----Web Neography

• box2321.com: Experience the incursive realm of Gadgetto--gizmology, geodesic domes and buttons to push. There's also a good article on "getting on the Internet for free" in the Portland area (largely applicable to other locales).
  
  
• t0 Institut Für Neue Kulturtechnologien: Odd minimalist site with interesting agenda and general infos. Features the amusing Interactive Cattle Mutilator, and now has some VRML stuff for your 3-D browsing pleasure.
  
  
• The Pumpkin House: Japanese virtual environment, Sanrio-stylee. Extremely cool and hypercute implementation of all that "online space" gobbledegook. The persistent explorer will discover a conceptually-fascinating gateway to a second virtual world.
  
  
• WaxWeb: Interactive media project--one of the better ones. Based on the impenetrable indie film WAX: or The Discovery of Television Among the Bees. Bring your VRML browser if possible.
  
  

----net.activism

• The repressive information-control tactics of the "Church" of Scientology come to the Internet. For more dope, delve into the Electronic Frontier Foundation's CoS legal archives, check out a Dutch repository of press clippings and photos, or journey straight to Operating Thetan Central in L.A. for the party line (where you will also discover that the terms "Purification" and "Life Improvement" are "trademarks and service marks owned by the Religious Technology Center").
  
  
• Applying Copyleft To Non-Software Information: "Certain restrictions of copyright--such as distribution and modification--are not very useful to 'cyberia', the free,apolitical, democratic community that constitutes the internetworked digital world." Hence, this application of Stallman's Free Software concepts to text and other intellectual products.
  
  
• Best Viewed with Any Browser: The conceptually-rocking "Campaign for a Non-Browser-Specific WWW". Fighting the good fight to keep the web safe from proprietary code.
  
  
• Lynx Enhancement: Deeds and words from the forefront of the low-fi, no-res Internet ASCII subculture that honors the Lynx web browser as its client of choice. The key point to consider: "What else are people working on VT100 terminals in the Third World going to use?"
  
  
• Radio4All's NAB Campaign: An excellent page on an excellent site detailing the National Association of Broadcasters' shameless attempts to prevent anyone except big radio stations from exercising our Constitutionally-guaranteed right to use the airwaves. See in graphic detail how NPR and NAB oppose any kind of legalized micropower radio broadcasting and rabidly encourage FCC prosecution of "pirate" broadcasters.
  
  
  
• Slashdot.org: Self-defined as "News for Nerds on the Stuff that Matters", this site is by far the coolnest source for information from the back end (which is, of course, the "front") of the OS Holy Wars. Seriously critical and proactive with a free software twist--highly recommended.
  
  
• The Cathedral and the Bazaar: Eric S. Raymond's influential and well-reasoned argument for the "bazaar-style" Linux development model--a major factor in Netscape's decision to release its source code to the free software community. Applicable to more than just coding--the wild success of Linux's "anarcho-utopian" collaboration of non-competetive forces is more proof that if you eliminate capitalistic and materialistic temptations, people really will work together for nothing more than a better world.
  
  
• The Free Music Philosophy: "...an anarchistic grass-roots, but high-tech, system of spreading music: the idea that creating, copying, anddistributing music must be as unrestricted as breathing air, plucking a blade of grass, or basking in the rays ofthe sun." Another extension of Richard Stallman's Free Software concept --this time into sonic territory.
  
  
• Voters' Telecomm Watch: A worthy volunteer organization keeping its collective eye on the looming Internet crackdown. Stop the Christian Coalition and others from attempting to "dumb down" Internet content to levels "acceptable to children".
  
  

----Sonic Attack

• Cassette Mythos: Complete text of this very fine Autonomedia book of essays on the cassette-distributed music/sound subculture--organized and hyperlinked for maximum web benefit. Acquiring the hardcopy is also a good idea, so as to facilitate comparing and contrasting the two medias.
  
  
• Edge of Obscurity Music Database: Stash of tasty music info provided by obviously progressively-minded radio station KFJC (89.7 FM; Los Altos Hills CA). In their own verbiage: "If you're decked out in plaid looking for the latest Vedder scoop or in search of the Whitney's 'True Voice' masters then I raise a bloodied finger aloft and indicate the land called 'EXIT' behind you..."
  
  
• Hyperreal--the Techno/Ambient archive: Drugs and raves. A definitive source.
  
  
• MOD Resources Web: Good starting point for info on the still-thriving MOD music file subculture. Grind out jungle beats on your low-tech XT or Amiga.
  
  
• mono: [eklektik. elektronik. musik.] One of the superslickest of several new web-based "mod labels"... excellent drum'n'bass and other tanzmusik genres.
  
