of grammar, this Guide
to Writing and Grammar is really well done and includes
sentence diagramming things. Wow.
- The kids are asked to use an APA style format for their
footnotes on papers. There is a very handy Citation Machine which can
put these together for you. It's a free service, too!
- Misunderstood
Minds is a companion site to a PBS show examining
learning differences and disabilities.
- Some help on Math, or Maths, as the English call it;
Free Math Help
has a bunch of short lessons on math, algebra, geometry,
trig and calculus topics. Sheffield Hallum University in the UK
has a decent Maths Help
Page. There are links there to other sites and to their
own very nicely done explanations of various topics. There's
always Math.com which
has whizzy on-line demos for its pages. The Math League
has very good explanations as well. At one time or another,
we have referred to Math for Morons
Like Us, Nightlife on the
Chalkboard, the Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College's
Math
Center and Free
Algebra Tutorials.
- The kids have been taking Latin at school. I'm not a lot
of help here, knowing little beyond E Pluribus Unum which I see
on the quarters as I put them into the vending machine, but
there are some resources out there. The University of Notre
Dame, who've just lost their eighth straight bowl game, have a
Latin
Dictionary and Grammar Aid; a guy named Michael McLarnon
has a Java Verb Conjugator;
Ohio State has a basic Latin
Grammar Guide; Allen and Greenough's
New Latin Grammar for Schools and Colleges is available online
from Tufts; Purdue University has Resources for
the Study of Latin; and finally, who can resist Columbia's
Fun
Latin page? You can sound so educated: Braccae tuae
aperiuntur, you can say. What's that? Your fly is
open.
Commerce
- Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble have millions of
books (and, in Amazon's case, other stuff) for sale.
Borders is now at it,
too, but I haven't used them yet.
-
Henry Raddick's Reviews will help you decide what to
buy. He posts faux reviews about obscure books, e.g., "Handbook
of Meat Product Technology" and "Taxidermy: A Complete Manual"
about which he wrote "A fantastic guide to a lost art, and one
which has greatly assisted me in the difficult task of
reassembling my dearly departed spaniel Barry. First rate.".
Your stomach may hurt from laughing after reading a few dozen
of these.
- Abebooks.com is
the world's largest network of used booksellers, 6,000 of them,
and can turn up old, used and rare books in searches by title,
author and keyword, etc. I think the members of Abebooks aren't
too fond of Alibris.com, a venture-funded,
Wall Street-bound version of the same sort of used book thing
which claims 1,500 member bookstores. It works nicely if you
aren't in a hurry.
- eVineyard will
sell you some plonk to drink while reading your books. They
have lots of wine information, a good selection and decent
prices. It used to be a better deal when they didn't charge
shipping but the Golden Age of the Web is ending so that's
done.
- Bizrate compares
prices and lets you see how fellow consumers rate online
merchants
- BizWeb: Internet
commercial sites by category
- Buyer's Index
searches 6,700 Web sites and catalogs for the product you
seek.
- CD Now and Tunes.com are Online music
stores. Hurry up before they go broke! Think I'm joking? Music
Boulevard used to be listed here, and now it's dead.
- Ebay online auction
house where you sell your crap and buy pottery and Beanie
Babies and toothbrushes like the one Elian Gonzalez may have
used.
- Epinions has
reviews by actual people of many products, and price
comparisons too.
- La Toys is a New
York toy shop that sells Brio and Thomas the Tank Engine stuff
at a discount.
- Internet Fashion
Mall
- NetMarket has
discounts on brand name goods.
- PriceLine lets
you name your own price for travel, cars or mortgages, and see
if anyone will bite.
- PriceGrabber and
PriceScan compare
prices for computer hardware and software, electronics, movies
and books.
- The Bureau of the
Public Debt allows you to buy some of the national debt
online. Quick! Get some before it's all gone! Oh, wait, never
mind, there's plenty to go around.
Travel and Aviation
Reservations
- Travelocity,
Orbitz, Expedia and CheapTickets have airline
tickets, car rentals, hotel reservations, travel information.
United discontinued their wonderful United Connection software
because it was too useful so now we're stuck with these
things.
- ITA
Software Clear, well-organized listings of flights and
fares, domestic and international, with booking codes.
- Hotels.com Hotels,
vacation rentals, packages
- Quikbook Good
rates for selected hotels in major destinations (mostly in the
United States)
- Hotwire can help
you find travel bargains if you're flexible
- Priceline lets
you name your own price for travel (and mortgages), and see if
anyone will bite. They still use William Shatner in their ads!
And Leonard!
