This is still in alpha so expect bugs, new features etc but it’s interesting. I love the name- it shows a bit of edginess as freebasing is a drugs term (not that I’m an expert!).
Put simply, it’s the web 2.0 Wikipedia. Using clever searching etc to enhance the user interface. I think Wikipedia is big enough to take competition and it might spur them on, although I love Wikipedia the interface is a little dull and searching is not great. Freebase uses its own API (Application Programming Interface) so users who are developers can create their own applications. This is what Facebook, Flickr etc (what is it with websites starting with the letter F?
So an interesting one to watch. What will Wikipedia do in reaction? (If any).
Link
Popularity: 11% [?]
Yes he also painted as well but of course he is better known for his lifestyle and poems. (From Wikipedia) Bukowski’s writing was heavily influenced by the geography and atmosphere of his home city of Los Angeles. He is often mentioned as an influence by contemporary authors, and his style is frequently imitated. A prolific author, Bukowski wrote thousands of poems, hundreds of short-stories, and six novels, eventually having more than fifty books in print. He is often remembered as “The Poet Laureate of Skid Row.”
The database holds 5,566 poem references by Bukowski and each result of the search shows you other poems or story references that appeared in the same magazine or year of publication. It’s an impressive pierce of work though it would be nice if some of the poems were there. Mind you google on Bukowski poems and you’ll find nearly a million results. For example. So if you’re into Bukowski, use this site to find references then hunt them down.
Popularity: 7% [?]
This is just a reminder that NaNoWriMo is back on again, growing year on year. I covered this last year in Portent so there’s not much to say except to mention the other stuff that is done by NaNoWriMo such as the encouragement of Young Writers- take a look at their programs.
Others have picked up their idea as well, well sort of- it’s much easier to read a novel in 30 days than write it- DefectiveYeti (Remember the Cliche rotation project) have done this with NaNoReMo 2007- where they’re reading Catch-22.
Popularity: 8% [?]
This is a bit different from the usual websites. It’s on one topic- about changing peoples minds and has over 2,200 pages on a wide variety of topics. Very nicely organised and laid out.
For instance some of it is about the brain, writing, NLP, theories. It’s difficult to sum up in one phrase except it is about changing minds. Changing someone’s opinion on something is a difficult thing to do. In my experience once someone has made their mind up about something or someone then moving them away from that opinion is a difficult, in fact near impossible thing to do.
Popularity: 8% [?]
Not many blogs get covered here but I liked this one, I did a bit about the Edwards in a history project so have always retained a soft spot for this period.
This accompanies a website by the same author, Alianore (a female historical scholar who lives in Germany) that looks in some depth into the times of Edward II. He is of course best known for allegedly suffering a rather gruesome death with a red hot poker but whether that is fact or fiction remains a mystery.
Popularity: 4% [?]
Combining the earlier themes of Star Trek and overlooked things, did you know just how many languages Wikipedia is being translated into?
This page has a list of them. It’s up to 252 which is very impressive though many only have a small number of articles. Curiously, there are more translations into Volapük than Esperanto. (Both are contrived languages but Esperanto is the more popular) and although there are only 2,030,000 articles in English in total, all articles add up to nearly 9 million with nearly 28 million pages.
However they are still awaiting articles in Herero (a Nigerian/Congo language) and Tokipona (a constructed language not dissimilar to GoodSpeak from Orwell’s 1984).
But the website linked to is the Klingon Encyclopaedia which started as another Wikipedia language but has shifted to a different url. This has 83 articles on it for a total of 1,314 pages. If you like Star Trek and can read Klingon (or even write it), I’m sure they’d welcome your help.
Popularity: 4% [?]
Anyone into sci fi will be aware of both these series (never mind Babylon 5, Deep Space 9 and others) and it’s fun in a way to compare the two main ones to see how they vary in technologies, size, number of planets, political systems etc.
This is an almost academical in its scope but much more interesting reading than most academic papers. It makes a point of sticking to the canonical (ie most representative) sources such as the film and TV series whereas some other sites might cite fan fiction or non main stream sources. The ST v SW debate has been ongoing in one shape or another (via Usenet to start with) for over 20 years and this site is a welcome addition.
Popularity: 6% [?]
There’s a simple premise behind wikirage- it shows which pages are being the most edited. This could be because it’s topical, i.e. breaking news or because the pages are being furiously edited and re-edited in some kind of dispute.
Wikipedia has now passed the two million english article mark which is a phenomenal achievement in six years. So I expect one or two tracking sites like this to appear as people create new ways to study this.
Popularity: 6% [?]