  
• Roots & Wires Sound System: Experience "psychonautical implications of polyrhythmic dub and jungle" via solar-powered FM transmission. If you thought dub was just more stoned-style reggae, you were quite wrong. Tune into KTAO Sundays post-10pm MST for worthy net-broadcast action.
  
  
• Worship Guitars: Informative and opinionated webzine/catalog from this wiseguy label/distributorship (Houston psych such as Charalambides, The Mike Gunn, Dunlavy, Linus Pauling, etc.). Venture into the Houston music scene via Ramón Medina's kitchen window.
  
  

----Offworld Print Expansions

• Books On-line: Complete List by Author: ASCII/HTML fruits of the labor of Project Gutenberg and others. Complete works of literature and reference preserved for posterity and keyword searches for all eternity (or at least until the post-nuclear electromagnetic pulse wipes out all digital media).
  
  
• Cardhouse Consumer Product: "Junk Culture Magpies" from the Rotor City. Formerly Dryer Concept and even more formerly the one cool publication among many bearing the title X. Makes me laugh.
  
  
• FringeWare Inc.: The Mack Daddies of fringe culture review.
  
  
• Iron Feather Journal: This posse lives the underground lo-tek existence of rave pro-activism and DIY info-distro, this is the 24-hour interface to PHUN HQ. Tune in.
  
  
• monochrom: media.art.damage Sort of a Deutschlander IFJ, mostly in German.
  
  
• Moorish Orthodox Observatory: Revamped online stomping ground of Hakim Bey & other TAZmania sympathisers... (Formerly Mad Farmer's Jubilee Almanack.)
  
  
• N D: Excellent, long-running print magazine/music label project devoted to exploring and explicating unusual musics and "mail art". Their contentious (and accurate) motto: "Contact, exchange, document."
  
  
• Spunk Press: Dutch anarchists. Lots of cool archives.
  
  
• The Static Output: Latest permutation of Lloyd Dunn & co.'s excellent periodical evaluations of "cultural work", plagiarism and their ecto-societal ramifications. Earlier print manifestations (Retrofuturism, PhotoStatic, etc.) were a strong influence on the young, impressionable Reign of Toads.
  
  

----Old/Weird Tech

• Aminet: Humongous software archive plus links galore for the mighty, ill-treated Amiga.
  
  
• How To Get A 9" Screen (B&W) Mac on the Web: Mac-o-phile Jag's Shareware Archive also includes copious info on taking your Mac Plus, SE, Classic and/or other ancient Macintosh with you onto the Internet. Great data, downloads, tips & tricks. You gotta scroll down before you get to it, though.
  
  
• Lord 13's MAME Page: One of many sites dedicated to the best arcade emulator ever to become available to the masses, the Multi Arcade Machine Emulator, or MAME for short. Run 200+ classic arcade games on your PC, Mac, Amiga, etc. via a programming trick known as emulation... Just don't tell the copyright holders of the original machine ROMs (previously languishing in utter neglect) what you're up to.
  
  
• PC Demos Explained: The geeky world of highly-optimized sound and graphics code, tweaked and torqued until some kind of ambient/techno "video" results. If you have a PC (from a 286 on up), you can download and experience these labors of love. If you have an Amiga, follow this link for an equally dense "scene".
  
  
• The Commodore 8-bit WWW Server: A stepping stone into the expansive C64 online community.
  
  
• The Machine Room: Unbelievably detailed site/database/museum dedicated to the history and modern use of old 8-bit computers. Highlights include pix, first-person accounts from former developers, cross-referenced stats and other cool shit. Why cool? "The ROM of your average home computer is a miracle of a hack--people habitually fit a BASIC interpreter and a whole operating system in 16 to 32 kbytes, with not a single byte to spare." Now that's cool.
  
  
• The Packet Radio Home Page: Hard data about bypassing the telcos and sending Internet packets through the ether by short wave.
  
  
• The Programmable Brick: "...a tiny, portable computer embedded inside a LEGO brick, capable of interacting with the physical world through sensors and motors." Read all about it.
  
  
• The Telnettable TRS-80 Model 4: Evil genius Frank LaRosa has beat the pack again by hotwiring an old TRS-80 to the Internet (although whether it is truly "on" the Internet is debatable, since it is connected to a Win95 box via serial cables). Now you can experience the weird time warp sensation of logging into an old school BBS from Smithtown, Long Island circa 1987. Too cool.
  
  
• TRS-80 Revived Pages: Data, anecdotes and links for the various Tandy/Radio Shack rigs.
  
