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Astronomy Picture of the Day
"A daily dose of pretty pictures and interesting info!"
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National Geographic Picture of the Day
"Beautiful pictures. Nice thing to check to start the day."
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Dilbert™
"A popular comic strip for more than 17 years, the office-based humor is always spot-on."
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Hulu™
"This is the premiere place to watch streaming TV shows and movies on the web for free. All video is available on demand. In my household, Hulu has completely obviated the need to watch television by providing a nice variety of new and classic television shows as well as uncut movies. This is how entertainment media will be delivered in the future."
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I Can Has Cheezburger?®
"It makes me laugh every single day and is a great stress reliever. :-)"
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mental_floss
"It is a great site to pick up trivia."
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NOVA
"Links to information and special features for programs on their shows."
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Pandora® Internet Radio
"Enter a song name or artist and the site will create a radio station and program it based on the musical characteristics of that song or artist. The site has introduced me to new music"
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PBS®
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The Onion®
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XKCD
"It's a comic strip which is often cerebral to the point of esoteric."
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Free Rice
"Boost your vocabulary while contributing to a worthy cause."
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All Recipes®
"I have a cookbook collection, but slowly I have found myself going to the Internet for recipes more and more. Searching by ingredients and key words has taken my nose out of the book and over to the computer. Allrecipes is the first recipe site I search when I need a recipe, and usually I find what I want there. This popular site has a lot of reviews for each recipe, many of which include ideas of ways to improve on the recipe."
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Urban Legends and Folklore
"Similar to Snopes, good source to check out FOAF tales and phony news"
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BBC
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CNN
"Quick look at a broad range of news."
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Drudge Report
"best news source on the web; plus, his links are a great resource"
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Google™ News
"The only comprehensive news aggregation site out there. News sources include both mainstream (The New York Times, The Washington Post) and obscure-but-reliable blogs and web sites."
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National Geographic
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Smithsonian Magazine
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The New York Times
"Covers an amazing array and doesn't dumb down."
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TED
"TED = Technology, Entertainment & Design and contains "inspired talks by the world's greatest thinkers and doers". Currently there are 38 themes containing over 200 talks ("ideas worth spreading") by speakers who are challenged to give their best presentation in 18 minutes before a live audience. Videoes are available via streaming or MP4, high quality, downloads, free of charge. One could get lost for days surfing through TED!"
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About.com
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CIA World Factbook
"Got obscure questions about foreign countries, geography, the history of the world, etc.? Get your answers straight from the Central Intelligence Agency."
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Dictionary.com
"A wonderful reference, especially when a word is not known to Microsoft Office products."
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Google™ Earth
"the 2nd most useful web app ever imagined after search. It will stay that way until you can talk to your computer or have it diagnose your health from a drop of blood."
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How Stuff Works
"The depth of this site is staggering. The information is accurate. The format is very user-friendly."
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Internet Movie Database
"IMDB is the definitive source for movie information on the internet. It is the go to site for everyone from casual moviegoers to hardcore cinephiles. No other site comes close."
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Library of Congress Digital Collections
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MapQuest®
"great site for maps and driving directions."
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Merriam Webster Dictionary online
"It is the best online dictionary I have found."
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Project Gutenberg
"A massive archive of Free Classic books online. Suddenly need to find that quote from Mark Twain or H.G. Wells? Here's great place to find it - and great reading material for all those e-books out there."
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Snopes
"We get so much junk on-line - stories, pictures, etc... I LOVE having a place to go to to check the authenticity of information I receive. I never pass along a 'forward' email until I run it through Snopes to find out if it is an Urban Legend or not."
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USPS ZIP Code Lookup
"Find ZIP Code (including +4, delivery point, and more) for any U.S. address."
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WebMD®
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Wikipedia
"Source for information about almost anything! It may not always be exactly 100% accurate, but it gives you a quick answer if that's all you want, or a jumping off point if you want to explore a topic in-depth."
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NASA
"The future starts here."
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NOAA / National Weather Service
"The most definitive source not only for weather forecasts, but also meteorology education"
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Wired
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Google™
"Google it"
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Yahoo!®
"Search engine, news portal, group host and more!"
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Gmail™
"I can't communicate via email without it."
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TinyURL
"Takes a long, unwieldy website and condenses it into a small URL so it can easily be emailed without line breaks in the middle of an address. In Internet Explorer (and I think other browsers) when you click on TinyURL from Favorites, it automatically makes a tiny URL for the last web page you were at AND puts it on your clipboard so you don't even have to do the 'cut' part of 'cut and paste'."
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Amazon®
"I often use it to order books or other things, also a quick way to find used books at cheap prices. Even if I'm not buying something now, I can read reviews of it, and I can put it on a Wish List for later."
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eBay®
"Sell your junk! Buy other people's junk! Whatever wacky thing you can think of, somebody's either buying or selling it."
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ThinkGeek
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Facebook
"The best casual networking site. A well designed site that allows members to post picture albums, commentary, links, videos, and do pretty much anything else you can think of. The huge number of third party applications is what really makes this site tick. Perhaps the best feature is the ability to comment on anything and everything that someone on your friends list does, e.g. a member might post a status update saying 'I wonder where I can get tickets to tonight's ball game' and a friend might respond with 'Hey, I happen to have a pair I'm trying to get rid of!'"
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LinkedIn®
"The best professional networking site. Allows for members to post a fairly comprehensive resume and collect recommendations from colleagues. Perhaps the best feature is that you can see how your network and extended network connects you to people you either just met or are planning to meet, e.g. for a job interview."
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YouTube
"Very accessible way to share videos. Not a "can't live without" as a place to get information (although that is true sometimes) but because of the entertainment value!"
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National Park Service
"My family likes to travel. When we travel, we visit national parks and monuments. The National Park Service web site provides me with a wealth of useful information about our national parks."
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