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This page was initially drafted on 31 July 1998 as a selection of the best links from the Robot Wisdom Weblog archives. A few layers of refinement have been added since then, with the aim of gradually constructing a concise introduction to net.literacy on each of these topics. So stay tuned!
new tech
understanding tech
webopedia
Excellent-looking site of hardware tutorials
computers
mac owners: basic sites
win95
linux
vintage
gizmos
(fun/toys)
ai nlp
hackers hopkins jargon file
CNET (umbrella page) is purely technical: CNET.com, News.com (30% elvis!??), Computers.com, Builder.com, Gamecenter.com, Download.com, Shareware.com, Browsers.com, Shopper.com, Search.com, Career Center, and Snap!
CNET television: : CNET Central, The Web, The New Edge, and TV.COM.
Ziff-Davis: history, umbrella page (w/unfortunate imagemap)
A very solid stable of computer zines: (25% elvis total) PC Week, Computer Life, Interactive, Computer Gaming World, Windows, PC Computing, Family PC, Internet, PC Magazine, Yahoo Internet Life
CMPNet umbrella, online umbrella
Headquartered in Manhasset, NY, CMP employs 1700 people worldwide with branch offices in 12 states and France, Germany, the U.K., Hong Kong and Taiwan.
InformationWeek, TechWeb (6% elvis), Network Computing, InternetWeek, Data Communications, tele.com, BYTE, LAN Times, TechCalendar, TechTools, TechWeb Internet, UnixWorld, Windows Magazine, TechShopper, TechInvestor, NetGuide, GamePower, File Mine, Win98 Megasite, Computer Reseller News, Computer Retail Week, VARBusiness, ChannelWeb, TechCompanies, ISPs.com, TechEncyclopedia, NSTL Test Labs, EE Times, Electronic Buyers' News, EDTN, Semiconductor Business News
John Dvorak's columns are always readable, but for some reason I never bothered to bookmark his archivepage before. Another cache of Dvorak. His Boardwatch archives (these ones come with recipes)
James Gleick offers a nice bunch of really good writing about technology including this rant about the built-in-inaccuracy snafu in the GPS Global Positioning System
Salon reviews three gossipy books about Intel, Oracle, and Apple
Eric Raymond's classic analysis of the miraculous birth of Linux. And a splendid interview with Raymond.
A well-written look at the Netscape/Linux strategy. Contrarian pov: "Linux is only free if your time has no value."
More insightful hacker sociology/ anthropology/ history from Eric Raymond
The basics of smartcard theory: http://www.zolatimes.com/V3.12/smartcards.html
This multi-part series on hackers looks excellent. And a worldclass behind-the-scenes-er about 2600 magazine
We're geeks, and today we're proud
A smart, evolutionary analysis of scripting languages
It's really starting to look like website management is the new killer-app category. Dave Winer offers a nice overview of Frontier as a universal net glue.
Is GUILE the universal scripting language I've been dreaming of?
A great Amazon interview with Larry Wall. And this theoretical interview with the inventor of Perl includes many general insights
An extremely lucid snapshot of the recent technical evolution of Java
One of the first high-content sites I found, several years back, was Don Hopkins's. Lots of smart, funny stuff, about software design and programming, mostly.
A sort of 'x86script' assembler called 'terse'
Minimal Instruction Set Computing
The emulation community is cool. Mac-based emulation site
Jakob Nielsen's biweekly AlertBox offers above-average insight on interface design
Alan Cooper's reading-list on design is heavily annotated
Jennifer Tidwell's extensive auxilliary pattern-language reference includes this fine summary on the design of forms
A profoundly humane meditation on interface design: [Deja URL]
A great new AlertBox on web design offers two screenshots with unreadable text, and asks you to identify content-elements
Interface Halls of Fame and Shame
Fitt's Law: http://www.asktog.com/columns/022DesignedToGiveFitts.html
Way hip architecture:
http://www.notsobighouse.com/box.html
Gordon Moore himself says, wrt his 'law' about chips doubling every year or two, that there's a hidden reason it's held true for so long: chip-makers fear their competitors will beat them to that price-point, so they gear up their research appropriately. But push may finally be coming to shove, as innovation runs up against the limits of nature. In this interview he sketches some current technological sticking-points
A compilation of email comments about Apple's rumored multimedia box includes a lot of good stuff about NCs, Disney, CD-I, CDTV, 3DO, Pippin, and WebTV
And PalmPilot fever continues to build
A well-written rave by a Newton power-user
The Iridium satellite network for cellphones
Here's a clear, detailed intro to Linux
One major measure of computer literacy is knowledge of Unix.
