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"The Internet has compromised the quality of debate.”
(Noam Chomsky)
Introduction
In recent years, my interaction with people and websites has shriveled down to a fraction of what it used to be. Today I frequent a few blogs and forums, mostly just to stay in the loop by avoiding the demented ones others spin around in and by evading 99.9% of the traditional websites that seem to be copying each other and whatever the news agencies throw out there for public consumption.Below you will find a mix of (mostly) English and (a few) German websites I still frequent on a regular basis.At the very bottom of this page, you will find some tips on how to find decent blogs, websites and forums that today, with Google being a complete shitshow, aren't always that easy to find.
Note: I'm always looking for consistently good websites and useful links to add here, so if you have any recommendation(s), let me know.
01 | Daily Reading
Jason Kottke | [English] - Founded in 1998, kottke.org is one of the oldest blogs on the web. Frequent topics of interest among the 26,000+ posts include art, technology, science, visual culture, design, music, cities, food, architecture, sports, endless nonsense, and carefully curated current events, all of it lightly contextualized.
Memex 1.1 | [English] - Memex 1.1 is John Naughton's online diary, in content and breadth akin to Jason Kottke's website, albeit not nearly as known. John Naughton is, amongst other positions, Senior Research Fellow at Cambridge University’s Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities and technology columnist of the London Observer newspaper.
Scripting News | [English] - Dave Winer's blog has been around forever and covers a wide range of topics. The home page has three main tabs you should look at, his blog posts, his linkblog and news posts from feeds he subscribes to in FeedLand.
Pixel Envy | [English] - Assembled from bits daily by Nick Heer in Calgary and around the world.
Pluralistic | [English] - Run by Cory Doctorow, 'Pluralistic' serves up daily links and commentary. Doctorow "[...] is a Canadian-British blogger, journalist, and science fiction author who served as co-editor of the blog Boing Boing. He is an activist in favour of liberalising copyright laws and a proponent of the Creative Commons organization, using some of its licences for his books. (Wikipedia)." Doctorow coined the most apt term for the 21st century, "Enshittification", and everything he writes is worth anyone's time
Vowe Dot Net | [German] - Volkher Weber explains difficult concepts in simple ways. For free, and for money. Clue procurement and bullshit detection. I have been reading his blog for ages.
Note: I still read many (!) news sites every day, in many different languages (news sites in Germany, France, Spain, Scandinavia, South America, ...) , which I'm not going to list here, but recently I found that I often only go through the headlines because, unfortunately, after several decades I already know what each news site is going to say about any given topic. Journalism has declined in quality and has become entirely predictable
02 | Weekly Reading
404 Media | [English] - 404 Media is a journalist-founded digital media company exploring the ways technology is shaping - and is shaped by - our world. They are focused on investigative reports, longform features, blogs, and scoops about topics including: hacking, cybersecurity, cybercrime, sex, artificial intelligence, consumer rights, surveillance, privacy, and the democratization of the internet.
Longreads | [English] - Founded in 2009 by Mark Armstrong, Longreads is dedicated to finding and sharing the best longform nonfiction storytelling on the web. They publish personal and reported essays, criticism, reading lists, and occasional book excerpts, interviews, and more in-depth features.
Maschinist | [German] - A downright nasty blog published by someone residing in our capital, Berlin, and delivering often astute observations in regard to the downfall of western civilization, especially around his place of residence. Often, the author also publishes a summary of links to German blogs that have something worthwhile to say.
Vulture | [English] - Vulture was founded in 2007 as an entertainment-and-culture outlet of New York providing an authentic, relatable experience for pop-culture fans [..] Launched with a focus on TV recaps and general Hollywood news, the site has grown into a destination where visitors can find comprehensive coverage of TV, movies, music, art, books, theater, comedy, podcasts, among other media and pursuits [...]
waxy.org/links | [English] - Around since 2002, Andy Baio's personal sandbox also includes a regularly updated list of links, which I consult regularly. Lots of great reading to be found there.
