The big ol' list of links
Let's face it, you're only here for the links, so here they are, categorised in a moderately ordered fashion:
- Blogs
- Comic JK favourites
- Computing
- dilbert.com favourites
- Entertainment
- Geek Stuff
- Good News
- Internet Phenomena
- Meteorology
- News
- Pearls Before Swine favourites
- Photography
- Shameless Plugs
- Things I never remember
- Travel
- Words and stuff
- xkcd.com favourites
Blogs
Blogs I read / subscribe to / pretend to read in the hope that people think I'm intellectual
Southampton Vineyard Blog | Thoughts & opinion from the southampton vineyard team - the ramblings of those with too much time on their hands, and from some of those who have just enough time on their hands |
Left4Dead Blog | News from the developers of quite simply one of the best games, ever. |
BCS: Count Pixel | What's hot and what's not in the gaming world - opinions of someone old enough to remember Doom |
BCS: Unqualified Remarks | Examining the issues beyond and between the IT community - usually faintly amusing |
BBC - Ethical Man | Looking for new ways to be environmentally friendly and ethical in daily life |
Bad Science | Thoughts and opinions from Ben Goldacre - science journalist for the Guardian |
Stop The Traffik Blog | With updates on the latest in the fight against people trafficking |
Rob's Blog | Rob and I go waaaaay back |
Michael's blog | All-round amazing chap, doing amazing things in amazing places |
Kay Bowen | Explaining to the world how one goes from being a regular Bitterne shopper to triathlete extraordinaire |
Comic JK favourites
It's a bit like XKCD, but even geekier
Sampling Bias | Oh how I laughed |
Potential Difference | It's a bad joke, but it's well presented |
Turing test | Sometimes, you've gotta wonder |
Average number of seconds in a year | Does this look like biology? |
Deceased Pixel | I hear your pain |
Schrodinger's Cat | 2nd order differential equations vs kitty |
Computing
Places to buy, learn and neat bits of software
W3Schools | Learn how to write HTML, Javascript, SQL, XSL and many more internet technologies. In easy to learn steps and with a good reference for when you just can't quite remember what the function's called! |
Plusnet | They provide my ADSL, they're cheap, efficent and if you sign up using this link - they'll give me money! |
PC Buy It | Great prices (and a "no dead-pixel" guarantee) on Dell monitors |
Overclockers | Essential place for the modern computer gamer - selling top-notch gear at knock-down prices! |
Novatech | Great company to buy bits from - friendly, been around for years and generally good prices |
Crucial.com | Retailer of all sorts of memory - particularly useful as they have a system scanner to check what you might need |
dilbert.com favourites
My favourite Dilbert cartoons - kudos to Scott Adams for making the entire history of Dilbert available online.
Death by ppt | So, so true. |
Estimates | Without the benefit of context, I hate that! |
Get the customers involved | ...always a bad idea ;-) |
Why did you reject my travel expense claim? | Dilbert, I feel your pain. |
Invoice is double what you bid | I've seen this so many times in real life, it's scary |
Can I have an estimate for my project? | $3,583,729 |
Re-useable presentation | Genius! |
Director of Green | Reminds me of some people I've worked with/for in the past. |
Dual Monitors | Think I'll suggest this to the next person I see with two monitors |
I'd like 'architect' in my job title | Job titles do sometimes seem to be a bit like this |
Anti-management comic | This happened to a friend of mine. |
Drunken Lemurs | I make no comment about any workplaces prior or current |
All you did this quarter... | Been there, done that. |
I'm Tim, this is for Tom | This is written about my friend Tim, to whom this actually happened - he wrote to Scott Adams about it! |
Requirements are needed first | I've pretty much had exactly this discussion with someone |
Accounting trolls - random | That's the difficult thing about randomness |
Bah | Possibly my favourite ever Dilbert |
Token Ring | I've got quite close to telling people this before |
Telecommuting | Distractions sometimes have to take priority |
Rejected expenses | Almost exactly this has happened to me in the past |
Etch-a-sketch | Wish I could do this to some of the computer users I've had to support |
Monkey beards | I love working from home |
Fuh fuh fuh | Vital for recalling who said what in a meeting |
Arrogant in meetings | ...so? |
Whiny idiots pill | love it |
Testing the test script | Pretty sure I've seen that done before |
Work-life balance | Now renamed as we don't care about your life |
Meetings | Ok, so you've made your point 27 times now |
Can I have a quote by next week? | I've been on boths sides of this particular fence |
Your email made no sense | I'll act randomly |
