25 ms·

Ask HN: What is your favorite internet rabbit hole?

1036 points by karim 10y ago

I'll start --- I once spent a couple days on a summer job looking through industrial incidents related to the Great Boston Molasses Flood (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Molasses_Flood). Wikipedia is definitely full of very interesting rabbit holes.

livatlantis 10y ago
Great question! YouTube. I don't use YouTube at all for music recommendations/discovery but every once in a while, I'll chance upon something amazing. A comment on an upload of Seventh Wonder's The Great Escape[0] led me my discovering Shadow Gallery's First Light[1], which I enjoyed almost as much. (Almost. SW's track, based on Henry Martinson's 'Aniara' poetic cycle is, in my opinion, at another level. Martison was awarded a Nobel prize for his work but unfortuntely commited suicide as a result of fierce criticism against this decision). 0: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMjO7y-98Ak https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMjO7y-98Ak 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-Qt1eqJ26s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-Qt1eqJ26s
tartuffe78 10y ago
TV Tropes is always good: http://tvtropes.org/ http://tvtropes.org/
- paulrpotts 10y ago
  TV Tropes is amazing. I have some experience writing short stories but diving into the tropes has been a real mind-expanding experience. I can't watch TV shows or movies now without automatically deconstructing the screenwriting. This, ultimately, has become a real time-saver, because since gaining that super-power, I find most TV too boring to watch, and so don't feel at all bad about saving my time for better things.
  - JoshTriplett 10y ago
    Likewise, but I also find that it leads me to the occasional book, TV, or movie that I enjoy. I'm a sucker for a few particular tropes, and I'll go down the list for those and seek out everything on them. TV Tropes has had funding issues in the past. I can't help but think that they could make a significant amount through 1) affiliation with Netflix, Amazon, Google Play, iTunes, or other providers of media, and 2) integration with Amazon X-Ray or Google Play's equivalent.
- wcummings 10y ago
  RIP my productivity, tvtropes is like heroin to me.
- CalChris 10y ago
  There is nothing in the universe quite like a troll on TV Tropes. Maybe a troll on Wikipedia but they're probably all the same person. Warning: if you say lampshading IRL, no one will understand you. If by strange coincidence you ran into a fellow Troper, you'd have to type it out.
  - qwertyuiop924 10y ago
    Troperese is a legitimate language, understood by Tropers worldwide. Referencing lampshading is a sort of shibboleth, and it can be used to determine of a potential troper is One Of Us, as can a Fake Thomas Jefferson. An obscure reference could do the trick, and Wicks are another fun one to try.
  - mkl 10y ago
    "Lampshading" existed as a term used by writers etc. well before TV Tropes came along. I'm pretty sure I first heard it on Usenet in the 90s in a newsgroup primarily for SF writers, where it was well understood. Many terms on TV Tropes are pretty recent, but a lot were already established elsewhere.
  - taneq 10y ago
    Really? My crew use lampshading all the time.
- logfromblammo 10y ago
  Or the forked version at https://allthetropes.org https://allthetropes.org if you are sensitive about censorship.
carole1 10y ago
What is a rabbit hole? Is it just an interesting site to waste time on?
- personlurking 10y ago
  It comes from a metaphor: > "Down the rabbit hole", a metaphor for an entry into the unknown, the disorienting or the mentally deranging, from its use in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
  - cooper12 10y ago
    Though in modern parlance it seems to me to be used to refer to an endless hole one falls down and never really finds their way out of.
personlurking 10y ago
I don't have a favorite rabbit hole but rather I've developed a link-hopping habit that pretty consistently leads down the rabbit hole. Basically, while looking at a site/article that interests me, I usually end up doing a separate search for any concepts or organizations mentioned, then seeing what they have to offer. Rinse and repeat.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
zgniatacz 10y ago
http://wiki.c2.com http://wiki.c2.com
tunap 10y ago
damninteresting.com is where I 1st read about the Great Molasses Flood, amongst a slew of other bizarre non-fictional events & people. The wordsmiths make the bizarre accounts even more damn intetesting. edit: link https://www.damninteresting.com/ https://www.damninteresting.com/
- DamnInteresting 10y ago
  The finest compliment is that which the utterer is unaware the recipient can hear (or, more appropriately, 'see,' but that doesn't sound stuffy enough). Thanks for the kind words! Relatedly, "stuffy enough" is fun to say.
