kewlfish     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   .

Categories:
Spirituality  -  Recovery & health  -  Ways to help others  -  News / politics / history
Informative & useful  -  Stuff worth buying
Nutty people  -  Humor & satire  -  Fun stuff on the web  -  Rats  -  Skydiving
Art & illustration  -  Music  -  Written word  -  Reference tools
Travel & transportation  -  Weather & nature  -  Webmaster stuff
Computing / privacy / anonymity  -  Links that are "deceased" and are particularly missed

 

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
 

long live Mozillaold-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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