Interesting.Places.to/Browse for Information

Interesting.Places.to/Browse	for Information

links to random places of interest

Being a compendium of links to sites and pages in the World Wide Web that were, at the time they were collected, of some interest to the compiler. The links in this file are mostly obtained from announcements posted in Usenet newsgroups. It is not intended to be complete or comprehensive; instead, it is very much like a lightly-edited hotlist, containing things that looked interesting at the time. I use it as a personal reference tool and jumping-off place, but don't expect it to be of use to anyone else.

Interesting Places for Kids, for Parents, and for Music are much better maintained.

Organizations ( [gov], [org], [edu], [com], [net], [pages], [misc] )
Text and HyperText ( [HyperTexts], [Books], [Magazines] )
Art & Culture
Mass Media
Other Interesting Stuff
Random Weirdness
Copyright Notice
Site Policies.

Home pages of various organizations

Businesses

Cyber-Malls

the Branch Mall: A virtual shopping mall, including an FTD florist.
Internet Mall
The Internet ShopKeeper: ``the World's first World Wide Web based user extensible virtual mall. The Internet ShopKeeper provides a place in cyberspace where people from around the world can setup and manage their own shops.'' (Cheaply, I might add.)
Internet Shopping Network: To order products, download demos or access reviews from the ISN, you need to be a member, which involves faxing back a form with your credit card number on it. Recently bought by TV's Home Shopping Network.
Media City

Book Stores and Publishers

Algorithm, Inc.: A book and CD-ROM publisher. Their page has pointers to information on graphics, VR, and maybe eventually DSP.
An on-line bookstore: Typical price is $5.00 -- you send them a credit card number and they send you a gopher menu.
Computer Literacy
the Internet Book Shop: contains details of academic publishers' books and journals.

Computer Retailers and Manufactures

This section, especially, only contains pointers to companies and stores I'm interested in. Otherwise, see Yahoo. "Local" means local to the San Francisco Bay Area.

CD Archive, Inc.: sells CD-R drives (not Ricoh's, unfortunately) and software. They also have sources for cdwrite and mkisofs.
DEC
IBM
NCA (Discount Retail; local)

Software Publishers and Retailers

This section is for companies that are mainly selling shrink-wrapped software at retail.

the CD-ROM SHOP
NetManage: makers of ``Chameleon'' TCP/IP software for Windows.
Software.net: CyberSource Corporation -- online ordering and sometimes delivering of software. OTOH their prices seem to be about the same as Fry's.

Misc Computer

This section is for companies that are primarily computer-related, but not in the business of selling either hardware or shrink-wrapped software.

AT&T 800 Directory at ATT Bell Laboratories
Commonwealth Broadcasting Network: will pay you $.0075 per hit in exchange for putting a rather large (580x100) advertisement at the top of your page. Too big.
DSPnet: ``is the first worldwide on-line service dedicated to serving the Digital Signal Processing (DSP) technology community. As a clearing house for DSP technology, DSPnet brings together OEM manufacturers, third party developers, and users.'' -- you have to register, but it's free.
EINet Galaxy (MCC) EINet Galaxy (MCC) and Web Softwareat EIT (Enterprise Interface Technologies): A consulting firm that seems to be doing a lot with the Web.
General Magic
Surety: a ``digital notary'' that timestamps documents for you. ``The Personal Edition costs $49, which includes account set-up, Personal Edition software, and 50 certificates. Users can order additional Digital Notary certificates at a price of $37.50 for 50 certificates.'' (Software is available on Windows and Sun Sparc.)
The Technology Board of Trade: serves as a trading floor for companies seeking and/or providing reusable software technology.
Ubique: ``Ubique develops, markets, and supports software for real-time communication on the World Wide Web. Ubique's Virtual Places client/server architecture adds live human presence to your Web site, enriching information publishing, commercial enterprises, and virtual communities.''
Xanadu home page: from Xanadu Australia.

