Ben Yalow's links

This is a collection of miscellaneous links. It's a subset of the stuff I keep in my bookmark file, so it should give you some idea of what sorts of things I'm interested in.

SF related

• Probably the largest archive of SF-related material can be found on the SF-Lovers archives, formerly at Rutgers, and now hosted by MCFI, which ran Noreascon 4, the 2004 Worldcon in Boston. This includes all of the back issues of SF-Lovers Digest, probably the oldest SF-related mailing list on the Net. It also holds archives of the Business meetings held at the Worldcon.
• A rather useful database of SF literature can be found at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database. It goes back pretty far, and has a reasonably good search engine.
• The finest fanwriter of recent decades is Dave Langford. There's an archive of his fanzine, Ansible, and other material of his. I will gladly admit to being highly prejudiced, having edited two anthologies of his for NESFA Press.
• I realize this is a legal link, rather than a directly SF-related one. But since one of the unfortunate common sources of fannish (and net-related) arguments comes from copyright comments, then I'll provide a link to Cornell University Law School copyright information, including their link to a hypertext copyright law.

Computer stuff

I've been involved with computers since I first started using them in the mid-60s. In my last full-time job, I was the primary network designer for connectivity to the Internet. A few useful references on computers and the Internet would include the following:

• If you're interested in lots of boring stuff about how the Internet is put together, a good place to start is with the RFC-Editor Webpage, where the RFCs and other standards documents that describe the Internet are stored.

  Mostly, they're pretty dry documents. Then there are RFCs like RFC1149.

• Unfortunately, the growth of computers has led to a constant increase in the number of computer viruses and other malware. For those interested in staying current, I recommend CERT, the malware coordinating center at Carnegie Mellon. I also recommend the Crypto-Gram newsletter by Bruce Schneier, for his perspectives on security.

Military History

I've been a hobbyist studying military history for a number of years, now. For those interested in that, here are a few possible places to start.

• Most of the Armed Services have lots of publications describing what they do, and historical stuff related to them. However, for the most part, these publications simply represent whatever the senior officers of the services have decided is the party line this week (or, given publishing deadlines, the party line about a year ago). An exception to this rule is the United States Naval Institute. Their main magazine, Proceedings, is full of arguments on policy as well as historical information, and, every few years, there's a controversy when somebody submits, and USNI publishes, an article vehemently criticising current thought. Considering that the head of the USNI is always the current CNO, this takes a lot of political will, but it produces a great magazine.
• For a good reference source for (mostly US) current armed forces sites and information, I recommend the US Naval Postgraduate School's guide to navigating the military Internet
• Another site that I keep bookmarked, mostly for the ship and airplane lists, is Haze Gray, a site on naval history and photos.
• And, because I think battleships are really neat, I recommend both the Iowa Class Preservation Association site, and the battleship comparison site, which tries to answer the question, "Which battleship was the best one out there?"

News sources

Tied in with my interest in history is being a news junkie. And the Internet had really helped that addiction. An increasing number of news sources are now available online.

• The finest news magazine published is probably The Economist, a British news magazine. Their online site is pretty new, and doesn't have much. But if it ever gets close to the paper magazine (which is well worth subscribing to, even if it is pretty expensive), it will be a great resource.
• For Americans, the major national newspapers tend to set the tone of the discussion. And some of them are available free (I won't list the Wall Street Journal, which used to be free, but is now a pay service). Good places to start are The New York Times, and The Washington Post. And, to give a countervailing viewpoint, a newspaper that started out as a hopeless junk rag, but has become a serious source of news, is The Washington Times.
• Of course, there are newspapers all around the country that have Web presence. A good place to look for them is The Newspaper Association of America, which keeps links to newspapers on the Web.
• And for those interested in Israeli news, the main English language paper there, The Jerusalem Post, has a site.

Misc stuff

• Once upon a time, you looked people up in phone books. Now, you don't need to keep books for everyplace around, since there are lots of them online. I tend to use few of them can be found at Switchboard. If you need area code information, you can get it at NANPA Number Resources.
• For those still using snail mail, the USPS maintains a ZIP+4 Code Lookup.
• For those who don't trust the USPS, there are other carriers, such as FEDEX or UPS.
• If you travel to foreign countries, it's sometimes useful to know how much the funny paper is worth relative to your "real money". So you might want to check out Olsen & Associates: Currency Convertor and, speaking of converting, this is a useful spot for figuring out how to convert power plugs, phone cords, etc.
• The only piece of non-SF fanwriting that comes even close is The alt.buddha.short.fat.guy FAQ
• Unlike many SF fans, I'm a sports fan, too. So here are links to baseball, basketball, football, and hockey league servers. The local teams I root for are (in order by sport, for those who don't know them) the Mets, the Knicks (maybe now that Thomas has been fired), the Jets, and the Rangers. I'd root for some American League team if they ever got rid of the DH and started playing baseball again, but that's a religious argument.