What's new or surprising in science, technology, business, society, and opportunities
ONE MINUTE SITE TOUR
- • CNN Interactive CNN updates quite often, and for certain news events may be a must-see. But I've drastically scaled back my own visits to CNN over the past years, usually finding all I need on a daily basis at the other sites below. CNN hasn't helped itself any by trying to become more like Fox News.
- • Yahoo! News Top Stories is a great news link but for one detail: Yahoo breaks their links roughly 30 days after posting them. Which is very bad for a blogger/researcher like myself. But it's been tough to find a suitable replacement for them on this list.
- • Google News as of late 2009 seems to be slower than Yahoo News on producing links to fast breaking events. So if something just happened in the last hour check Yahoo first.
- • reddit: what's new online is hands-down my own favorite social networking news site. Reddit's main advantage over Digg is that it has a killer forum-- lots easier to grasp and participate in. Plus, reddit accepts news submissions on a far wider variety of subjects, and somehow suffers far less censorship than Digg-- although it did have plenty of problems with outages and slowdowns in 2009. Reddit also allows full sentence titles, while digg submissions are closer to being only one fifth of a tweet in title length (sheesh!). Obviously, one fifth of a tweet doesn't serve well as a title for many items. Heck: it's not even enough to show the full name of a single person, in many cases! (I often wonder how Digg stays in business with reddit around)
- • omgili.com searches forums on the net. Addictomatic automatically and instantly generates a page on any topic from multiple internet sources.
- • Groups.google.com lets you search internet newsgroups (You might be able to give yourself a good scare by doing a search for your email address or other personal info here...). Unfortunately, you might only rarely find a search of news groups useful for your purposes these days...most of the action seems to have moved to web sites and/or e-mail newsletters now.
Daily updates
(business days only; i.e., often excluding weekends, holidays, and certain other special occasions)- • AlterNet is maybe THE progressive or liberal leaning news site on the net today.
- • Dvorak Uncensored is often blatantly Republican or neoconservative (and so heavily propagandistic). However, sometimes it also lists interesting links hard to find elsewhere.
- • Drudge Retort: Red Meat for Yellow Dogs is a curious beast which seems to index mostly political stories possibly detrimental or beneficial to all sides. So if you want only a one-sided news source, this isn't it.
- • Digg is thought by many to have practically invented the social networking news niche. Unfortunately, it maintains a fairly narrow topics focus, which will definitely cause you to miss many delightful items only to be found on smaller and more obscure sites. Digg's forums are also insanely difficult to read or participate in, in my opinion (and so much less fun or useful than reddit's). The mostly slanted-towards-maintaining-the-status-quo and keeping-the-masses-distracted-with-sensationalism mainstream media stories digg typically covers are also covered by reddit in full-- but reddit makes it lots easier to see non-mainstream stuff as well. I frequent both digg and reddit because if you do only one you will surely miss something of value, as sometimes one catches a mainstream news item solely or first, and the other only second or never. Obviously though, I prefer reddit over digg personally, and would keep reddit if I had to give one up.
- • sphinn.com looks interesting for tech and business news affecting bloggers/web authors. The main thrust in 2008/2009 though was search engine optimization of web sites (which appears to be a lose/lose game for everyone but big business).
Kevin C. emailed me the URL bugmenot.com (here's their FAQ) which appears to help folks bypass the registration requirements on sites like washingtonpost.com. I haven't tried it myself, but offer it here for those who'd like to.
- • Slashdot
has as its central themes Linux and the Open Source movement, but in practice it covers just about anything which might be of interest to technophiles. Unfortunately, Slashdot seems to have lost much steam in recent years, with far fewer stories of interest appearing there than before.- • BusinessWeek Online is often a must-see on the web, for anyone interested in business, economics, or investment.
- • The New York Times often offers some of the best news, information, and opinion available from a major US newspaper online.
Unfortunately, although I hear they're going to be switching over to entirely free and open web access, that hasn't happened yet. So on occasion you might have to check out some alternative sources for particular NYT stories:- • Google Search new york times sorted by date
- • IHT Search NYT might be a handy additional free access point to New York Times content.
- • New Scientist is absolutely one of my own favorites. Science news. The only thing that's stopped me from paying for a subscription to this periodical is the fact I'm already buried in more news and reports from many sources than I can possibly digest.
- • EurekAlert! Public News List offers up the latest scientific reports.
- • Technology Review: Blogs: arXiv blog
- • The MoJo Wire-- Interactive Exposes and Politics
- • The Anomalist
offers frequently updated links to unusual news stories and reports as well as other content.- • Yahoo! News - Oddly Enough
- • PC Magazine Online Often pretty good stuff here for technophiles.
- • PC World Online often offers great content.
- • Boing Boing may be the original 'eye candy' blog online. That is, they prefer to blog about things offering an intriguing pic or image, to those which don't. Eye candy blogs are almost always more fun than others, but also usually less useful in every day life, and more silly. Hence, the reason I place these at the end of this section: in metaphorical meal terms, they're typically desserts or snacks, rather than substantial, healthy, and nutritious fare.
Once to several times weekly update frequency
- • Unknown News is a big favorite of mine, mainly focusing on politics and social issues of controversy. As the name says, you'll often find news here that you'll rarely if ever see anywhere else. This is the place to go after you get tired of watching the latest child abduction/murder trial/'war is good'/celebrity fluff stuff in the mainstream US media.
