Utne Guide to the Internet-Caruso-Page 1 UTNE READER GUIDE TO THE INTERNET Denise Caruso Unless you were under a rock for the whole of 1995, you probably noticed that the Internet, once a humble little global network funded by the government in service of defense research, hit the mass media last year like a stealth bomber on a raid. Newsweek officially crowned 1995 as the year of the Internet--we're surprised Time Magazine didn't make it "Man of the Year"--and it did seem that every day brought some news about who was doing what to whom over the Internet, and how they did it, and what it cost, and where the money was to be made (but never lost) by doing it. Though the network was built more than two decades ago, some studies say that half of today's estimated 9 million Internet users came online in 1995. Last year also saw the first serious attempt in the United States, by religious conservatives and the elected officials who fear them, to censor the Internet. Germany has already succeeded in doing so, and China has promised that it will. This in the same year that the Rand Corporation, a conservative think tank if ever one existed, published a study claiming that not only does every American citizen need access to electronic mail to participate in a democratic society, but the federal government should make sure that industry helps foot the bill. So, is the Internet the savior of democracy, the enabling technology for global free speech, the electronic cure to what ails our cities, our planet, our universe? Or is it Satan's demon seed, blowing poison darts of pornography, hate, terrorism and everything that's evil about humankind directly into the minds of our youth as they sit at their computers, doing their homework? Because technology is like a hammer--you can use it to build or bludgeon--the answer most closely approximating the truth would be "neither, and both." *************** It shouldn't be too much of a surprise that the Internet has evolved into a force strong enough to reflect the greatest hopes and fears of those who use it. After all, it was designed to withstand nuclear war, not just the puny huffs and puffs of politicians and religious fanatics. But it probably would never have made it onto our cultural radar screen if not for the end of the Cold War. Growing economic pressure spurred the end of government subsidies for the Internet; the resulting commercialization process has attracted thousands of entrepreneurs all hoping to strike pay dirt in a budding information economy. As a result, the Internet and its graphical interface, the World Wide Web, are now repositories for virtually every kind of information you can imagine, from hundreds of print magazines and newspapers gone electronic to the widely publicized "alt.sex" newsgroups, scientific arcana, game services, music guides, Webzines, catalog shopping and electronic picture-book tours of the White House (complete with kitty-cheesecake of the president's cat, Socks). Most of the media hype around the Internet and the Web today is directly attributable to the fact that almost every media conglomerate and multinational corporation in the world now has a Web site and is flogging its address far and wide--that distinctive "http://www.acme.com"--on everything from billboards to television ads. Frankly, few of them are worth the effort to find them--and they are very easy to find. But the Fortune 500 companies have decided to believe that the Internet is the mass medium of the 21st century, and it is their business to make sure you believe it, too. ************* But much more fun can be had by skipping mega corporate sites altogether and exploring today's wildly original entertainment and publishing startups, as well as the personal sites on the Web: a teenage girl's poetry about the angst of adolescence, illustrated with her own haunting art; an electronic altar dedicated to a favorite industrial-music band, lovingly built by a devotee; a site dedicated to the Daves of the world, compiled by one of them. For many of us, these decidedly new- or un-corporate Web sites are what make the Internet a thrill. That so many can express their creative impulses to millions of others--with no censors or filters or publishers or agents--is unparalleled in human history. It's exciting, and it's scary as hell for governments, businesses and institutions that thrive on control. So while the multi-mega-corporate Web sites have something to offer, it's really this alternative Web that makes the Internet so powerful and so appealing. And it is the alternative Web that is the focus of this guide. Because there were more than 130,000 sites on the Web in January--with more than 100 new ones being added every day (we're not making this up)--the Web addresses listed here were selected almost at random, the only real criterion being that they aren't obviously terrible. They made it to list the way people find almost everything cool on the Web--by word of mouth and email. And unlike someone telling you about a great new CD or magazine, you don't have to wait to get to the store. You can copy the address into your Web browser and experience instant gratification. The categories are somewhat arbitrary as well. So don't think of what follows so much as a guide, but as a way to dip your toe into the churning soup of this new mass medium. Don't be afraid to explore, expect to be shocked, learn to love chaos, and cherish freedom of speech and expression. It's a weird world out there, and that's the best news of all. THE GUIDE Now, before we begin, a surf advisory: If you are using anything slower than