Good Reading
This page was originally intended as a way of keeping track of any
good papers and articles, mostly computer-related,
that I've downloaded from the Internet. However, that got to be more trouble
than it's worth - I can always look up a paper using a search engine - so I've
mostly been adding links to collections of papers and articles, e.g., magazines
with on-line articles, E-zines, etc. There is lots of good stuff out there -
enjoy!
Blogs
Computing-related blogs are found under Computers.
Political blogs are found under Politics.
- BlogBites - "blog bites.
like sound bites. but without the sound."
- AKMA's Random Thoughts
- C Street.us
- Cosmic
Variance - "random samplings from a universe of ideas".
- "Out of the Crooked Timber
of Humanity, No Straight Thing was Ever Made."
- Dispatches from the
Culture Wars - "Thoughts From the Interface of Science, Religion,
Law and Culture".
- Edge - "to promote inquiry into and
discussion of intellectual, philosophical, artistic, and literary
issues, as well as to work for the intellectual and social achievement
of society."
- Jason Rosenhouse's
EvolutionBlog -
"Commentary on the endless dispute between evolution and creationism."
- John Wilkins' Evolving
Thoughts - "Evolution, culture, philosophy and chocolate!"
- Scarlett's Fastidious
& Precise - "a lyric from Queen's song 'Killer Queen'".
- Fighting OCD - "A journal
of my fight with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)".
- Steven D. Levitts and Stephen J. Dubner's
Freakonomics -
"The Hidden Side of Everything" (with guest bloggers).
- Jamie Zawinski's jwz - the
eclectic hacker.
- LanguageHat
- Carl Zimmer's The Loom -
"A Blog About Life, Past and Future".
- Dr. Frank Mondimore's MoodNews -
various postings about research into depression.
- David Dobbs' Neuron
Culture - "on science, nature, and culture."
- Leonard Richardson's News You Can
Bruise
- John Dufresne's
Occasional Web Log
- Forrest Maready's The OCD
Alien - "An Alien Observes the Human User Experience".
- Stephanie Dray's Peaks and
Valleys - "Writing, Politics, and Minutia".
- Elayne Riggs' Pen-Elayne
on the Web - must be a Beatles fan!
- P.Z. Myers'
Pharyngula - science!
- RealClimate - commentary on
"climate science by working climate scientists for the interested
public".
- Gordon Atkinson's Real Live
Preacher
- Theo's Impressions &
Such - "speaking with much energy for the good of others is
naturally exhausting".
(Delicious)
- Wilson's Blogmanac -
"Think universally, Act terrestrially". (The blog for
Wilson's
Almanac, a daily E-zine.)
Meta-Everything
- Doggdot.us - "Digg, slashdot, and
delicious/popular".
- freshnews.org - "fresh tech news
from around the net". Recent headlines from a bunch of technology web
sites.
Everything
- Ars Technica - "The PC
Enthusiast's Resource".
- Digg - "a technology news website
that combines social bookmarking, blogging, RSS, and non-hierarchical
editorial control".
- Freshmeat - "the largest
index of Linux software on the Web". Plus
handheld software!
- Slashdot - "News for nerds, stuff
that matters".
- UserFriendly.org
Various and Sundry
Embedded Computing
Gadgets and Games
Handhelds and PDAs
Operating Systems
- Librenix - "Information for Linux
System Administration"
- LinuxInsider.Com -
"Linux News & Information from Around the World".
- Linux Links - "The Linux
Portal".
- LinuxPlanet -
"A Guide to the Linux Operating System".
- WinPlanet - "Software Downloads
and Reviews for the Small Business".
Programming Languages
Software Development
Web Design and Development
- Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox -
"Current Issues in Web Usability".
- A List Apart - "For people who
make websites".
- Anne van Kesteren - "Weblog
about Markup & Style".
- Shirley Kaiser's
Brainstorms & Raves -
"almost daily notes about web design, development, standards,
typography, music, and anything else".
- Richard Rutter's clagnut -
"stick around why don't you".
- Jeffrey Zeldman's The Daily
Report - "web design news & info since 1999".
- Vincent Flanders'
Daily
Sucker - "Examples of Bad Web Design".
- Les Orchard's 0xDECAFBAD
(Delicious)
- Digital Web
Magazine
- evolt.org - "Workers of the Web,
Evolt!"
- Evan Goer's
goer.org: Journal
- Patrick Griffiths' HTML Dog
Blog
- microformats
(Wiki)
- Molly Holzschlag's molly.com
- Heather Measday's
Myteknowledgy - "Where I
share my Tek-Knowledge - Design, Fun Stuff, Cool Links, Awesome Imagery,
Help and Support".
- Jeremy Flint's Red Hot and Daily
- John Battelle's Searchblog -
"Thoughts on the intersection of search, media, technology, and more."
- Dan Cederholm's SimpleBits
- Douglas Bowman's Stopdesign
- Eric Meyer's Thoughts From Eric -
and his
writings.
Miscellaneous
- Builder.au - "by developers
for devlopers".
- Paul McJones' Dusty
Decks - "Preserving historic software".
- InformIT - articles, book
excerpts, etc.