A fairly clear summary of Apple's "Carbon" strategy
The smartest commentary I've seen yet on MSIE/Win95:
Dvorak on Win98 bugs
Very advanced comparison of Unix and WinNT: http://www.unix-vs-nt.org/kirch/
Text Machine's approach to grep-for-dummies
Speech recognition's still not ready for primetime
The right way to merge email with HTML: no-tags markup
Spooky floating words from a Java demo of a 'Thinkmap' Visual Thesaurus
Pretty pictures: the Atlas of Cyberspace includes this page of conceptual-mapping experiments
Can Quicken inspire people to reduce their debt?
A massive inventory of web-agents (or bots) of various kinds
Evening project: Clearing out 30Mb of accumulated jpegs.
Secret weapon: PictTrasher from INFO-MAC
Risks Digest is a great moderated mailinglist digest (semi-weekly) that offers early warning and deep analysis of every sort of computer-related glitch including plane crashes, blackouts, viruses, etc. You can subscribe by email or by the newsgroup comp.risks
Scary Y2k scenarios from a credible authority
Apocalypse preview: Auckland struggles in darkness
And a superb one on the myth of computer productivity. Does cheap information reduce productivity?
An amazing restoration of 1930s TV
James Gleick reads the fine print of shrinkwrap agreements
JM Graetz was present at the creation of the first videogame, Spacewar, and tells it like it was
A nice look at the pay-per-view digital video format Divx
The New Scientist reports that the GPS system can easily be jammed
chemistry: sci.chem, sci.materials.ceramics, sci.mech.fluids, sci.polymers, alt.materials.simulation
origins of life: bionet.biophysics, sci.nanotech, comp.theory.cell-automata, comp.theory.self-org-sys, comp.ai.alife
origins of cognition: sci.logic, alt.memetics, alt.minsky.meme.meme.meme, alt.fan.hofstadter, sci.math.symbolic, alt.info-science, comp.theory.info-retrieval
knowledgebases: comp.databases, comp.databases.object, comp.databases.theory, comp.object, comp.object.logic
knowledge packing: alt.comp.compression, comp.compression, comp.compression.research
knowledge processing hardware: comp.arch, comp.hardware, comp.benchmarks, comp.sys.misc
software design: comp.lang.misc, comp.programming, alt.hackers, comp.software-eng, comp.software.testing, comp.apps.spreadsheets, comp.sys.next.advocacy
software automata: comp.virus, alt.comp.virus, alt.comp.virus.source.code, alt.crackers, comp.ai.alife
knowledge processing software: comp.ai, alt.human-brain, alt.psychology, sci.cognitive, sci.med.psychobiology, sci.psychology.misc, sci.psychology.research, sci.psychology.theory, bionet.neuroscience, alt.brain
control software: comp.simulation, comp.home.automation, alt.control-theory, comp.robotics.misc, comp.robotics.research, alt.psychology.mistake-theory, rec.games.chess.computer
simulation and systems: sci.systems, comp.simulation, comp.theory.dynamic-sys, alt.materials.simulation, alt.earth.system.science, rec.autos.simulators, rec.aviation.simulators, sci.virtual-worlds, sci.virtual-worlds.apps, rec.games.design, rec.games.mud.misc, rec.games.programmer, rec.games.xtank.programmer
vision: comp.ai.vision, comp.graphics.algorithms, comp.graphics, comp.graphics.misc, comp.graphics.visualization, sci.image.processing, sci.med.vision, sci.optics
language: comp.speech, comp.ai.nat-lang, sci.lang, sci.lang.translation, comp.text, alt.sci.physics.acoustics
social behavior: sci.military.moderated, sci.op-research
human interfaces:
comp.human-factors,
alt.design.graphics,
alt.design.product,
comp.infosystems,
comp.text,
alt.hypertext,
comp.ai.doc-analysis.misc,
comp.editors,
comp.multimedia,
rec.arts.tv.interactive,
comp.infosystems.www.misc,
comp.os.misc,
comp.mail.misc,
comp.programming.literate,
comp.software.international
social simulations: comp.ai.games, comp.groupware, alt.mud.moo, alt.mud, rec.arts.int-fiction, alt.arts.storytelling, rec.arts.books
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