- • Scripting News is supposed to just cover developments in high level programming languages of various sorts, but tends to include a bit of almost everything. This is basically the site of a semi-famous, semi-retired geek (programmer) who uses it to push his latest efforts and opinions. This guy had a lot to do with creating the earliest draft of one of my favorite programs of all time (the More II outliner on the ancient Mac). Plus he on occasion has something interesting to say about the world. On 9-11-01 when much of the net was overloaded and worthless, this guy's site somehow became one of the most informative and comprehensive realtime reporting sites on the internet about the terrorist attack, for maybe several days in a row. I sure wouldn't mind to someday have an overall reputation similar to his on the web-- even if some folks out there do dislike him (heck: you can't please everyone!). All that's why I still link to him, and visit his site maybe once a week-- and will rush to it if something like 9-11-01 happens again.
Weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, or lengthier update frequency
- • jrm&aFLUX Newz&Viewz
- • Jorn Barger's shared items: Barger may have been one of the very first and best bloggers in history, with his original robotwisdom domain. Today, he seems to be moving from one site to another on a regular basis, making it tough to keep a live link to him over time.
- • Science News Online is pretty nice, and a weekly at last check (updated late Friday evenings, usually).
- • I, Cringely and Notes from the Field are both by the same fellow, who in the past has often written some intriguing pieces on the tech market.
Miscellaneous news, opinion, or image blogs currently under evaluation for long-term inclusion in this page (presented in random order)
- • The Public Record
- • Techmeme
- • Smartpassive income
- • Salon.com
- • Stardance : : The Official Movie Blog
- • The Truth Will Set You Free
- • AfriGadget
- • Science Daily: News & Articles in Science, Health, Environment & Technology
- • Breaking News, Weather, Business, Health, Entertainment, Sports, Politics, Travel, Science, Technology, Local, US & World News- msnbc.com
- • The Nation | Unconventional Wisdom Since 1865
- • Bloomberg.com: News
- • Common Dreams | News & Views
- • Shrinkage is Good
- • Fimoculous.com: Feeding On Itself
- • Dark Reading | Security | Protect The Business - Enable Access
- • Online Marketing and Social Media | Dosh Dosh
- • Making a Living Online with Caroline Middlebrook
- • PC Magazine Security Watch - Tech Security News, Reviews, Patches and Advice
- • Neatorama
- • Dark Roasted Blend Weird and wonderful things
- • Get Online Quotes
- • Trend de la Creme - FASHION. STYLE. TRENDS. Indulge Your Trend Obsession: featured
- • EconomPic Data
- • White Collar Fraud
- • Freedom to Tinker...is your freedom to understand, discuss, repair, and modify the technological devices you own.
- • Google Online Security Blog
- • Deliciously Addictive Tech News Served Daily / Infopackets.com
- • Futuristic Play by Andrew Chen Analysis on viral marketing, user experience, game design, and online ads
- • Yanko Design - Modern Industrial Design News
Miscellaneous sweepstakes news sites of varying frequency (also check the caveats described below)
CAUTION! Keep in mind that entering many sweeps will definitely increase your junk e-mail, win or lose. You also need to be wary and read the rules carefully before entering many such contests-- because sometimes there's Gotchas! in the fine print which would put you off the game if you were aware of them. For instance, that highly touted $10,000 prize might only be awarded in the form of a credit at Harry's House of Ceramic Shoe Collectibles-- and so of little value to many folks. At the other end of the scale are sweeps with huge non-cash prizes of super-expensive cars and homes, which could effectively bankrupt many winners who try to claim them, with enormous income tax bills. To make it worse, the homes are usually located 3000 miles away from where the winner would want to live, or the car is totally impractical for normal driving (a Rolls Royce or Lamborghini Countach for example), and the income tax bite on the prize's value alone may be about the same as what you'll be able to sell it for on the street. Heck, sometimes auto prizes incur tax penalties equal to that of a brand new model off the dealer lot, but there's no new car warranty to go with it! Yeah, some winners might manage to sell off such assets, pay the taxes, and still end up with a little profit on the side. But I bet you most won't. So keep in mind folks that minimum 20-25% tax bite on prizes, and the principle that cold cash is much easier to deal with than overpriced real estate or luxury autos.
One last good reason to carefully read the rules of contests before entering them: quite a few sites take months to take down entry pages after a sweepstakes has ended, still collecting personal info from poor saps who are unaware their entries are no good. There should be a law stopping this, but apparently there's not. So if you're too dumb or lazy to read the rules, you're going to be an automatic loser in lots of sweeps the very moment you click the last button for entry.
Better Business Bureau News and Alerts might help you steer clear of some sweep and contest scams.
Keeping all the above in mind, here's some miscellaneous links you can try, if you wish:
| Sweepstakes Advantage - The Largest Directory of Free Online Sweepstakes! | Contests and Sweepstakes - Free Sweepstakes Worth Entering | Online-Sweepstakes.com Cash | Free Stuff | TheFreeSite.com: contests, prizes, free money, lotto, cash, sweepstakes, games, puzzles |
| Lottery Results |
- • Yahoo! News Top Stories is a great news link but for one detail: Yahoo breaks their links roughly 30 days after posting them. Which is very bad for a blogger/researcher like myself. But it's been tough to find a suitable replacement for them on this list.
FRANTIC updates!
(usually updated at minimum a couple times daily, seven days a week)
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