Misc Non-Computer

AT&T's Home Page
Wade's Flower Shop at BizNet: (Redbook)
Chi Pants: Moderately expensive ($49 last time I looked) but exceptionally comfortable pants. These folks were put out of business by the Loma Prieta quake in 1989, and are back again by popular demand.
DeLorme Mapping: (A company that makes and sells maps.)
The Fencing Center - San Jose CA
Illuminati Online: A production of Steve Jackson Games with a cool logo.
Lovecraft Draft Cider, Ltd.: another great logo. What kind of seal is on that bottle?
Orchard Supply Hardware
The NetMarket Company: uses PGP encryption for secure transactions.
PizzaNet: Order Pizza Hut pizza via the Web. Not available in all locations. (I'm not making this up!)
REI: Camping gear, etc.
Xilinx

Internet service providers

Internet Access Provider Catalog.

Organized by phone number, which means that the US is under North America. They mention this up front, but it's not enough to prevent most people from looking in the obvious place in the alphabetical list and not finding it.

The Providers of Commercial Internet Access (POCIA) Directory

ISP Index at Cyberspace Today

Low-cost and public-access providers:

SV-PAL -- Silicon Valley Public Access Link: ``A non-profit volunteer organization which brings Internet access to the South Bay community including local schools, organizations, businesses and individuals'' for $20/year, although this does not get you a shell account, and there's a 1-hour limit on sessions.
The Little Garden: A low-cost ($85/month full time) Internet provider in the SF Bay Area. They have pointers to WWW services offered by their members.
a2i: A low-cost provider in San Jose. UUCP is $20/month and Dialup SLIP is $.25/hour. Web at your domain (e.g. http://theStarport.org/ for $75 one-time setup. Their price schedule for unlimited SLIP is complex because dedicated line, speed, routing, and newsfeed are unbundled. The range is from $65/month to about $250.
dnai: ($49/month ISDN)
Metricom: Wireless and cheap ($45/month) PPP at v.34 speed, in many parts of the Bay Area.
Netcom: Presently pushing their own warmed-over Mosaic for PC's. They used to provide SLIP accounts at $2/hour.
Portal (or get info here via ftp): UUCP connections are fairly expensive; they charge by the hour. $20/month for shell accounts.
SenseMedia

Some providers offering ISDN (for a price)

CERFnet offers ISDN at $325/month. (1B unlimited.)
PSI has home ISDN at $29/month + $2/hour after the first 30 hours; $50/month + $2/hourfor a LAN. Prices from $150-$350 for unlimited usage dialup.
InterNex has a similar deal, but if I remember correctly they're only in 415 at the moment. Their price for a Class C LAN is $399/month.

Note that these prices in general do not include the phone company's charges. At least with Pacific Bell, local calls are free only at night. During the day you pay business rates, (through the nose), by the minute.

Web Presence Providers

The following organizations are offering web presence---for a monthly fee ranging from $10 to $25,000 (I'm not making this up), they will let you put one or more web pages someplace where other people can get at it. These things are sometimes called ``cybermalls''.

CyberSpace Starport: My own venture. Cheap and oriented toward Science Fiction fans and the businesses that serve us.
Catalog.Com at Network Wizards: $10/month, $.20/Mb over 5Mb; $30/month for a virtual host.
CERF n' WEB at CERFnet: is $250/month for 20Mb of disk and up to 10Mb/day of transfers. Additional $50/month for 10Mb disk + 10Mb transfer.
Matrix Marketplace at InterNex: $50/month for 10Mb + 10Mb/day; sliding scale.
PSI: has recently gotten into the business, at prices ranging from about $300 to about $3000 depending on bandwidth.
Webcom.: Web-only.