a 28,000 bps modem to access the Web, the likelihood that you will go insane within an hour is very high. It is really the minimum bearable speed for Web access. After dabbling for a few months, if you find that you are serious about access to the Internet and you can afford it, you should definitely contact your local telephone service provider about the availability of a high speed digital phone service called ISDN for your home. Also, be aware that the Web is crawling with marketeers these days, all trying to figure out how to make a buck off you. Unless you want to be solicited electronically for all kinds of gunk or have your demographics sold off to some advertiser, stay away from filling out user questionnaires until you know and are comfortable with exactly what will be done with the information. And last: although this stuff can be really exciting and creative, a lot of the technology behind it doesn't work very well: plan to spend a lot of time restarting your computer or lost on some page in the middle of server in Timbuktu. The best attitude is to consider the Web a dancing bear. The mere fact of its existence is remarkable; whether it waltzes is beside the point. WEB AND TECHNOSTUFF € http://www.altavista.digital.com Alta Vista: Main Page This is one of the newer "search sites" on the Web, and it is mighty impressive in its ability to search the contents of some 130,000-plus computers in what seems to be no time flat. You may want to use it when you're really shooting in the dark looking for something, because it is likely to direct you to thousands, not hundreds, of sites that somehow match what you're searching for. In other words, it's exhaustive but not necessarily helpful. € http://miso.wwa.com/~boba/bobaworld1.html#top BOBAWORLD This incredible personal effort by Bob Allison contains thousands of links to a wild mix of sites on the Web. BobaWorld's inclusiveness, as well as its spicy mix of traditional and eclectic, has many people cooing (be sure to check out the Reviews page). Think of it as the buddy system for those who aren't ready just yet to venture out onto the Web alone. Commentary and instructions are clearly written for beginning to intermediate Websurfers. € http://www.c2.org/remail/by-www.html Community ConneXion No one concerned about personal privacy should be without access to the anonymous remailers made available to the public at this site. Anonymous remailers strip off all identifying characteristics from your electronic mail, and let you send untraceable, anonymous messages to whomever you'd like. Remailers became famous when Scientologists strong-armed a Finnish remailer operator to reveal the sender of a negative message. € http://gnn.com/gnn/wic/botn/index.html GNN Best of the Net Honorees Global Network Navigator, a longtime presence on the Web, links to the 1995 awards it gave in 10 categories for both amateur and professional Web sites. It includes kudos to efforts like "Useless Pages," which contains a haiku about leprosy and a link to the Mr. T home page, as well as award-winners in the genres of art, computers, food & wine, interactive sites, network navigators, kids, literature and sports. € http://www.jumbo.com/ Jumbo! - Shareware! Shareware! Shareware! Jumbo is the self-declared "official Web shareware site." Shareware is a great example of human generosity and trust--shareware authors write a program and give it away, saying, "If you like this, send me money. If you don't, thanks for trying it." Many very useful computer utilities--like software patches for printers and modems--are written by clever computer users and promoted as shareware. The Jumbo site had 50,000 software programs available at the end of January. € http://www.pointcom.com/ The Point: Top Sites of the Web Web reviews with an attitude. The Point's staff reviews and rates what it says are the "best 5 percent" of Web's sites, and do not take themselves too seriously. Half the fun of the site comes from wandering around reading the Easter-egg witticisms that they've tucked away in nooks and crannies throughout. Particularly amusing is the riff about how to submit a Web site for their consideration. € http://www.realaudio.com/ RealAudio Homepage Real Audio is turning the Web into what radio used to be before commercial forces got hold of it: a kind of global People's Radio Station. Download the free player to be able to take advantage of the many sites that are starting to include Real Audio sound files on their servers. ABC, NPR and others are making broadcasts available, as are many other amateur and professional Web publishers. € http://www.yahoo.com Yahoo A new search engine per day seems to be popping up all over the Web--after all, it is not trivial to index more than 130,000 Web sites all around the world. But of all of the search engines available for free, Yahoo--the oldest of them all--is probably the best search engine for people who aren't hackers or who aren't right up to snuff on the latest in boolean database searching techniques. Yahoo provides one of the best breakdowns by topic, or you can search its entire database. THE FRINGE €http://web.syr.edu/~rsholmes/dead/index.html Dead People Server An excellent public service for those of us who just can't remember who's dead or alive. Hours of entertainment. Links launch to places like alt.urban.folklore, or the Gilligan's Island home page (from the Jim Backus listing), complete with theme song if you want, and the Roy Rogers page. And yes, Dale Evans is still alive, in case you were wondering. € http://www2.islandnet.com/~cwalker/ Center for the Easily Amused As