November 24, 2004

Curious George: Special Interest Web Sites. What are some websites that you look at that appeal to only specific groups of people or interests? Two that I check out regularly are here and here.

As you can see, they are not intended for a general audience, and only of interest to a specific type of nerd (me.) However, there are countless sites of the sort out there...what are your favorites?

posted by Zanshin 20 years ago
  • The always entertaining Giantess Zone
  • iheartnoise forum. and the TapeOp forums. If you don't know your Merzbow from your Masonna, or your Neve from your API, you probably wouldn't be attracted to them, respectively.
  • sorry, that should be TapeOp forum.... damn pesky real HTML formatting... I'm too used to [url] and [/url] of bbcode.
  • I like to keep up with the proMED-mail listserv. Here's the description: The global electronic reporting system for outbreaks of emerging infectious diseases & toxins, open to all sources. ProMED-mail, the Program for Monitoring Emerging Diseases, is a program of the International Society for Infectious Diseases. How cool is that? Totally cool, if you ask me.
  • housepig: Thank you. I DO know my Merzbow from Masonna (although I prefer Dead C and Gate). And thanks to you, I now know about iheartnoise.
  • Mandyman: I love that you find that cool. I am always interested in what others find interesting. I wonder if there is a term for that: Hobbyphile?
  • I subscribe to the Aztlan Maya studies' mailing list. Although I haven't really studied anything Maya-related in years, I like getting email addressed to "Listeros".
  • A relatively new interest, but one that's so friggin cool I think it's going to stick around for awhile: Wanna learn how to break dance? See the best of the best in action? Spend some time perusing the BBoyWorld Forums. I'm a beginner, so don't you all go thinking I'm cooler than I actually am. Got the 6-step and a freeze or two down, though.
  • Lambda the Ultimate is the goto blog for programming language nuts.
  • mandyman, that is f****** amazingly cool!!!!!!!! Just sent that link to about a dozen others who will be interested.
  • Planet GNOME for all of my aggregated *nix GUI environment love. Planet Python for all of my aggregated Python programming language love. PhysicsWeb for some of my physics news goodness and the occasional trip over to ArXiv (which I'm sure you've all heard of) for neat science papers straight from the source.
  • mandyman, that is extremely cool.
  • Zanshin--it's not so much a hobby as what I study in school, kinda. But I do dig it regardless. Darshon--It really gets interesting when new outbreaks arise (like SARS or avian flu) because you get to read about the inital case reports before the news picks up on them. For some reason I feel like Letterman doing the Oprah, Uma thing with Zanshin and Darshon instead.
  • Don't necessarily check each of these every day, but periodically check them: newsletter of The Toy Theatre at Fishmarket [this is a small quarterly newsletter geared to those interested in toy theatre] re board games re pharmaceuticals, medical terms, news interesting websites
  • MadMart. Francophones in da hizzle, reprazent!
  • A few that I go to are Malin Space Science Systems, Mars Express, and The Nine Planets. What can I say, I'm a planetary science kinda guy! (^_^)
  • Mandyman: Sorry, I didn't mean to suggest that your area of study is a hobby. What I meant, is that I've always had an interest in hearing about other peoples passions. I think that you can't really know a person until you find out that they are obsessed mycologists, or that they spend all there time reading physics journals, etc.
  • I'm a medieval studies geek, or was in grad school. Now I use it mostly as background in RPGs. Two of my favorite history resources are the Medieval Sourcebook at Fordham and the Labyrinth at Georgetown. For gamer geekiness, I lurk the Forge, which is all about indie RPGs (not D&D/White Wolf, which is all most people know).
  • Richer already posted my putative offering. So here's the SWIX Wax Wizard.
  • art dictionary Occasionally useful art encyclopedia Very useful art history resource And one I used to use a LOT for art teachers
  • Part of my daily surfing is always Satan's Laundromat (http://www.satanslaundromat.com/sl/), which is a special interest of a sort. More specialized is the site of real estate listings on Hydra (http://www.hydra-island.com/), which I visit either to formulate vague retirement plans, or to daydream about being Leonard Cohen's neighbour. Always good is a visit with Hoverboy, to check out the latest finds (http://www.hoverboy.com/).
  • Oops, sorry, egregious cut n' paste error. THIS one is for art teachers. My bad.
  • I'm a cataloging librarian. We listserv, drably, but with fervor. As a member of the public, and a Los Angeles resident, I love the celebrity snarkhavens. So it's any of the four or so "Bizarre Hatred of Random Celebrities" threads that originated at Salon's TableTalk, plus various spawn such as the fabulously popular & snarkful "Go fug yourself," and the iffy "Awful Plastic Surgery."