Hard to classify

Global Network Navigator: Mirrored at www.digital.com
Internet Computer Index: ``is an easy-to-use, free service that leads Internet users to all of the information available on the Internet relating to PCs, Macintoshes, and Unix computers.''
The Cypherpunks Home Page and Vince Cate's Cypherpunk Page: Cryptography software and discussion. Get your ``Sink Clipper'' T-shirts here! Note that soda.berkeley.edu has moved to ftp.csua.berkeley.edu .
Kaleidospace: media-oriented stuff; art, music, etc. with good graphics.
CNIDR (Clearinghouse for Networked Information Discovery and Retrieval): Current home of freeWAIS. More about WAIS.
World Wide Quilting Page at <a hrefhttp:ttsw.comquilt.html">T&T SoftwareT Software: (Not really a .org site, but close enough.)
The Chile-Heads home page: ``Almost everything you might want to know about chile peppers is here!''

Texts and HyperTexts

Hyper texts

Note:: My criterion for including something in this section is that it must be a true hypertext rather than just a linear document. I.e. it has to have links other than just those that correspond to some original document's section/subsection tree structure. For example, a dictionary with cross-references would qualify.

As We May Think: by Vannevar Bush, originally published in the July 1945 issue of The Atlantic Monthly. The seminal article on hypertext. Contains some live links, especially in the first paragraph of Section 8
Devil's Dictionary: A searchable HTML version of the Devil's Dictionary. It has all the original entries, including poetry and all, assembled by magnus@haukugle.ii.uib.no (Magnus Y Alvestad)
Shrinking from Click Media Inc.: (heavy use of frames)

Books

Books On-line: Including links to listings by Author and Title, as well as pointers to many other repositories. It almost isn't necessary to list anything else.
BIBSYS Top Level: The entire Norwegian academic library system.
Digital Freedom Network - Anti-censorship Bulletin Board: At The International Internet Association is attempting to put together a freely-accessible collection of banned books.
The File Room: ``is an illustrated, on-line archive of cases of cultural censorship which you can browse as well as add cases to.''
Interpedia: I'm not sure an online encyclopedia counts as a ``book'' but it sure is a good idea. At the moment it's more discussion than content, though.
Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet: ``This netbook presents the history and impact of various aspects of the Net: the Internet, ARPANET, Usenet, etc. We hope to provide information which will help readers to understand where the Net has come from so as to help preserve its value throughout future developments and changes''
Al Azif (The Necronomicon): Quotations, including some diagrams, from an edition published by CORGI Books of Chaucer Press, Ltd., Great Britain. I don't know whether The Steps of Zion Universal Life Church has permission to publish it from Chaucer Press. They certainly don't have it from the Elder Gods, so if green slime starts coming out of your disk drive, don't blame me.
The Cthulhu Gallery: Pictures of Itself.
Campus Crusade for Cthulhu: ``It found me!''
Al Azif in HTML 3.0: as part of the De Web Mysteriis project
Necronomicon Home Page: Which at the moment only contains the Necronomicon FAQ.
Students For The Occult Home Page: has pointers to more of this sort.
Necronomicon Anti-FAQ
alt.horror.cthulhu FAQ

Magazines and other Periodicals

Note:: It's sometimes hard to distinguish between a magazine or newspaper and a home page. My criterion is that a magazine is a periodical, i.e. a publication which is issued at regular intervals, with back issues remaining available in an archive. The home pages in this section all point to magazines or lists of magazines.
Note:: This section also fails entirely to distinguish between print-zines that just happen to have a home page, print-zines that really maintain a complete and up-to-date electronic version, and true e-zines that have no printed counterpart at all.

