and where do we go from here?    

Here ya go: the websites I admire most, after ten 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 use constantly, and those of clever people I know, are marked with a  ‡ .

Spirituality

More reference sources

Christian Classica Ethereal Library

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

The biggest Book.

Christians in recovery

other voices

Links to opponents of Scientology

More links to opponents of Scientology

Paranormal News

Recovery

The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous

narecovery.org - online meetings and more

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

Health

HealthCentral.com

Ways to help others

Heifer Project

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

‡ The Drudge Report has many links to other news sources

‡ 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 U.S. congressional reptile-sentatives

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Informative and useful sites

One might even say "invaluable"...

‡ There's no match for Google. Get to know the advanced search capabilities and you'll be amazed what you can find. They also index images and USENET newsgroups, collect news from thousands of websites, and preview the astounding new stuff they're tuning at Google Labs.

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

‡ Babelfish translates different languages

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

Clusty - a fairly intelligent search engine that finds results in, well, clusters

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

Stuff worth buying

Extreme Coffee, the makers of hypercaffinated (formerly 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.

Nonags - the prime source for freeware, and you can buy an optional 'Nonags Plus' membership to get even more stuff

KD's - my sunglasses!

After the store closed in Jackson, CA where I used to stock up I was more careful with my shades... until my last pair slipped out of my jumpsuit somewhere over Acampo. They're not "cool" enough to be at the flea markets anymore, and I hadn't gotten around to seriously hunting 'em down. But then (finally) I remembered the 'net. This may seem like a small thing (at $4 - $8 / pair) but I'm jazzed that ol' 50's style, authentic KD's are still around. Go buy some. An old-school motorcycle parts shop or swap meet might come through with 'em too. The lesson here, umm, is to look online before wondering if something isn't being made or sold anymore.

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

...and I intend to buy from these companies...

Sportsmen's Guide - some items are exclusive and others are distinctive, though their shipping and handling charges were ridiculous. Hopefully that's changed.

(What's with "handling" charges anyway? Paying the shipping clerks used to be a cost center, another one of those inevitable expenses that are part of doing business. I make it a point to choose firms that don't tack on these bogus "handling" charges (or at least those who minimize this ripoff).

C.C. Crane

Nutty people

Sock Heaven - Steve Taylor

Humor / satire / parody

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

Dihydrogen Monoxide Research Division

‡ FAL.net - a shameless self-promotional plug.

I might as well add Cinema Insomnia too, then.

‡ 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

persinality 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

‡ Working Menucha - Tom the gifted / twisted one

‡ Joe Forkan - Staggering Heights wunderkind

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

‡ TOONAPALOOZA! - Jen Seng

‡ Acredale - go go Apathy Cat!

‡ Red Journal - talented artist from Costa Rica

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

‡ You know I have to plug ChristianBrothersPiano.com, my brother's main website...

Broun Fellinis - best 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...

I think 1984 is becoming more pertinent all the time

Stephen Crane Society Home Page

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

‡ Sauna.org - webmastered by 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", and it might just be correct

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

Accuweather for Sacramento

- Intellicast wind forecast for Northern California

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

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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Great "deceased" links

Gone, but not forgotten

(www.mattsphotos.com/bikerslang/travel.html) Biker slang

(www.biker.com) Personal site of a tough geek

(www.cuttlefish.net/nemeton/) Nemeton - the official website of The Shamen

(www.onlinerecovery.org) Recovery Online was amazing.

(www.FreeSoft.org/CIE/Course/index.htm) Freesoft.org courses

(viking.no/e/life/index.html) Viking daily life

(www.netzone.com/~serene1/shelp.htm") Download the AA Big Book

(www.thecruzados.com) Cruzados - a band I miss

(world-wide-glide.com) World Wide Glide

(www2.csn.net/~rosenz/TheRoad/TheRoad.html) The Road Out Of Town

(www.well.com/user/fap/foia.htm) U.S. Freedom of Information Act info

(www.voyager.co.nz/~amilo/bulb.html) the Light Bulb Joke page

(www.serve.com/AngelLady/index.html) AngelLady's Web Wanders - reciprocal link

(www.businesspark.demon.co.uk/brain/brain.htm) Brain of the Internet - a really hard pattern-sequence competition

(www.radix.net/~graziano/) old Cougars, as in Merc...

(www.motor-city.com) www.motor-city.com

(home.earthlink.net/~newsouth/fear.htm) Fear of a New South

(www.empirenet.com/~rdaeley/authors/lewis.html) C.S. Lewis

(www.datatext.co.uk/library/wilde/stories/chapters.htm) Oscar Wilde

(www.geocities.com/SouthBeach/Sands/8570/) Glowy

(itchy.calarts.edu/~kip/) Kip can write. Oh yeah.

(www.ledet.com/steven/) Bayou scribbling

(pubweb.parc.xerox.com/map/db=usa/ht=45.00/lat=39.38/lon=-99.29/wd=90.00?270,133) Xerox PARC map server

(www.radix.net/~graziano/) old Cougars - the best cages ever made

(www.bikersjournal.com/welcome.html) Bikers' Journal

(destruction.mc.net">destruction.mc.net

(vger.rutgers.edu/~ravi/bike/) Ravi - motorcycle links and info

(www.getnet.com/~rmkg/) Mozilla Preservation Society

(members.tripod.com/~comx) CoMxerO, the legendary Robmiester

(www.infohiway.com/javascript/) Cut-N-Paste Javascript - a big help

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