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My favourite Internet Sites
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publication date: April 1999 (last changed on: April 2005) |
I have grouped the collection of my favourite sites around
the following themes:
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Food & Drink:
Discover the sweet and pleasurable side of the Internet... |
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Theme Parks:
What could be more fun than visiting "De Efteling", Disneyland Paris and all those other theme parks? |
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Software Agents:
These intriguing software assistants are a major personal interest. |
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Humor:
Sites that will keep you smiling... |
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Miscellaneous:
Sites that shouldn't be missed, but do not fit in any of the other categories. |
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| Food & Drink |
| Essentially, all the interesting culinairy
links that I know off, can be found in the FAQ files that I maintain for the nl.culinair news group:
Drink-related Web sites:
The nl.culinair Frequently Asked Beverages (FAB) has an Internet section, which contains a list of sites related to information on and recipes for all kinds of drinks (both alcoholic as well as non-alcoholic).
Food-related Web sites:
The nl.culinair Frequently Asked Culinaires (FAC) has an Internet section, which contains a list of sites related to information on and recipes for all kinds of dishes and ingredients.
"LILEKS (James) : Institute : Gallery of Regrettable Food":
On the LILEKS site you will find an extensive collection of photographs, illustrations and other graphical
material from long forgotten times. At the time of creation it was probably considered to be an art form, but
judged by modern standards we'd rather call it Kitsch with a capital "K"!
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| Theme Parks |
| Visiting theme parks and going on
all the wonderful rides they have, is an important hobby of mine. My list of favourite sites covers all my
favorite theme parks (all of which are in Europe, but that is going to change pretty soon ;-):
"Europa-Park":
Located in the South of Germany, close to Freiburg, lies a themapark called Europa-Park. It may not be as famous as
Disneyland Paris, but in my opinion it is the second best themepark in all of Europe!
This park has everything: it has lush gardens and landscapes, it has beautiful and cool rides, and it has been themed to
the limit. What's more, they add something new to the park each year: sometimes a new ride, sometimes a new 'land', and
sometimes new facilities (like restaurants - which are excellent, by the way). Not all parks can say that!
You want my advice? Go to this park as soon as you can: you will not be disappointed!
"Doombuggies.com - Chef Mayhem's Unofficial Tribute to Disney's Haunted Mansion"
One of my most favourite Disneyland Paris rides is the Phantom Manor. It is a haunted house full with all kinds
of delightful scares. This web site is entirely devoted to this ride.
"ThrillRide!":
The ThrilRide! site is stocked full with all kinds of information related to the most exciting, most awesome rides
as they can be found anywhere in the world.
"Disneyland Paris startpagina":
This is a Web portal, which contains an extensive list of links related to Disneyland Paris.
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| Software Agents |
| The concept of Software Agents
is one I find very interesting and promising. This interest has up until now resulted in two papers, one
being my academic end thesis and the other a paper ("Desperately Seeking...") in which Agents are one
of the main topics (see my publications for more details on these papers).
"UMBC Agent Web":
This site is an information service of the UMBC's Laboratory for Advanced Information
Technology. It is an excellent collection of information and resources about (intelligent) information
agents, intentional agents, software agents, softbots, knowbots, infobots, etcetera - a site not to be missed!
"Software Agents: A review":
This paper is an excellent choice for those looking for a consise review of Software Agents.
"Intelligent
Software Agents":
A site, maintained by Sverker Janson, featuring a rather extensive list that subdivides the various types of software agents into a number of
comprehensive categories. Per category, organisations, groups, projects and (miscellaneous) resources are
listed.
"The Software Agents Mailing List FAQ":
This FAQ gives introductory information for this mailing-list, answering questions such as "how do I join the
list?" but also "what is a software agent?" and "where can I find technical papers and proceedings about agents?". If you
want to discuss agents and/or gather more information about them, this is the list to subscribe to.
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| Humor |
The Darwin Awards:
This site lists the deeds of those humans which succesfully got themselves (or rather: their genes) removed from the human gene pool because
of their own sheer stupidity. Or, in the wording of the site itself, these are the stories of those people that
are so stupid "they should not be allowed to breed".
The Bastard Operator From Hell:
The stories in the Bastard Operator From Hell series are a great source of humor for the more "geeky" among us. It features the daily work routine of
a cunning system operator that is fed-up with the 'bean counters', 'cow-orkers' and 'lusers' that he has to work with/for day in day out. Take it from me:
after reading the stories, you'll look at your average waffle iron from a whole new perspective...!
Oddly Enough:
Oddly enough covers a very different selection of the daily news: the kind of news of which it is hard to
believe that it is true, but which - oddly enough - has happened...
Despair, Inc.:
A site which - IMHO - is the perfect antidote against marketing 'drivel' and other forms of over-optimistic messages:
The site is full of parodies on the well-known motivating posters (usually containing an animal or some landscape) which contain
some oh-so smart tagline. Therefore, if the regular poster has "Optimism" as its subject (and probably features
a photograph of a nice sunset or something like that) then the Despair poster will have "Pessimism" as its
subject and underneath a photo of lightning striking the earth you'll find the tagline "Every Dark Cloud has
a Silver Lining, but Lightning Kills Hundreds of People Each Year who are Trying to Find it"...
The Deadly Follies of Stick Figure Warning-Man and Family:
A very strange site with a sort-of diary of the stick man figure you can see on many (American) warning signs.
The humor on this site may not be everyone's cup of tea, but I like it!
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| Miscellaneous |
Annoyances.org:
An entire site with lots of information on Windows annoyances, and how to fix (most of) them.
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