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FavoriteLinksCondensed)
Favorite Favorites
- Ars Technica∞. The art of technology -- news and reviews from guys without pants. My proverbial 'home' online.
- Ars OpenForum∞. The most intelligent forum of its size (4 million posts and counting) on the Net. Come ponder the Tao of tech, society, and Taco Bell. I moderate the Soap Box∞ and direct most of my technical output toward the A/V Club∞.
- Duke Basketball Report∞. Top-notch reporting and analysis of college basketball, with a liberal dose of blue face-paint. Home to the only intelligent sports-fan community I've come across, even if it has a shitty layout to which I'd prefer even Hatrack∞'s old BigMouth Lion.
- Weather∞. Monitor teh Daystar at a safe distance.
Temp Links
Other Fora
- Doom9 Avisynth forum∞. The de facto hangout for developers of AviSynth:AviSynth∞ and its many plugins & spinoff projects. Doom9 itself is one of the better places on the Net for finding guides to and enthusiasts of desktop video -- they can be as faddish as any FanBoys at times, but the focus on quality is rarely lost.
- Fred's TDI Club∞. Yet again, a board that's a cut (or several) above the average "car forum" (which tend to be even more juvenile than the average "techie forum"). Dedicated to Volkwagon's turbodiesel lineup, naturally, with a FAQ rivalling any of the Usenet classics.
- DC Forum∞. Yet another Ars spinoff. Where Dreams Are Made™.
- AV Science HTPC Forum∞. When new ground is broken in the art of tweaking PC-based home theaters to the max, it'll be posted here. As a society, it's a quite fascinating study; the various combinations of technical excellence/ineptitude and anarcholibertarian/uptight bastard you'll find are very rare, especially if you're used to Slashdot or Usenet.
- Ars Anime∞. A spinoff of the Ars community dedicated to all things Anime. Unf unf.
- Northern Sounds' GigaStudio Forum∞. Someday I'll get around to writing my magnum opus on why Giga is the greatest piece of software to come to the PC since VisiCalc. Until then, marvel at the wisdom of Bruce Richardson and the artistry of Duncan Brinsmead while soaking in the peculiarly "behind the scenes" slant on music & society. (Ya sure you wanna go back to Hollywood, poppy?)
- Storage Review∞. I like the topic of mass storage on its own (*cough* BergServer *cough*), but it doesn't hurt that SR's technical reviewers are among the most meticulous and principled around. Forum ain't half bad either, meriting a couple hundred posts and a link here, though I've lost interest of late.
- Hatrack River∞. Forum serving the official website∞ of famed sci-fi author Orson Scott Card. My first 'home' on the WWW; when I encountered the small but refined community in 1997 such things weren't as rare, but in retrospect I was quite lucky that it retained its original charm well beyond my stay as lurker, newbie, and regular. In many ways it's to them alone I owe my current grasp of language, issues, and personalities. There's little quaintness remaining, aside from the continually amusing-yet-refreshing LDS slant, but nevertheless I should revisit sometime.
- HydrogenAudio∞. The preferred hangout of most intelligent folks when it comes to audio compression.
- MoistOrb∞. This is the APE-Man, trodding through creation, are you ready to step with I man
- HST∞. Forum for disciples of hypertrophy-specific training.
- 2+2∞. Website and forum of famed authors David Sklansky, Mason Malmuth, and other poker gods.
Online Friends
Spend enough time online, and you inevitably run into folks worth holding on to. Luckily, at least a few of them have websites, likely better than my mostly-functionalist one.
- Poptones∞. If the OpenForum search worked, you'd know that handle would be 'nuff said.
- Elle∞ is almost as much of an ArsMeet∞ whore as I. With a geek sensibility and passion for a cappella, how can you go wrong?
- Geon∞ and I sparred more than once in the SoapBox, but after that relatively brief phase he went on to study physics hardcore while I stagnated into pure math and philosophy. Or: yet another smarty-pants who left Ars for the blog scene.
- Wynk∞ and DiePilot are upstanding Texans of the first order. Bryan kicks ass on anything that requires, well, kicking ass, but how can you beat the math + music lover? Too bad Melissa was sick at the '03 gathering, but then again the fact that (1) she's cute (2) DP's big might have been a downer ;)
- LadyGodiva∞ is the best councilor the VelvetRoom has to offer, and that's saying a lot. I haven't gotten to know her very well, but living in Vienna + hooking up with underthumb (whose blog seems to have 404'd) has to be worth something.
- Tom Davidson.∞ Probably the male Hatracker I've interacted with the longest, save D. Michael Martindale.
- Joel.∞ I don't make a habit of linking to "popular" bloggers, even among the hacker scene (ERS, Dave Winer, etc.), but I have to credit Joel for introducing me to the entire concept. His interview questions kick ass, too.
Online Tools
No need to link to Google, Mapquest, a thesaurus, a weather finder, or anything so mundane -- I use
Dave's indispensible toolbar thingie∞, even when on the 800x600
BigGateway.
- ACES Web∞. Manage logistical stuff (chiefly course registration) WRT my membership in dear old Duke.
- TitanTV Grid∞. See what's on & search for what's not -- when you find it, click one button and ShowShifter∞ does its magic. I thought I'd hate these corporate/DirectShow-based/payware schemes -- I'm still not terribly enthralled by Media Jukebox though it's the best thing available -- but I already can't imagine doing captures the old-fashioned way.
- SG-1 epguide∞. Essential if I'm to start capping this. (Hey, anything's better than Andromeda season 3).
- ZoneEdit∞. Administers my 3 domains, including this one.
- Microsoft KnowledgeBase∞. Dave's lets you search by question number, but you gotta go to the source if you wanna search by topic or browse around. (Google still does a better job much of the time, but I can't be bothered to type "site:blah" all the time).
- FindLaw∞. Direct link to search case law et al. on constitutional issues.
- FirstGov∞. Your one-click guide to the U.S. government's websites (wonder if Amazon will sue?).
- Newegg catalog∞. Look up the Fair Market Value, or better yet, go shopping.
- Windex∞. No, not the tool at MS that let you grep the core source code for four-letter words.
- My eBay∞. Check the status of stuff I'm selling.
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