- Site 59 Big
discounts on last-minute travel packages
- Travelzoo
collects special travel offers from many sites
Guides
Airplanes
- Flight
Tracking lets you see where a flight is currently since
Northwest anyway always seems to maintain they're on time until
you show up and the flight is 2 hours late. If you want a
second opinion, try Track A
Flight whose display I think I like a little
better.
- Smilin'
Jack's Aviation/Airline/Travel Directory has a
marvelous, compact and fast set of links to airports, airlines
and other aviation-related stuff maintained by a TWA 767
captain. He also does his own Startin' Page
which is even more compact than this one.
- For real airplane nerds,
Airliners.net has thousands of photos of airplanes. The
link is to the favorites of all time so is heavy on engine
strikes in Hong Kong and jumbos coming in over the nude beach
at Princess Julianna airport in the Netherlands
Antilles.
- Speaking of the glories of air travel, the Air Traffic Control Command
System can provide real-time airport status for major
airports so you can see how gruesome your delays are likely to
be.
- FAA
Airfield Maps Like to know where you are? I do. This
link will take you to FAA Airfield maps so you know the airport
layout. I always like to get window seats so I can make sure
the pilot doesn't get lost. If you're flying to the UK, you can
get at the aerodrome charts through the UK
Aerodrome.
- FlyerTalk There
are people in this world who will do anything for airline miles
(e.g., fly to Singapore over the weekend on a deal). Flyertalk
is where they gather to roost. If you've got a lot of Mileage
Plus miles you might want to use 'em up before United
liquidates. Got US Air miles? Use 'em quick!
- If you're like me and like flying but don't actually do
it that much, you can wangle some free airline miles by looking
at the Mileage Workshop
page and getting the right credit cards, phone deal, giving
blood, getting car quotes, etc. It's for the truly
obsessed.
- Don't like flying? Get all nervous? Find yourself
airsick? Take a look at Designforchunks.com
which presents the results of several rounds of competition
for improved graphic designs on airsickness bags.
Minnesota and the Twin Cities
-
Yahoo's Twin Cities List is pretty darn
comprehensive
-
Twin Cities weather radar Weather's a big topic of
conversation here. Be in the know. You can also check out
the
National Radar.
-
Current conditions You can confidently recite the
dewpoint or windchill.
- Going out? City Page's Best of the Twin
Cities has lots of ideas.
- Explore
Minnesota! It's a mosquito-infested bog all summer and
salt-encrusted tundra all winter, but May's nice. And
mid-October.
- Minnesota Department
of Natural Resources has the unenviable task of
balancing the desires of bike ridin' Gaia-worshippin' vegan
yuppies with gun-totin' beer drinkin' camouflaged hunters. We
do have nice parks and good fishing, as long as you don't mind
eating a bit o' mercury.
- Twin Cities
Public Transit has maps and guides to get around on
buses and light rail. We actually use the transit quite a lot,
but the Cities sprawl a lot so you may wish to bring a
car.
- The Duluth Shipping News
has a lot of information about the Port of Duluth
(motto: "Gateway for Invasive Species!") and the comings
and goings of the ocean-going and Great Lakes ships. I wouldn't
picnic in Canal Park if I were you unless you like getting
pooped on by seagulls (don't ask how I know this), but it is
fun to see the ships go by and watch the bridge go up and down.
In less litigious times, they'd let people ride the bridge
which must have been fun.
- The Great Lakes
and Seaway Shipping site has lots more information on
the inland shipping here in North America.
Entertainment/Culture/Pastimes
- The Internet Movie
Database
- Moviefone and
Fandango have theater
times and advance ticket purchases
- Not that the movie times are that accurate. You pay
$7.50 and then have to endure 20 minutes of blaring trailers.
Not happy? Someone's suing. You can read all about it at
The Movie Theatre
Lawsuit Website. I quote Netsurfer: "The suit seeks not
to eliminate ads, but to force cinemas to advertise the actual
starting times of the films they show. If the guy prevails, it
could cost theater owners as much as $75 per customer. The
giant Loews chain, the target of the suit, claims that the
action is frivolous because the movie-going public has come to
expect this practice. The attorneys handling the case, however,
note that in-theater ad representatives tout their "captive
audiences". As a member of that captive audience, your inflated
admission prices are subsidizing a $250 million ad
business."
- Ticketmaster
has information and tickets for music, theater and sporting
events
- Film.com News from the
movie industry, as well as links to film resources
and
studios around the Web
- Reel surveys your
movie tastes and recommends ones it thinks you'll like
- Rotten
Tomatoes has oodles of movie reviews, previews and
information.
