and where do we go from here?    

* Many links here haven't been checked in a while, and I intend to fix that. Shoot me an e-mail if you need to. - April 2024 *
 

Here ya go: the websites I admire most, after many years of looking at way too many web pages...

I'm not gonna exclude links to brilliant weasels because every word on their site isn't suitable for an seven-year-old kid. You use the 'net, you take your chances. That's the way it is. Consider yourself warned. "Take what you can use, and leave the rest." Live and let live. Etc., etc.
Domain names (such as grrr.net) can change hands overnight, so what used to be tasteful can suddenly become offensive - but best I can tell there are no links to sleaze here.

Got it? Okay.

Sites I used constantly, and those of particularly clever people, are marked with a  ‡ .

Spirituality

More reference sources

Christian Classica Ethereal Library

Classics, hymns, Bibles and study guides in the public domain.

Bible Gateway

Christians in recovery

other voices

Links to opponents of Scientology

More links to opponents of Scientology

Recovery

The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous

narecovery.org - online meetings and more

12 Step Programs - an introduction

addictiongroup.org - general resources to anyone experiencing alcohol use disorder

AddictionGuide.com - "...providing the most up-to-date addiction information and resources tailored toward each person's specific needs. We want to help you find the best care possible."

 

...and I've got some recovery-related stuff on this website

Health

HealthCentral.com

Ways to help others

Heifer Project

World Central Kitchen - "Food is a Universal Human Right"

Habitat for Humanity

Stop Prisoner Rape

Mercy and Sharing Foundation - a very responsible, effective group helping the children of Haiti

e-mail a service member

News / opinion / politics / history

‡ Google News

‡ Fark - perhaps the best communal aggregation of news anywhere

‡ The Smoking Gun

‡ Romenesko's Obscure Store and Reading Room - offbeat news items

‡ Risks Digest - Reports and discussion of... risky modern things

‡ Need To Know - an incredibly sharp tech observer in England

‡ The Register - more British coverage of tech stories you may not hear about from the American press

‡ MacInTouch - news and tips from Apple users

‡ John Dvorak - tech's king-gadfly, and hardly ever dull.

For the high-octane version, check out his personal blog

Scripps-Howard News Service - I used to keep an eye on the "bite-sized pieces from here and there", but many of them are very bleak news items.

BoingBoing

Reuters

Radio Ink - news about the US radio industry

News Blues for TV News Insiders

interesting-people.org digest

Yeeeup - it's the Constitution of the U.S. of A. Check it out before the rest of it is nullified..

Voting records of those "public servants" in the U.S. Congress

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Informative and useful sites

One might even say "invaluable"...

‡ An indispensible site for movie and TV fans is The Internet Movie Database (even though it was "rescued" by Amazon.com).

‡ Craigslist was another shining example of the best the Web can be

MadSci Network - answers for some of life's nagging little questions

Finding Your True Voice: A Guide to Gender-Affirming Verbal Communication (recommended by Olivia, a site visitor).

Stuff worth buying

I've been a customer of these firms - and I recommend 'em.

Extreme Coffee, the source for hypercaffinated SHOCK (originally "Spike").

Musician's Friend

CDbaby - give the musicians a bigger cut

‡ Chank - fonts and more fonts. FAL is proud to have 'Space Toaster', the title font used by the incomparable "Cartoon Planet"... but there's many free fonts available (to set the hook, and it worked here).

Retail Warehouse - Hey, they're back! I bought a great leather jacket from these folks.

KD's - my sunglasses!

Real Goods - renewable energy and back-to-nature products

Gall's - aimed at law enforcement, with many things you can't find anywhere else

EdealsEtc.com - online coupons and discounts

DealCatcher - more free online coupons

I intend to buy from C.C. Crane at some point...

Savvy people

Sock Heaven - a salute to Steve Taylor and his bands... a brave, phenomenal example of "walking the talk"

Humor / satire / parody

Welcome to NegativWorldWideWebland - so much to recommend, here... and be sure to check out Squant

Dihydrogen Monoxide Research Division

‡ The Door Magazine - a huge influence (for the good, I like to think)

Ship of Fools - the British Wittenburg Door equivalent that's become a rallying point on this side of the pond too

Fun stuff on the web

personality type indicator - a rough approximation, but still informative

High-level description of the personality types (Grrr = INTP, nearly INFP, according to a full MTBI)

Many other personality tests (Grrr = 68% freak)

‡ Speak 'n Spell - java app

The Longevity Game - "How long can you expedct to live?"

Internet Anagram Server

Mental Contamination Meter - java app - sign in with your mouse, get an amusing response

The Net Junkie Primer - lessons 'IRL'

Trivia Wars

Phil's interactive Julia - an AI simulator that converses with you

Nocturnal Society - for us night cats

Morse Code Engine from BBC produces visible/audible dits & dots

Doodle Recognition Applet - an amazing java app - mouse-written character recognition

Mister Poll

Talossa - "Since 1979, an Independent, Sovereign Country in the Heart of North America"

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Art

Cartoons & illustrations

‡ Tom Working Design, gifted and courageous

‡ Joe Forkan - Staggering Heights wunderkind

‡ PostModern AnXst - Greg Beda, the nearly-magnificent creator of Zeke & Goulash

‡ TOONAPALOOZA! - Jen Seng

‡ Seeking a new hyperlink for "Acredale Kolor Komics Kollection" by Harold Buchholz - go go Apathy Cat!