one who has always considered herself lucky to be so easily amused, this site is a godsend. Includes links upon links of "Random Silliness" including "Internetters Anonymous" and "The Shrine of Bazooka Joe," as well as the "Short Attention Span Site of the Week," "Sites That Do Stuff" (like the "Zen Connect-The-Dots Home Page") and links to movies and television, sports and other people's hotlists. € http://winnie.acsu.buffalo.edu/potatoe/ Mr. Edible Starchy Tuber Head Home Page This site reminds me of Woody Allen's movie Zelig--one joke stretched to its breaking point--but it's fun nonetheless. Mr. Edible Starchy Tuber Head, as you might have suspected, is actually Mr. Potato Head, renamed for trademark reasons. Some links on this site don't work, but playing Mr. ESTH is fun. There's also links to the "Potatoe Cam Hall of Fame" and other goofy stuff. € http://www.well.com/user/cynsa/newbutt.html The Butt Page For sheer perversity, it's hard to beat this site. Formally known as "Rectal Foreign Bodies," it contains X-rays (bogus and authentic), reports from medical journals, and links to other butt-related stories and pages. Absolutely hysterical, and not particularly gross--if anything, it's too clinical, unless you have some kind of phobia that you should see your therapist about. http://www.infobahn.com/pages/anagram.html Anagram Insanity This site is so goofy and fun, it is an absolute must. Type in your name or a favorite phrase, and the anagram maker scrambles the letters and comes back with an enormous list of anagrams. My favorite anagram for my name, since I'm a Pisces and not a creationist, is, "ocean sired us." That was number 381 of 613 anagrams it spewed forth just from my name. WORK/MONEY € http://gnn.com/gnn/wic/botn/persfin.best.html GNN Best of the Net/Personal Finance With a genre as broad as Work/Money, it's a good idea to have someplace to go that's already cased the joint for you. This site contains links to the best of the Net for personal finance information, according to Global Network Navigator. It includes amateur and professional sites, from "The Webfoot's Used Car Lot" to stock quote servers. € http://www.lombard.com/ Lombard Institutional Brokerage Whether you're a Lombard customer or just browsing their free information, you have to fill out a registration form. Before you do, you may want to send them e-mail or call the listed 800 number to find out what they intend to do with your personal data. Customers can execute trades online and get real- time quotes, among other services; the general public gets delayed quotes & historical data. € http://update.wsj.com/welcome.html The Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition In mid-January, this site was incredibly ugly, design-wise. But investment types say they love it. It's a live version of the Journal's Money & Investing section, with continually updated top business news stories, information on the markets and investing. And of course, you have to register. No free lunch. € http://www.creditnet.com/ Credit Card Network Credit-card hounds who want to sniff out the best deal on interest rates, or who want exhaustive data on which airlines provide frequent-flyer credit cards, might find this site worth visiting. CCN promises that the data it gathers on you is used "for statistical purposes only," but with the state of security on the Internet in such disarray, I wouldn't fill out anything online-- if you want to order something, print out their form and mail it. € http://www.quote.com/ Quote.Com Home Page This is not a pretty site, but it is full-service--it includes quotes on stocks, options, commodity futures, mutual funds, and bonds. As do most sites of this nature, it also lists business news, market analysis and commentary, balance sheet data, and corporate profiles. Some of the services are free, but you have to register personal data to use them. € http://www.vegas.com/wagernet/ WagerNet -- On-Line Sports Betting! Just fill in a form, send in $1,000 and you too can bet 24 hours a day -- using servers in Belize! Before you do, however, WagerNet warns you to check with your local authorities about the legality of offshore betting. I found this site interesting because if censorship legislation goes as we fear, Belize is one of the countries most often named as offshore storage for pornography to be sold over the net. € http://www.wald.com/ Working Assets Online This site is not just an information kiosk for the services offered by Working Assets, the group that donates money to politically correct causes when you use their long-distance service or credit card. It's actually quite a thorough front end to the issues that Working Assets addresses, and in a friendly, attractive format. Working Assets Online also publishes a newsletter, with features by comedian Will Durst and a column, in January, by New York's former governor Mario Cuomo. € http://www.xe.net/currency/ Xenon Labs: The Universal Currency Converter This product was created by people who clearly have too much time on their hands! Though this currency converter defies anything but sporadic usefulness (like checking your credit card bill against the posted exchange rate when you get home from Paris), it's pretty cool nonetheless. And charming, too: the site declares itself purveyors of the "postcard-ware concept"-- they want you to send them a real postcard, via snailmail; if they like it, they digitize and post it on the Website. January's postcard was an outrageous photo of a Kansas tornado. € http://www.