What's Your Site Rotation?

joeljkp asks: "Nearly everyone has a news rotation — that list of sites you visit each day to catch up on the latest in whatever you're into, be it foreign affairs or knitting. I usually do the rounds at BBC News, The New York Times, and a couple local papers. What have you found that keeps you informed and entertained every day?"

Comments

Mine

[Anonymous Coward]

In this order:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/ http://www.eveningstar.co.uk/ (My local paper)

Re:Mine

[Anonymous Coward]

User Friendly stopped being worth reading about 9 years ago. There, I just saved about a third of your time.

Re:Mine

[caramelcarrot]

Slashdot, Facebook and the Something Awful forums. Everything else will just branch from there. Maybe BBC news or some other sites (like XKCD or perry bible fellowship) if there's absolutely nothing of interest on those.

Re:Mine

[plover]

OK, thank you VERY MUCH for that link to Questionable Content. I've been reading his strips for hours and hours now, and he's got a lot more.

Slashdot followed by...

[aicrules]

Mirrordot.org...then back to Slashdot...and so on...sometimes I'll view the google cache version of Slashdot and pretend like I found a bunch of dupe stories which makes me feel better about myself.

Re:Slashdot followed by...

[Phreakiture]

• User Friendly
• Cryptome
• RISKS Digest
• Stupid Security
• This Is Broken
• Popular Wireless
• Tribe
• Slashdot main page
• Ask Slashdot
• Worse Than Failure (formerly known as the Daily WTF)
• Fantasyland

Of these entries, RISKS, Cryptome, Slashdot, Ask Slashdot, Worse Than Failure, and the Sidebar WTF section of Worse than Failure are all also subscribed in my RSS feed reader, along with BBC News, the Public Daily Brief and some select search terms in Google News.

Just normal stuff

[eln]

Yahoo, CNN, various newspapers from places I live or have lived in the past few years, clown porn sites, ESPN, xkcd and Penny Arcade (MWF). Pretty standard stuff, really.

Re:Just normal stuff

[Elad Alon]

You said Penny-Arcade twice.

Re:Just normal stuff

[kv9]

it's not clown pr0n all the time.

Re:Just normal stuff

[Redlazer]

Well, i use the Google Personalized homepage, so i tend to check everything several times a day.

I usually check Slashdot, Ars Technica, Nintendo Wii Fanboy, Penny Arcade, Ctrl+Alt+Del, and VG Cats.

-Red

I stick with the aggrigators

[Marxist Hacker 42]

The more entertaining, the better. Slashdot, Technocrat, and The Register get visited daily. In addition to this, I also go for TV shows that are basically aggregators-for-entertainment: Lou Dobbs Tonight & This Week, The Daily Show with John Stewart, and The Colbert Report. I especially like commentators who disagree with me on economics- that way I get the "liberal free market" point of view as well.

Newspapers are best only for local news. For that, I mainly depend on The Oregonian, Washington County Weekly, and due to being a public employee, I find The Oregon State Library EClips News Aggregator Inbox Service to be invaluable (there's some duplication there since The Oregonian is one of the newspapers covered by my 9am EClips e-mail, but it gives me access to the web sites of newspapers elsewhere in the state- though I've noticed it's mainly Willamette Valley voices. In response to making me think about this I think I'll fire off an e-mail to the EClips manager about covering Eastern Oregon newspapers more).

Re:I stick with the aggrigators

[Marxist Hacker 42]

The manager from the State Library wrote back with this explaination:
Hello Ted,

Thank you for your email. No, you aren't obtuse in the slightest. We do not use any Eastern Oregon newspaper sources for our eClips product. We review 3 valley titles (Oregonian, Salem Statesman-Journal, Eugene Register-Guard), and one from Southern Oregon....the Medford Mail-Tribune.

Why don't we use content from Eastern Oregon? Here's the reason. The content from the larger Eastern Oregon sources like the Bend Bulletin or the East Oregonian (Pendleton)) requires a subscription. That is, the content is not readily available by clicking a link contained in our eClips alerts. The East Oregonian allows access to their front page however, when you attempt to access a story in full you are prompted with subscription information to the paper. Along with your paper subscription, you are granted full web access. The Bend paper selectively allows access to *some* stories and requires viewers to subscribe to their "e-edition" for access to the remainder of their stories. The other Eastern Oregon news outlets are pretty sparse with respect to regularly containing stories of interest.

Hopefully, we do not ignore stories from east of the Cascades if they are picked up in the newspapers that we do review which allow more complete access. So, I do apologize that eClips is lacking in Eastern Oregon coverage. We would like to address this if we can identify an "open" news content source from that part of Oregon.

There is good news, however. We do have a database, America's Newspapers, where I can set-up a customized "current awareness news alert" on any topic (or source/sources) you would choose. These sources can include Eastern Oregon sources.

This database contains content from 800+ newspapers, including 11 Oregon titles. These alerts can be customized to include any individual paper, group of papers, or all papers.

