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 webslinky: the big ones
This week, the answer to everything. Always-on broadband and wireless networking may have altered the way we utilise the web, but many people still use search engines. Now, we, of course, just haven’t the time or patience to trawl through all of the flotsam and jetsam thrown up by such software when we urgently need those all-important answers. Indeed, when we suspect the pub quizmaster has already clocked our illicit under-the-table use of the office Blackberry, it calls for desperate measures. We’re not entirely sure quite who Jim Martindale is, but his meticulously compiled Reference Desk has proved mightily useful over the years. From links to dictionaries and encyclopedias, conversion tables and calculators, not to mention resources for movies, music, science, business and cookery – his site serves as a gateway to the kind of paraphernalia that’s often needed, but rarely bookmarked. While in the dim and distant past, arguments over the name of the actor who played Goose in Top Gun required a trip home and a frantic thumb through Halliwell’s, now the answer is just a hop and a click away. The Internet Movie Database boasts the plot synopsis and trivia, as well as details of directors, writers, cast and crew for nearly every film ever made. Allmusic, meanwhile, offers a similar service for aural pleasures, and the Book Page covers more literary bases. The unfortunate Goose was played by Anthony Edwards, in case you were wondering. Need more input? Try Encyclopedia or the easier-to-read Wikipedia, the entries to which are written by over 13,000 contributors around the globe. Finally, our other favourite one-stop-shop is the rather wonderful Metacritic, who kindly cull reviews of the latest films, games, books and albums from the web, before compiling their own Metascore.
Kingsley Marshall
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related info
 useful linkswww.imdb.com www.allmusic.com www.bookpage.com www.encyclopedia.com www.wikipedia.org www.metacritic.com
note: The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
see also
 webslinky #040paranormal ezines  webslinky #039animation  webslinky #038fame gone wrong  webslinky #037free fiction  webslinky #036world domination
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