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Employment/ Yahoo - Business & Economy Hundreds of employment agencies, consulting services, career guidance groups, labor organizations and job listings are posted on the Web--so many, in fact, that it seems slightly disingenuous to pick one over another. Those who are looking for a career change or a job should look carefully through this site--in the "Jobs" category, for example, there are links to every work- related subject imaginable, from "Entry Level Job Seeker Assistant" to the "TruckDrivers Job Directory." TRAVEL € http://146.228.204.11/Pariscope/Welcome.F.html Bienvenue sur P@riscope P@riscope would be the one indispensible Web-stop before a trip to the City of Light: it's the online version of the weekly magazine with the most up-to- date music, shopping and nightspots listings for the week, presented in English, French or Spanish, si vous preferez. The design is tres chic and hip, but friendly--a recent page allowed you to play a wonderful soundclip from Duke Ellington's "El Gato," courtesy of Collection Europe 1. € http://www.dcs.ed.ac.uk/home/jhb/whisky/ Edinburgh Malt Whisky Tour Like cigars and big cars, it seems that whisky is swinging back onto the popularity meter for baby boomers. This site, an absolute love fest to the amber spirit, is sponsored by the Scotch Whisky Association; its attention to regional detail is bound to influence some summer vacation plans for whisky snobs. It displays how whisky is manufactured and lists tasting notes, labels from various regional distilleries, maps, and ratings of each whisky for peatiness, sweetness and availability. My favorite question in the Q&A: Is it injurious to drink whisky with oysters or other shellfish? € http://www.cts.com/~drcarr/gay_travel/ Gay & Lesbian Travel Web Many of the links are under construction, it's not very pretty and you often end up hanging in the middle of nowhere, but when the Gay & Lesbian Travel Web works, it does the job. Its listings include gay organizations, clubs and "where the action is." It also details legal concerns for each country listed, such as whether gay sex is banned. € http://www.maui.net:80/diana/ HEALTHY FLYING With Diana Fairechild This site is so earnest, one doesn't quite know what to make of it. Fairechild, who apparently has published a couple of books on how to avoid jet lag and fly safely and happily, includes lots of do-and-don't tips about airports and airplanes. One of these tips advises you to wear diodes--these are supposed to protect you from electromagnetic frequencies and radiation, which haven't yet exactly been proven harmful, but you can never be too careful, eh?--and of course, Fairechild will be happy to sell them to you. € http://www.neo.com/Monk/ MONK ...Travel with a Twist Mike & Jim Monk (not their real names, duh), who claim to publish the world's only mobile magazine, have eliminated the need for newsstand sales with this Web site, though they do sell a print magazine as well. Their modus operandi is to travel to some locale and devote an entire issue to the place. On the site in January were "Freakin' in Frisco" and "Portland Kicks Butt." Everything I read was good writing, funny, attitudinal--like friends from grad school writing you a nice, long letter from on the road. € http://home.sol.no/fanebust/saltysea.html Out on the Salty Seas Definitely an inspirational use for those slides and photos sitting in shoeboxes, "How I spent my Greek vacation sailing on the Aegean" is an online photo album by Norwegian Frode Fanebust. He includes links to related sites like SailNet and Alaska Wilderness Sailing. € http://www.traveler.net/ Travel Weekly's Home Page A collection of travel-related sites sponsored by Dutch publisher Reed Elsevier includes both United States and international destinations, and links to information on just about everything related to travel--agents, tour operators, news, cruises, adventure trips, railroading, skiing, etc. The whole visit, however, is worth discovering Planet Hawaii at http://www.planet- hawaii.com. Let's go surfin' now! SEX/RELATIONSHIPS € http://www.match.com Match.Com I didn't actually sign up (I'm too chicken), so I don't know how Match.Com works when you get the whole membership ball o'wax, but after about an hour of browsing it appears there are scores of personals in every category. The interface is not too femme, though there's a fair bit of pink-heart action, and as of mid-January the service was free if you filled out their registration form. They make a big deal out of promising anonymity, but also post a disclaimer page that's about a mile long. € http://bianca.com/shack/index.html Bianca's Smut Shack I heard about this site from a contact at the MIT Media Lab, and it really is a hoot: Bianca's set up her little online shack so you can click from room to room and get a different sexual experience in every room. If you go into her bedroom, you can explore her sex toys and diary, engage in stuttering chat with others online (Bianca! Get better chat software!); the bathroom, kitchen and closet hold their own special charms. One room in the shack is a movie studio to showcase the work of independent filmmakers (no sex necessary). In January, she was screening "Unauthorized Access," a hacker movie. € http://studsys.mscs.mu.edu/~carpent1/probsolv/rltprob0.html Joe's Amazing Relationship Problem Solver! For entertainment purposes only, but very funny. The Q&A you must fill out to solve your problem could almost be considered profound in a surreal kind of way, but the real juicy stuff is in the mailbox, from the section on "Weirdness" to "Actual Relationship Problems!" With links to Joe's Origiinal