Below I'll list the 11 Oregon titles.

America's Newspapers:

http://library.state.or.us/databases/subjects/subj ect.php?SID=28

You can also access this database at any time and simply browse the East Oregon sources. Please let me know if this is something you would be interested in.

Thank you for your e-mail and please let me know if I may be of additional service.

Regards,

Jerry Curry

Not necessarily in order...

[ranga_the_don]

http://slashdot.org/ for obvious reasons ;)
http://engadget.com/ for all latest gadget news
http://gizmodo.com/ for all latest gadget news again
http://wired.com/ for amazing stuff happening lately
http://thinkgeek.com/ for all the geek toys released newly
http://sourceforge.net/ for the best open source project statuses

Re:Not necessarily in order...

[orangesquid]

I used to check out http://freshmeat.net/ almost daily, but that was when I was only a few years into Linux and still on an endless search for software that did different things, and at the time it seemed simpler to just wait and see what came up on fm every day (you could easily tell how active things were that way, too). Speaking of fm---does anyone have a copy of that old butchered-meat logo fm used to have, waaaay back, before the beginning of the fm II theme?

About weekly, I'll check out http://amasci.com/ (amateur science and electricity stuff), http://en.wikipedia.org/ (duh), http://www.cray-cyber.org/ (free supercomputer access), http://www.hpcalc.org/ (HP48/49/etc calculator stuff), etc., to check for new stuff. I'll check my http://facebook.com/ and http://myspace.com/orangesquid (shuddup) messages about weekly. From time to time I might browse http://www.amazing1.com/ (catalog which has Tesla coils and stuff, though they're not actually the best place for parts/kits/devices) or search for scientific equipment or old unix systems on http://www.ebay.com/ (see the Used SGI Buying Guide FAQ, etc).

I also check up on some of my friends via http://os.livejournal.com/friends every few days.

Lately I've been choosing a new section on http://scitoys.com/ to read every few days. Every few weeks, I'll usually find a different information-type site to read through gradually, or pick a topic to research on wikipedia.

Re:Not necessarily in order...

[Anonymous Coward]

I visit many of the same sites that you do. Freshmeat is essential for keeping up with the OSS community. As a professional programmer, I also need to know what's new when it comes to Python, Ruby and Mono, since those are the languages or platforms I use most often. Sites like the Ruby Forum [http://www.ruby-forum.com/], Planet Python [http://planet.python.org/], and Monologue [http://www.go-mono.com/monologue/] make doing that very easy. And for future language developments, I'm always sure to read Lambda the Ultimate [http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/] and PLnews [http://plnews.org/]. And the comp.lang.misc newsgroup [http://groups.google.co.uk/group/comp.lang.misc/] is also a good place for information, too.

Common list I'm sure...

[Anonymous Coward]

Fark.com /. Fark.com again. Porn. More Fark...

Re:Common list I'm sure...

[Elad Alon]

Me, I don't visit fark.com.

BBC News, New York Times

[stratjakt]

Al Jazeera, slashdot, anything published in france or germany.

Basically anything that has an obvious anti-US bias. I can't grep information from any source that doesn't reinforce my black and white world view.

Re:BBC News, New York Times

[Anonymous Coward]

I scan through news items for names, then use Google Image Search to decide whether they are good people. On the men, I look for Western business attire, height, and white skin. On the women, I look for big smiles, sexy outfits, fake boobs, and any other evidence of proper catering to men's desires. Then I can read and understand the news articles, knowing which people are good and which people are bad. Journalists get that stuff wrong all the time.

Well...

[frakir]

My sites rotate full rotation in about 24 hours with respect to the Sun, depending slightly on the season. Average rotation with respect to far star background is 23 h 56 m 4.091 s.

Re:Well...

[ReverendLoki]

My sites rotate full rotation in about 24 hours with respect to the Sun, depending slightly on the season. Average rotation with respect to far star background is 23 h 56 m 4.091 s.

The Progression and Evolution of a Smart-Ass Reply:

First Iteration: "Well, you obviously haven't heard of my Mars-based colo startup..."

Second Iteration, after considering the original statement a bit more: "Actually, with respect to the sun, your normal sites only proceed through approximately 1/365 of a rotation. With respect to Earth's access, however, a full rotation in about 24 hours is about right."

What we learned from this: Well, I'd say that accurate facts do not necessarily increase the humor of a premise, but admittedly this one wasn't very funny to begin with.*

* By this one, I meant the first iteration of the reply, not the parent post. Of course, this clarification can be viewed as further justification of the previously stated theory.

Re:Well...

[pipatron]

a full rotation in about 24 hours is about right

Dear Sir/Madam Smart-Ass. I'm sorry to inform you, but you are being redundant in this sentence. Please improve.

Smart-Ass, Sr.

Well first off

[Anonymous Coward]

I start off with a little softcore lesbian action then on to an ethnic group(I rotate asian latina and black just to keep things fresh), and end with some amatuer stuff. Gotta keep things fresh, ya know?