Cartoonists.net - member web sites of Cartoonists Northwest

Frinkism.com - online artist collective

The Figure Drawing Lab

The How-To Guide to Comics

The Underground Comics Archive - "the final destination for all cartoonists"

Photos / films / movies / video

Old photos from the U.S. Library of Congress

Some of the photos I've taken

Historical Nuclear Weapons Test Films

Music

Broun Fellinis - stellar jazz trio in the SF Bay Area

Harmony Central - guitar tabs

Kate Bush fansite

Jack Tempchin - underappreciated songwriter who helped shape folk-rock

Written word

Classic

‡ The Gutenberg Project - this is where the web really shines. Many thousands of books in the public domain are available. Better yet, they're free.
You can even get involved in the proofreading of newly added works at the Distributed Proofreaders site...

Norse Mythology

Northvegr - The Prose Edda (Anderson Translation)

The Mythopoeic Society - focusing on fantastic and mythic literature, especially that of the Inklings

The Charles Williams Society

‡ Into the Wardrobe: C.S. Lewis - this exhaustive site includes audio clips and forums

audio of C.S. Lewis reading an excerpt from Mere Christianity

‡ George Orwell - this incredible site has his novels and essays available! At least check out the quotes...

1984 is more pertinent all the time

Stephen Crane Society Home Page

Modern
(yeah, I know, the grouping is pretty arbitrary)

‡ Looking for a hyperlink for FAL co-conspirator Gary K.

Robert Persig - author of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

MOQ.org - Methods of Quality, after the example of Robert Pirsig

Philip K. Dick - and hunt here for some quotes

Baen Free Library

east of the web - short stories

WritingTree

Storymania - "the writing and reviewing community marketplace"

StoryBay

36 Dramatic Situations

Reference tools

‡ Merriam-Webster dictionary and thesaurus

‡ Snopes.com - Urban Legends Reference Pages

Refdesk.com - self-billed as "the single best source for facts"

Research-It - "quick access to the best Internet tools"

Internet Public Library - reference materials, images, books and more

rhyming dictionary

Writers' Free Reference - has some categories you won't find on the other reference sites

US ZIP code lookup

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations and many reference books

faqs.org - "Frequently asked questions" from all over the place

Encyclopedia Mythica - "encyclopedia of mythology, folklore, and religion"

SimplyAlerts

Travel & transportation

MapQuest

TigerMap - custom maps from the U.S. Census Bureau

California highway conditions - including closures/chain req's.

Lonely Planet Online - it's a big ol' world, and the USA is the exception rather than the rule(r)

bikes & cages

Here's a tip - these dudes aren't choirboys.
Hint.

David Mann art gallery and other good links

CrazyBikerHouse - a ton of links and info

Ronnie Cramer's Motorcycle Web Index

ABATE of California - motorcyclist's rights and safety

Bandit's Bikernet - news, articles, cartoons, fiction

West Coast Classic Cougar - my '68 was the car I "shoulda never let get away"

Weather & other natural sciences

Latest West Coast satellite image from NOAA

Continental US Viewport - real-time views of climate threats and infrared satellile shots, assembled by incident.com

recent California/Nevada earthquakes

Worldwide Earthquake activity

Snowpack levels for the Sierras

Heavens-Above! - observe satellites and astronomical events

old-school webmaster stuff

‡ Jargon File, the online version of The New Hackers' Dictionary

‡ IRT.org - web tech tips and answers, extremely helpful for me in the past

Sun Java info for beginners like me

SQL tutorial

‡ SANS Internet Storm Center - suspicious / malicious activity targeted at the millions of servers which comprise the Internet

TCP/UDP port numbers

The-cabinet.com - some nice, quick IP and domain extension lookup tools

HTTP status codes

hex encoding of punctuation in URIs

‡ "Why web usage statistics are (worse than) meaningless" - required reading for web geeks, by Jeffrey Goldberg

Creative Commons - an alternative to copyright

Creating New Newsgroups

and if you don't haunt alt.config for a long time before proceeding, don't expect much success

Computing / privacy / anonymity

‡ NoNags - free software and shareware

Majorgeeks.com - software downloads and news

‡ Computer virus hoaxes debunked by Sophos

Find the version of your Macromedia Flash browser plug-in

‡ Netscape Unofficial FAQ - A small group of people helped untold numbers of Netscape users during chaotic times. This site is the outgrowth of all their hard work, and it's still invaluable for Mozilla / Firefox / Thunderbird users.

Katie.com belonged to a British woman four years before an unrelated book with that title was published in 2000 - and the "author's" attorney is said to have threatened the domain owner with legal action (?) in 2004. The resulting uproar was finally followed by a retitling of the book, but the implications for domain name ownership were frightening. I think Penguin Puttnam and Katie Tarbox are thoroughly despicable, and I make a point of keeping my money away from them. Evil and arrogance at its worst. (News accounts and synopses of the whole saga can be found by following that link.)

Shell Extension City - tweaking the monopolistic operating system

Decoding the Windows "task manager" items - reclaim your RAM

‡ Nostabo.net - web home of Richard Barnes, an open source software advocate worth watching

AnalogX - free software, web tools... and original music

(Also see the Stuff to buy section of this page...)

Privacy Foundation - researching "research the privacy and security implications of this highly networked world"

‡ Cryptome

"welcomes documents for publication that are prohibited by governments worldwide, in particular material on freedom of expression, privacy, cryptology, dual-use technologies, national security, intelligence, and secret governance..."

How to disappear in America - Written a while ago, but updated and still thought-provoking

The Mozilla Museum

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