Problem Solver and Joe's Federal Government Problem Solver. € http://www.transgender.org/tg/people/jff/ Jamie Faye Fenton's Web Page Fascinating personal home page of cross-dresser Jaime Faye Fenton, with the story of how he discovered his sexual preference, essays by his wife ("If You Must Be A Female, Then Don't Be An Airhead") and links to transgender support groups and resources. € http://www.rippleeffects.com/ Reclaiming the Erotic This site is a sensitive and occasionally hot exploration of sexuality in our culture, from sex in movies and film to individual styles of playing and learning. Reclaiming the Erotic was started by two women, convinced that both personal understanding and public discussion of the erotic can be deeper, broader, more inclusive - and more fun. Their posted statement about the primacy of your privacy is explicit and should become the model for all Web sites everywhere. € http://www.cmpharm.ucsf.edu/~troyer/safesex.html The Safer Sex Page An excellent resource for anyone who needs an update on safe sex in the times of AIDS and HIV. The site includes a link to protest the Communications Decency Act under consideration in early 1996--a law against "indecency" on the Internet would put Web sites like this out of business--as well as lots of good, detailed info on how to have safe sex, AIDS- proofing your kids, who is at risk and how to lessen risk, women and HIV/AIDS, being "sex positive," high v. low risk behaviors, etc. POLITICS/SOCIETY € http://www.banned.books.com/ Book Stacks - Banned Books Exhibit Sponsoring this site is Book Stacks Unlimited, which appears to be a mail- order netstore. This is indeed an exhibit, mostly excerpts from books and other media that have been banned. It's interesting, but kind of tacky that all the links take you to their store so you can buy said banned book. But it does include a link to Carnegie Mellon University's comprehensive banned-books site. Interesting bunch of info, but all the links take you to their store to buy said banned book. € http://www.CentralPark.org/~park/ Welcome to Central Park Designed by a New York University student so the local community could keep up with events and happenings in Manhattan's Central Park, this site's information runs the gamut: a rally-cry to ban cars from the park, a plea to help a magazine writer find ""Poet-O," a 74-year old man who lives in the park, and the latest update on reconstruction in the park. € http://emporium.turnpike.net/C/cs/index.htm Creation Science Home Page You can never get enough of revisionist history, I always say, and here's the capper. An amazing and exhaustive recap of creation theory, including all the evidence fit to browse disputing the theory of evolution. And of course, a link for those who "would like to know more about the Creator." € http://www.cygnus.com/misc/kfjc/emory/ Dave Emory's Web Site Introducing me to conspiracy theorist Dave Emory was part of a courting ritual by the man who later became my mate for 15 years, so I have a soft spot for Emory even though he may be too paranoid for most tastes. However, an open mind stands a chance of being blown away by his vast research on U.S. military and intelligence communities' connections with international fascism. € http://www.casti.com/dq/ Digital Queers Home Page This groundbreaking organization is for queers (they hate "gays, bisexuals, lesbians and transvestites"--that's Digital Giblets, they say) working in the high-technology industries. DQ's raison d'etre is to get and give away hardware and software to non-profit queer groups, lobby for domestic partner benefits, provide computer basics and online training, and serve as a clearinghouse for queer-centric technology-related issues. € http://www.fair.org/ The Progressive Directory @igc A one-stop shop for information on progressive politics, this comprehensive Web site includes links to PeaceNet, EcoNet, ConflictNet, LaborNet, WomensNet, and a truly remarkable meta-index of nonprofit organizations on the web. It's a thrill to see all this dedication to a better world corralled together in one place. € http://grunt.space.swri.edu/thepast.htm Remembrance Remembrance is a site dedicated to images, stories, poems, songs, maps and narratives from the Vietnam War era. It includes a database search form to look for someone's name on the Vietnam Memorial wall in Washington DC, plus remembrances of those who are still missing in action and their families, and true stories and fiction by Vietnam vets. € http://www.tscm.com/ Counterintelligence Home Page You get enough good news watching the Today Show. Here's a site about the kinds of electronic counterintelligence & surveillance measures that are beginning to see everyday use--stuff like how to tell if you're being bugged, a photo gallery of bugging devices, popular radio frequencies used by buggers, etc. A remarkable array. € http://www.oclc.org/VoteSmart/lwv/lwvhome.htm Voter Education Project Main Menu The League of Women Voters is everywhere! This site, Voters Online Information & Communication Exchange (VOICE) is all about voter education, and includes a link to Project Vote Smart, which collects data on elected representatives, including their campaign coffers and voting records. € http://www.library.ucsf.edu/tobacco/bw.html Brown & Williamson Collection Index In a courageous move to keep the Brown & Williamsom Tobacco Corporation from locking away years of secret medical research about the harmful effects of tobacco on health, the library at the University of California at San Francisco's medical school decided to publish them on the Web. You