The Network Observer (TNO): is a free on-line newsletter about networks and democracy. Since January 1994, TNO has been one of the Internet's most respected sources for practical information, informed commentary, and a discerning selection of pointers to network resources.
c|net: ``c|net online is a free, advertiser supported service for its members. While there is no cost to becoming a member, we do ask that you register.''
CYBERKIND: ``a new WorldWideWeb magazine of 'Net-related fiction, nonfiction, poetry and art.''
Cyberspace Today: even has a print version.
CyberWire Dispatch, by Brock N. Meeks
E-scape: ``the digital journal of speculative fiction'' is now published in HTML as well as Acrobat.
hyperstand: ``From the publishers of NewMedia magazine.''
mobilis: ``the mobile computing lifestyle magazine''
Open Systems Today: Very flashy version of a tabloid-sized weekly paper zine. Not complete contents yet.
The San Jose Mercury: Soon to become partly unfree.
The Gate: Online editions of the San Francisco Examiner and Chronicle, and its rival
SpaceViews (also available non-Netscape.): ``A publication of the Boston chapter of the National Space Society'' with links wherever Web-accessible items are mentioned.
The SF Free Press,: ``the daily on-line newspaper of the striking employees of the San Francisco newspapers.'' -- still around but no longer up to date.
Commercial News Services on the WWW: Includes pointers to commercial daily and weekly newspapers and magazines.
FARNET stories: 51 Reasons to Build the NII
Government Information in Canada: ``a new on-line journal entitled "Government Information in Canada/Information Gouvernementale au Canada" edited by Andrew Hubbertz <hubbertz@sklib.usask.ca> of the University of Saskatchewan.''
Information Week: wants you to become a member by filling out a form and picking a username and password. At least they don't ask for a credit card number. Yet.
Internaut: ``the online magazine for users of the Internet''. A bit heavy on the inline graphics.
Linux Gazette at the Linux HomeBoy WebPage: A compendium of hints and tips for Linux lovers.
PC Week Labs: Including some reviews and the obligatory collection of pointers, including this list of Best News Sources and On-line Magazines
The "NCSA What's New Page": is structured like a magazine. The back-issue list is at the end.
GNN (Global Network Navigator): Mirrored at www.digital.com
InfoWorld: The whole thing minus pictures, but you have to fax back a membership form with a credit card number, which most people (including me) are reluctant to do.
InterText: ``is a free, on-line bi-monthly fiction magazine.''
Networks and Community: A weekly survey by Sam Sternberg devoted to encouraging local resource creation and global resource sharing.
The Lynx: is an attempt to see if a real magazine can be published on the World Wide Web on a regular basis. The magazine will cover the more alternative sides of the Web and the Internet, and we hope to be amusing, informative, and slightly anarchic ...
Mother Jones Magazine
Net.tech: ``is an Internet technical newsletter for computer professionals published monthly by Duke Communications International"
Palo Alto Weekly
Scientific American: large parts of the magazine, with at least two articles in their entirety.
Slate: is published by Microsoft. Take their computer- and business-related reporting with a couple of pounds of salt. Soon to become expensive.
Whole Earth 'Lectronic Magazine
CyberNews: a grassroots newswire on the Internet. (the brainchild of Richard Linton Ginn, a communications major at Cornell.)
Scout Report: Published weekly by InterNIC. Its stated purpose is to combine in one place the highlights of new resource announcements and other news which occurred on the Internet during the previous week.
NSF Network News: from The InterNIC
International Teletimes -- Home Page: An on-line, general interest magazine assembled in Vancouver, Canada
Wired Magazine: and its back issues
etext.archive.umich.edu: Cyberspace Vanguard magazine and other e-text
The Global City Dispatch: from Kaleidoscope Communications
electronic zine list: A list of fanzines, etc. from John Labovitz <johnl@ora.com>. Extensive, eleclectic, and fully linked. Ranges from business-oriented to recreational to totally wacked-out.
Time-Warner's Pathfinder (high-bandwidth version): Too many images; hard to find stuff.
Women's Wire on the Web --an interactive magazine focused on women's interests.: ``features daily news about women, weekly advice columnists, statistics, quotes from newsmakers, and links to other women oriented sites.''

Art and Culture

(You can find more museums and such in my Kids' page.. This section tends to be more on the adult side.)

OTIS

An on-line art gallery and artists' hangout.

the Ascii-art bazaar

The Louvre and a tour of Paris,

by Nicolas Pioch

Conservatoire National des Arts et M�tiers, A Web site with lots of animation and art.

