Open no hours
What happens to a website when it dies? Normally, it vanishes from our screens never to be seen again. But one webmaster has decided the final moments of major websites should be preserved for posterity. Steve Baldwin, a US-based writer, has been compiling his Ghost Sites pages for five years now, and has caught some of the web's biggest names going under. His favourite, for irony, is the final screen for the British web grocer 24-7, run by the Somerfield supermarket chain. "You have reached www.24-7.com" reads the screenshot Baldwin took before the site vanished from the net. "Unfortunately, we are now closed." www.disobey.com/ghostsites.
Time's up
This is one for the bookmarks, perhaps. We all know of the guesswork involved in trying to work out what time it is abroad. Timeanddate.com solves that, with a useful world clock page as well as a few other utilities which, for instance, allow you to measure the time between two dates, or find out - to the minute - how much time there is until a particular deadline. www.timeanddate.com
It's a dog's life
Aibo is the robot dog produced by Sony that captured the hearts of geeks around the world a couple of years ago with his automated antics. Well, geeks being geeks, they've taken it one step further - and hacked his canine brains. Aibohack.com now has a series of quite distressing films of Aibos dancing like 70s disco kings, trying a few robot gymnastic moves, even performing in groups of three to Grease. Awe and respect for these tiny hi-tech wonders diminishes with every synchronised shake of their little heads. http://aibohack.com
Sealed knot
Navy Seals are the American version of the SAS - highly trained forces who often work in covert missions far from home. So it's a slight surprise to find an entire website devoted to their members, and all the fake Seals there are out there. CyberSeals has information on what they got up to in the glory days, and lots of links to (surprising, again) the homepages of former members, where they describe various acts of derring do. But it seems most of the content on CyberSeals itself is listing the claims of the fakes - and it's disturbing to see just how many there are out there, sticking membership of this elite force in alongside their normal qualifications on CVs. www.cyberseals.org
Depth charge
Visiting an abandoned place is one thing. Infiltrating areas you are not supposed to be quite another, especially when those places include subterranean warrens of drains, tunnels and underground railways. Yet, again, exploring these forbidden areas gives some people a buzz, and Infiltration magazine is devoted to their accounts of derring-do, which mostly seem to take place several feet below our feet. Again, the commentary makes it clear the risks the explorers go to - especially in a narrative to the Toronto subway, which advises tunnel walkers to go wandering while the subway is still active. Utter madness. http://209.157.133.147/
Ghost town
When a once bustling building or factory is abandoned, it holds a certain fascination for many people. Perhaps it's the sudden loneliness, perhaps it's like stepping back in time. Perhaps it is because they are rarely, officially, supposed to be in these spaces. Whatever the reason, they make for some fantastic photography, especially when combined with the talents of those who created Abandoned Places. The site's commentary, which describes the hazards the explorers faced, makes it clear this isn't something for us to try at home, but it's still fascinating to gaze from afar at the atmospheric photographs from around the world. http://abandoned-places.com/
Pay per surf
Most of the internet's content is free today, despite the desperate hunt for "revenue models". Some think the only way online media will work is if we start coughing up for it. TheEndOfFree weblog is put together by several contributors from various fields, including Evan Williams, one of the team behind Blogger. com. The move to fee-paying is one of the most important things happening online at the moment - this does a good job of keeping up with it. www.TheEndOfFree.com