can find them here. Any more questions about why folks are so interested in censoring the net? MEDIA/DIGITAL CULTURE € http://www.ama.caltech.edu/users/mrm/kirk.html The Capt. James T. Kirk Sing-a-long Page All things Star Trek have great cult stature in digital culture, and this page of recordings by Capt. James T. Kirk (othewise known as William Shatner) captures it in all its schmaltzy glory. Words cannot describe the moment when one first hears "Lucy! ... In the sky! ... With _diamonds_!" coming through the computer's speakers. € http://www.adbusters.org/adbusters/ Adbusters' Culture Jammer's Headquarters This Canadian organization takes on media culture and as far as I'm concerned, wins hands-down every time. Their bulls-eye satires on the most insidious ad campaigns of our times--notably Calvin Klein and McDonalds-- will make certain you never look at ads the same way again. In this consumerist culture it's probably a losing battle, but well worth the fight. Lifetime memberships to the organization are available. € http://www.well.com/user/hlr/ Brainstorms Author Howard Rheingold has done more deep-think about the effect of technology on the human psyche than almost anyone on the planet. His Web site, Brainstorms, lets you read interviews (both with and by him), look at his gorgeous paintings, and read his books. The two on my shelf are "Tools for Thought" and "The Virtual Community." Rheingold is the process of commercializing the site, with hopes of aggregating a community of people who want to participate in a continuing discussion about the future and technology. € http://www.nets.com/pax.html Monastery of Christ in the Desert New Mexico's Monastery of Christ in the Desert has decided to update the 1,500-year old tradition of combining words with art--first done in illuminated books--by illuminating its presence on the Web. The punchline: they're using their illuminated pages to sell Web design services! That's okay, the images are really special and worth looking at. € http://anther.learning.cs.cmu.edu/priest.html Confession Booth The primal urge to confess gave rise to this popular site, which allows sinners to detail their transgressions and read the "Scroll of Sin" -- lots and lots of endlessly entertaining details of the transgressions of others. Available sin categories include "murder," "adultery" and "fish in microwave." Visitors are also encouraged to submit with new sin categories. € http://www.thenet-usa.com/story/story.html Digital StoryTelling Festival The Digital Storytelling Festival took place last October in Crested Butte, CO, but the posted details are timeless. Storytellers include Scott McCloud (who wrote the brilliant "Understanding Comics"), San Francisco Bay Area performance artist Mark "Spoonman" Petrakis, photographer Pedro Meyer, longtime interactive storyteller Greg Roach and Abbe Don, whose remarkable interactive videodisc "We Make Memories" chronicled her family history through tape recordings, photos and video of her great-grandmother, grandmother, her mother and herself. € http://postcards.www.media.mit.edu/Postcards/ The Electric Postcard MIT's Media Lab built this nifty site where you can choose a virtual postcard from classic art images, photographs, stamps, graffiti and others from the Postcard Rack, write messages on them, and email them to friends, who then come to the Pick-up Window to retrieve them. Fun to do, and a very nice surprise to receive. € http://www.femina.com/ FeMiNa Femina bills itself as the first Web directory for women and girls, and it hits pretty much every subject area you can imagine, from art to business, spirituality to sports, girls' issues, feminism and family. It maintains links to other grrrl-related sites, too. € http://www.oeh.uni-linz.ac.at:8001/~chris/HATE/hate.html The MircoSoft Hate Page Where do you want to go today? If this is the place, here is where you will find digital culture with all its warts and glory. I assume the shocking image on the opening screen is the reason why this site was dubbed by one magazine as "most likely to be censored." It is NOT childproof but once you've passed it, there are some amazing rants, reams of Microsoft jokes and lots of kvetching programmers and users telling you why not to buy the market leader's software. An in-your-face end run around a public-relations machine as formidable as Microsoft's. € http://jg.cso.uiuc.edu/pg/pg_home.html Project Gutenberg Though the explanatory notes are in desperate need of a good editor, Project Gutenberg--which was up and running long before Internet mania took hold --is a great nerd gift to humanity. The goal is to digitize all books and literature in the public domain, and to ship 1 billion of these "etexts" over the net by the year 2000. The list of books is long, varied and formidable, including Aesop's Fables, Dickens' A Christmas Carol and Milton's Paradise Lost. € http://www.suck.com/ Suck This is the rare Webzine that actually makes my tail wag. It cocks an eyebrow at absolutely everything--including itself--via fabulous satires and savvy analysis on many pop culture topics (including, thank God, technology). A new story appears every weekday. Just one. No dizzyingly busy, click-o-rama interface like those that seem to plague multimedia on the web and CD-ROM. Not to mention consistently good writing and deeply correct use of hypertext. € http://www.webgrrls.com/ Webgrrls Unite! There's a lot of this grrl stuff goin' around on the Web and everywhere else, so you might as well get used to it, though I'm not really sure exactly what it means. (I think it's about feminism that doesn't