I was introduced to the internet in 1990, and was among the first users of the world wide web. I can personally attest that there really was a time when you visit every useful site on the web in a single weekend (some say that's still true). In the years since, the net has changed in many ways, but one artifact of those early days remains: The need for hot links - collections of URLs sorted and distilled by other human beings. When it first started, this was the only way to find out about other sites -- you'd hop from one person's list to the next. Now, it's the only way to sort through the clutter. (I also remember when the WWW virtual library was ten times better than Yahoo's listings; wow, how times change.)
Enough reminiscing; here are some of my favorite places:
CNN • MacNN • Cafe au Lait • Slashdot • CNET
Altavista • Download.com • The Swing Connection
Pasadena weather • Seattle weather
News sites include MacInTouch and the Mac Resource Page.
Voyager 2 and Pioneer 10 are two of the coolest things out there -- waaaaayyy out there!
Try your hand at The Final Bell Stock Trading Simulation after learning some tricks at The Motley Fool.