Make sure you coordinate with... | All I hear is 'give up' |
It's a trap! | Can you fix my computer? |
Phone App | It makes a funny noise |
Employee Satisfaction is UP! | ...by firing all the smart people |
Magic button | I need one of these |
Dogbert's technology hospice | I love this idea! |
What if I add more people? | It'll be as pointless as this meeting |
Company Expenses | Why am I punished for your incompetence? |
Entertainment
Cartoons, games and random other bits to keep bored fingers entertained
xkcd.com | "A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language" - fluctuates between ones I don't understand to things that I nearly injure myself I'm laughing so hard. My favourite is #435 |
Sheppard Software | Great games - my favourites are the geography games - can you remember where all the countries in Europe are supposed to go!? |
Nexus War | An online - text based - computer game. Sounds weird, but it's great. |
Dilbert | A part of my daily browse, and (almost) always amusing - use this link to avoid all the junk that comes with the cartoon |
Portal: The Flash Version | A faithful 2D remake of the fantabulous 3D computer game. The cake is a lie |
Death Star Battles | Great little game - use gravity to shoot missiles in space |
Sodaplay Constructor | A really good fun little toy which allows you to make & play with wireframe models |
Tone Matrix | Brilliant little tune maker - just click a few boxes and make up some tunes! |
inudge | Like the Tone Matrix, only... more so. |
Pearls Before Swine | A bit like Peanuts for the modern era - often sarcastic, occasionally cringe-worthy, but the crocs from Zeeba-Zeeba-Eeta are always entertaining |
Geek Stuff
Links for the ubergeeks
nLite | Great utility for slipstreaming service packs / hotfixes / drivers into a Windows installation, and also for changing defaults / creating an unattended install. No more will you have to change from US English keyboard layout! |
LogMeIn | Fantastic remote control software - essential for helping out that distant relative with computer problems |
iamcal | This is the personal site of Cal Henderson, Flickr architect - and the man behind b3ta. |
IP Locator | Figure out where someone is, based on their IP address. |
NT Passwd | Fantastic password reset & registry editor boot CD - helpful if a machine's registry is too corrupt even for safe mode |
Clonezilla & System Rescue CD | Good for recovering data from damaged hard drives, or just migrating from one PC to another |
Good News
Christian resources and places of worship
Thornhill Vineyard | The other Vineyard church in Southampton - lovely folk, only meets twice a month - can't say fairer 'n that. |
Southampton Vineyard Church | My Church. If you want some LoudFunkyGospelLifeChanging stuff, then come along! |
Pray as you go | Daily podcast of meditative thoughts |
Biblegateway | Fantastic online bible resource - including many different translations |
Internet Phenomena
Those things on the internet that lots of people don't know about, but are just too good to miss!
The Internet Movie Database | I'm always amazed at how many people I meet don't know about this. Here you can look up any film or TV program, find out who was in it, and what else they've been in - great for when you're going "oh they were in...umm" |
Google Calculator | Type into Google any mathematical expression, including using complex numbers and constants (e.g. e ^ (i * pi)) and it'll give you the answer! It also converts between different sets of units (e.g. speed of light in furlongs per fortnight) |
Internet Archive - audio project | A huge collection of all kinds of audio - varying from people reading books to Grateful Dead concerts - and including "The Perfect Ending" somewhere in between |
The Internet Archive - Wayback Machine | You give it an an address, and it'll show you the samples it's taken of that website... in the past - be warned, very old versions of some websites are just terrifying at how cheesy they look |
Meteorology
The weather - lots of conflicting opinions... who knows which will be right?
Met Office | Theoretically the authority on UK forecasts, however I've found them to be wildly out in the past! |
Metcheck | I find this to be my most-viewed forecast, as it gives an amount of (likely) precipitation in mm, so you can tell if it's going to be a flood or a trickle |
BBC Weather | The Beeb's forecast is theoretically provided by the Met Office - but it doesn't always say the same thing... go figure! |
News
News websites I read / recommend.
The Register | Sarcastic, cynical and all about computers |
Slashdot | So geeky it makes The Register look mainstream |
BBC News | It's the BBC, they're the best, they're British and part of my daily (if not hourly) browse! |
Pearls Before Swine favourites
My favourite Pearls Before Swine cartoons. They're very hit and miss, but every so often... they really hit.
