Wikipedia And The Death Of The Expert - "McLuhan prefigured the Internet era in a number of surprising ways. As he said in
a March 1969 Playboy interview: 'The computer thus holds out the promise of a technologically engendered state of universal understanding and unity, a state of absorption in the Logos that could knit mankind into one family and create a perpetuity of harmony and peace' ... Wikipedia, along with other crowd-sourced resources, is wreaking a certain amount of McLuhanesque havoc on conventional notions of 'authority', 'authorship', and even 'knowledge' ... Knowledge is growing more broadly and immediately participatory and collaborative by the moment."
posted by kliuless
on May 29, 2011 -
90 comments
Fortepan is a collection of 4973 found amateur photos sourced mainly in Budapest. Pick a year and browse - photos are organized in chronological order from 1900 to 1990, accessible via a slider. "Users are encouraged to use, copy, send to friends, clip or paste the photos, which are
free for they are not our property."
(via Szanalmas, sometimes nsfw)
posted by madamjujujive
on Aug 29, 2010 -
19 comments
London Lives 12 London archives – digitised, marked up and tagged – to "create a comprehensive electronic edition of primary sources on criminal justice and the provision of poor relief and medical care in eighteenth-century London".
The
Lives page is a good place to start browsing.
[related]
posted by unliteral
on Jun 8, 2010 -
8 comments
Classical Music at the European Archive. Free and legal lossless downloads of out-of-copyright recordings. Formats include WAV, FLAC, MP3 & Ogg.
posted by Gyan
on Mar 9, 2009 -
36 comments
Dave Chalmers has just launched
PhilPapers, a directory of nearly 200,000 online papers in philosophy. This is a jawdropping and amazing resource for philosophical research. For evidence of the scope of this project and the care that has been given to it, see the
taxonomy of philosophy that was developed for the site.
posted by painquale
on Jan 28, 2009 -
28 comments
International House of Logorrhea, at
The Phrontistry, a free online dictionary of weird and unusual words to help enhance your vocabulary. Generous language resources,
2 and 3 letter Scrabble words l
The Compass DeRose Guide to Emotion Words l all kinds of glossaries for
color terms,
wisdom,
love and attraction,
scientific instruments,
manias and obsessions,
feeding and eating,
carriages and chariots,
dance styles and all kinds of fun word stuff.
[more inside]
posted by nickyskye
on Jan 11, 2009 -
12 comments
TheDataWeb - a network of online data libraries on topics including census data, economic data, health data, income and unemployment data, population data, labor data, cancer data, crime and transportation data, family dynamics, vital statistics data
posted by Gyan
on Dec 26, 2007 -
10 comments
Writer's Links. Write better, or at the very least, more authentically, with this list of hundreds of resources for writers of all shades. For example, writing a jazz age screenplay? This guide to
1920's slang will be handy. Need help getting your procedural legal drama accurate? Try the
Jurisdictionary. Enjoy tormenting your readers? This list of
Tom Swifties will do the trick nicely.
[more inside]
posted by jonson
on Sep 9, 2007 -
14 comments
Because of booming economies in China, India and elsewhere the price of metals, such as copper and aluminum, have reached all time highs. Empty beer kegs for example can be sold for up to $27.
Washington DC is experiencing a crime wave of metal thieves who are stripping everything from lamp posts, gutters, catalytic converters and bleacher seats.
posted by stbalbach
on Jul 25, 2007 -
49 comments
Waymarking.com provides tools for you to catalog, mark and visit interesting and useful locations around the world. It's a fun site, packed with photographs, information and maps; a useful
resource and
tool for GeoCaching and
other interests. Among the
various categories included is
Oddball Museums: The
Glore Psychiatric Museum, Musee
Mechanique, The National
Plastics Museum with lots of great pics and links to
other sites, Museum of
Burlesque [nsfw], The Leavenworth
Nutcracker Museum, Orange
Show, wbur Museums of
Dirt,
Plumbing, Antiquated
Technology,
Lizzie Borden and more
oddities.
posted by nickyskye
on May 26, 2007 -
5 comments
Water footprint - "of an individual, business or nation is defined as the total volume of freshwater that is used to produce the goods and services consumed by the individual, business or nation"
posted by Gyan
on Jan 11, 2007 -
9 comments
Motion Mountain - "
The project aims to produce a simple, vivid and up-to-date introduction to modern physics, with emphasis on the fundamental ideas of motion. 'Simple' means that concepts are stressed more than formalism; 'vivid' means that the reader is continuously challenged; 'up-to-date' means that modern research and ideas about unification are included."
posted by Gyan
on Aug 17, 2006 -
4 comments
MoneyChimp - a "coherent, logical, useful and accessible financial education resource".
posted by daksya
on Jun 9, 2005 -
4 comments
Surgical Eyes - source of info about complications and their treatment from Lasik and other vision correction surgeries.
posted by Gyan
on Jan 31, 2005 -
35 comments
Thinking with Type The online companion to the book of the same name offers a nice little online primer on the finer points of typography, including my favourite new online game: Dumb Quotes. Remember kids: only
you can prevent poor kerning.
posted by Robot Johnny
on Jan 31, 2005 -
15 comments
The Skeptic's Dictionary is a wonderful resource for all sentient individuals: 'A Collection of Strange Beliefs, Amusing Deceptions, and Dangerous Delusions (and
how to think critically about them)'. It's where I send people when they start telling me nonsense.
It is also a jolly good read: try the entry for
natural, for example. And some entries, like the entry for
IQ and race, verge on the profound.
There is a print edition, but the extensive internal and external site linkage makes reading the collection online a particular joy. While The Skeptic's Dictionary has been referred to
before on MeFi, the link made the site out to be a cornucopia of Urban legend-style oddities, like
Snopes. Which I thought was a shame: not dissing Snopes, but the Skeptic's Dictionary delivers a firm grounding in critical thinking as well.
This post is dedicated to all of my relatives who chipped in to buy
shark cartilage tablets and several fifty-dollar pamphlets full of
testimonials after my father had been diagnosed with terminal cancer, and who probably still think the worse of me for not contributing to their folly.
posted by chrisgregory
on Feb 6, 2004 -
28 comments
Ozu Yasujiro.com: "This site is non-profit, based in England, and maintained as a shrine and resource dedicated to the late director."
posted by hama7
on Sep 3, 2003 -
9 comments
