We have to talk, fellow children of the internet. I think that, by and large, you're all doing a bang-up job of building out this new digital commons. It'll soon come to define our planet's culture for the foreseeable future, and we're off to what I would call a solid, monkey-punching start.

But we do have a big problem. The images, people. Many of you abuse them shamelessly, as if you somehow don't know or care about the difference between a GIF and JPEG. I have a hard time even conceiving of this possibility, to be honest. But since I run into this a lot, both with new DCist contributors and with submitted press releases, I thought I might as well write something up explaining how different graphical formats work, and what situations you should use them in.

A few sites that I don't send people to enough:

• Dan's Data is written by a crazy Australian skeptic*, and while it definitely has an unhealthy preoccupation with LED flashlights and comparative studies in PC cases, there's plenty of material for both geeks and nerds. Dan's writing is always sharp, and his columns are littered with delightful bits like this one, in which he discusses the feasibility of setting off a nuclear explosion by holding two pieces of plutonium in your hands and clapping them together like erasers. It's very, very hard to read one of Dan's columns without learning something about computing, electronics or physics.


• Derek Lowe's blog In the Pipeline does a good job making the pharmaceutical industry seem non-evil, in a nice sort of triangulation between my own Marcia Angel-style piratical skepticism and Andrew Sullivan's calls for immediate and unconditional surrender to the forces of Merck and Pfizer. Best of all is his How Not To Do It series, which may be a big help to you if you've got access to a chemistry lab and the desire to die horribly, but aren't quite sure where to start.


• Finally, via Lowe I've just discovered Dylan's TenderBlog, which is also alchemical in nature. It features insights like the following (on distilling a particularly carinogenic solvent): "Just wear two pairs of gloves and don't marinate your genitals in it". I'm no chemist, but that sounds like good advice.

* By which I mean he's skeptical about things like religion and alternative medicine. I'm pretty sure he believes in Australia.