World of Warcraft

[KevMar]

forums.worldofwarcraft.com
www.badanatomy.com - guild website
slashdot.org

wait 10 min and do it again

No Rotation

[Cap'nPedro]

I don't have a rotation, instead I have RSS feeds on my Google personalized homepage. Apart from that, I just have a bookmark that opens all my current favorite comics in new tabs.

My list (short, thanks to RSS)

[pen]

My list is pretty short, thanks to RSS. Google Reader filled up with all my 216 feeds, including Slashdot. (I don't read all 216.) Bloglines is also pretty good. Google News with saved searches for all my favorite topics. Not Easy for semi-random news. This sometimes helps me catch news I'd otherwise miss. Reddit for social news with much higher SNR and nicer design than Digg. For entertainment: QDB.us / random for IRC quotes. lingua.phobo.us (plug for a friend's 'zine :) Dear Abby for the occasional fucked up story. And a bunch of comics: Achewood, xkcd, Dilbert...

SOTT

[Devar]

http://www.signs-of-the-times.org/

Extreme(s) Sourcing

[El Torico]

I like to balance Pacifica and Fox News. One day, they may have a viewpoint or opinion in common, and I want to see that. Just kidding, I know better than that. Seriously, I use the BBC, Reuters, and Google News for general news sources and the Economist for "gravitas".

Re:Extreme(s) Sourcing

[VJ42]

You laugh, but I actually do like to visit Fox News, Al Jazeera and other sites that challenge my opinion, just to get some balance. If I spent all day at slashdot, with the occasional detour to the BBC, and other news sites that I agree with, or at least don't stray far from the centre ground (i.e. Places like the Telegraph and the Guardian (yes, I'm english)) my world view would become incredibly biased. Instead, I like to give myself some perspective by reading opinions that challenge my own in the extreme.

Re:Extreme(s) Sourcing

[El Torico]

Honestly, I did try Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya as well as Fox News, but I just couldn't stomach the ridiculous levels of pandering that those sources exhibit, which is why I can't take CNN seriously either. I try to read El Pais or ABC when in Spain, but my Spanish is not what it should be. Aside from the BBC's constant nagging about Africa and their obvious guilt about being English, I know I can get a measured (if not unbiased) view of the world.

I read the Economist and the Atlantic; they both show opposite sides of the coin without being smug or petulant.

Mostly /., but unfettered EM as well

[Roadkills-R-Us]

/., dilbert & userfriendly. I get the rest of the news from the radio during drive time. The net isn't iedal for while I'm driving...

Myspace to keep up with about 50 teenagers, and ax84.com for tube amps.

That translates into way too much time on the net each week, but oh well.

MyPortal

[atamyrat]

I use MyPortal - nice Firefox add-on.

My bookmarks toolbar folder in Firefox

[Anonymous Coward]

I usually start with an "open all in tabs" every day, and it includes Gmail, Google News, Slashdot, a few blogs, a Wiki I maintain, Sluggy, Penny Arcade, and Techbargains/Woot.

Tech/Music

[justinmikehunt]

Slashdot, Blabbermouth.Net, various pages across IGN. Mixed in with email, myspace for both myself and my band, check if there's any moderating to do on my band's message boards. All that about 40 times a day. Well IGN not so much. Maybe twice a day. Then when I get bored, there's some other sites I go to. screamscape.com for theme park/roller coaster news. Comingsoon.net for Movies.

List

[Anonymous Coward]

I have multiple that load in tabs when I click a button on my toolbar:

• SlashDot's Firehose
• Reuters AlertNet
• A 10 minute delayed AP wire page (or if I'm at the TV station, I just check the live wire)
• Google News
• Topix
• CNN affiliate newsfeed website
• BBC News
• Local college's news page
• Local news website run by a local
• (2x) Regional newspaper page
• Drudge Report

Mine

[trogdor8667]

www.slashdot.org
www.userfriendly.org
www.macrumors.com

Blogs

[zero1101]

Mostly blogs and mailing lists. I am in security, so I try to keep up with the latest and greatest. I have my Google homepage set up with a "Security" tab that contains the RSS feeds from:
Matasano Chargen
SecurityBuddha.com
MSRC Blog
Sunbelt Blog
Securiteam Blog
F-Secure blog
SecurityFocus news
Arbor Networks blog
Websense blog
Milw0rm.com exploit feed

There are some on here that are due to be removed, and some others I'd like to add. I also read mailing lists Bugtraq, Full Disclosure, DailyDave, and Funsec among others.

As an aside, the Google customized homepage has a feature where, when you add a new tab, you can have it auto-populate with content related to the name of the tab. For example, if I create a new tab called "Linux", it populates it with:
Slashdot:Linux
LinuxInsider
LXer Linux News
DistroWatch news
LinuxQuestions.org ...etc

The Onion

[IvanTheNotSoBad]

I can't believe people are leaving out the onion. Definitely better than CNN or Fox!

