Links
Miscellaneous
Slashdot ~ Slashdot is site run by a few guys that post links to news or other sites they think are interesting. Their motto is “News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters.” The significant part is that it has become so popular, largely due to the ability of the users to discuss the contents of the linked sites in their comment system.
Digg ~ The spiritual descendant of Slashdot, Digg has removed the editors and lets the users decide what is on the front page.
Reddit ~ Another social linking site like Digg, but with less users and a more intelligent and mature community.
GotFrag ~ GotFrag is a site dedicating to promoting Electronic Sports of all kinds, but since Counter-Strike is the most popular and feasible at the moment, it mostly focuses on Counter-Strike. I currently volunteer my services as a copy editor for this site.
The Mozilla Project ~ Mozilla is a project to make an Open Source web browser and email client. The web browser, Mozilla Firefox, is the most standards compliant available, renders almost all pages well, and is available for a multitude of operating systems. I also like the mail client, and use it daily for my email. Right now Firefox is important because Internet Explorer is subject to so many attacks by Adware, Spyware and Malware, that surfing the Internet with it will quickly make a computer unusable. Firefox, on the other hand, is much more secure, and provides a much safer web experience.
socool.de ~ socool.de is a web site that is a central communication point for many of my friends in Germany. If you look around you can find pictures of me with a mullet!
DeviantArt ~ DeviantArt is a community of artists who share their own work, and comment on the work of others. It’s completely free (with an optional paid membership for added features), and has some really talented artists who participate. The site is very heavy on the graphics, so it will probably take a while to load the pages if you are on a modem connection.
Rotten Tomatoes ~ Want to find a movie to watch? Want to know if a certain film is good? This is the only site you need. Rotten Tomatoes compiles all of the reviews it can find on every movie, and gives you a percentage of reviews that was positive. If it’s over 90%, you need to see it. Don’t bother with anything under 70%. Watch out though, because results can be misleading if there are only a few reviews for a certain film.
Wikipedia ~ Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. This is an encyclopedia where anyone can create or change articles. This works incredibly well, and I now turn to Wikipedia when I want to know about a topic, when I formerly used Google for basic research.
LEO English/German Dictionary ~ This online dictionary is largely community maintained and extremely useful. I don’t even use a paper dictionary anymore, because the search function of LEO is so much more useful. Also, it has many slang phrases and idioms that are not included in traditional dictionaries.
The Princeton Review’s Word of the Day ~ Each day a few unusual words are defined on this site. The Genius category is almost always good, and the GRE group occasionally has good ones, too.
SELFHTML ~ This is the best electronic HTML and CSS reference I have found. Unfortunately for some, it is in German. There is supposedly an English translation in the works, but as I was on the translation team for a time, and saw the progress that was being made, you probably shouldn’t hold your breath for it to be done.
Blogs 
Eye Twelve ~ The best apartment in the world: I12. This site centers around all things associated with former residents of I12, whether they were actually paying rent or not.
Luke Baker ~ My roommate for almost three years.
Scott Rydbeck ~ Scott likes surfing and running. Pretty strange for an engineer.
Scott Hekman ~ More New Wave than Nena.
Jonathan Dawe ~ My freshman roommate in undergrad.
Jim Laing ~ Jim tends to get moody and turn his site into different things. These days it is usually a programming experiment.
Matt Mullenweg ~ Matt is the lead developer of Wordpress, some pretty cool open source software. He often has good links and thoughts in his blog.
Nat Friedman ~ Nat is a programmer that co-founded Ximian, which was later bought by Novell. He currently works for Novell on really cool projects like Beagle and Hula.
Web Comics
Questionable Content ~ QC is a web comic that cronicles the trendy adventures of some indie kids. There are many references to indie music and fashion, but doesn’t take itself too seriously.
indietits ~ Indietits is a silly side project of J. Jacques, the guy that does QC.
Gods & Undergrads ~ This is a comic that only gets updated from time to time. This causes the story to move quite slowly, but the writing is quite good. Unfortunately, the author’s drawing skills are somewhat less impressive, but don’t let that fool you: it’s a fun read.
Piled Higher and Deeper ~ PHD is about life at Stanford graduate school. It was started by a Stanford grad student who was writing about the culture and frustrations he was experiencing. The author has since graduated, but it still has a wonderfully cynical view of academia.
Dinosaur Comics ~ This hilarious and simply delicious comic stands out because every day the frames and images are the same and only the text changes. It’s so genius.
SCARY GO ROUND ~ Scary Go Round is a British comic about some friends that happen to have a lot of strange experiences. It’s really a soap opera in disguise, but which web comic isn’t?
Boy on a Stick and Slither ~ Experience the wonder that is a boy’s head on a stick and his serpantine friend. BOASAS has wonderful dialogue (I guess it’d better, because that’s all it is) and the author has a fantastic sense of how to portray timing to make things funny.
Comet 7 ~ Pixel art chronicling the adventures of a giant tentacle, a water cooler, a box of chinese takeout, and their friends.
