Stories of the Creation: Big Myth - Every culture has its own beliefs and stories about the creation of the world. This site collects all the fascinating and mundane stories and makes them available. Click on the global map for the area you're interested in, and get the creation myths of the indigenous people from that area.

What Science Doesn't Know: Earth Files - "There are more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy, Horatio." There are still as many mysterious and unexplained things as there were in Shakespeare's time. This site contains articles about many of them: crop circles, the real X-Files, strange science, and much more. Current items are free, but access to past articles will cost you.

Legal Help for Webmasters: Chilling Effects - If you have a Web site that pushes the edge of the envelope, you may have gotten a letter from someone's lawyers telling you to "cease and desist." This site is aimed at helping you. Set up by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and four law schools, it includes actual letters, annotated with comments on the laws that apply. There's lots of material about copyright, trademark, parody, criticism, and related topics.

That %&$#@ Cell Phone: Dead Zones - Do you have problems with your cell phone dropping calls, or having poor reception? The idea behind this site is to collect users' reports of "dead zones" for their particular carriers, and to build a database that can help you in selecting a cellular carrier. All the local cell companies are included, and several that operate only in other areas of the U.S.

Keep Up With Hardware: Tom's Hardware - Do you need to know about some piece of computer hardware, or the details behind the technology of CDRW drives, or how to move your ports to the front of the computer? Tom's Hardware is loaded with information: comparisons of 17-inch LCD monitors, pieces about how IDE works, the latest news in the world of PC hardware. This is an indispensable site for the computer pro.

Don't Pull That String!: Super String Theory - Okay, I admit it, I'm a pop science junkie— especially when it comes to physics and the structure of creation. One of the newest theories is that everything is made of "superstrings." But the theory is pretty complex. This could almost be "Superstrings for Dummies," it's so down-to-earth and easy to understand.

Name That Tune: SongTitle.Info - You're vegging out on the couch, watching MTV's Real World, and suddenly the music behind that commercial seems hauntingly familiar but you can't name it. Surf on over to this site, where 150 contributors have helped identify the classic songs sold for commercial use.

Don't Look at This!: The Memory Hole - There's lots of material certain people would prefer to have disappear into history's dustbins. This site aims at bringing the embarrassing facts into the sunlight. "Rescuing knowledge, freeing information" is the site's motto. Read about how Army Secretary Thomas White's 11 years at Enron somehow disappeared from his biography.

Isn't That…?: Japander.com - Which actors are above acting in commercials? Surely Madonna, Harrison Ford, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio… well, unless we're talking about Japan. You can see the evidence here. Arnold Schwarzenegger playing mah-jong? Say it ain't so!

Cool Place! Where Is It?: Famous Locations - I'm one of those people who stay to the end of the movie credits, and one of the things that interests me is the locations where the movie was shot. If that interests you, stop in here to see what castle stood in for Hogwarts, what historic building was home to Michael Keaton's Batman and Angelina Jolie's Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, among others.

Authors As Readers: Authors on the Web - What books are your favorite authors reading this year? I like things like this because I figure the authors are reading the latest in stuff, the authors I haven't discovered yet. Well, it doesn't always work out that way. Look up your favorite author and see if it works for you.

Alternate Histories: Uchronia.net - What if the South had won the Civil War? What if Kennedy hadn't been assassinated? What if England suppressed the rebellion of those trashy colonists? Uchronia is essentially an annotated bibliography of books exploring ideas just like those. The list is nicely organized— you can search in various ways for events that interest you.

Following Their Conscience: The Guardian - I know this is very controversial, and I offer this site only as a thought-provoker. A number of prominent Americans— from Casey Kasem to Noam Chomsky— are disturbed at the direction of American politics in fighting the war on terrorism. They urge looking at current events from a different point of view.