I guess few of us do very much random surfing anymore. Now and then I research the hell out of some new subject – it’s great fun when you start to get it: who the players are, the way they describe their own history, the special words they use etc, etc. When I do that, bad sites often tell me more than the good ones.
But the sites I read regularly usually combine two qualities: good content and links that occasionally surprise me. Here are some favorites.
Overall, I read more and more weblogs (see left side of this page) – companies like Userland and Pyra are making this happen. Thanks!
I read Scripting News every day! Dave can be very annoying or brilliant. If you are interested in any of the stuff he writes about there is almost always something new to check out.
Upside never fails to give me a very quick and optimistic take on the current economic hype and hysteria. You dont have to agree with any of it, of course. Someone (maybe in Feed) once wrote about his marxist friends from college who read The Economist just to get to know the enemy better. Sometimes I wonder myself: do they really believe the world will become a better place if business keeps growing and trade is free? Paul Krugman probably does, but is also good for the occasional contrarian view.
Cafe con leche is the only XML-site I read almost every day.
Slashdot is so big these days, it’s getting hard to follow. I scan the headlines rather than read – but that’s interesting, too. In this category (news for computer people) small can be better. Try Advogato or Technocrat.Net for a higher signal-to-noise ratio.
Justin Hall is working too much and writing too little these days. His old stuff gave me lots of kicks, long before weblogging was called weblogging. I still check him out – sometimes champions DO comeback.
Another obvious source for storytelling online is Fray.
I’m not really a hardware fanatic, but sometimes it’s relaxing to read about other people’s hobbies. I don’t read Suck very often anymore, but usually find it funny when I do.
What is WikiWikiWeb? It’s very easy to spend way too much time there, even if you don’t understand what they are talking about.
I’ve always been interested in cults and why people believe in weird stuff. The skeptic’s dictionary and Rick Ross are two large and fascinating sites on this subject.