Anyways....My true list:
The Economist
The New York Times
Ars Technica
The Onion

rotation

[Edward Kmett]

http://slashdot.org/
http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/
http://planet.haskell.org/
then I usually head back to slashdot and start all over again, grumbling about the lack of new posts before I give up and read from the firehose and rinse, wash, repeat.

Uhh, it's called RSS

[jdawg]

that list of sites you visit each day to catch up

Who visits a list of sites each day anymore? That's the whole point of RSS. Subscribe to lots of stuff, and then skim the headlines for interesting articles, just like a [printed] newspaper.

Re:Uhh, it's called RSS

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

I tried RSS back when it was new. I gave up within 48 hours, because it simply isn't structured enough to track busy sites like Slashdot efficiently. I can just as easily glance at half a dozen home pages (if that) when I'm browsing, each of them set to display the stories I actually care about.

Nothing special

[pembo13]

Slashdot.org -> Wii.Ign.com -> CNN.com

shameless plug

[napdawger42]

For my Firefox extension, Morning Coffee. It helps you organize those daily sites so the ones that update sporadically can be viewed at the right intervals. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/267 7

Hmmm...

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot
PSO World
Sega Boards
Reddit
GameFAQs
The onion, Pitchfork, News of the Weird, etc all figure in when I remember to check, usually once a week or so.

I read slashdot first mostly out of a near-decade of habit (I think I started in 1998... before there were real user accounts anyway). Usually I see everything a few days ahead on Reddit.

easy

[alphamugwump]

Slashdot -> Arstechnica -> Happypenguin -> warren25smash -> Ian Crossland.

Very little slips past both Slashdot and Ars, although Slashdot is more concise, and avoids the bias of ars. But Ars has more in-depth articles. Happypenguin, to see if my games have been updated, warren for "political commentary". Warren is as biased as hell, but he's fairly rational, and tends to cover the most important stuff. Then, I round things out with a bit of crossmack, just because it feels good.

Mine

[linvir]

Informed

• BBC news
• Slashdot
• Distrowatch
• Linux.com
• Newsforge
• El Tiempo

Entertained

• SA
• Digg
• Degenerate Cesspool
• CTRL+ALT+DEL
• questionablecontent.net
• halturnershow.com

Contrary to current trends, the only site out of all of those in which I participate regularly is Slashdot. I don't even have accounts on any of the other forums. Some I only really visit because it's an old habit, notably the two webcomics and eltiempo.com. And yes, Digg is firmly in the 'entertainment' column, for its AWESOME PICTURES! and INCREDIBLY ADDICTIVE NEW FLASH GAMES OH EM GEE!

How many spins can you sit through

[Anonymous Coward]

Every morning just to wake me up out of my daze i go to http://www.meatspin.com/, count your spins and see how long it takes you to get to your real news site every morning. Great way to judge if you should be operating any heavy equipment too.

Same as everyone else

[Noexit]

CNN.com (although they're getting so poor that I don't rely on it, it's just a traditional start page for me), Yahoo for personalized news picks, Fark, Slashdot, Weather Underground, and then WorldNews (wn.com) for more international stuff. GameKnot for chess. Those are the only websites I need anymore.

regular rotation

[msblack]

the e-mail servers I administer
my personal WebMail
news.google.com
www.latimes.com
www.bloomberg.com (Oil and Treasuries) Does anyone else invest?
www.fidelity.com (check my portfolio)
www.treasurydirect.gov/RI/OFBills (Auction results)
www.nytimes.com
www.slashdot.org
mail.yahoo.com (check on spam)
gmail.com (more spam)

Re:regular rotation

[jfengel]

Does anyone else invest?

I do, but not on a daily-basis sort of way. In a perfect world I start using a product/service before it becomes news, though that happens far less today than during the dotcom boom. I'm playing with a small enough amount of money that if I traded frequently the fees would eat up my profits.

I suppose if I were to use margin leverage I could have enough money to make it worthwhile, but I'm just not that brave these days. Back during the bubble, when they were giving out money in bags, it was different, but I had twice as much money at the time (and twice as much money as I had after the bust took much of it).

I'll admit that I bring up my portfolio several times a day if I'm bored AND the market is having an up day. I've discovered that checking my portfolio just makes me cranky if I'm losing money. This despite the fact that I'm not going to trade any of it, up or down: it's just a nice feeling to find, "Hey, they gave me $148 today just for sitting on my ass."

I use finance.yahoo.com to track the portfolio. I could use my broker (e*trade) but I like yahoo's layout better and its login process is less harsh (because there's no actual money attached to the account.)

The same everyday

[xMonkey]

Slashdot.org
Digg.com
Gamasutra.com
Cnn.com
Foxnews.com
Bbc.co.uk

Re:The same everyday

[mistert2]

I noticed most people go to CNN before Fox News. First I am surprised that people go to both. Second I am surprised that it is always CNN first. Would it be alphabetical?