runj__ 10y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pritzker_Architecture_Prize https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pritzker_Architecture_Prize It has links to architects and those pages in turn have links to beautiful buildings. Also the wikipedia pages of art museums tend to be awesome timesinks as well, you can click through every artist and all of their famous artworks.
- crdb 10y ago
  Obligatory follow-up: http://kunstler.com/writings/eyesore-of-the-month/ http://kunstler.com/writings/eyesore-of-the-month/ If you are a bit familiar with architecture, laughs guaranteed.
- cooper12 10y ago
  Related to this, I'm not sure how many people use them, but there are categories at the bottom of every page which group together similar articles, navboxes that list articles that are related, and at the left side of the page "what links here" which lets you find incoming wikilinks. Oh, and on the talk page there are Wikiprojects where you can find categories for projects built around certain areas like Film. Lastly, Wikipedia's Featured Articles are some of its highest quality ones and usually go quite in depth while being well-written and interesting.
analogwzrd 10y ago
For me, it's definitely Ribbonfarm:http://www.ribbonfarm.com/ http://www.ribbonfarm.com/ I stumbled into Venkat's blog about two and half years ago and I'm still trying to find my way out. The rabbit hole gets even deeper when you look at his list of recommended reading. The material on John Boyd and OODA loops in particular has been bouncing around my head for about a year. Ribbonfarm quickly turns into a choose-your-own-adventure type of experience as it's very easy to bounce between articles and start looking everything that you don't know. If you're interested in getting below the surface level of how organizations, teams, and business cultures work Ribbonfarm is the best place I know of that really digs into the details. If you're expecting the typical "be a leader, not a manager" platitudes, then you'll be disappointed.
- peller 10y ago
  That recommended reading list is so good I'm going to save some people the trouble of finding the link: http://www.ribbonfarm.com/now-reading/ http://www.ribbonfarm.com/now-reading/
  - analogwzrd 10y ago
    I never would have imagined myself reading a book about teaching improvisational theater and enjoying it, much less finding it applicable to my career in engineering.
    - callmeal 10y ago
      If you liked that book, take a peek at "Don't Shoot The Dog"
- threepipeproblm 10y ago
  I discovered ribbonfarm after being pointed to Rao's outstanding series about office politics, through the lens of the Office which is here: http://www.ribbonfarm.com/the-gervais-principle/ http://www.ribbonfarm.com/the-gervais-principle/ Then I decided to read much more material from the blog, but for the most part I have been disappointed. I feel like the authors there love intellectualism to the point that they create fancy constructs even when there isn't much return. Basically I feel like it's trying too hard to be clever. I have found a few gems there, however. Not trying to pick a fight with anyone, just wanted to share my own experience here.
octo_t 10y ago
My current rabbit hole has been the world building stack exchange (http://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/ http://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/) which is (ostensibly) for writers working out scientific or historical justifications for the worlds they invent. Some of the thought that goes into answers is really cool. Good ones from recently are: - http://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/59175/what-kind-of-weapons-could-squirrels-use http://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/59175/what-... - http://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/59171/is-this-alternate-history-plausible-hard-sci-fi-realistic-history http://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/59171/is-th... - http://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/58745/standardisation-of-time-in-a-ftl-universe http://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/58745/stand...
- mathw 10y ago
  I used to love it, but I do feel that the quality of the questions has dropped significantly since it started. There are now many people trying to find a justification for their pet plot idea, or trying to have the community fix the gaping hole in their universe. That said, there are some amazing answers, well thought out and well researched, and I love some of the questions about cultural impacts of technological or biological speculation.
