What not to miss when visiting the internet

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Chuma
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What not to miss when visiting the internet

Post by Chuma »

Sometimes I encounter a site that I have never heard of before, but which turns out to be a vital part of the internet as we know it. More commonly, other people seem to have never heard of sites which to me are as familiar as really familiar stuff. People ask me, what is this whykipedia you speak of?
They never did teach us the geography of the internet in school, so I figure it's time for a lesson now. For me, in case there are any other important stuffs I've missed, and for all those poor sods who are new to the internet.
I'm not looking for sites which are just plain good, but rather those that are or should be common knowledge, either because people use them all the time, or because they have a huge influence on web culture and the world in general, or even just on history. The sort of sites you should have heard of, even if you don't use them.

A few suggestions I can come up with:

- google
- wikipedia
- facebook
- youtube
- twitter
- blogger
- flickr
- photobucket
- myspace
- craigslist
- ebay
- IMDB
- rapidshare
- pirate bay
- deviantart
- sourceforge
- w3c
- w3schools
- something awful
- 4chan
- last FM
- tvtropes
- softpedia
- yahoo
- onelook

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Grigor
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Re: What not to miss when visiting the internet

Post by Grigor »

- redtube

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Tropylium⁺
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Re: What not to miss when visiting the internet

Post by Tropylium⁺ »

- Internet Archive [archive of dead webpages, creative commons media, etc.]
- PayPal [helpful for paying for anything, if you don't like sharing credit card details with just anyone; eBay sister company]
- Amazon [sells books, music, etc.]
- Tineye (new kid on the block) [reverse Google Image Search]
- Slashdot (used to be important, anyway, not sure if it's anymore) [news on geeky stuff]
- Huffington Post [popular politics blog]
- Scienceblogs [self-evident]
- tumblr [trendy miniblogs]
And for the linguistically-minded…
- Acronym Finder [self-evident]
- Urban Dictionary [slang, etc]
- Language Log [popular academic/newsblog]
For that matter, some other specialized sites:
- arXiv [central mathematic papers repository]
- Discogs [discographies and sales of music, chiefly electronic]

…er, you know what? I'll just defer you to the latest atlas.

[edit] descriptions added by request
Last edited by Tropylium⁺ on Fri Dec 03, 2010 7:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Not actually new.

bulbaquil
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Re: What not to miss when visiting the internet

Post by bulbaquil »

Tropylium⁺ wrote: For that matter, some other specialized sites:
- arXiv
- Discogs
Never heard of those...
MI DRALAS, KHARULE MEVO STANI?!

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Re: What not to miss when visiting the internet

Post by Bristel »

-xkcd
-Instapundit
-Animeleague.net (if you are into anime, I suppose)
-megatokyo

seems like all I can think of are webcomics and anime today... more to come later, maybe.
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Yo te pongo en tu lugar...
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alice
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Re: What not to miss when visiting the internet

Post by alice »

Zompist's Markov generator wrote:it was labelled" orange marmalade," but that is unutterably hideous.

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rickardspaghetti
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Re: What not to miss when visiting the internet

Post by rickardspaghetti »

Τalskubilos wrote:- redtube
youporn
そうだ。死んでいる人も勃起することが出来る。
俺はその証だ。

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Viktor77
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Re: What not to miss when visiting the internet

Post by Viktor77 »

Failblog
Engrish
Falgwian and Falgwia!!

Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur.

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Re: What not to miss when visiting the internet

Post by Risla »

Cracked.com.

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Tropylium⁺
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Re: What not to miss when visiting the internet

Post by Tropylium⁺ »

bulbaquil wrote:
Tropylium⁺ wrote: For that matter, some other specialized sites:
- arXiv
- Discogs
Never heard of those...
arXiv is where math happens. Discogs is where electronic music (sales etc.) happens.
Bristel wrote:-xkcd
-Instapundit
-Animeleague.net (if you are into anime, I suppose)
-megatokyo

seems like all I can think of are webcomics and anime today... more to come later, maybe.
If we're doing webcomics, Penny Arcade needs a spot at least. For general purposes I recommend Comixtalk, Comixpedia, and The Webcomic List.
Not actually new.

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finlay
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Re: What not to miss when visiting the internet

Post by finlay »

What about news outlets? You've got the BBC, CNN, The Onion...

And for the comedy, you can always go to the Daily Mail or Fox News.

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makvas
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Re: What not to miss when visiting the internet

Post by makvas »

BoingBoing!

- discogs
Oh cool, my favorite album is on their "top 100 albums of the decade" list (number 99, heh)

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baraka
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Re: What not to miss when visiting the internet

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Xephyr
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Re: What not to miss when visiting the internet

Post by Xephyr »

Answers In Genesis
"It will not come by waiting for it. It will not be said, 'Here it is,' or 'There it is.' Rather, the Kingdom of the Father is spread out upon the earth, and men do not see it."
The Gospel of Thomas

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Viktor77
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Re: What not to miss when visiting the internet

Post by Viktor77 »

finlay wrote:What about news outlets? You've got the BBC, CNN, The Onion...

And for the comedy, you can always go to the Daily Mail or Fox News.
I lol'd.
Falgwian and Falgwia!!

Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur.

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finlay
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Re: What not to miss when visiting the internet

Post by finlay »

God Hates Fags

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Re: What not to miss when visiting the internet

Post by Viktor77 »

No one's mentioned MSN yet. Haha MSN fails at publicity.
Falgwian and Falgwia!!

Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur.

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Re: What not to miss when visiting the internet

Post by Jipí »

MSN? Pfft.

