~ Early Web Links ~

NNDB is a massive biographical intelligence aggregator with over 40,000 profiles documenting notable people, both living and dead, along with their connections to one another. Its standout feature, the NNDB Mapper, lets users visually explore relationships between people through family ties, corporate boards, political alliances, and more.

A massive database of over 20,000 names from cultures and languages spanning the entire globe, organized by country, language, and meaning with detailed etymologies included. Visitors can browse everything from Aztec and Anglo-Saxon to Vietnamese and Yiddish names, plus themed categories like Dragon Names, Shadow Names, and Warrior Names for creative use in stories, games, and pet naming.

Alan Levine, known online as CogDog, is a veteran web educator and consultant who has been building open web tools, storytelling projects, and digital learning resources since the early 1990s. His landing page showcases a career devoted to connected learning, open education, WordPress-based tools like SPLOT, and creative web storytelling experiments such as ds106 and 50+ Web 2.0 Ways To Tell a Story.

No Web Without Women is an educational showcase highlighting the pivotal contributions of women in computer science and technology, featuring profiles of pioneers like Ada Lovelace, Hedy Lamarr, and Grace Hopper with historical images and clear explanations of each innovation. The site makes a compelling case for how foundational technologies like algorithms, wireless transmission, and compilers owe their existence to overlooked female inventors and scientists.

Hack Education is Audrey Watters' long-running independent publication covering the history and critical analysis of education technology, free from advertising and investor influence. With over a decade of archives, essays, and talks, it offers a sharp, skeptical perspective on ed-tech trends, behavioral psychology in learning, and the implications of technology in education.