03 | Music
Discogs | [English] - Discogs, which has been a trusted companion on my music collecting journey, is an essential tool, from resources to explore artists’ discographies of music releases to tools that help you organize, build and extend your collection.
Jazz Discography Project | [English] - A collector's guide to jazz music [...], properly formatted and exhaustive for those artists available, covering a wide range of releases on Blue Note, Prestige, Riverside Records (the big three labels of modern jazz) and other labels, bebop, cool/west coast, hard bop, modal/mode, free/avant-garde jazz musicians [...] and more. Compiled and maintained by the Jazz Discography Project team, Nobuaki Togashi, Kohji 'Shaolin' Matsubayashi and Masayuki Hatta. A labour of love (and painstaking work).
MusicBrainz | [English] - MusicBrainz is an open music encyclopedia that collects music metadata and makes it available to the public. Their 'Jazz in Paris' entry, for example, is also based on my lengthy (now deleted) post on the series from years ago.
Organissimo Forums | [English] - These forums became the online refuge for members of the former "Blue Note" forums ages ago, today with a greatly expanded membership of extremely passionate and knowledgeable fans. I spent many years commenting there until I got tired of what I like to call (American) free speech absolutists. Although many great voices have since passed away or simply left, it is still the one place to find a striking (and opinionated) wealth of information concerning really anything that is "jazz". Lately, things appear to have slowed down and I'm not quite sure if new registrations are still open.
The Second Disc | [English] - Online since 2010, "The Second Disc" has published thousands of articles, focussing on upcoming releases and selected news from the music industry (those parts that are left). This website has alerted me to upcoming releases that I often had no idea about.
Steve Hoffman Music Forums | [English] - Yes, these forums are a cesspool of audiophile boomers who love to be kept in check by autocratic moderators ("Gorts"), everything said there has to be taken with two bags of salt, but it is also the only place with a wealth of information in regard to releases, mastering credits and value of any music release under the sun. You need to be knowledgeable to navigate this forum successfully.
Super Deluxe Edition | [English] - A one-stop for music collectors interested in the details of limited (mostly) CD releases. The owner is an opinionated fellow (and not always objective), and so are most members (very much akin to the Steve Hoffman Forums), but if you want to know every minute detail of an upcoming release, this is the place to visait.
04 | Horror Fiction
ISFDB | [English] - I regularly consult the brilliant and comprehensive 'Internet Speculative Fiction Database', a community effort to catalog works of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. It links together various types of bibliographic data: author bibliographies, publication bibliographies, award listings, magazine content listings, anthology and collection content listings, and forthcoming books.
Too Much Horror Fiction | [English] - This website has consistently collected and reviewed vintage horror literature, mostly from the 1960s to the early 1990s, and celebrated its resplendent paperback cover art.
Brian Keene: Letters From the Labyrinth | [English] - Author Brian Keene's newsletter is currently the only excellent one I'm subscribed to. It's free, arrives every Sunday and is the epitome of what I consider to be an excellent (both personal and professional) newsletter.
05 | Find more reading ...
Forums Are Still Alive, Active, And A Treasure Trove Of Information - Chris Person has compiled a massive list of active forums across a wide range of topics: Audio; Music; Cameras, Video, Production, Gear; Home Theater, A/V and Media; Drugs and Substances; Fashion; Plants and Animals; Repair Hobbies, Vocational Hobbies, Appliances and Home Goods; Gaming; Technology, Computers, Software; Crafting; Hyper-Niche Activities (Useful); Hyper-Niche Obsessions (Questionable); Other; Sex Stuff; Exercise, Training, Competitive Sports Forums; Sports Forums; Gun, Weapon and Military Forums; Car and Vehicle Forums.
Dave Winer's Bloroll - In the right-hand column on Dave Winer's Scripting News you can find his blog roll, which pulls each site's most recent posts regularly. By checking those most recent posts, this blog roll can function as a brilliant search tool to help you find websites that might interest you.
Last updated: January 3, 2025.