Re:The same everyday

[dtfinch]

Parodies tend to not make sense if you haven't seen the original yet.

Just a few

[Deagol]

My daily fix is usually this (not necessarily in order):
slashdot.org -- for the tech stuff
plastic.com -- for more intelligent discourse of current events
kuro5hin.org -- for when I'm too tired to think
freshmeat.net -- to keep up w/ new releases

I hit the occasional online comic once in a while (too lazy to add URLs): Sinfest, Order of the Stick, & Penny Arcade.

Google is the launching point for 95% of my other online time, helping me find pages on stuff I'm researching.

My rotation (so original..not)

[Vexor]

I usually hit up my email then Slashdot, usually followed by CNET, then it's on to Gamespot, 1Up, The Escapist, BBC, CNN, and lastly a quick stop at PennyArcade to check for the latest laugh. These tend to occupy a full 8 hours if I read through the user comments and make some posts (like this one!). Small Disclaimer: You may wonder what I do for a living but I work for a small company who's business tends to fluctuate quite heavily which may or may not provide me with a insane amount of free time at work. NJT

Gmail

[MikeTheMan]

Ooh, I wonder if I got any email.

Damn, no email.

Oh, I wonder if I got any email...

Re:Gmail

[Anne_Nonymous]

Go check your hotmail account. You got plenty of email there for sure.

Re:Gmail

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, if you had yahoo, you could get the Yahoo Mail Add-on for firefox. There's probably also - Oh lookee! I got another email! Gotta go respond! - one for Gmai - Ooh! Three new messages! - where was I? Oh, gmail! Yeah, there's probably one for gmail somewhere, too. It's really useful. Now I don't spend all - I have 1 new message! - day clicking the "Check Now" button. I let the - New mail! New Mail! - computer do it for me!

Slashdot, Gmail, Technocrat, CW, Unalog, K5, Pl...

[LionKimbro]

I visit the following: Slashdot, Gmail, Technocrat, CommunityWiki, Unalog, Kuro5hin, Planet GNOME, Planet Inkscape, Planet RDF, and Planet HCI.

Depleting those, ...
Planet KDE, WorldChanging, Citizendium:RC, Del.icio.us, Digg, and

YouTube.

Free time?

[Adeptus_Luminati]

So the obvious question becomes: What exactly do you do with the remaining 3 seconds of your daily free time?

Hmmm. Mine is rather boring. :-)

[Richard Steiner]

Slashdot
Groklaw
Linux Today
OSNews
Yahoo News
Google News

Just the basic normals...

[Bobfrankly1]

I stick to the basic normals:
http://slashdot.org/
http://www.ign.com/
http://howtodealwithmyherpesaddiction.com/
http://slashdotusersanonymous.org/
http://yourstupidifyoubelievethesearerealwebsites. net/

You know, just the basics...

Re:Just the basic normals...

[cyrl]

You forgot http://www.iKnowTheseAreFakeDomainNamesButImGoingT oClickOnThemAnyway.com

My sites...

[antdude]

Mainly /., Digg, Blue's News, Neatorama, Boing Boing, VideoSift, etc.

One page - multiple sites

[moore.dustin]

I just have everything I like fed to my Google homepage. I can even read the whole article without having to actually going to the website the feed came from with some feeds. I do not have a rotation of sites either, I only read something if the title/desc sounds like something I might want to read.

My rotation

[Jaysyn]

Something Positive, Order of the Stick & Erfworld, Slashdot, Google News, Questionable Content, MegaTokyo, Penny Arcade, Ctrl-Alt-Delete, User Friendly, Red Meat, Sinfest, Neverwinter Vault

Mine

[endianx]

Slashdot, BBC, CNN, Fox News, GUComics, The Onion

Intelligent tabbed bookmarks

[rjforster]

What I'd like is a button that launches all my regular bookmarks intelligently.
So I'll always get slashdot and bbc news etc but once a day I'll additionally get Userfriendly and Dilbert. Once a week I'll get lwn for example.

Does this exist as a 'fox extension?

Re:Intelligent tabbed bookmarks

[Anonymous Coward]

Several folders labeled Daily, Weekly, Monthly. Open in tabs.

The Shuffle

[\\]

I do something called the ESPN/Slashdot shuffle. I read one, , read the other, do something else, then when I get bored I load them again, over and over until I realize I'm reloading the same goddamn sites over and over again. It's a vicious cycle.

No Rotation - just RSS feeds

[charleste]

I use RSS for Snopes.com, Merriam-Webster's word of the day, Reuters World News feed, the Weather Underground, commics, and a couple of little feeds from teeny sites that I won't subject to potential slashdotting. I also use a humoungous bookmark folder titled "Fun Stuff"... which contains, um, fun stuff... and one called News... which contains ... disinformation?

Rotate about 90 degrees

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I went here and now I'm just stuck with whats in my cache.

http://www.shibumi.org/eoti.htm

My Rotation:

[PateraSilk]

Salon, Slashdot, Fark, the Economist and whatever else I find on those sites.

