Transmetropolitan
A bitter, rude, overinformed journalist in a dystopian near-future of bowel disrupters, monkeybrain burgers, and loose libel laws, all in a brightly colored fascist America. Now if they could only get the site to work properly.
Review Date: 6/21/02 Site Type:Graphic Novel-Comic
Whose Site is it? DC Comics
Ratings Coolness factor:9 Credibility:2 Look:8 Information Depth:7
User Friendly, the Comic Strip
Once the one comic techies HAD to read. Newbies put Dilberts on their cubicle wall, real IT folk put up userfriendly strips. Unfortunately it's swiftly heading into Mary Worth territory. Oblivious to IT's ever-changing madnesses, UF's self-referential storylines increasingly move at a torpid pace with tepid jokes.
Go for the archives, skip the newer stuff.
Review Date: 6/12/02 Site Type:Graphic Novel-Comic
Whose Site is it? Illiad's little family of sites (UF, Geekfinder, etc.)
Ratings Coolness factor:6 Credibility:3 Look:3 Information Depth:2
Humor
Laid-Off: A No Nothing Production
""So I don't have a job anymore and I don't have any money...""Thus starts the saga of Odd Todd, with several painfully funny animations and a blog that confirms, in case there was any doubt at all, that this guy has far too much free time.
Review Date: 6/12/02 Site Type:Zine
Whose Site is it? "Odd Todd, of course."
Ratings Coolness factor:10 Credibility:6 Look:8 Information Depth:3
General
Arts & Letters Daily
Erudite compilation of cultural, political, and arts-related commentary on the web, with new things sneaking in every hour or so. Possibly the smartest bunch of folk available online but increasingly tending towards a right-wing reactionary smugness, more interested in justifying their existing opinions than in gathering the makings of new ones.
Review Date: 6/12/02 Site Type:Compilation
Whose Site is it? CyberEditions
Ratings Coolness factor:8 Credibility:8 Look:8 Information Depth:7
Bartleby Web Text Archive
Massive compilation of documents available for your online perusal or downloading. If you need to buy the dead tree edition, please go through them and give them some money.
Review Date: 5/13/02 Site Type:Compilation
Whose Site is it? Bartleby.com
Ratings Coolness factor:10 Credibility:10 Look:8 Information Depth:10
Project Gutenberg
The great home ground of online fiction archiving, this site has truly vast range and depth. If you're planning to download a classic text and you haven't looked here, then you haven't started looking.
Review Date: 6/21/02 Site Type:Resource
Whose Site is it? Project Gutenberg
Ratings Coolness factor:10 Credibility:10 Look:5 Information Depth:10+
Politics
MotherJones.com -- News and Resources for the Skeptical Citizen
The grand old dame got rid of her bloomers and started snowboarding. Wildfire discussion groups, genuine web exclusives, excellent archives. Leftist debate and analysis with good grounding in facts and a minimum of class-warfare jargon. This not your mother's political magazine.
Review Date: 6/12/02 Site Type:Magazine
Whose Site is it? Mother JonesBR> Ratings Coolness factor:10 Credibility:9 Look:6 Information Depth:9
Military History Bookstore: In Association with Amazon.Com Books
Buy the books listed here and you'll have an instant reference library on warfare that should serve most people's needs on the subject for the rest of their lives.
Review Date: 5/13/02 Site Type:Compilation
Whose Site is it? Smoke Free Schools Project
Ratings Coolness factor:4 Credibility:7 Look:3 Information Depth:7
Strategic Forecasting
Geopolitics served up fresh (and tasty?) daily. This is a good place for briefings on what is happening in world politics, filtered through a World Bank/IMF/Chase Manhattan world view, of course.
Review Date: 5/13/02 Site Type:Analysis
Whose Site is it? STRATFOR
Ratings Coolness factor:6 Credibility:7 Look:8 Information Depth:8
Reference
The NuPedia Project An Open Source Encyclopedia
American National Biography Online
Technology
Beyond 2000 Daily Science News
As gee-whiz as it gets but you know what, they're more on the mark then most of the mainstream media. Just don't go there expecting detail.
Review Date: 5/14/02 Site Type:Magazine
Whose Site is it? Beyond Online
Ratings Coolness factor:6 Credibility:9 Look:6 Information Depth:4
"Linux Magazine, Chronicle of the Revolution"
Handy read for those in the Linux community, they try to stay somewhat less rabid then the slashcode brotherhood and their ilk.