- Movie Pooper
gives away the endings of hundreds of movies. It's the sled!
Darth Vader's his dad! She's a guy! Err, sorry, I couldn't
resist.
-
Atom Films offers
short films and animations on the Web
- TV Guide Now
includes an extensive movie database
- Gist lets you
customize TV listings. You can even get them emailed to you so
you don't miss King of the Hill.
- PBS Online
-
The Discovery Channel
Online isn't too wonderful for us as we don't have
cable.
- Culturefinder
has schedules for the performing arts around the
U.S.
- The National
Endowment for the Arts ,the folks who brought you Piss
Christ.
- World Wide Arts
Resources
- NWHQ:Independent
artists on the Web
- The Louvre More fun
to visit in person if you don't mind the French, but you can
see many exhibits without leaving home.
-
Art on the Net, an
exhibit by 80 artists, and links to other art sites
- The
mp3.com makes a wide variety of music available in its
eponymous Internet format
- Rock and Roll Hall of
Fame. Oh boy.
- Internet Underground Music
Archives
- Classical Music
Archive Thousands of classical music samples in MIDI
format
- A Saint
Mary's Sampler is the CD we did at church. It's actually
pretty darn good, and you can download some MP3s from the
site.
- Epicurious, the
Food Network, and
RecipeSource will
help you answer the question, "What's for dinner?" If you're on
the all-meat'n'eggs Atkins diet, check out the Carb
Controlled Recipes to get a little more
variety.
- Wine Spectator
and WineToday
have ratings and reviews of thousands of wines
Sports & Recreation
- ESPN
SportsZone
- Sportsline from
CBS
- CNN/SI from CNN and
Sports Illustrated
- Allsports has
news, scores, odds, audio feeds and more
- NFL.com from the
N.F.L.
- The Huddle has
fantasy football stats and notes in case you're obsessed. I'm
not. Really.
- Fastball, a Cox
Newspapers baseball service with live play-by-play and tons of
stats
- majorleaguebaseball.com
from Major League Baseball, which we used to have here. Now
we just have the Twins.
- GORP, the Great
Outdoor Recreation Pages, has extensive information on parks
and outdoor activities of all sorts
-
The WWW Bicycle Lane
A bit dated, but still a good collection of links. Here
are a few of the quirkier ones I like:
- Like the feel of hot, sweaty, riveted black leather
pressed tautly against your nether regions? I do. That's
why I ride Brooks saddles, available from Wallingford Bike Parts.
- Rivendell Bicycles is kind of a reactionary
bike store, not driven by fashion. The carry lovely old
components and new lugged steel frames and wool shorts. One
day I bought one of their Atlantis frames and it is
great.
- One day I will talk myself into thinking that $300
is reasonable for a Schmidt hub generator, and I'll call
up Peter
White Cycles and buy one. Until then I'll just have
to look and dream.
- Harris
Cyclery is a source for all your fixed hub and
English three-speed needs, and other stuff.
- The Tennis
Server and Tennis
Country have news, schedules, rules and more, like
anyone cares. Just show us pictures of Anna.
- Golf.com, Golf Digest and
GolfWeb cover the golf
world in excruciating detail.
- By-the-Sea has
lots of boating stuff
- The Iron Butt
Association is the organization that sanctions and
promotes long-distance motorcycle rides. Instead of belts like
karate, you qualify on a SaddleSore 1000 (1000 miles in under
24 hours), a BunBurner 1500 (1500 miles in 24 or 36 hours) or
the 50cc Quest (coast to coast in under 50 hours), as well as
organized rides and rallies.
Photography
I have a somewhat larger, though still quirky, set of
Photography Links in the Photography Section of Hordes of Nerdy Links.
- Photo Net An
extensive site with lots of information on various
topics.
- B&H Photo
has been a consistent source of gear and film over the
years.
- CameraQuest Classic
Camera Profiles does a great job of explaining Nikon
SPs, Canon 7s and the mysteries of Leicas. It's a good way to
waste some time.
- The History of Photography is really useless if
you're interested in a real history and not my personal
experience.
- Camera
Traders is where I got my Contax G2. If you begin
lusting after one you should try these guys, they're
cheap.
- Paragon Press
my buddy Dave Dahm's home site, with some of his great Rocky
Mountain, wildlife and wildflower photos
- Sky
Photography with just a Camera is an interesting article
from Sky & Telescope.
- Liza Heider
Photography is a studio in Oakland, California. Lots of
people do nice black & white photos of mossy rocks; she
does them of people, and they look great.
