Agents Inc. Firefly

http://www.ffly.com/

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 have a tight, admirable privacy policy for members.

Carlos’ Coloring Book

http://robot0.ge.uiuc.edu/~carlosp/color/

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 gives 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.

Jenny Holzer website (Truisms)

http://adaweb.com/cgi-bin/jfsjr/truism

Jenny Holzer’s art revolves around truisms and challenging them. This site lets you do it too by giving you access to a long list of them and letting you “change beliefs” yourself. I found it as affecting as Holzer’s off-line work in the real world.

Internet Movie Database

http://www.msstate.edu/Movies/

Watching movies on the Web is still a long way off, 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 haven’t looked for anything that I didn’t find.

Internet Underground Music Archive

http://www.iuma.com/

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 noncommercial, “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.

The Surrealism Server

http://pharmdec.wustl.edu/juju/surr/surrealism.html

Surreal is as surreal does, and this site pretty much does it all. Everyone lists it when they’re doing Web guides: It’s 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, the Surrealistic Compliment Generator, surrealist games, surrealist music, quotes from surrealist André Breton, and, of course, Dali for days.

Body, Mind & Spirit

Chabad Lubavitch in Cyberspace

http://www.chabad.org/

Fascinating site detailing the practice of Chabad-Lubavitch Judaism, with links to other Jewish sites on the Net and explanations of Judaism for the uninitiated. You can fax or e-mail your request to be mentioned in prayer. Technology in the service of the spirit–there’s a concept.

Deep Thought

http://www.empirenet.com/personal/dljones/index.html

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.

Kingdomality

http://www.cmi-lmi.com/kingdomality.html

The question that Kingdomality tries to answer, for reasons not readily apparent, is this: “What is your medieval vocational personality?”–if you had been alive in medieval times, what would you have done for a living? The test was fun, though who knows what it means. I came out a “White Knight,” which I find preferable to “Joan of Arc.”

Resonate Vision

http://www.resonate.com/vision.htm

The Resonate Vision site is part of Talis, a company that develops projects based on indigenous 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.

Timothy Leary’s Home Page

http://leary.com/

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 a relationship with Mademoiselle 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.

The Recovery HomePage

http://www.shore.net/~tcfraser/recovery.htm

This site is a richly detailed source of information about the 12-step recovery program made popular by Alcoholics Anonymous. It includes links to virtually every 12-step organization you can imagine, from ARTS Anonymous to Workaholics Anonymous (motto: “If you’re too busy to come, we understand”). I was surprised to discover that on-line meetings are using Internet Relay Chat.

Spirit-WWW
Spiritual Consciousness on WWW

http://www.spiritweb.org/

This Web site from Switzerland is really the one-stop shop for New Age stuff: 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 nonprofit and independent.

Education

ALERT Home Page

http://stargate.jpl.nasa.gov:1084/

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.

Children’s Literature
Recommended Books and Bestsellers

http://www.ucalgary.ca/~dkbrown/lists.html/

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 indigenous cultures, and much more. The site also links to other children’s lit resources.

The ERIC Pages

http://www.aspensys.com/eric2/welcome.html

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 by or linked to almost every other educational resource on the Net.

Gifted and Talented (TAG) Resources Home Page

http://www.eskimo.com/~user/kids.html

The TAG site links to all known on-line resources for gifted students of all ages, including enrichment programs, talent searches, summer programs, mailing lists, early-acceptance programs, and activities for gifted students with learning disabilities.

Homeschooling
gopher://lib.NMSU.EDU:70/11/.subjects/Education/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.”

Environment

Earth Council

http://www.ecouncil.ac.cr/

Earth Council, the international, nongovernmental organization inaugurated in November 1993 as a result of the Earth Summit, provides information to the sustainable development community around the world via Web site. The site contains links to its essay contest and Internet dialog, speeches on sustainable development, and more.

Eco-Home

http://www.av.qnet.com/~supak/ecohome.htm

A perfect combination of public service and commercial enterprise on the Web, this site explores the design and building of an environmental demonstration home that consumes very little water and energy (or anything else, for that matter) and in turn produces very little waste or pollution. Membership gets you a subscription to the company’s newsletters, library access, discounts on books, and so on.