Review Date: 6/2/02 Site Type:Magazine
Whose Site is it? Linux Magazine
Ratings Coolness factor:8 Credibility:9 Look:8 Information Depth:9
New Scientist
Rough and ready, accurate and fast with the latest news. If you want a daily dose of the scientific world with depth and analysis, then this is the place to be.
Review Date: 6/21/02 Site Type:Magazine
Whose Site is it? Reed Publications (no relation to us. *sigh*)
Ratings Coolness factor:9 Credibility:9 Look:10 Information Depth:10
Slashdot
Anarchic, childish, random, and all in all the best place on the web to find out the absolute latest tech-related news. All listed as a swiftly changing list of short summaries with a link or two to real articles somewhere else. Beware of using the discussions. They sometimes contain remarkable gems but be sure to turn off /.s filters as they moderate useful links down to zero while ranking sniggering jokes at five.
All in all there is no site I depend on more and no other site that annoys me half as much.
Review Date: 6/21/02 Site Type:Compilation
Whose Site is it? Andover.net
Ratings Coolness factor:10 Credibility:10 Look:3 Information Depth:2
SPACE.com
Gee-whiz space magazine. Ohh, look, real spaceships! kin I get t-shirt, mom? huh? huh?
Lou Dobbs puts millions of dollars and the best minds in publishing into something and this is the best they can do? Glossy, occasional scoops, but mostly combining the depth of People magazine with the bravery of Reader's Digest.
Review Date: 6/12/02 Site Type:Magazine
Whose Site is it? Space.com
Ratings Coolness factor:4 Credibility:9 Look:8 Information Depth:3
Spaceflight Now
You want the news in spaceflight? Go here and get matter of fact coverage through a clean interface. Breaking stories every day. Check 'em out.
Review Date: 6/21/02 Site Type:Magazine
Whose Site is it? Space.com
Ratings Coolness factor:9 Credibility:10 Look:8 Information Depth:9
Technology Review
The flagship publication of MIT, they go deeper into the issues than Scientific American with a tone closer to that of The Economist. One of the few things on the web worth paying for, a subscription gets you access to their archive; well worth thirty bucks.
Review Date: 6/21/02 Site Type:Magazine
Whose Site is it? MIT
Ratings Coolness factor:9 Credibility:9 Look:8 Information Depth:10
Tom's Hardware Guide
A web institution, Tom's provides a deep and wide view of what options are available for Wintel boxes. News, BIOS archives, ads for online stores. Tom can set you up.
Review Date: 6/12/02 Site Type:Magazine
Whose Site is it? Why Tom's, of course.
Ratings Coolness factor:7 Credibility:8 Look:4 Information Depth:9
Zines, Alternative Newspapers and Magazines
My Shitty Texas Life
"I was brought into this world at 3:15 PM on April 24th, 1967 by a doctor who slapped me. I remember his face and I will get him." Pissed off. Annoyed. Convinced that the winds in Texas are so ubiquitous because "Arkansas sucks and New Mexico blows".
Review Date: 6/12/02 Site Type:Zine
Whose Site is it? Folks jest call him The Drifter.
Ratings Coolness factor:8 Credibility:2 Look:7 Information Depth:4
Pigdog Journal -- The Nekkid Truth
Opinions, rants, and, well, yes, links for the clothing optional and sex positive crowd. Sounding like Suzie Sexpert channelled by a semi-drunk but well informed frat boy, an occasional drop by can be fun and informative.
Review Date: 5/13/02 Site Type:Manifesto
Whose Site is it? Pigdog Journal
Ratings Coolness factor:4 Credibility:4 Look:3 Information Depth:4
Turk's Head Review
Neat and tidy little site with some pleasant tidbits. Kinda like dropping by the neighbor who always has a book to lend and sometimes a slice of cake for you to try.
Review Date: 5/13/02 Site Type:Zine
Whose Site is it? Jim Esch
Ratings Coolness factor:8 Credibility:9 Look:9 Information Depth:3
Wil Wheaton.Net
Good place to start your day. Forget Wesley Crusher (I sure wish I could), Wil Wheaton is a smart, funny, down-to-earth guy with reliable web chops. Maybe in a parallel universe the acting thing never worked out and Wheaton made his mark as a web producer.
Review Date: 6/12/02 Site Type:Zine
Whose Site is it?
Ratings Coolness factor:9 Credibility:8 Look:8 Information Depth:5
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