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The Weird Turn Pro: My Web Faves

"Arguing in My Spare Time," No. 2.25
Arnold Kling

Dec. 23, 1999 Revised November 12, 2001

"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro" -Hunter Thompson, 1971.

Here are some of my favorite web sites. Under the table, you will find a further explanation of the criteria behind them.

Web Site Owner Reason to visit often

Tomalak's Realm Lawrence Lee Outstanding filter for articles on Web commerce

Arts and Letters Daily Denis Dutton Outstanding filter for articles on science, literature, and politics

Jakob Nielsen Jakob Nielsen Interesting opinions about Web site design and Net technology

Edward Yardeni Edward Yardeni Macroeconomic analysis and forecasts

Paul Krugman Paul Krugman Distinguished (former?) economist's NY Times columns, every Sunday and Wednesday

Brad DeLong Brad DeLong An economist's interesting observations on the Internet, technology, and economic growth
The Edge John Brockman Long interviews with science and technology "pop stars"

The Scene Virginia Postrel Observations on various topics, primarily technology and social policy

InstaPundit Greg Reynolds Conservative Law Professor's manic weblog

Web Site	Owner	Reason to visit often
Tomalak's Realm	Lawrence Lee	Outstanding filter for articles on Web commerce
Arts and Letters Daily	Denis Dutton	Outstanding filter for articles on science, literature, and politics
Jakob Nielsen	Jakob Nielsen	Interesting opinions about Web site design and Net technology
Edward Yardeni	Edward Yardeni	Macroeconomic analysis and forecasts
Paul Krugman	Paul Krugman	Distinguished (former?) economist's NY Times columns, every Sunday and Wednesday
Brad DeLong	Brad DeLong	An economist's interesting observations on the Internet, technology, and economic growth
The Edge	John Brockman	Long interviews with science and technology "pop stars"
The Scene	Virginia Postrel	Observations on various topics, primarily technology and social policy
InstaPundit	Greg Reynolds	Conservative Law Professor's manic weblog

Some other sites worth noting:

Entropy Gradient Reversals. Chris Locke's site, which I don't visit often because I prefer to subscribe to his email list.
Hal Varian. A great resource of you are looking up information on the economics of the Internet.
Andrew Odlyzko. Analysis of Internet technology and economics. He does not post new material often, but when he does, it is well worth reading.
Bob Frankston. The co-creator of Visi-calc is another pundit who does not write often, but he has interesting things to say about what makes for a good or bad idea about the Internet.
Free Republic. News filtered by a community of right-wingers. It is particularly interesting during a political drama, such as the Florida post-election brouhaha.
National Review Online. While Free Republic showcases amateur right-wingers, NRO gives you the professionals.

Note that most of my favorite sites are one-person sites. On the Internet, a single individual's opinions or editorial judgment can be more valuable than those of corporate media.

Politically, the list is eclectic. Obviously, the freepers and NRO are on the right. Postrel is a feminist conservative, which comes out to be approximately libertarian. DeLong and Krugman represent the left. Krugman's Democratic screeds are so strident that I must say that I strongly preferred his MIT home page, back when he was an economist. His new home page resides at Princeton.

A site that declined and fell off my initial list is the GBN book club. What I used to say is that its book recommendations fit me very well. But nowadays, with Amazon's listmania I can get book recommendations relatively easily at amazon.com.