Wikipedia is tremendous though occasionally it gets a bit of a mauling because of errors, quality etc. It has now over 2 million english language articles and by any criteria has been wildly successful.
However the co-founder of Wikipedia, Larry Sanger decided that he wanted to go back to the roots and create a Wikipedia that was written purely by experts to guarantee the quality. According to Wikipedia (oh the irony!)
“The project aims to improve on the Wikipedia model by requiring all contributors to do so with their real names, by strictly moderating the project for unprofessional behaviours, and by providing what it calls “gentle expert oversight” of everyday contributors. A main feature of the project is its “approved articles”, which have each undergone a form of peer-review by credentialed topic-experts and are closed to real-time editing.”
In other words it’s closer to a traditional encyclopedia albeit online, possibly something like maybe Encarta. It has nearly 3,000 article since it launched in March 2007. More choice is a good thing!
Popularity: 6% [?]
Enid Blyton was a very popular author whose work attracted a bit of controversy in the 50s and 60s but despite that she is ranked as the 5th most prolific author worldwide- she wrote over 800 books at an average daily speed of 10,000 words. Her work has many fans today and of course she created Noddy who continues to this day. As a kid I read many of her books but I was still astonished to find out just how many she had written.
I wonder if some of the appeal is because her works harken back to the 50s which is perceived as better in some ways than now. Plus her books always had a moral background- the heroes and heroines did the right thing and baddies got their comeuppance.
This website sells her books but is more than that- it’s a kind of tribute by Keith Robinson (the owner) and several others around the world- see the About page. It’s nicely designed and any Enid Blyton fan will find lots here, including some fanfic.
Popularity: 6% [?]
30 Years ago, a Golden Record was created and put on The Voyager 1 and 2 Probes. These are now a very long way away from Earth- a shade under 10 billion miles which is a pretty long way.
The Voyager Golden Record is a phonograph record that contains sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth. It is intended for any intelligent extraterrestrial life form, or far future humans, that may find it.
On this website you can hear the music and view the 116 images. It’s not a very welcoming website but the content makes it of interest. You can find out more background information from Wikipedia.
Popularity: 8% [?]
As a Kid I used to love electronics- I had one of those kits with loads of resistors, capacitors and transistors etc. Sometimes the things I built actually worked! (Not always though). I was an avid reader of Everyday Electronics as Electronics Today.
This site is a comprehensive e-book about circuits in 17 chapters. It starts with basic electricity plus a chapter about Ohms law. Electrical safety isn’t neglected either. Having once had a little jolt of 240 V AC, I can testify to that. After that it gets onto into much more complex stuff. It’s at the level I’d guess of first or second year university electronics degree. E.G. Do you know the difference between Kirchoff’s Current Law and Voltage Law?
There is a lot here. Don’t be fooled by the 17 chapters - that’s just Volume I- DC. There are 6 volumes and Volume VI is possibly the most interest if you can’t be bothered learning all the theory- it’s on Experiments.
There is probably several books worth of material here - highly recommended.
Popularity: 4% [?]
The best description of this site is by its author Stephen Chrisomalis. It contains the International House of Logorrhea(an online dictionary of obscure and rare words), the Compendium of Lost Words (a compilation of ultra-rare forgotten words), and many other glossaries, word lists, essays, and other language and etymology resources.
This qualifies I think as a labour of love, not just for its 11 year old longevity- a year on the web is 9 human years but for all the effort put into compiling the word lists etc.
Link
Popularity: 5% [?]
If you like writing but don’t want to spend years writing novels etc, why not have a go at ficlets? A ficlet is a very short story, between 64 and 1024 characters long. It’s collaborative in that anyone else can add a prequel or sequel so you’ll probably never know where it starts or ends.
It’s an interesting idea and very popular judging by the number of stories which if the numbering is anything to go by is several thousands!
Popularity: 3% [?]
http://boingboing.net has been around well for over five years and is a delightful ‘New Stuff’ blog written by five journalists and writers. It is an outstanding site with a million readers a month, a Google PR of 8 and Alexa of 1136 but that doesn’t mean it can’t be matched or surpassed. It won’t be easy, we might fail but if we don’t try we’ll never know. There are something like 32 million websites in existence with new ones being launched every minute; the amount of new and interesting unfound stuff is comparable to the dark matter in the universe.
So if I were/am doing this how would I improve on BoingBoing? Here’s the plan.
- Get more than five writers for a wider perspective.
- Give everyone a revenue share.
- Commit writers to a minimum of three posts per week.
So are you interested? Can you write blog entries at least three times a week? More details here.
Popularity: 3% [?]