Funk Babblings

The Internet is big, really big. That's obvious. But what isn't necessarily so obvious is that it actually looks different to different people. (I'm not talking about browser differences, that's a separate issue.) Everyone has a different set of sites that they frequent, and for each person the Internet looks like that collection of sites.

So here's what the Internet looks like to me.... sites in * bold * are the ones I spend the most time on.

Portals & General News
* Google *	Google will answer all your questions, as long as you can come up with good keywords.
* MyWay *	A customizable portal site that's a lot like Yahoo, but without all the annoying ads. My favorite pieces are AP News, bookmarks, movie listings, TV listings, sunrise/sunset and moon, and a fun daily fortune feature.
Google News	Great overview of what the mainstream news around the country and the world is covering. A nice way to avoid the editorial bias inherent in any single news source.
Blogdex	An overview of what the blogs are talking about.
Info & Utilities
Weather Underground	I was getting weather info from here before the web existed, and their web site is still my favorite weather site. Nice features include the ability to set favorite cities and favorite overview map. I like the satellite map best for the main U.S. map.
Mapquest	The first place I go to find out where an address is located, how to get there, and how long it will take.
Wikipedia	An encyclopedia that takes advantage of the collective knowledge of the net, and encourages you to add your own knowledge. One of the best uses of the internet around.
Internet Movie Database (IMDB)	Information about movies and movie people. Also includes TV and some video game info. Great for "who was that character?" or "what else has she been in?"
Merriam-Webster Dictionary	The online dictionary and thesaurus with the short URL.
W3C Validator	Check your HTML to make sure it's correct, so that it won't break in standards-compliant browsers.
BabelFish	Rudimentary translation between various languages. Good enough to get a general idea of meaning, but don't expect your teacher to be fooled. It's no substitute for a human translator.
Geek Tools	Nice collection of utilities for getting information about network domains and addresses, finding wireless network "hotspots", and finding hotels with internet service.
BugMeNot	Don't want to hassle with free registration just to read an article at some website? BugMeNot will give you a login name and password to use.
Internet Archive / Wayback Machine	The Internet Archive collects open-access data from the Internet in one place (including lots of multimedia work), but its most unique aspect is the Wayback Machine, which allows you to see what a given web site looked like at a point in time in the past.
Project Gutenberg	Huge collection of public domain texts.
The Hacker Jargon File	Although revisions of the last few years have seriously degraded this resource (particularly after the editor went from Libertarian to Neo-Con), it's still both informative and amusing.
Social & Discussion
LiveJournal / * My LJ Friends *	Nice way to keep up with friends, interest groups, and such.
Yahoo Groups	Lots of interest groups gather on mailing lists, and Yahoo Groups provides them for free, along with some extra features that make many people prefer to make it a web-only interaction. I'm probably a member of 20 groups, only a handful of which I get in the mail and keep up with regularly.
USENET / Google Groups	Even before there was the Internet, there were USENET newsgroups on all sorts of topics. Google Groups is good both for searching for old (even ancient) newsgroup posts and for participating in (or just reading) current discussions.
Politics
* Daily Kos *	"Political analysis and other daily rants on the state of the nation," with a liberal but primarily partisan Democrat point of view. The analysis is what makes it beat other liberal blogs. The site's owner and main poster, Kos, grew up in both El Salvador and Chicago, is a veteran of the first Gulf War, and has degrees in philosophy, political science, journalism, and law. The site is currently the most prominent liberal blog around, and possibly the most prominent political blog. The "Diaries" allow everyone to participate, and often contain some of the best stuff.
Computer News & Commentary
* LWN *	Jonathan Corbet's editorial taste and voice make this the best Linux news site around. Throughout the week, articles and links with brief commentary are posted, a few of which are subscription-only at first. The centerpiece of the site is Linux Weekly News, which comes out every Thursday and for the first week is available only to subscribers. (Subscription is about the same price as public radio membership.) The weekly edition's front page has good editorial overviews of the week; the kernel page has excellent and readable information about the status of the Linux kernel. Other nice LWN features are the distribution list and the Grumpy Editor series of software reviews.
KernelTrap	Kernel-related news for Linux and the various BSDs.
O'ReillyNet	My favorite publisher of technical books also publishes good technical articles.
OpenBSD Journal	News about OpenBSD and its portable subprojects such as OpenSSH, as well as related security and networking news.
Slashdot	"News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters." And a black hole that threatens to suck you in if you delve too deeply into the comments. But a great place to find out what the geeks are talking about. (April Fools Day is particularly fun, as long as you remember the date.)
Crypto-Gram / Schneier on Security	My favorite commentator on security issues. Also available on LJ via both schneier and bruce_schneier.
Tom's Hardware Guide	Keep up with the latest in computer hardware, or do as I do and just check in when trying to figure out what to buy.
Music
Cringe	News about the Columbus music scene, including schedules of who's playing where this week.
Shoutcast	A huge listing of streaming MP3 radio stations.
Live365	Another huge listing of streaming MP3 radio stations, slightly more commercialized. Requires setting up a login account.
SlimDevices	Hardware and software for piping your music from your computer to your stereo (or to another computer). Also plays MP3 streams.
WatershedCentral	Watershed is my one of my favorite Columbus bands, and also one of the longest-active bands around. Their website is fun, and is usually updated weekly.
Susquehanna Hat Company	My favorite early 90s band, Too Much Joy, has spawned various spinoffs. This is the official site for all of them.
Shopping
* Amazon *	The ultimate in online shopping. Books, music, movies, electronics, clothes, toys.... and once primed with what you have and want, their recommendations are really useful. Their affiliation with other vendors makes the catalog feel almost unlimited.
CDBaby	CD Baby sells CDs from artists that are too small even for most indie labels, but there's lots of good music here. There are even a few recognizable names here and there.
Booksense	Buy books from independent bookstores!
Powell's	An independent bookstore with a huge selection, including used & rare books.
Alibris	Good place to find used & rare books.
Abe Books	Another good place to find used & rare books.
Bookpool	Get technical books cheap.
Pricewatch	Find out who has the current low prices on computer equipment.
CDW	The computer equipment general store. A good place to go just to get an idea of what's currently available (and for how much) in a particular category.
Crucial	The best place to go for computer (and printer) memory. Tell the site what your computer is, and it tells you what memory will work.
Software & other Downloads
Freshmeat	Whenever I'm looking for software, but don't know what software will do the job, I search here first.
SourceForge	Lots of free software projects are based here.
Debian Packages	Packages that are available in my favorite Linux distribution
LokiTorrent	Get your favorite TV shows and other stuff here. For now.