Tree-House

http://www.charm.net/~flora/~tree-house/

Though this wonderful, heavily text-based site is not exactly an on-line 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, and permaculture as well as connections to mailing lists and vast international resources.

HumboldtNation

http://www.knobul.com/knobul/hn.html

Though this site focuses geographically on discussions of California’s North Coast-Klamath Bioregion and the Humboldt Bay Watershed Alliance, it also hosts information on sustainable living and economics programs, and on planting hemp and cannabis. It also links to many publications and organizations such as Whole Earth Review and the Institute for Bioregional Studies.

Linkages Home Page

http://www.iisd.ca/linkages/

Linkages is an electronic clearinghouse 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.

O2W3 Home Page

http://www.wmin.ac.uk/media/O2/O2_home.html

The goal of O2, the sustainable development nonprofit 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.

Yellow Mountain Institute

http://curry.edschool.Virginia.EDU:80/Avenue/Community/Environ/YellowMtn/

This nonprofit in Virginia’s Blue Mountains hopes to speed the 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. On-line workshops, a resource center, and a virtual visit to a construction site provide a fairly comprehensive slate of useful information.

Fun & Fringe

Dead People Server

http://web.syr.edu/~rsholmes/dead/index.html

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.

Center for the Easily Amused

http://www2.islandnet.com/~cwalker/

For 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.

Mr. Edible Starchy Tuber Head Home Page

http://winnie.acsu.buffalo.edu/potatoe/

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 are also links to the “Potato Cam Hall of Fame” and other goofy stuff.

The Butt Page

http://www.well.com/user/cynsa/newbutt.html

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.

Anagram Insanity

http://www.infobahn.com/pages/anagram.html

This site is so goofy and fun, it is an absolute must. Type in your name or a favorite phrase, and it 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.

Media & Digital Culture

The Capt. James T. Kirk Sing-a-long Page

http://www.ama.caltech.edu/users/mrm/kirk.html

All things Star Trek have great cult stature in digital culture, and this page of recordings by Captain James T. Kirk (otherwise known as William Shatner) captures all its schmaltzy glory. Words cannot describe the moment when “Lucy! . . . In the sky! . . . With diamonds!” comes through the computer’s speakers.

Adbusters’ Culture Jammer’s Headquarters

http://www.adbusters.org/adbusters/

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 McDonald’s–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 in the organization are available.

Brainstorms

http://www.well.com/user/hlr/

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 in 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.

Monastery of Christ in the Desert

http://www.nets.com/pax.html

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 punch line: They’re using their illuminated pages to sell Web design services! That’s OK; the images are really worth looking at.

Confession Booth

http://anther.learning.cs.cmu.edu/priest.html

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. Categories include “murder,” “adultery,” and “fish in microwave,” and visitors are encouraged to submit new ones.

Digital Storytelling Festival

http://www.thenet-usa.com/story/story.html

The Digital Storytelling Festival took place last October in Crested Butte, Colorado, 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, mother, and herself.

The Electric Postcard

http://postcards.www.media.mit.edu/Postcards/

MIT’s Media Lab built this nifty site where you can choose a virtual postcard from classic art, photographs, stamps, graffiti, and other images from the Postcard Rack, write messages on them, and e-mail them to friends, who then come to the Pick-up Window to retrieve them. Fun to do, and a nice surprise to receive.

FeMiNa

http://www.femina.com/

FeMiNa bills itself as the first Web directory for women and girls, and it hits pretty much every subject you can imagine, from art to business, spirituality to sports, girls’ issues, feminism, and family. It maintains links to other grrrl-related sites, too.

The Microsoft Hate Page

http://www.oeh.uni-linz.ac.at:8001/~chris/HATE/hate.html

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 one magazine dubbed this site “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 you shouldn’t buy the market leader’s software. An in-your-face end run around a formidable public-relations machine.

Project Gutenberg

http://jg.cso.uiuc.edu/pg/pg_home.html

Though the explanatory notes desperately need 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 includes Aesop’s Fables, A Christmas Carol, and Paradise Lost.

Suck

http://www.suck.com/

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–and consistently good writing and deeply correct use of hypertext.

Webgrrls Unite!

http://www.webgrrls.com/

There’s a lot of this grrrl 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. It is so generous in spirit that it links to some “boy-eez” pages, too.

