Some websites of interest...

[Agent Intellect]

http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/courses/courses/index.htm

A good site for anyone wishing to get an MIT education for free (you don't even have to register). Some of them you can actually watch or listen to MIT lectures (shit that people doll out thousands of dollars for), but quite a few of them seem a bit limited still. It's worth browsing for anything you may find of interest. I've been watching the chemistry one, and it's very informative and high quality stuff (I've watched a couple of the biology ones and the camera work was a little shoddy).




http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/

For anyone interested in the theory of evolution, these sites are a must. They're quite vast and a little technical at times, but they're good for anyone who wants to know just why so many people "believe" in evolution - whether it's to learn more about it yourself or find ways to discredit it.




http://www.critiquecircle.com/

For the aspiring writer. One can post their short stories (or novels chapter by chapter) on a story queue and have other people critique it (but you have to earn 'points' by critiquing other peoples stories to put up your own). It's not just a forum, you'd have to check it out to understand what I'm talking about. I haven't posted anything on it in over a year (although I've been 'meaning to' in usual INTP fashion) but there are some people there that will give you some good, serious critique on your writing pieces - plus they have a forum and several other features.




http://www.chess.com/

For anyone who likes chess. They have a forum, a lot of chess strategy guides by chess masters, and you can even play chess against other people (see my signature). If you want to become a chess master, this would be the place to start.




http://www.atlasoftheuniverse.com/galaxy.html

Interesting astronomy site with interactive visuals (and some great facts!). If you are like me, this site will leave you filled with awe.




http://www.worldsciencefestival.com/

Some great videos about popular science by top scientists in their fields. I've watched the "Notes and Neurons", "Beyond Einstein" and "Echos From The Beginning" in the 2008 section so far, all three have been incredibly fascinating and I definitely plan on watching more of them.

 

[Dormouse]

I love you.

 

[Agent Intellect]

A few more websites:



http://darwiniana.org/
http://www.biology.arizona.edu/DEFAULT.html

Great resources for science related stuff, biology in particular - from biochemistry, pathology, and cells all the way to evolution (the first one is especially nice).




http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/HBASE/hframe.html

Great site for anyone interested in physics - covers a lot of the more basic type of information and even gets into the more advanced stuff.




http://www.shodor.org/UNChem/index.html

Anything and everything Chemistry - great resource for anyone that wants to know more about chemistry.

 

[kantor1003]

thanks, definitely going to check these links out

I can post one as well.

http://www.ted.com/

If you haven't checked this site out yet, you should.
"Riveting talks by remarkable people, free to the world"

 

[fullerene]

chess sites! I'm not even sure why I didn't think of this, but I've got to program a chess-bot for my next comp sci assignment, so the strategy from sites like that will be quite helpful.

 

[Nicholas A. A. E.]

here's another excellent one. well worth your wasted time.

http://wimp.com

 

[bananaphallus]

helium.com is another site where you can submit your writing, really any form is accepted. People rate it, you can get feedback, even get paid for writing articles.

 

[Kuu]

Behold the internet encyclopedia of philosophy.


(enter at your own risk... archive binging might be an issue)

 

[Agent Intellect]

A good find in the MIT Opencourseware site:

The "Godel Escher Bach" class (I just found it so I don't how great it is).

 

[Agent Intellect]

A good find in the MIT Opencourseware site:

The "Godel Escher Bach" class (I just found it so I don't how great it is).

I just got done watching the first one - I recommend it for anyone who liked the book.

 

[Da Blob]

I just got done watching the first one - I recommend it for anyone who liked the book.

What type of file are you downloading? The technical requirements seem to indicate that my Quick time player for my OS 10.4 should work but it does not. The pop up just says that there is no software to open the file(?)

 

[Agent Intellect]

What type of file are you downloading? The technical requirements seem to indicate that my Quick time player for my OS 10.4 should work but it does not. The pop up just says that there is no software to open the file(?)

I'm only able to open it with RealPlayer - perhaps you need to get RealPlayer? I'm not sure, I'm not the most computer literate person.

 

[fullerene]

yeah... .rm is an obnoxious file format, designed specifically for RealPlayer. I think VLC can play them too, though, since VLC plays just about everything.

 

[Kuu]

vlc does not play .rm last time I checked.

fucking RealPlayer... who the hell uses that!

 

[Agent Intellect]

I found a nice website with a lot of essays and articles on biology and paleontology, mostly by Stephen J Gould.

It also contains what looks like the entire book of The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins (who is a better biology author then theologian or philosopher) and possibly more - I haven't looked through the entire site yet (there is a lot of stuff here).

 

[Synoptist]

http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page

Thousands of free books. Nietzsche, Kafka, Hume, L. Carroll, Descartes etc. Good if you want to catch up on some classics but don't want to dish out the dough.

http://www.nationmaster.com/index.php

Tons of statistics about every country. Beware if sourcing this in an argument as some of them can be quite outdated.

http://www.cookingforengineers.com/recipe/6/Grilled-Skinless-Chicken-Breast

I want to commit some of these recipes to memory before I (hopefully) go Uni this year. Lots of detail, occasionally you'll even get flowcharts so I'd recommend how (and why) to make some decent looking grub.

 

[dbtng_thomas]

The book that's changed my perspectives most in the last few years was Collapse, by Jared Diamond. This is him doing a quick TED presentation about it.

http://www.ted.com/talks/jared_diamond_on_why_societies_collapse.html

Jared did another groundbreaking book called Guns, Germs, and Steel that you might also wish to check out. There are several videos of him presenting on that topic too.

- dt

 

[Synoptist]

For anyone interested in laissez-faire economics, right wing libertarianism, anarcho-capitalism, free-market anarchism etc etc. then you'll probably enjoy these sites.

http://www.cato.org/
http://mises.org/
http://oxlib.blogspot.com/ (contains videos of people lecturing at oxford and from what I've seen they're mostly excellent)

 

[dbtng_thomas]

Ok, this will bust your brain.

This is a series of lectures designed as an introduction to the quantum theory of computation.
http://www.hpl.hp.com/breweb/quiprocone/Protected/DD_lectures.htm

David is one of my heroes. He laid out many of the principles behind quantum computation. In this series of lectures he tells you how it all works and why the fact that it works proves the Many Worlds theory of alternate realities.

- dt