Favorites to Brighten a Day

[David Greene]

My rotation goes like this:

• Roadguy - A funny, intelligent blog about transportation in Minnesota.
• Minnesota Public Radio - Check to see if I want to call into any shows that day.
• Minneapolis E-Democracy Issue Forum - Not a blog or web forum, a mailing list. Mailing lists are way better than web forums. Lots of good local information on events, politics, etc.
• St. Paul E-Democracy Issue Forum - Another mailing list.
• Linux Weekly News - Every Thursday
• Polinaut - When the mood strikes me and/or I want to see if anything I did up at the Minnesota Capitol made the news.
• The Strib - Only for the netlets (letters to the editor posted online only). For everything else it's strictly reading the hardcopy for me. It's too hard on the eyes to read from a screen.

Re:Favorites to Brighten a Day

[hobbesx]

My rotation goes like this: ...Minnesota.
Minnesota...
Minneapolis... ...Minnesota...

Let me guess: You're a Californian? ;)

Site rotation, eh?

[RealGrouchy]

About 13 rpm.

- RG>

Things I Can't Get Elsewhere

[dprovine]

At least once a week, I try to visit ArabNews.com, MoscowTimes.ru, xinuanet.com, francedaily.com, and japantimes.co.jp. The point of a World-Wide Web, it seems to me, is to encounter things from all around the world. ArabNews often has the most amazing cartoons, such as this one: http://www.arabnews.com/cartoon/2003/07/06.jpg.

Another interesting source is WatchingAmerica.com, which has English translations of articles from foreign sources. Many sites have different material for locals than they have for foreigners, and it's interesting to see what they say in their own languages.

Every week or so I also hit a few political sites, such as thenation.com and amconmag.com, again to get different views on different issues.

For general knowledge, I hit The Numbers Guy at the Wall Street Journal, Bruce Schneier's blog at schneier.com and TheStraightDope.com.

Re:Things I Can't Get Elsewhere

[Iago515]

Thanks, I've already added a couple of those sites to my bookmarks, too bad they don't have RSS feeds. Ill look at some of the rest of them in a bit.

As for me, being Canadian, (but living in Europe) and using a lot of politics with my teaching (English teacher), I try and keep a diversified list. I'll try and list them more by theme than amount visited.

Canadian:
The CBC - Dissapointing RSS feed, they don't have too much/day, but it's always good to see what they have to say on Canadian politcs.
The Globe and Mail - The best site for at least a bit thoughtful Canadian news.
The CTV - OK, pulp, but once in awhile it's interesting to see what pulp has to say about things.
TSN - Sports, got to keep up with hockey and curling, none better.
Macleans - The Canadian equivalent of Time, some of their stuff is really great.

International:
The BBC - Probably the best English language news in the world, enough said.
The Guardian - Better analysis than the BBC, but not the sheer volume.
Al Jazeera - More balanced than what you'd think, at least the English version ... well, except for the editorial cartoons.
NY Times - Amazingly crummy RSS feed, seeing as it's one of the biggest newspapers in the US (but probably still better than the CBC).
Deutche Welle - Not the best site, either, but as I'm living in Germany ...

For actually thinking:
The Christian Science Monitor - I'm not religious, and except for a few things (see their "about us"), neither are they. What they are is the most balanced news in the US I've ever seen. They are thoughtful, honest and as far as I can see don't pander to any particular point of view.
Sign and Sight - This is only if you want to spend some time actually reading, as it's not meant for the masses. It takes articles by thinking people from across Europe and translates them into English.

Others: The Register - Tech news with a British sense of humour, and people think they are biased because of it.
Neil Gaiman's Blog - Not as interesting as it used to be, but I've learnt a lot about the book/publishing world through his blog.

Yes, I'm an information hound, and I like to see as many points of view as possible. I've tried fox news a couple of times, but most of the topics I'm interested in they've just taken things off the wire, so nothing new. What I also do is search google news when I find an article I want to get more points of view on. I don't use the service itself, but they are great for finding out who is saying what about a particular topic - you might even find a new angle that hadn't been said 100 times before.

Re:Things I Can't Get Elsewhere

[newsblaze]

http://newsblaze.com/ - of course! and always checking on Google News.

Re:Things I Can't Get Elsewhere

[epine]

As a Canadian, I cycle through most of the same sites. Add "Not Even Wrong", SciTechDaily, aldaily, edge.opg, and until quite recently Wired. I tried to read Lubos once or twice, I just can't do it. Something bad happened to Wired after the ownership changed. aldaily and edge.org are not what they used to be, either. Hate the new three-column format at the NYTimes. I read half as much content there since that style change. If I'm super bored and listless, I click on the lower left link on CNN and read about the ten tightest buns in college sports. Somehow I think CNN would know.

