Reference & directories sites that earned a spot

cancompost answers whether 400-odd everyday items belong in a compost pile — eggshells, k-cups, dog poop, compostable bags. Each item is rated separately against six systems, from a cold backyard heap to bokashi to municipal curbside, because the honest answer changes with the bin.

BeachWaterTemp gives live and typical water temperatures for 221 US swim beaches, for anyone deciding whether to get in. Every reading names the NOAA station it came from and how far that station sits from the sand, rather than implying it was measured at the beach itself.

816 New York looks up any New York City address and shows what the Department of Buildings, HPD and 311 have on record for that building. Every record carries the date it was last checked, and when a check has not succeeded in three days the record says so rather than showing old numbers as current.

iFixCodes explains what HTTP status codes and WordPress errors mean and how to fix them, in words a site owner would use. The domain was a WordPress repair shop until it lapsed; the publisher who took it over keeps the old shop's plugin pages at their original URLs but retired its donation page.

The Safety Almanac dates every safety awareness day, week and month in the world, and ties each one to the injury it exists to prevent. A date is marked confirmed only once someone has read the organiser's own page and logged the day they read it; the rest are openly flagged as inferred.

TurnOffLocation documents the exact menu path for switching location sharing off in apps like Find My, Life360 and Snapchat. Every path is read off the vendor's own page and archived that day, and each card says who can still see you afterwards instead of promising nobody will know.

JoistSpan gives the allowable span for a floor joist, rafter, header or deck beam under the 2021 International Residential Code. Every number is cited to the exact table it came from, and anything the tables don't cover — point loads, unusual snow — goes to an engineer, not a rule of thumb.

HolidayClosures answers whether US banks, mail, markets, federal offices, schools and trash pickup are running on a given day. Every answer is hand-checked against the institution's own calendar — the Fed, USPS, NYSE — and where next year's schedule isn't published yet, the page says so.

Curatorbait is a one-curator gallery of websites judged on a single question: did the site make a design decision and see it through? Nothing is sponsored, and every rejected submission still gets written reasons, because a no without a why is just noise.

WashCodes turns the care symbols printed on a clothing tag into one plain-English washing plan. When symbols on the same tag pull in different directions it always resolves to the stricter reading, never the loosened one.

StillEdible answers how long a given food keeps — pantry, fridge, freezer, opened, or left out overnight. Every number is quoted verbatim from USDA's FoodKeeper data, never rounded or averaged, unlike the guesswork most 'how long does it last' pages run on.

PollenDates gives the typical start, peak and end dates for tree, grass and ragweed pollen in every US state. It runs no daily counts and no symptom advice — ragweed's end is simply the local first-frost date from NOAA's 1991–2020 records.

HuntDates tells US hunters which seasons are open today, counting down, or closed in their state, across deer, turkey, duck, dove and elk. Every date is transcribed from the state wildlife agency's own regulations and linked back to it; the site calls itself a calendar, not the law.

FootingDepth is a state-by-state reference on how deep footings, fence posts and buried lines have to go. Every depth names the code section and edition it came from, and where no agency publishes a verifiable figure the page says so rather than guessing.

Farmers Market Dates tracks which farmers markets are open today and when each season opens and closes, across 94 markets in ten US cities. A market is marked confirmed only once someone has read this season's schedule on a live page — the other eight say “check before you go”.

BurnDates tracks which US counties are under a burn ban, reading the state forestry lists so anyone about to light a fire doesn't have to. Rather than serve a stale answer, it expires any county it hasn't reconfirmed within two days and says so.

Wildflowerdates tracks when North America's wildflower blooms peak, desert floor to alpine meadow, for anyone planning a trip around one. It calls superbloom years from winter rain at NOAA stations against each desert's past big years, and names public reserves and roads only — never an exact pin.

TaxFreeDates tracks every US state sales tax holiday — the dates, the price caps, and which items actually qualify. Every entry is hand-checked against the state's own revenue announcement, and when a state hasn't posted next year's dates it says so rather than guessing.

ShelfYears is a shelf-life reference for the non-food things in a garage or cleaning cupboard — fuels, paints, pool chemicals, the helmet on the hook. Every window cites a manufacturer document or SDS section and the day it was checked, and says whether using it late is harmless or a safety issue.

HouseYears is a reference on how long each part of a house actually lasts, material by material. Every figure sits beside the published warranty term to show how far apart the two run — slate lasts 75 years or more, but its 100-year warranty covers exactly two failure modes.

FeederDates gives put-out and take-down dates for hummingbird, oriole and suet feeders in all 50 US states. It says plainly that neither Journey North nor eBird publishes a put-out date, and that its windows are its own reading of their arrival data.

Earnaspot is a gallery of well-designed websites where a person opens and uses every applicant before it reaches the wall. Paying only moves a site up the queue — the fee comes back when a site is declined, and every rejection names the reason it failed.