Politics & Society

Book Stacks–Banned Books Exhibit

http://www.banned.books.com/

Sponsoring this site is Book Stacks Unlimited, which is 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 the banned books. But it does include a link to Carnegie Mellon University’s comprehensive banned-books site.

Welcome to Central Park

http://www.CentralPark.org/~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 runs the gamut: a rallying 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.

Creation Science Home Page

http://emporium.turnpike.net/C/cs/index.htm

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 there’s a link for those who “would like to know more about the Creator.”

Dave Emory’s Web Site

http://www.cygnus.com/misc/kfjc/emory/

The man who later became my mate for 15 years introduced me to conspiracy theorist Dave Emory, so I have a soft spot for Emory; he may be too paranoid for most tastes. His vast research on the U.S. military and intelligence communities’ connections with international fascism might blow away an open mind, though.

Digital Queers Home Page

http://www.casti.com/dq/

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 nonprofit queer groups, lobby for domestic partner benefits, provide computer basics and on-line training, and serve as a clearinghouse for queercentric technology-related issues.

The Progressive Directory @igc

http://www.fair.org/

A one-stop shop for information on progressive politics, this comprehensive Web site includes links to PeaceNet, EcoNet, ConflictNet, LaborNet, and WomensNet and a truly remarkable metaindex of nonprofit organizations on the Web. It’s a thrill to see all this dedication to a better world corralled together in one place.

Remembrance

http://grunt.space.swri.edu/thepast.htm

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 a name on the Vietnam Memorial wall in Washington, D.C., plus remembrances of those who are still missing in action and their families and true stories and fiction by Vietnam vets.

Counterintelligence Home Page

http://www.tscm.com/

You get enough good news watching the Today Show. Here’s a site about the kinds of electronic counterintelligence and 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. A remarkable array.

Voter Education Project Main Menu

http://www.oclc.org/VoteSmart/lwv/lwvhome.htm

The League of Women Voters is everywhere! This site, Voters Online Information & Communication Exchange (VOICE), is all about voter education, and it includes a link to Project Vote Smart, which collects data on elected representatives, including their campaign coffers and voting records.

Brown & Williamson Collection Index

http://www.library.ucsf.edu/tobacco/bw.html

In a courageous move to keep the Brown & Williamson 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 it on the Web. You can find it here. Any more questions about why folks are so interested in censoring the Net?

Sex & Relationships

Match.Com

http://www.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 the registration form. They make a big deal out of promising anonymity but also post a disclaimer page that’s about a mile long.

Bianca’s Smut Shack

http://bianca.com/shack/index.html

I heard about this site from someone at the MIT Media Lab, and it really is a hoot. Bianca’s set up her little on-line 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 on-line (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.

Joe’s Amazing Relationship Problem Solver!

http://studsys.mscs.mu.edu/~carpent1/probsolv/rltprob0.html

For entertainment purposes only, but very funny. The Q&A you must fill out to solve your problem is 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 Original Problem Solver and Joe’s Federal Government Problem Solver.

Jamie Faye Fenton’s Web Page

http://www.transgender.org/tg/people/jff/

Fascinating personal home page of cross-dresser Jamie 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.

Reclaiming the Erotic

http://www.rippleeffects.com/

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 explicit statement about the primacy of your privacy should become the model for all Web sites everywhere.

The Safer Sex Page

http://www.cmpharm.ucsf.edu/~troyer/safesex.html

An excellent resource for anyone who needs an update on safe sex in the time of AIDS and HIV. The site includes a link to protest the Communications Decency Act–a law against “indecency” on the Internet would put Web sites like this out of business–as well as lots of detailed info on how to have safe sex, AIDS-proofing your kids, who is at risk, how to lessen risk, women and HIV/AIDS, being “sex positive,” high- and low-risk behaviors, and so on.

Technostuff

Community ConneXion

http://www.c2.org/remail/by-www.html

No one who is concerned about privacy should be without access to the anonymous remailers available to the public at this site. They strip all identifying characteristics from your electronic mail, allowing you to 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.

Jumbo! – Shareware!

http://www.jumbo.com/

Jumbo is the self-declared “official Web shareware site.” Shareware is a greatexample 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 useful computer utilities — like software patches forprinters 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.

RealAudio Homepage

http://www.realaudio.com/

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 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.