  
• Web100: A centralized source of information and software for the Tandy Models 100-200: the original laptop computers (circa 1985). A truly useful machine (and compared to the Newton and its ilk, a superior PDA) often available used for less than $100.
  
  

----Computer Linkage

• Be, Inc.: The Great White Hope of late 20th-century computing. Remarkably witty and intelligent corporate site for the BeBox and BeOS... otherwise known as Amiga96.
  
  
• Colossal Cave: The original text "adventure" game, circa 1976. Source of the oft-quoted description: "You are in a maze of twisty passageways, all alike..." Includes historical data, source code and executables for several platforms. If you are so inclined, you can also play it on the web.
  
  
• Linux Online: A great starting point for more data on the powerful, influential and free (as in "free software") OS known as Linux. The only real alternative to assimilation by the Microsoft machine.
  
  
• Pegasus Mail: Free mail client software for Windows, DOS and Macintosh platforms. A superior, altruistically-motivated alternative.
  
  
• Searchlight Software: Home of superior BBS and Web server/database software for DOS and Windows 95/NT. A shameless plug for my pal Frank.
  
  
• SoftRAM95: "False and Misleading": The fascinating and lengthy story of a "RAM compression program" (e.g. RAM Doubler) that sold 600,000 copies and, apparently, never did anything beneficial at all. Especially illuminating are the rave reviews of this product that appeared in some industry magazines, compared with the absolute thumbs-down provided by others. Can you say "payola"?
  
  
• Stone Design: Various design and organizational tools for Rhapsody, NeXT and/or Windows NT platforms by noted cyber-pagan and Toad homeboy Andrew Stone. Also interactive goodies and interesting links to Net resources.
  
  
• The Year 2000 Information Center: When the clock on your computer ticks past 23:59:59 on 12.31.99, will it explode? Quite possibly.
  
  
• Windows 95 Annoyances: The many things that suck about Windows 95. In merciless detail.
  
  

----Junk Culture

• Gaslight: "An Internet discussion list which reviews one story a week from the genres of mystery, adventure and The Weird, written between 1800 and 1919." Warped, lurid prose from the likes of William Hope Hodgson, Arthur Machen and other luminaries; many of these works are otherwise impossible to obtain, so kudos to Gaslight for creating e-text versions.
  
  
• Prince Planet & other Vintage Anime: Naïve yet charming Japanese cartoons from the 60s. Comprehensive info on the US runs of Speed Racer, Gigantor and other cute/cool b&w characters.
  
  
• Robert E. Howard Archive: Cache of marginalia from the redneck-philosopher and hack creator of the quintessential modern barbarian hero: Conan. His vituperative rant about cats is potentially worth the time/effort to read.
  
  
• Search the Collected Works of Shakespeare: Like it says.
  
  
• The Page of Fu Manchu: Comprehensive repository for information on the archetypal "yellow peril" villain and his politically-incorrect, white-boy creator (Sax Rohmer, a.k.a. Arthur Sarsfield Ward). Even-handed information, documentation and criticism that transcends fannish obsession and delves into Fu Manchu's attendant cultural manifestations, literary descendants (e.g., Dr. No) and the character's inherently racist iconography.
  
  

----Saboteurs

• Harsh House: Online lair of the clever and dangerous audio/video aesthetic terrorists known as Condemek. Abrasive and thoughtful (if indifferently spelt) negative commentary on Western society awaits you hyar.
  
  
• Negativworldwidewebland: Negativland's home page. The site for keeping up with electronic copyright issues.
  
  
• Schwa: Now that the Schwa alien-head symbology has entered the mainstream of image transmission (via street and corporate media piracy), it is even more important to examine the source material. Evaluate the primary agitator of this meme here.
  
  
• See what an incredible scumbag Bob Black really is: When Mr. Black was a houseguest of writer Jim Hogshire, he decided to retaliate for that hospitality by turning him in to the Seattle police (once he was safely back in Albany, of course). "Homo ludens", my ass. And to think I used to stick up for this guy when other people said he was evil. (For more info on this incident, see the April 1997 Harpers Magazine for "Opium Made Easy" by Michael Pollan.)
  
  
• Trolls, Hoaxes, Culture Jamming, Poetic Terrorism, Media Hacks, Frauds, Impostors, Spoofs, Counterfeits, Fakes, Pranks, Scams, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds: Links to great hoaxes of the past and present. Evidence of the healing power of pranks.
  
  

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(If you have had the misfortune to follow an outdated or incorrect link,
please set us straight at info@rtoads.com.)

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last update 7/5/98


Reign of Toads PO Box 40498 Albuquerque NM 87196-0498 USA
info@rtoads.com