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FRANTIC updates!
(usually updated at minimum a couple times daily, seven days a week)
- 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 early 2010 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)
- newsmap not only links to news stories, but shows you what stories are getting the most attention online; it also categorizes news links by topic.
Daily updates
(business days only; i.e., often excluding weekends, holidays, and certain
other special occasions)
- 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.
- Common Dreams is a progressive/liberal site, which seems to be at least somewhat more grounded and less prone to sensationalistic headlines than the also progressive AlterNet.
- 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.
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.
- EurekAlert! Public News List offers up the latest scientific reports.
- Technology Review: Blogs: arXiv blog
- Science Daily: News & Articles in Science, Health, Environment & Technology
- Techmeme
- JimmyR's Technology and Programming News
- The MoJo Wire-- Interactive Exposes and Politics
- Yahoo! News - Oddly Enough
- Archaeological News
- PC Magazine Online Often pretty good stuff here for technophiles.
- PC World Online often offers great content.
- io9 is an entertainment oriented news site specializing in science and science fiction/fantasy.
- Blick on Flicks offers reviews of films and other media regarding their use (or misuse) of science.
- 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.
- Dark Roasted Blend (Weird and wonderful things) and Neatorama are two more eye candy blogs worth checking out.
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.
- I, Cringely, Notes from the Field and Adam Smith Money World are all by the same fellow, who in the past has often written some intriguing pieces on the tech market.
- 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.
Weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, or lengthier update frequency
- Science News Online is pretty nice, and a weekly at last check (updated late Friday evenings, usually).
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
| SweepstakesToday.com
| Sweepstakes Lovers
| Online-Sweepstakes.com Cash
| Free Stuff | TheFreeSite.com: contests, prizes, free money, lotto, cash, sweepstakes, games, puzzles
| Sweepstakes Hunter |
| Lottery Results |
| PCH Search & Win |
Miscellaneous links currently under evaluation for long-term inclusion in this page (presented in random order)
- Talk To Action | Reclaiming Citizenship, History, and Faith
- War Is A Crime .org | formerly AfterDowningStreet
- Consumer Affairs Blog - Consumer affairs news, product recall alerts, consumer safety
- Discovery News: Earth, Space, Tech, Animals, Dinosaurs, History
- Veterans Today
- The New Republic
- TrustLaw: free legal assistance and anti-corruption news
- Big Think
- A Site for That
- SourceWatch
- Exposing the Excretions of the Entitled Class | The Vile Plutocrat
- Matt Rock
- EntreprenURLs » News and Blog aggregate for entrepreneurs
- The Public Record
- Smartpassive income
- Salon.com
- The Truth Will Set You Free
- AfriGadget
- 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
- Shrinkage is Good
- Dark Reading | Security | Protect The Business - Enable Access
- PC Magazine Security Watch - Tech Security News, Reviews, Patches and Advice
- 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
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