Diesel Sweeties ~ More pixel art, but this time the characters are mostly humans, with one robot exception.
The Pet Professional ~ A great comic that, unfortunately, doesn’t update all that often. It started out with an amazing artist that I really liked, but now there is a different one with a very different style.
On The Rocks ~ A comic about a penguin and a polar bear in Antarctica. Yes, we know that polar bears don’t live in Antarctica, and that polar bears and penguins likely never meet in real life.
General Protection Fault ~ Having been around since 1998, GPF is one of the oldest web comics around. It’s about the employees of a software company.
Dilbert ~ The most popular geek comic and probably the best.
User Friendly ~ Another geek comic that has been around for a very long time (since 1997). It has been said that all other geek comics are attempts to copy UF.
PvP Online ~ PvP takes it’s name from the online gaming term “PvP,” which means “Player vs Player.” In online roleplaying games, PvP is when players can kill other human players. It is a very polished comic about the staff at a video game magazine, and is even published in some printed newspapers.
Penny Arcade ~ Penny Arcade tells the story of a few friends that really like playing video games. It mostly has to do with console games, but often dips into Internet culture and gadgetry. It is quite similar to CTRL-ALT-DEL.
CTRL-ALT-DEL ~ As the name might suggest, this comic has to do with computers, video games, and tech culture. Again, it is a group of friends that like to play games and stuff. It is quite similar to Penny Arcade.
Little Gamers ~ Another web comic that mostly focuses on video games.
My New Fighting Technique is Unstoppable ~ This hilarious comic has been done for some time now, but you can read the entire series online. It’s about a guy that realizes he has developed an unstoppable martial arts technique.
Get Your War On ~ Get Your War On is created by the same guy that made mnftu, but this series is not yet finished. It is an entire strip dedicated to showing how ridiculous the war in Iraq is.
OK/Cancel ~ This comic is focused on talking about usability. It’s usually only funny to usability enthusiasts.
News
Google News [Various, English] ~ Google provides an automatic aggregation service that pulls stories from over 4,500 sources, and combines all of the articles about the same story. It’s really good for getting a quick overview of the hot headlines. Versions in various languages are also available.
The New York Times [US, English] ~ One of the most respected newspapers in the US. You are required to make a free account to read most of the articles. Tends to fall on the left wing side of middle.
The Washington Post [US, English] ~ Another very respected newspaper in the US. Free registration is required to read most of the stories. Tends to fall on the right wing side of middle.
CNN [US, English] ~ Made a name for itself as a TV news network, but also has an online presence. Seems to be fair, some claim it tends to be left of middle.
FOX News [US, English] ~ Started out as a TV news network, but also has an online presence. Mostly concerned with human interest stories, has a very strong right wing slant.
Christian Science Monitor [US, English] ~ Having received seven Pulitzers, this paper has some of the best journalism in the US. They rarely use news feed services (like Reuters and the Associated Press) as most other news sources do, and often has in-depth reporting on stories not hyped by other sources.
The National Weather Service [US, English] ~ Get forecasts and weather alerts from the National Weather Service.
The Globe and Mail [Canada, English] ~ A popular Canadian paper.
The BBC [UK, English] ~ One of the most respected news sources in the English speaking world. Much better than the US sources for world events.
Spiegel [Germany, German] ~ A very popular news source in Germany, it is probably the #1 source for university students.
Die Zeit [Germany, German] ~ A weekly print newspaper in Germany, Die Zeit has more editorial content than actual news.
Die Welt [Germany, German] ~ Extensive coverage of German, European and World events.
All Africa [Africa, English] ~ A human-compiled aggregate of over 100 African news sources. Africa is rarely reported in the rest of the world’s media, so get it from the source.
The Straits Times Interactive [Singapore, English] ~ News from Singapore.
Asia Times [Hong Kong, English] ~ Editorials about world events. Almost always takes an anti-American stance.
The Times of India [India, English] ~ News from India.
The Chosun Ilbo [Korea, English] ~ Korea’s oldest and largest newspaper.
The Korea Herald [Korea, English] ~ News from Korea.
The Korea Times [Korea, English] ~ News from Korea.
The Japan Times [Japan, English] ~ A popular Japanese, English language newspaper.
Mainichi Daily News [Japan, English] ~ Japan’s oldest newspaper, and one of the most popular.
Indymedia [Various, English] ~ The Independent Media Center compiles news from independent sources around the world. Have you ever wondered what is going on that the news networks aren’t telling you about? Find out here.
NPR [US, English] ~ National Public Radio is the only radio station I listen to.
CBC Internet Streams [Canada, English] ~ The Canadian Broadcasting Company has online streams to listen to their radio broadcasts. They are Windows Media, but work in MacOS, Linux and Windows.
Pingback by Decoding Terms » Searchable Comics
[...] I like web comics. Questionable Content and Dinosaur Comics are two of my favorites. And now both of them are searchable (at least in part) over at Oh No Robot. Pretty cool. Hopefully lots of comics will have full-text searching soon. [...]
Posted on November 7, 2005 at 1:41 am