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Qwynegold
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Re: What not to miss when visiting the internet

Post by Qwynegold »

Gah, you need to write what those things are, I don't even know half of them.
Image
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Eurovision Song Contest 2018

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Re: What not to miss when visiting the internet

Post by Kopachris »

Encyclopedia Dramatica and Uncyclopedia
丸書いて地球
僕ヘタリア

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finlay
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Re: What not to miss when visiting the internet

Post by finlay »

Qwynegold wrote:Gah, you need to write what those things are, I don't even know half of them.
Google is a good place to look things up.
Wikipedia is a good place to look things up.
Facebook is a tool for interacting with your friends.
Youtube is a site where you can watch videos.
etc

The first two are relevant. Or just go to the websites themselves and play around, it is the internet after all

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Re: What not to miss when visiting the internet

Post by Jipí »

Twitter – is like publishing text messages to the public
Blogger – allows sharing your rants in a free blog
Flickr – allows you to share photos
Photobucket – also allows you to share photos
Myspace – is ... wait, isn't that SO early 2000's?
Craigslist – idk
Ebay – is where you can auction stuff. Like on a garage sale.
IMDB – is where you can find information on films
Rapidshare – is a file hoster.
Pirate bay – is a search engine for not necessarily legal copies of media
Deviantart – is where 14 year-old weeaboos share their scribbles
Sourceforge – is a huge site for Open Source developers, and also a source of Open Source software
W3C – is where you can look up web standard definitions like HTML, CSS, ...
W3Schools – idk
Something Awful – idk
4chan – is anarchy
Last.FM – recommends you music based on your listening habits
TVTropes – is an encyclopedia of tropes – addictive.
Softpedia – is a catalogue of free software for Windows and Mac
Yahoo – is this still alive?!
Onelook – idk

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Re: What not to miss when visiting the internet

Post by Bedelato »

I'm actually kinda proud to admit that TV Tropes has ruined my life.

-GameFAQS: A database of video game cheats and walkthroughs and schtuffz. The message boards here have a dark side, though, and once you've seen it, there's no going back :(
At, casteda dus des ometh coisen at tusta o diédem thum čisbugan. Ai, thiosa če sane búem mos sil, ne?
Also, I broke all your metal ropes and used them to feed the cheeseburgers. Yes, today just keeps getting better, doesn't it?

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finlay
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Re: What not to miss when visiting the internet

Post by finlay »

Guitarplayer wrote:Twitter – is like publishing text messages to the public
Blogger – allows sharing your rants in a free blog
Flickr – allows you to share photos
Photobucket – also allows you to share photos
Myspace – is ... wait, isn't that SO early 2000's?
Craigslist – idk
Ebay – is where you can auction stuff. Like on a garage sale.
IMDB – is where you can find information on films
Rapidshare – is a file hoster.
Pirate bay – is a search engine for not necessarily legal copies of media
Deviantart – is where 14 year-old weeaboos share their scribbles
Sourceforge – is a huge site for Open Source developers, and also a source of Open Source software
W3C – is where you can look up web standard definitions like HTML, CSS, ...
W3Schools – idk
Something Awful – idk
4chan – is anarchy
Last.FM – recommends you music based on your listening habits
TVTropes – is an encyclopedia of tropes – addictive.
Softpedia – is a catalogue of free software for Windows and Mac
Yahoo – is this still alive?!
Onelook – idk
Next time I'll tell him to just fucking google it, gentle sarcasm doesn't seem to work too well. I wasn't actually intending on describing all of them.

At the same time I can continue it...
Erm, Craigslist is a thing where you put listings of things you want to sell or get rid of but is also used to solicit for sex. A lot. It has a rather seedy reputation.
Something Awful is like a predecessor to 4chan, sort of. The actual site is bigger and doesn't allow porn, and has a news section and various photoshop challenges and stuff like that, and the forum requires a fee to join, theoretically increasing the quality of their membership, because only stupid people would pay for membership and then get themselves banned. Also nobody on either site really likes the fact that 4chan's original memberbase came from SA.

redtube is a porn version of youtube, as is youporn (well, duh).

xkcd and megatokyo are webcomics

xenu is an anti scientology site

failblog is what passes for humour these days
engrish is bad translation humour

cracked is another humour site that specialises in list articles on weird shit

The BBC and CNN are major news networks in the UK and the US
The Onion is a satirical news site and should probably come with a warning. It's commonly cited as true by..
Fox News, which should be a joke, but isn't. :(
The Daily Mail's comment section (and articles) is enough to induce despair in the state of humanity in even the most sickeningly optimistic of people.

Boing Boing... I dunno really, but it's like a blog that's very big and has to be run like a newspaper with editors and everything. Cory Doctorow is famous and writes for it.

Reddit is something to do with web 2 and recommending sites. Or something.

Answers in genesis sounds like an obnoxious christian website, and if not, a parody of one.

God Hates Fags is Fred Phelps and his cuntjobs, and we dearly wish that it's a parody.

MSN is Microsoft's website/IM service.

Uncyclopedia is a parody of Wikipedia
Encyclopedia Dramatica is an obnoxious parody of Wikipedia written by 4channers, and has rather a lot of porn and gore.

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Radius Solis
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Re: What not to miss when visiting the internet

Post by Radius Solis »

Chuma wrote:geography of the internet
Erm. The social geography of the internet has been laid out much more systematically and with superior visual appeal: http://xkcd.com/802_large

But it is measuring human interaction via the internet, not just "sites".

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