take itself too seriously, and I'm sticking with that definition.) Webgrrl links to other women's sites alphabetically (these pages are really fun to browse), and also lists classes, face- to-face meeting times and places, and a growing roster of job opportunities. And it is so generous in spirit that it also links to some "boy-eez" pages, too. ENVIRONMENT € http://www.ecouncil.ac.cr/ Earth Council / Consejo de la Tierra / Conseil de la terre Earth Council is the international, non-governmental organization inaugurated in November 1993 as a result of the Earth Summit. It provides information to the sustainable development community around the world via Website. The site contains links to its essay contest and Internet dialog, speeches on sustainable development and more. € http://www.av.qnet.com/~supak/ecohome.htm Eco-Home A perfect combination of public service and commercial enterprise on the Web, this site explores the design and building of an environmental demonstration home which consumes very little water and energy (or anything else for that matter) and produces in turn very little waste or pollution. Memberships are available which get you a subscription to the company's newsletters, library access, discounts on books, etc. € http://www.charm.net/~flora/~tree-house/ Tree-House Though this wonderful, heavily text-based site is not exactly an online garden to gaze upon, it is a great resource for the community of believers who think downtown anywhere is a good place for growing trees. Scores of links to groups supporting community forestry, urban gardening, permaculture, etc., as well as connections to mailing lists and vast international resources. € http://www.knobul.com/knobul/hn.html HumboldtNation Though this site focuses geographically on discussions of California's North Coast-Klamath Bioregion, and the Humboldt Bay Watershed Alliance, it also hosts much information on sustainable living and economics programs, planting hemp and cannabis, etc. It also links to many publications and organizations such as Whole Earth Review and the Institute for Bioregional Studies. € http://www.iisd.ca/linkages/ Linkages Home Page Linkages is an electronic clearing-house for information on a wide array of past and upcoming international meetings and papers related to environment and development, including the United Nations' report, The Progress of Nations, the Convention on Biological Diversity, Framework Convention on Climate Change, and the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo. € http://www.wmin.ac.uk/media/O2/O2_home.html O2W3 Home Page The goal of O2, the sustainable development non-profit organization that maintains this site, is to promote respect for the environment through sustainable development and environmentally friendly design. The site links to reports from sustainable development conferences, as well as to Green resources. €http://curry.edschool.Virginia.EDU:80/Avenue/Community/Environ/Yell owMtn/ Yellow Mountain Institute Home Page This non-profit in Virginia's Blue Mountains hopes to speed the widespread introduction and use of building techniques to increase the supply of affordable, energy-efficient housing regionally and throughout the country. The site takes you on a fascinating tour through building projects using rammed-earth tire homes, cordwood and straw-bale homes. Online workshops, a resource center and a virtual visit to a construction site provide a fairly comprehensive slate of useful information. EDUCATION € http://www.ucalgary.ca/~dkbrown/lists.html/ Children's Literature - Recommended Books and Bestsellers This wonderful site is loaded with tons of great suggestions about books for children. Lists include books about brave, resourceful women and girls, Cinderella stories, favorite teenage angst books, explorations of indiginous cultures and much more. In addition to the profusion of titles and genres, the site also links to other children's lit resources. € http://www.aspensys.com/eric2/welcome.html The ERIC Pages The Educational Resource Information Center is considered to be one of the key educational resources on the Internet for students, teachers, parents and researchers, with a network of links and a searchable database that it claims is the world's largest source of education information. It must be good, because it's cited and/or linked on almost every other educational resource on the net. € http://www.eskimo.com/~user/kids.html Gifted and Talented (TAG) Resources Home Page The TAG site links to all known online resources for gifted students of all ages, including enrichment programs, talent searches, summer programs, gifted mailing lists, early acceptance programs, and gifted students with learning disabilities. € gopher://lib.NMSU.EDU:70/11/.subjects/Education/Homeschooling Homeschooling Don't be shy about the non-WWW address: this site is actually a link to a text server on the Internet that lists information from groups like the National Homeschool Association, as well as to what appears to be "the" homeschool Web site on the net, "Jon's Home School Resource Page." € http://stargate.jpl.nasa.gov:1084/ ALERT Home Page Project Alert is a program, designed by NASA, that uses hypertext and the Web to promote science education and literacy. A section that might be particularly useful is called "How to Make A Hypermedia Lesson Plan" using Web resources. Though I haven't tried it myself, I'm sure the concepts are adaptable to other subject areas as well. ((Eric et al.