That's a Moray | I get these couple of lines of song stuck in my head every so often... |
French Dressing | *snigger* |
Nano has a bodysuit with this on | Sweet. In an odd sort of way. |
Goat baiting | Reminds me of my blog stats... |
Guard Duck - deals with parking problems | ...the hard way. |
Little Horse | nuff said |
Dog 'o abject despondency | I like how Rat's up-side is that it's easy on the frisbees |
Zebra corresponds with the lions | The lions respond with notable literary charm |
First ever guard duck cartoon | I like guard duck, he knows the right way to deal with noisy neighbours |
First ever Zeeba Zeeba cartoon | The start of one of the longest running battles in the natural world... sort of. |
Photography
Stuff relating to photographs / photography
Photobox | Great website for getting photos printed on to regular sized prints, and posters etc |
moo.com | Amazing company who print 'moo mini cards' and business cards, and a variety of other cool things - including getting your photos direct from flickr |
Flickr | fantastic photo sharing website - free for low-volume users |
DP Review | Camera reviews website - good for checking out the latest gadgets! |
fd's Flickr Toys | Great tools for playing with your photos on flickr |
Shameless Plugs
It's the old game of "if lots of people link to it, it'll improve the google page rank, so I'll link to things for my friends/relatives in the hope of giving them a tiny boost"
Andy Billington | Andy Billington's amazing music - go get his latest album, I think it's amazing |
2 bed holiday home in Southern Spain | A friend of mine is looking to rent out his holiday home in Spain |
Pamela Evans - author | My mum's website, providing all sorts of useful information about her Christian books and teaching resources. |
borngifted.com | A chic baby products company run by a former colleague of mine, by having a link to her site, it improves it's popularity on search engines! |
Angela Ward Brown Photography | Fantastic wedding photographer based in Hampshire, well worth a look - we're half tempted to have another wedding just for her! |
withdominic | customer / user experience design from an old friend |
Tricycle Tunes | Live laptop looping trio based in Southampton, UK - friends of mine and excellent, excellent music |
Amazing German-made clocks | My friend who's so good she's family makes the most beautiful clocks, with her best friend over in Germany |
Things I never remember
There are various things that I constantly forget, so I'm putting them in here - so next time I can't quite get the name off the tip of my tongue, I'll be able to look it up here...
Film: Primer | Weirdest film I've ever seen, hugely intelligent, brilliantly done and on a tiny budget. Well worth a watch, although you'll probably need to watch it twice...at least. |
Travel
All those things you need to have easy access to when thinking about travelling
LastMinute.com | Grab a last minute holiday! |
Google Currency Converter | Or just type into google "10USD in GBP", and marvel at the wonderfulness |
Google Time Zones | Just type in "what time is it in Tijuana" (or wherever) and Google will tell you |
Agoda | Great website for finding discount deals on hotels |
Words and stuff
Helpful references for lexical thingummajigging.
The wordsmyth's crossword solver | The best crossword solver on the 'net (that I've found!) |
Wordsmith Anagram Generator | Neat little anagram generator, very quick to produce thousands of alternatives |
Thesaurus.com | No it's not a dinosaur, it's a place where you can look up words that mean similar things |
Dictionary.com | An online dictionary, great for looking up words as long as you can spell (it does have some ability to correct your mistakes) |
xkcd.com favourites
My favourite xkcd cartoons
Radiation | Putting things in perspective |
Pwned | I love Counter-Strike |
Archimedes | Ok, not quite what he said - but close enough |
Movie one-liners | I love the tooltip |
Tech Support | Shibboleet |
Password Reuse | Why didn't I think of this!? |
Campfire | If only kids these days actually understood this stuff |
Devotion to Duty | I hope my sysadmin is this dedicated |
Snow Tracking | Although I'm not 100% sure the Higgs Boson would go in circles - as it doesn't have a charge... |
Dirty Harry | Yeah, I'd probably be a bit like this too |
Self Description | I wonder how many iterations they went through to produce this... |
Parenting | The mother of all selection bias |
Prudence | Narnia, as it would be to a h4X0r |
Academia vs Business | I knew (all too well) the punchline of this before I saw it |
Bag Check | Must... not... do... this... at... the... airport. |
Tech Support Cheat Sheet | Obviously I *do* magically know how all computer programs work, but I'm the exception that proves the rule. |
Can't Sleep | Programming Geekness |
Correlation | Statistics jokes - you gotta laugh |
I'm An Idiot | What's a doorbell? |
Actuarial | The ultimate troll killer |
Google Maps | Occasionally the instructions do get a bit odd |
Hyphen | Some friends of mine do this all the time now! |
Nerd Sniping | kaboom! |
Post Office Showdown | In my experience, you gotta watch the old lady in the corner with the uzi in her handbag. |
Exploits of a Mom | Little Bobby Tables |
Shopping Teams | Who to go / not go shopping with |
Resonance | I've worked with all sorts of leg-jigglers in my time |
Random Number | 4 |
e to the pi Minus pi | nearly 20 |
Cutting Edge | The cake is a lie! |
Purity | 'nuff said |