Travel

Bienvenue sur P@riscope

http://146.228.204.11/Pariscope/Welcome.F.html

P@riscope would be the one indispensible Web stop before a trip to the City of Light. It’s the on-line version of the weekly magazine with the most up-to-date music, shopping, and nightspot listings for the week, presented in English, French, or Spanish, comme vous preferez. The design is tr`es chic and hip, but friendly–a recent page allowed you to play a wonderful sound clip from Duke Ellington’s “El Gato,” courtesy of Collection Europe 1.

Edinburgh Malt Whisky Tour

http://www.dcs.ed.ac.uk/home/jhb/whisky/

Like cigars and big cars, 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 whisky snobs’ vacation plans. It displays how whisky is manufactured and lists tasting notes, labels from various regional distilleries, maps, and ratings for peatiness, sweetness, and availability. My favorite question in the Q&A: Is it injurious to drink whisky with oysters or other shellfish?

Gay & Lesbian Travel Web

http://www.cts.com/~drcarr/gay_travel/

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, such as which countries ban gay sex.

HEALTHY FLYING with Diana Fairechild

http://www.maui.net:80/diana/

This site is so earnest, you don’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.

MONK…Travel with a Twist

http://www.neo.com/Monk/

Mike & Jim Monk (not their real names), 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 go somewhere and then devote an entire issue to the place. In January it was “Freakin’ in Frisco” and “Portland Kicks Butt.” Everything I read was good writing, funny, attitudinal–like friends from grad school writing you a letter from the road.

Out on the Salty Seas

http://home.sol.no/fanebust/saltysea.html

Definitely an inspirational use for those slides and photos sitting in shoeboxes, “How I spent my Greek vacation sailing on the Aegean” is an on-line photo album by Norwegian Frode Fanebust. He includes links to related sites like SailNet and Alaska Wilderness Sailing.

Travel Weekly’s Home Page

http://www.traveler.net/

A collection of travel-related sites sponsored by Dutch publisher Reed Elsevierincludes both U.S. and international destinations and links to information onjust about everything related to travel — agents, tour operators, news, cruises, adventure trips, railroading, skiing. The whole visit is worth discovering Planet Hawaii . Let’s go surfin’ now!

Work & Money

GNN Best of the Net/Personal Finance

http://gnn.com/gnn/wic/botn/persfin.best.html

With a genre as broad as Work/Money, it’s a good idea to have someone case 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.

Lombard Institutional Brokerage

http://www.lombard.com/

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 e-mail them or call the 800 number to find out what they intend to do with your personal data. Customers can execute trades on-line and get real-time quotes, among other services; others get delayed quotes and historical data.

The Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition

http://update.wsj.com/welcome.html

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 and information on the markets and investing. And, of course, you have to register. No free lunch.

Credit Card Network

http://www.creditnet.com/

Credit-card hounds who want to sniff out the best deal on interest rates or who want exhaustive data on which airlines provide frequent-flier 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 on-line. If you want to order something, print out their form and mail it.

Quote.Com Home Page

http://www.quote.com/

This is not a pretty site, but it is full-service–it includes quotes on stocks, options, commodity futures, mutual funds, and bonds. Like 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.

WagerNet–On-Line Sports Betting!

http://www.vegas.com/wagernet/

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.

Working Assets Online

http://www.wald.com/

This site is not just a kiosk for information about the services offered by Working Assets, the group that donates money to politically correct causes when you use their long-distance phone service or credit card. It’s actually quite a thorough front end to the issues that Working Assets addresses, in a friendly, attractive format. Working Assets Online also publishes a newsletter, with features by comedian Will Durst and a column, in January, by former New York governor Mario Cuomo.

Xenon Labs: The Universal Currency Converter

http://www.xe.net/currency/

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 a purveyor of the “postcard-ware concept”–they want you to send them a real postcard, via snailmail; if they like it, they digitize it and post it on the Web site. January’s postcard was an outrageous photo of a Kansas tornado.

Yahoo–Business & Economy

http://www.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Employment/

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 “TruckDrivers Job Directory.”

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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 onto the list the way people find almost everything cool on the Web — by word of mouth and e-mail. And you don’t have to wait to get to the store, as you do when someone tells you about a great new CD or magazine. You can copy the address into your Web browser and experience instant gratification. The categories are somewhat arbitrary as well. Think of what follows 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.