--I need to add here the URL for the national "wire the schools" day that Sun is sponsoring--I'm sure they'll leave the site up for a long time afterward, but I have to check on it.)) ARTS/CULTURE € http://www.ffly.com/ Agents Inc. Firefly This is the first consumer service that automates , word-of-mouth recommendations for entertainment media. It's also really fun, and a great way to find new music and other stuff you might like, and meet people who like the same stuff. Firefly is also interesting because it's the first commercial application for software agents, by the folks at the MIT Media Lab who invented them. They also have a tight, admirable privacy policy for members. € http://robot0.ge.uiuc.edu/~carlosp/color/ Carlos' Coloring Book A simple concept--an electronic coloring book--but it is surprisingly satisfying, particularly because it's easy to stay inside the lines! Similar applications could be a great use of technology for color therapists. Carlos does give you a link where you can provide your own images to be colored, or set up your own coloring-book site. The police department in the City of Davis has, and it's a crack-up. € http://adaweb.com/cgi-bin/jfsjr/truism (Jenny Holzer website) Jenny Holzer website (Truisms) Jenny Holzer's art revolves around truisms and challenging them, and this site lets you do so by giving you access to a long list of them, and letting you "change beliefs" yourself. I found it as affecting as Holzer's offline work in the real world. € http://www.msstate.edu/Movies/ Internet Movie Database Watching movies on the Web is a long ways off yet, but you can certainly spend some time here figuring out what you want to rent from your local video store. Not only is it free and compiled by volunteers, but pretty much everyone loves it--the information seems accurate, there's lots of comparative data for reviews, and so far I've not looked for anything that I haven't found. € http://www.iuma.com/ Internet Underground Music Archive The Internet's first "high fidelity music archive," IUMA was started by a group of Santa Cruz students and nerds. Their goal was to create a direct connection between music lovers and unsigned bands who otherwise wouldn't be able to find each other, a distinctly non-commercial, "take art to the people" approach that's been widely imitated around the net. And, of course, it's now a commercial enterprise. No matter--the site still lists 800 bands, independent record labels and zines that serve its constituency. € http://pharmdec.wustl.edu/juju/surr/surrealism.html The Surrealism Server Surreal is as surreal does, as the saying goes, and this site pretty much does it all. Almost everyone lists this site when they're doing Web guides, but it is so funny and phenomenal that it's a requirement. Includes the history of surrealism, a new surreal aphorism every time you re-enter the site, a Surrealistic Compliment Generator, surrealist games, surrealist music, quotes a-go-go by surrealist Andre Breton, and of course, Dali for days. BODY/MIND/SPIRIT € http://www.chabad.org/ Chabad Lubavitch in Cyberspace Fascinating site detailing the practice of Chabad-Lubavitch Judaism. In addition to links to other Jewish sites on the net and explanations of Judaism for the uninitiated, you can fax or email your request to be mentioned in prayer. Technology in the service of the spirit--there's a concept. € http://www.empirenet.com/personal/dljones/index.html Deep Thought This site is dedicated to the metaphysics of the number 42. Frankly, I don't know what else to say, but it's worth checking out. € http://www.cmi-lmi.com/kingdomality.html Kingdomality The question that Kingdomality tries to answer, for reasons not readily apparent, is this: "What is your medieval vocational personality?" Like, if you'd been alive in medieval times, what would you have done for a living then? It was a fun test to take, though who knows what it means, but I did like that I came out a "White Knight" at the end. This I find preferable to "Joan of Arc," I'm pretty sure. € http://www.resonate.com/vision.htm Resonate Vision The Resonate Vision site is part of Talis, a company which develops projects based on indiginous and Eastern cultures. Resonate Vision links to a range of resources to "support spiritual awakening, catalyze growth, and promote healing," and if you link to the Talis home page, you can try out their Windows-based I Ching casting and interpretation software. € http://leary.com/ Timothy Leary's Home Page This is a fascinating and weirdly voyeuristic guided tour through the life, life- work and approaching death of 1960s drug guru Timothy Leary, who is engaged in relationship with Madamoiselle Cancer, as he calls her, with his usual sense of humor and absurdity. Whether you love or hate him, you have to respect the openness of his approach to mortality. € http://www.shore.net/~tcfraser/recovery.htm The Recovery HomePage This site is a richly detailed information source for those interested in the 12 Step program of recovery made popular by Alcoholics Anonymous. It includes links to virtually every 12 Step organization you can imagine, from ARTS Anonymous to Workaholics Anonymous (which I believe has the best motto: "If you're too busy to come, we understand."). I was surprised to discover that on-line meetings are being held using Internet Relay Chat. € http://www.spiritweb.org/ Spirit-WWW, Spiritual Consciousness on WWW This Website from Switzerland is really the one-stop shop for all stuff New Age: channeling, UFO phenomena, healing methods, reincarnation, meditation, yoga, Gnosticism, astrology, out-of-body experiences. But there's not a Psychic Hotline to be found--Spirit-WWW professes to be a non-profit and independent. FINIS