interesting web sites only?

[justdrew]

a worthwhile thread perhaps?

anyway... I've got one...

http://atlasobscura.com/

for example...
Samothrace Sanctuary of the Great Gods
The small Greek island of Samothraki is easily overlooked in the allure of the surrounding Aegean Sea. Covering only 180 sq. km and accessible only by ferry, the ancient ruins here lie mostly undisturbed by tourists.

The modest ruins belie their Hellenic glory. The island is home to one of the highest mountains in the Aegean named Mt. Phengari, (translated as Moon Peak), a peak Homer claimed was the grandstand for Poseidon as he watched the beginning of the Trojan War.

The island is also home to a Pan-Hellenic temple complex located in the northeastern part of the island that has come to be called Samothrace Sanctuary of the Great Gods.

The Hieron of the Kabeirian Sanctum

[Elvis]

I can't think offhand of an especially worthy site to mention that people wouldn't already be familiar with, but thanks for the atlasobscura link---I've just been reading up on ancient history, including some of the places shown at atlasobscura. Looks like a great adjunct to my reading. Ruins like the ones at Samothraki fascinate me no end. I can see I'll spending some time on that site!

[justdrew]

I can't think offhand of an especially worthy site to mention that people wouldn't already be familiar with, but thanks for the atlasobscura link---I've just been reading up on ancient history, including some of the places shown at atlasobscura. Looks like a great adjunct to my reading. Ruins like the ones at Samothraki fascinate me no end. I can see I'll spending some time on that site!

it's not too deep but is fairly broad, just found it myself, and it didn't seem like a thread was needed for it, and how often do such website present themselves, that are interesting but not necessarily warranting a separate thread? Often enough I though and so maybe this will be a lasting repository of quality recreational browsing. but also for good detailed reference sites too I hope.

I notice atlasobscura doesn't seem to have an entry for this full scale Stonehenge replica near where I live...

http://columbiariverimages.com/Regions/Places/stonehenge.html

[Jeff]

Terrific site, justdrew.

Keeping with the atlas theme, I love exploring oceandots.com, an encyclopedia of islands of the world. The more remote, the better.

[barracuda]

For the various followers of the financial meltdown around here, this is a site I found out about yesterday, and it seems as if it may be "inter-sting".

http://theautomaticearth.blogspot.com/

Complexity is an important issue in our times because it "describes" the inevitability of certain processes occurring in systems. While we might discuss exactly what is bound to happen exactly when, the overall drive and direction are indisputable: systems, as they grow, increase their levels of complexity, until they no longer can. That is, until it’s their very complexity that inhibits further growth. Then a move towards decreased complexity, or increased simplicity, must begin, a move that can be extremely painful, since parts of the system become redundant and must die off.

This is very relevant to our economic situation today. Pandurangi provides a nice example: much of the stimulus packages the US and other governments have issued will never reach the intended goals; the complexity of our societies forces much of it into the hands of all the separate layers the societies are composed of (example: 159 different US government institutions are involved in processing Obama's new health care bill).

In the same vein, you might look at our debt conundrum through the "eyes of complexity". Increasingly complex debt instruments have increased debts (disguised as easy credit), whether they are personal, corporate or governmental, to such levels that they can no longer grow -we can't pay them off anymore without assuming additional debt-. And since we have built our entire financial and economic systems on credit -and hence debt-, there must follow a period of deleveraging. A warning sign should be that for every additional dollar put into the system, returns today are diminishing to the point that they threaten to become negative.

It's hard to see how this could not be extremely painful for most of us. Joseph Tainter's pivotal work is called the Collapse of Complex Societies for a reason. In nature, in physics, systems don't collapse gradually, or very rarely so; in 99% of cases, it's more like sticking a needle into a balloon.

[Alaya]

http://www.ubu.com/

[norton ash]

wow, ubu.com is terrific. thanks.

[Montag]

This guy hasn't update this site since May, I hope he hasn't retired it...

Critiques of Libertarianism Website
http://world.std.com/~mhuben/libindex.html

[Montag]

Newsmap
http://newsmap.jp/

[Hugh Manatee Wins]

http://www.antifascistencyclopedia.com/

[82_28]

I suppose lemonparty dot org is out. Some friend tricked me into that one the other day. NSFW and me even mentioning it is probably going to have me banned. But funny, if you can handle such things. It's the last thing you would think. Ugh. Sorry. Adults only!!!! But seriously, the humor is all in the shock and sometimes shock can be interesting, no? So you just have to see it if you want to know what is so "compelling" about it.

I will come up with a more useful one though in penance.

[82_28]

I gave everybody warning. I'm starting to feel bad that I posted that. It's just it was so new in my memory. Who doesn't share dumbass shit they find on the web? I hope I can survive this one. While it is funny, it is a bit shocking, though not in a bad way. It's just risque. I think that it's called "lemonparty" makes it even more funny and I don't quite know why.

OK off to find my good site I've had bookmarked for years.

[82_28]

Can't go wrong with Cliff Pickover's Reality Carnival. Always a good place to check once every two or three days.

http://sprott.physics.wisc.edu/pickover ... nival.html

[norton ash]

Lemonparty...urrrrrrrrrrrrk... kak. Not recommended. Unless live action clips that could be re-enactments of the Aristocrats joke sound good to you.

[82_28]

Lemonparty...urrrrrrrrrrrrk... kak. Not recommended. Unless live action clips that could be re-enactments of the Aristocrats joke sound good to you.

And to my credit, my oh my did I HATE that aristocrats joke movie. Disgusting. Offensive. I don't even care what "tradition" that joke may carry around with it. Made me want throw up.

My friend just made it sound like it was some new political movement and I checked it out. Again, sorry everybody.