General Weblog (from my March 2001 Net surfing)

http://www.linguafranca.com - Linguafranca describes itself as the "review of the academic life". What this site is, is a huge collection of suggested readings on misc academic subjects, from Social Sciences to Computer Science.

My favorite section is their "breakthrough" books, which are the titles that - according to the most influential people on their respective field - must be read.

http://www.darwin3d.com - This site does NOT offer you demos, 3D scene news, nor downloadable desktops... but this is the homepage of a very avant-garde team, doing research mostly on 3D graphics technology, applied to more believable artificial creatures/humans.

http://www.books.mcgraw-hill.com/betabooks - Nowadays, more than ever, McGraw-Hill faces a ferocious fight from many publishers. In order to keep up, they are now covering more subjects, have some strong (and expensive!) multimedia products, and - maybe as a consequence of O'Reilly's policy - they offer partial BETA books, which are chapters from incoming titles. The last time I looked, I was able to download the first two chapters of a superb XML primer!

http://www.coremagazine.com - Of course that your are fed up with regular gaming sites, such as as your locale gamesdomain, or those huge portals from the enterprises that get the money you spend for being online. You probably had enough of the same reviews, with different pictures (if you're lucky!), and the same it-looks-like-these-paragraphs-were-bought feeling: that might be one of the reasons you visit alternative-to-mainstream webs, like my own :).

But if you are looking for something in-between, with an independent style and yet the resources normally found with the big fishes... then make sure you visit the Core Magazine.

http://microscope.fsu.edu - Most people will die, without knowing the microscopic world that surrounds them. Are you having a beer right now? Have you ever tried to watch some drops of that yellow liquid on the microscope? That is just one of the many suggestions you can find on the best microsite I have ever visited!

My top advise is for you to check the "silicon zoo" section... And if you are looking for a microscope you can connect to the PC, check the Intel QX3. Learn about it my searching for "qx3 microscope" at this website.

http://www.nara.gov - There are GOVs and there are GOVs. Some GOVs do gov, others don't :). Politics aside, the USA GOV keeps this superb website, which features some of the best photos you'll ever have the pleasure to see.

The National Archives and Records Administration stores hundreds of highly meaningful pictures. My favorites are the "panoramic" photos and the WW2 gallery. Awesome. Really, really impressive. These pictures will change the way you look at History.

http://www.historychannel.com - Talking about History, the best TV channel on the entire world has one of the most effective sites on the Internet. This website doesn't boil on flash crap, nor gets lost on other fancy stuff that doesn't contribute to the contents' quality, so you should understand how useful and juicy it is, really soon. Oh, and it seems that I was born on a day that only meant wars, until the present...

http://www.sopranoland.com - While "Ally McBeal" is on an all times low (they suddenly ran out of imagination), and after the slow and laughable crash of "Sex in the City" (Candice is on a dead end, since she already told too much about love), HBO's flag is The Sopranos!

"The Sopranos" are one of the best TV Series, ever! Its all about a mafiosa american family... Its variety, the performances, and the overall freshness of each episode, bring it up to a quality level where you only find top shows, like "Buffy, the vampire slayer", "Angel", "The Simpsons", "Futurama", "Hill Street Blues"... you get the picture - the mafiosa picture, I mean :).