Weekly Webness - National Map Viewer

This is an online map that has many layers of information. You can get geological, geographical, topographical, tectonic, and dozens of other kinds of information just by selecting various layers to show.

Check it out!

National Map Viewer

Weekly Webness - The Straight Dope

Oh sure, ask.com and Google can give you answers to your normal questions, such as "how long did the Hundred Years War last" (116 years, from 1337 to 1453) and "why did anyone fight over roses, anyway?" (they didn't; the Roses in question were the badges associated with the royal houses of Lancaster and York). But where do you turn when you want to find out answers to questions such as What is "American Pie" really about? and "Was Captain Bligh really the jerk he was made out to be?"? Where can one go for answers to these burning questions?

You go to Cecil Adams for the Straight Dope, of course! Acerbic, witty, intelligent and always entertaining, Cecil answers questions you never even thought existed (and some that you think, "WHY would anyone want to know that????")

Weekly Webness - Online Dictionary

This online dictionary is GREAT: it's fast, it's reliable and it's free!

http://definr.com/

Type in a word, and ZING, you got your definition. I've bookmarked it, because it's way faster than my former reference site.

Weekly Webness - the Uncyclopedia

Everyone's seen online encyclopedias. Heck, one of the most popular sites out there is Wikipedia - a user-editable online encyclopedia.

Now, thanks to someone's delicious sense of humor (actually, a LOT of someones), we have the UNcyclopedia. Sort of an...anti-Wikipedia, if you like.
It's also user-editable, but...well, check it out.

Their page on Shiny Things is a fun place to start.

Weekly Webness - TV Tropes

Weekly Webness: TV Tropes!
It's a self-described "wiki of a catalog of the tricks of the trade for writing fiction."

You can see every cliche, every common theme, every "trick" you've ever seen in TV, Anime, Literature - if it's in a fictional work, chances are it's on this website somewhere, fully described with several examples.

Be warned - it is a wiki site, with many, many links to other pages on the site, so you can get lost for days in there.

Weekly Webness - Wikipedia

Webness of The Week: Wikipedia. It's a handy site for general reference, quick look-ups of information, and trivia.

You can look things up by genre, by name, by date, and in several languages.

Not a great site for hard reference, since it's a universally-editable site (meaning anyone with a free "wiki account" can edit any page), and the editors don't always have the best of intentions -- or even "telling the truth" -- in mind, but it is a handy site for quick reference material.