- Mappa.Mundi Magazine -
from 1999 to 2001, "examined how we see and use the Internet via an
eclectic mix of articles about technology, history, and the future of
cyberspace."
- ACM's Queue -
"in-depth articles and insightful columns written by accomplished
software engineers, as well as interviews with legends (and future
legends) in the field."
- ACM's Ubiquity -
"Information Everywhere!"
Fiction
- anacrusis - "101-word
stories by Brendan Adkins ... Fiction for the Attention-Deprived".
- FanFiction.Net - "unleash your
imagination and free your soul". Fan-written stories for books, video
games, TV shows, movies, and so on.
- The Practical Press -
"The place where bloggers come to be creative -- fiction, poetry,
drama, screenplays, art, photos, literary reviews and discussion,
we do it all."
Mystery
Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror
Genomics
- "Boulder Data
Interchange Format" by Lincoln Stein - is a brief overview of and
manual for a PERL-friendly, data interchange format for genome analysis
software. The PERL objects? Boulders, stones, and pebbles (nested
stones), of course!
- Primer
on Molecular Genetics by Denise Casey, for the Department
of Energy - an excellent, fairly detailed overview of the Human Genome
Project. I've seen so many links to it, would it be fair to call it a
"classic" in the field? (The link above is to the 1992 version of the
primer. An updated, but abridged,
2008
edition is available.)
- "An
Introduction to Biocomputing" by David Steffen -
is the informative introduction to the
BioComputing
HyperText Coursebook.
- "Visualizing the
Genome" by David B. Searls - includes a description of his RSVP
(Rapid Sequence Visualization in PostScript), a suite of PostScript
programs that perform preliminary sequence analysis and generate
graphic output. The programs also run on any computer that has a
PostScript interpreter, so you're not restricted to a printer!
- "The
Importance of Standards and Componentry in Meeting the Genome
Informatics Challenges of the Next Five Years" by Nathan Goodman,
Steve Rozen, and Lincoln Stein - discusses the benefits of building
tools in a modular fashion with standardized interfaces between the
modules and proposes a study of the existing practices and of ways
of merging them into some type of cohesive standard. (Also see
"The
Case for Componentry in Genome Information Systems" by the same
authors.)
History and Literature
Medicine
Miscellaneous
- Drew Curtis' FARK.com - "[A]t this
rate by the end of the year there will be more people reading Fark than
will be alive on the planet at that time. It will be interesting to see
how that works out."
- Worth1000 - "the top creative
competition and photoshop contest site on the web."
- Libarynth - "a parafictional,
semifunctional (deeply InterTwingled) collection of documents,
notes and RandomNess in the smouldering rubble of babel."
Music
Periodicals
Politics
Radio
Frequently Read
- Alternate Brain - "Truth
from around the World". (Fixer
& Gordon)
- John Aravosis'
AMERICAblog -
"A great nation deserves the truth".
- Jerome Doolittle's BAD
ATTITUDES
- Booman Tribune - "A
Progressive Community".
- Brilliant at
Breakfast - "Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast." (Oscar
Wilde)
- Crooks and Liars -
"John Amato's virtual online magazine... OK, It's a blog!"
- Daily Kos - "State of the
Nation".
- Atrios' Eschaton
- Firedoglake - "... bedlam is
dreaming of rain ..."
(Attackerman,
Emptywheel,
TBogg)
- First Draft - "writing is only
real on the first draft". (Adrastos, Athenae, and Jude)
- Brad DeLong's
Grasping
Reality with Both Hands - "The Semi-Daily Journal of Economist
Brad DeLong: A Fair, Balanced, Reality-Based, and More than Two-Handed
Look at the World".
- Glenn Greenwald
at Salon.com.
- Digby's Hullabaloo
- General J. C. Christian's
Jesus' General - "An 11
on the Manly Scale of Absolute Gender".
- Steve Soto's The Left
Coaster - "An outside-the-Beltway perspective on current events,
politics, media, and the arts. We are proud to be part of the
Reality-Based Community."
- Barbara O'Brien's The Mahablog -
"Making the World Safe for Liberalism".
- PBD - Progressive Blog Digest
- Steve Benen's and Hilzoy's
Political Animal
- Avedon Carol's The Sideshow
- Eric Blair's Slacktivist -
"Knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend".
(Archives)
- Think Progress
(Wonk Room,
Matthew Yglesias)
Every So Often (A-L)
- Robert M. Jeffers' Adventus
- alicublog - "[I]ts editors
pen somber, Shackletonian missives from their lonely arctic outpost."
- Eric Alterman's
Altercation -
"Is this the right room for an argument?"
- American Politics
Journal - "Opinion * Invective * Satire".
- American Street -
"Remember, as far as anyone knows, we're a nice normal family." - Homer
Simpson.
- BadTux the Snarky Penguin -
"In a time of chimpanzees, I was a penguin."
- BartCop - "Political Humor and
Commentary".
(Bartcop Forum)
- Brad Friedman's The Brad Blog -
"The uprising continues ..."
- Bring It On!
- BuzzFlash.com - headlines and
commentary, plus the
Buzzflash Mailbag.