- Kite Aerial
Photography , from Berkeley, is a model of how a site
should be done; it's an interesting sub-topic of photography,
with great images, technical detail and gentle good humour
throughout.
- The Nocturnes
site is all about night photography, long exposures, weird
lighting and cool results. These folks are from the Bay Area
too, it must be a lively community out there.
- The Fabulous Ruins of
Detroit is completely different from the three sites
above. Lowell Boileau has documented the destruction of much of
the old industrial fabric of Detroit. I once sold a factory
there and have a certain fondness for grimy industrial areas,
and found this site quite interesting.
- Wim
van Velzen is a Dutch guy who shoots weddings and
landscapes. Yawn, you might think, but he does a terrific job,
shooting mostly medium format, and has a lovely site. It's well
worth a visit. You'll learn something.
- Adventures
with Lightning is a wonderful spectacular marvelous
exciting page about lightning photography by, ummm,
me.
Demonstrations and Miscellany
- Cool Site of the Day
A vital go-to site in, oh, 1997.
- Useless
Pages Useless, maybe, but fun. Try Derek's Big Website of Wal-Mart Receipts for a
superb example of the genre; some guy from Fargo has posted
scans of receipts from his every visit to Wal-Mart since 1996,
with room for viewer comments. Work the Web!
- The Condiment
Packet Museum is another great useless site. Images of
dozens, nay, hundreds of ketchup, relish and creamer packets.
There's a good set of links for the condiment
enthusiast.
- Plastic offers
reader-filtered, intelligently moderated discussions of what's
happening on the Web and in the world.
- The
F.B.I.'s Most Wanted I still haven't made the Top
Ten.
- Learn2.com teaches you
how to do stuff. They are becoming more computer-oriented and
you can now use eHow
for some of the more everyday things.
- How Stuff
Works explains, well, how stuff works. It's a wonderful
site with clear explanations and great links.
- Dead People Server
Might answer the question, "What ever happened to . .
."
- Sites
for parents and children from the American Library
Association with garish background colours.
- Berit's
Best Sites for Children is compiled and reviewed by a
female Canadian librarian. What could be safer?
- The Online Guide to
Traditional Games covers old, non-digital games
including old pub games like Shove Ha'penny and
Skittles.
- Internet virus
myths and Virus hoax
information from the U.S. Energy Department.
- Urban Legends
Reference will let you check out that hot rumour before
you pass it on to your friends and look like a doofus.
- Bureau of Atomic
Tourism Hey, it's a hobby of mine. The Trinity Atomic Web
Site is also good and includes handy plans showing how
to make a fallout shelter, from 1980.
-
Nine Planets is a cool astronomy site
- The Heavens
Above can tell you what satellites are visible, when, at
what time and print you a map. It labels Iridium flares but
those will go away if that particular $5 Billion screwup is,
um, de-orbited. This is based on data from the German Space
Operations Center (motto: "We aim for the stars, but sometimes
we hit London"). If you root around in there they will also do
you a regular Sky Chart. It's pretty neat. Clever chaps, these
Germans.
- Tarot Card Reader, I Ching
and more
- Riddler will help
keep you from your work, like the rest of the net doesn't do a
good enough job already
- Elvis Presley's
Graceland, the official home page, and the unofficial
Elvis home page
-
Lark in the Morning has all kinds of very cool musical
instruments which I can't afford. Like this site? Send me a
hurdy gurdy kit!
- Paper
Airplanes Theme Page is a Community Learning Network page
with links to all sorts of paper airplane sites and
instructions. Put that stuff in that recyling bin to
use!
- iVillage and
women.com concentrate on
the women's perspective. I'm not sure what that is exactly, but
note that both sites have Horoscope links and articles on
timeless questions like "Why am I attracted to bad boys when
what I really want is commitment?". Sheesh. I wonder how long
before we have a women's perspective on dot-com bankruptcy.
(Answer: Not Long, probably. On February 6, 2001, they
announced a merger between the two.)
- Jasbits
Netcams and Digital Camera
Network have links to live cameras all over the
Net
- Weather.com gives
lots of comprehensive weather data from around the
country.
About This Page
This is based on the page used by The New York Times'
reporters for forays into the Web. It is biased towards news
reporter's needs but I have begun adding to, subtracting from,
and otherwise modifying it, in part because the Times' server has
been down several times which hasn't been very convenient. If you
want the original, go to the NYT site, register, and use the
Navigator page as your Start Page. If you want to get into some
of my more obscure pursuits, try Hordes of Nerdy Links
and see if that's any better. Good Luck!
Last updated January 2, 2006.
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