For a moment there I thought "The Register" was listed under the heading "For actually thinking". Good thing I wasn't drinking milk at the time. Mostly I read the Inquirer instead, despite their green-eyed malice toward the Wikipedia, 500 stories a year about stock photography, and another 300 stories a year about Wikipedia repeatedly declaring stock photography "non-notable", and an unrelated 200 stories a year about Sony's incompetence, if Shannon hasn't died recently, or Pamela hasn't been outed. Stories about the incompetence of HPaq, however, receive my undivided attention.

Scratch CTV. Never visit there. I prefer to get my water-insoluable fiber content from the hockey coverage at slam.canoe.ca. For a couple of seasons, I'd kill time when I was out of sorts watching Rick Mercer video from his site at CBC.

If the link is still there, this was one of the truly good ones. Right now I'm on a codec-impaired Fedora Core system so I can't check it myself. On my Feisty Fawn beta crash-box, X refused to start. No soup for me.

http://www.cbc.ca/mercerreport/backissues.php?seas on=2

I believe in a traditional family. Week of Feb 14, 2005.

If you're American, don't take offense. There's usually a whole segment of a Mercer episode devoted to offending Americans. This segment is not that one. I think the difference between Canadian humour and American humor is that Americans mock failure, while Canadians mock failure rebranded as success. If it hadn't been for Hurricane W. half of New Orleans might still be there, but then I digress.

In any case, Mercer has a few sharp words to direct towards "Tradition, Mark II". That's what I like. Speaking of chimps, I'll trawl edge.org or sciencedaily for six months for one good Sapolsky.

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/bios/sapolsky.html
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/02/07021 8134333.htm

Dmoz

[cyphercell]

Once I went here http://rdf.dmoz.org/rdf/
I downloaded the "rss-aol.rdf" file (it's huge).
I isolated the technology section.
Stripped it down to just it's links (http://blah.com/blah.rss).
Then I loaded them all in to my rss reader (~1000 or more 2003)
Then I finally decided that getting a story published on slashdot wasn't really that important.

Not many

[wampus]

Fark, cybernations, slashdot, fark, fark, boingboing, slashdot, fark, sensibleerection if I am bored, digg if I am REALLY bored. Penny Arcade on MWF. Meebo.com as needed, and anything else work related through the day.

My site rotation:...

[Anonymous Coward]

www.goatse.cx

www.tubgirl.com

www.lemonparty.org

www.hai2u.com

www.ogrish.com
 
oh and sometimes google!

Rotation

[Wargalas]

http://www.rightwinglunatic.com/ http://www.fark.com/ http://www.slashdot.org/ http://www.foxnews.com/ http://www.compfused.com/

My daily links

[ay2b]

http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?mode=classic
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
http://www.slashdot.org/
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/

Most often scanned

[mudshark]

Check the wx forecast
Google headlines plus local content
Mea culpa
One of the few remaining exponents of in-depth journalism

If slack time presents itself, I'll trawl around Gizmodo, some aggregator-type sites related to ongoing r&d, and see if there's anything cool on TradeMe.

digg, etc.

[dtfinch]

Slashdot, digg, my wikipedia watchlist, ubuntu forums, youtube, and my favorite j-pop forum. My internet addictions expand until they consume all of my free time. Eliminate one, and another takes its place.

My very useful sites to stay informed:

[forkazoo]

XKCD - It is the best comics ever.
Slashdot - News for nerds.
The Daily WTF - What not to do.
Slashdot - WTF, did I just let a dupe on my list?
Random Page On Wikipedia - It's days of fun, and hundreds of tabs.
Slashdot - It's this new news site I found for nerds.
Fleshbot - This is the one I visit most. ;)
news.google.com - You know, for actual news and stuff. Sometimes I leave an NPR stream on.

space geek news:

[J05H]

slashdot, drudge, nasawatch, spacedaily, space.com, uplink.space.com (great forum), cnn, wonkette (sometimes). Also, several blogs including Jon Goff's excellent Selenian Boondocks.

Oh, and I read the actual newspaper, on dead trees.

The rounds.

[DrEldarion]

http://www.xkcd.com/ - Fun, nerdy webcomic.
http://forums.somethingawful.com/ - Has likely the best general automotive and games forums around.
http://www.dealmein.net/ / http://www.slickdeals.net/ / http://www.bensbargains.net/ - The sites that post deals every day have gotten me some awesome bargains in the past.
http://news.google.com/ - Duh.
http://slashdot.org/ - Duh x 2.

Tabloids & Tech!

[milsoRgen]

I surf in this order: TheInquirer.net > SlashDot.org > Tomshardware.com
And by then I'm bored again!

The Usual

[pipingguy]

pipingdesign.com (blatant plug)
slashdot.org
bourque.org
dansdata.com
eng-tips.com
cheresources.com

slashdot, digg, rss aggregator/portal

[VGfort]

Slashdot, a rss aggregator/portal site I made just for myself that exists only on my computer, and Digg

News junkies? RSS?