- CathiefromCanada -
"Do not go gentle into that good night. Blog, blog against the dying
of the light."
- Common Dreams -
"Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community". Breaking
news, columns, and lots of links to news services, periodicals,
columnists, and radio and television stations.
- Paul Krugman's The
Conscience of a Liberal
- Corrente - "Boldly
shrill ..."
- The Crisis Papers - "News,
Opinion and Commentary from the Progressive Internet", edited by
Ernest Partridge, Ph.D. and Bernard Weiner, Ph.D.
- The Daily
Howler - Bob Somerby points out egregious howlers (both
definitions of
the term) in the media.
- Democratic
Underground, the
latest
threads, and their famous
Top Ten
Conservative Idiots (updated weekly).
- d r i f t g l a s s -
"I don't try to describe the future. I try to preview it." (Ray
Bradbury)
- Kevin Drum at
Mother Jones.
- EconoSpeak - "Annals of
the Economically Incorrect".
- Len's First Door on the
Left - "Just remember this: I am olderer and wiserer."
- Group News Blog - "The
heirs to Steve Gilliard's The News Blog. Progressive politics, news,
food, sports & the arts. Stopping the war. Smart, good people &
a safe space. Pull up a chair and hang."
- David Cogswell's HeadBlast -
"Existential Politics in the 21st Century".
- Hoffmania! - "The American
Condition".
- Juan Cole's Informed Comment -
"Thoughts on the Middle East, History, and Religion".
- Ezra Klein -
"Economic and Domestic Policy, and Lots of It".
- Bill Scher's LiberalOasis -
"where the Left is right and the Right is wrong".
- Jake Sexton's Lying Media
Bastards
Every So Often (M-Z)
- Carolyn Kay's Make Them
Accountable - "Making politicians and media accountable to
ordinary citizens since 2000."
- David Brock's Media Matters for
America
- Tom Tomorrow's This Modern
World
- MyDD - "Direct Democracy for People
Powered Politics", by Jerome Armstrong et al.
- Swopa's Needlenose
- Noam Chomsky
- Oliver Willis - "Like
Kryptonite To Stupid".
- David Neiwert's Orcinus -
"Policy, Culture and Journalism in the 21st Century".
- Pandagon - by Amanda Marcotte
et al.
- The Reality-Based Community -
"Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts",
by Mark Kleiman et al.
- Attaturk's, Champollion's, DeDurkheim's, and Loquitur's
Rising Hegemon -
"Angst-Filled Missives on the Fate of American Democracy ..."
- Scoobie Davis Online -
"Filmmaker, Surfer, and Party Crasher".
- Seeing the Forest -
"For the Trees".
- Demosthenes' Shadow of the
Hegemon - "One Writer, One World, One Darkened Alley".
- The Shrill Blog - "The
Offical Blog of the Ancient and Hermetic Order of the Shrill".
- Bruce Garrett's The Story
So Far ...
- Susie Madrak's Suburban
Guerrilla - "Keeping a jaundiced eye on the corporate media."
- Greg Saunders' The Talent
Show
- Joshua Micah Marshall's
Talking Points Memo and
TPMmuckraker -
"They've got muck. We've got rakes."
- Jeralyn Merritt's TalkLeft -
"the politics of crime".
- The American Prospect's
TAPPED
(Dean Baker)
- TomPaine.com -
"The best progressive insight and action. All day."
- t r u t h o u t (William Rivers
Pitt)
- Jonathan Turley -
Res ipsa loquitur ("The thing itself speaks")
- uggabugga
- Steve Clemons' The
Washington Note
- Maru's WTF Is It
Now?!? - great pictures!
- Some Guy With a Website -
"Cartoons & Commentary from August J. Pollak".
People to See and Places to Go
Religion
Science
- "The Alternate View" -
"cutting-edge science" columns by physicist John G. Cramer from the
pages of Analog Science Fiction & Fact Magazine.
- American
Scientist - "The Magazine of Sigma Xi, The Scientific
Research Society".
- Discover -
a popular science magazine.
- Hot A.I.R. - "Rare and
well-done tidbits from the Annals of Improbable Research".
- New Scientist
(the British counterpart to Science News?) also has the
full text of selected articles, both from the current issue and from
back issues.
The articles are aimed at the interested layman and cover a broad
range of scientific subjects.
- Perspectives on
Science and Christian Faith - a publication of the American
Scientific Affiliation. If you explore the web site, you'll find a
number of on-line articles and book reviews.
- Science News -
"the weekly newsmagazine of science".
- Scientific American -
scientific paradise - for the layman, more or less.
- Skeptical
Inquirer - published by the Committee for the Scientific
Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CISCOP).
- The Panda's Thumb -
"dedicated to explaining the theory of evolution, critiquing the
claims of the anti-evolution movement, and defending the integrity
of science education in America and around the world."
- SciTech Daily Review - "science,
technology, future developments, innovations, implications".
- "The
Outer Reaches of Life", excerpted from John Postgate's book
of the same name - discusses (with some humor thrown in here and
there) the conditions required to sustain life as deduced from the
range of life known on earth.