Expect to wait a while for inline images. I haven't even considered trying to view the animations.

The Getty Art History Information Program

(Currently unuseable without inline images.)

This interesting node

points to several cultural resources, many on the weird side.

Mass Media

(See also Movies and TV Shows in Interesting places for Kids.)

Cinema Sites: An excellent list of many movie-related Web sites.
TVnet and HollyNet: A week's worth of TV listings. Networks only, of course, so it's not a substitute for your local TV Gripe.
Network 23: Including Max Headroom stuff.
Web Site Of Love: (Mystery Science Theatre 3000)

Other Interesting Stuff

The Lojban Archive: `` material concerning the constructed human language "Lojban - A Realization Of Loglan".''
Esperanto: ``a much older and much more widely used constructed language'' with links to many online texts and their translations.
Best of the Web 1994
The SF-Lovers Convention List (and a mirror)
Stock quotes: updated automatically, usually between 10:00 p.m. EDT and 1:00 a.m. EDT
Stock quotes: ``15 minute delayed quotes, plus lots of other stuff... The best on-line personal finances spot I have found. --Greg''
Dark Corners: has links to many sites of interest to SF fans, including a Fan History Archive
Online Ready Reference
The Daily Planet: is planned to be a full-scale Environmental Information Server. It is a logical extension to the work ... originally started with the UofI Weather Machine.
FINWeb (really ought to point to FINWeb Home Page): economics and finance-related gopher and World Wide Web services, offered as an ancillary service of RISKWeb, a Risk and Insurance World Wide Web Server.
U.S. Gazeteer: For the 3rd installment in my Web Geography series (1 was the You Are Here server, 2 was the Virtual Tourist), I have put up a U.S. Gazeteer of placenames (almost entirely towns and cities), complete with nifty maps showing the place's location. (plewe@acsu.buffalo.edu)
Olympics results (Probably not terribly useful anymore, so how about...)
World Cup World Wide Web: and Japanese mirror
Document Center: Document Center is a hard copy document delivery service specializing in government and industry specifications and standards.
USA relief map: Includes pointers to many other maps on the net.
the Principia Cybernetica Web: ``the central on-line "jumping off" point for alternative information seekers.''

Random Weirdness

This section contains pointers to an assortment of personal, idiosyncratic, bizarre, and generally strange places in the Web. Most are the personal home pages of various people, and most point to others of their kind. Just like me, I guess.

Random Corporate Homepage Generator: The ultimate buzzword generator--churns out a random corporate homepage every time you reload.
California Surf
the Zweblo WWW site: The site's purpose is not to be normal.
CyberNet
The Media Whore Studios
This interesting node: points to several cultural resources, many on the weird side.
The Universe of Discourse: General weirdness, with pointers to other strange places, like...
Ranjit's HTTP playground: More weirdness. The author writes: "This server is for my personal amusement and edification. Don't bother making any links to it, for it could disappear at ANY MOMENT. I'll try to keep it around as long as possible, tho'."
The Armory: ``is a geekhouse near the UCSC campus.'' Nice anarchistic logo.
Dr.Fun: The ``Far Side'' of the Net.
Anca's House: A home page organized as a text-based virtual reality. Neat.
PC Week Labs list of best home pages: points to some more interesting personal home pages.
The Home Page of Andy: an alt.callahans person, including a link to me and the WebWorld Callahan's Dormitory

Stuff I haven't organized yet

Finger sites

  Quake info:
    finger quake@geophys.washington.edu
    finger quake@andreas.wr.usgs.gov

FTP sites

	art		ftp://amanda.physics.wisc.edu/pub/art
	astro		ftp://dftsrv.gsfc.nasa.gov/pub/images/gif
	media lab	ftp://media.mit.edu
	music		ftp://ccrma-ftp.stanford.edu/pub
	soundhack	ftp://mills.edu/ccm

Site Information ( policies, notices, awards, tools )

Stephen R. Savitzky <steve@theStarport.org>

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