[gottabeme]

It's interesting: all these comments and only one has made reference to the fact that checking so many sites all the time must take a lot of time. Wow. I really appreciate LWN; it takes just about every Linux news source there is and puts it in one nice weekly edition. Yeah, I still end up checking feeds during the week that LWN will cover anyway...but it's nice in principle. :)

BTW, what about RSS? Sounds like a lot of people here aren't even using it. I just use Akregator, or Google Reader if I'm not at home. Loading up a bunch of tabs from a bookmark folder is so 2005. :)

Danger News Junky

[mistert2]

First Surf of The Day

Slashdot The Milwaukee Journal Gnews Fark Digg Mac OS X Hints Google Calendar Upper Room Google Personalized Home Page My Stumbleupon Page BuzzFeed Brookfield Now Facebook Three Random Stumbles

After the first run it is /., jsonline, Gnews, Fark, and Digg.

Newsique.com

[neoform]

http://www.newsique.com/ *cough* ;)

Thumbnails to manage list of daily sites

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a very handy site for managing the sites that I visit daily:

http://mydailywebsites.com/

Manage daily sites with thumbnails

[Anonymous Coward]

I use http://www.mydailywebpages.com/ to manage my list of sites including CNN, MSN, Yahoo, etc.

a few

[Anonymous Coward]

break.com
goats.com
thesuperficial.com

Maybe not informed, but entertained...

Here's mine...

[bangenge]

http://www.espn.com/ (Bill Simmons' column, NBA, MLB NFL section in that order)
http://www.foxsports.com/ (MLB, NBA, NFL)
http://slashdot.org/ (duh...)
http://www.anandtech.com/ (although I just check the RSS feed lately...)
http://www.cnn.com/
http://www.inq7.net/ (Philippine news)

From there I usually branch out into different sites. I do keep a lot of RSS feeds that mainly get linked from those sites (Truehoop, Deadspin, Wages of wins, Extremetech, etc.). It's really easier and more efficient to just check RSS feeds on most sites.

So from those sites, you can see I'm pretty much a sports fan. I also browse through some Philippine computer retailers' websites to check up on prices if I'm in the hunt for something (like right now, I'm in the hunt for a decent LCD). Of course, if I still have time, pr0n gets to be part of that rotation :)

It really is hard to keep track...

[vic.tz]

Daily:
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ I like to start every day with the Astronomy Picture of the Day
http://www.woot.com/ and the daily Woot.
http://www.slashdot.org/ Then I'll visit Slashdot about 30 times each day,
http://www.techbargains.com/ and I'm surprised more people didn't list Techbargains. I can't stay off this site.
http://www.ytmnd.com/ Finally, I'll spend countless hours each day viewing stupid YTMNDs.

Few times a week:
http://www.apple.com/trailers Movie trailers, keeps you up to date on what's coming out.
http://www.thepbf.com/ The Perry Bible Fellowship = best.
http://www.theonion.com/ The Onion
http://www.thinkgeek.com/ and Thinkgeek, of course.

Mix in the usual bbc, npr, cnn, espn, newegg, email, etc, and that's my rotation. Really, I'm surprised I didn't see more techbargains in these replies. That should be a staple in every rotation.

Um? Readers? I was just thinking, and...

[zolaar]

Do you still think I'm pretty? Do you look at other girls?

It's okay if you say yes, I won't get mad...

Love XOXOXOXO,
Slashdot

</doilookfatinthis>

Fark, Slashdot, Groklaw, LWN, DrudgeReport,MyYahoo

[rjamestaylor]

Are there other sites? Didn't know that.

Daily doses

[Kuvter]

Daily:
1. Myspace.com - Connect with friends, save on cellphone bill
2. Slashdot.org - Tech news
3. xkcd.com - Humor

what a strange question

[rickmccl]

isn't that what blogs and rss are for, so you can see the best of other people's rotations?

So anyway I do slashdot, fark, boingboing, and [H]ardOCP on a daily basis. in google reader I subscribe to computerworld, sans internet security digest, f-secure antivirus blog, and the 'recent knowledgebase articles for windows xp' and 2003 from Mickeysoft. Also in google reader are the kind of sites I started out my post by mentioning: COOP's blog, Lore Sjoberg's blog, the Jalopy Journal, a few motorcycle aggregators like Kneeslider, And about a double dozen comics. I love feed scrapers. You guys have got me feeds for everything I've tried to find one for.

Help!

[Wellington Grey]

I wish I never started on this internet thing, now I can't stop.

comp.risks

[antispam_ben]

Years ago I read comp.risks weekly or whenever the newsgroup postings came out, but after several months I noticed the trust I had of anything that had anything to do with computers was getting less ... and less ...

Lifehacker...

[NMThor]

Great site; one of the first I check out (along with NY Times). Good tips for everyday life to help increase productivity and whatnot.

Check it out: http://www.lifehacker.com/

in no particular order...

[blakmac]

makezine.com
hackszine.com
daringfireball.net
s lashdot.org
wstewart.php0h.com
pleonast.com
and various rss feeds.