- sethrin 10y ago
  I have to say, that last is a particularly bad question. Asking about the spacetime interval between two points has an answer. Asking about the spacetime interval between two points when you have some unspecified magic which can shorten that interval can only be answered by asking the parent what type of magic he was thinking of and how it works.
pinewurst 10y ago
http://www.filfre.net/sitemap/ http://www.filfre.net/sitemap/ The Digital Antiquarian - a very well written running history of computer games, especially adventure-y ones from the beginning to about 1989 now.
genjipress 10y ago
Shadertoy! http://www.shadertoy.com http://www.shadertoy.com
mlvljr 10y ago
this
vincentbarr 10y ago
lesswrong.com
luos 10y ago
Currently my favourite time wasters are learning channels on youtube. Especially not the "weird" ones like VSauce because I think those are pretty unwatchable. I like SciShow / SciShow space even though that's borderline weird :) My current fav is Sixty Symbols, endless very interesting videos: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvBqzzvUBLCs8Y7Axb-jZew https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvBqzzvUBLCs8Y7Axb-jZew Also PBS Space Time, MinutePhysics, MinuteEarth.
- CaptSpify 10y ago
  You might also like: cpgrey - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2C_jShtL725hvbm1arSV9w https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2C_jShtL725hvbm1arSV9w Kurzgesagt - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsXVk37bltHxD1rDPwtNM8Q https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsXVk37bltHxD1rDPwtNM8Q (not as educational, but funny): exurb1a - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCimiUgDLbi6P17BdaCZpVbg https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCimiUgDLbi6P17BdaCZpVbg
- Broken_Hippo 10y ago
  I've been through so many of these - but not Sixty Symbols. Thanks! Also interesting is Crash Course, made by some of the same folks as SciShow. Really more for high school students, but interesting enough that I don't mind them repeating information I do know and I pick up on new stuff.
- qwertyuiop924 10y ago
  How could you forget CGPGrey and ViHart? Oh, and also Tom Scott, if you haven't seen him yet.
- hacker42 10y ago
  I like these channels: Tom Scott https://m.youtube.com/user/enyay https://m.youtube.com/user/enyay standupmaths https://m.youtube.com/user/standupmaths https://m.youtube.com/user/standupmaths Cody's Lab https://m.youtube.com/user/theCodyReeder https://m.youtube.com/user/theCodyReeder Matthias Wandel https://m.youtube.com/user/Matthiaswandel https://m.youtube.com/user/Matthiaswandel Primitive Technology https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCAL3JXZSzSm8AlZyD3nQdBA https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCAL3JXZSzSm8AlZyD3nQdBA Applied Science https://m.youtube.com/user/bkraz333 https://m.youtube.com/user/bkraz333
adrianN 10y ago
Secure Contain Protect http://www.scp-wiki.net/ http://www.scp-wiki.net/
- idlewords 10y ago
  This is a wonderful rabbit hole. It can be hard to find a good entry point but worth perservering, particularly if you're alone somewhere late at night.
  - szatkus 10y ago
    In my opinion it's fine to start from top rated entries. http://www.scp-wiki.net/top-rated-pages http://www.scp-wiki.net/top-rated-pages
    - failrate 10y ago
      I have mild OCD, so I ended up reading all of them in order over a few months.
      - Sorry_Rum_Ham 10y ago
        A few months? Man, that's fast. Literally one of the things on my bucket list is to 'catch-up' on SCP. But I read so damn slowly and new entries are added all the time, so, it's likely never gonna happen. Still enjoy the hell out of scaring myself at night by reading them, though.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
- JamesLeonis 10y ago
  I was also going to suggest this. It made watching Stranger Things even more enjoyable.
- mrbill 10y ago
  Definitely. One of my favorites.
hazeii 10y ago
The one I'm currently in.
exolymph 10y ago
slatestarcodex.com, I haven't nearly read all the archives and I'm always running into links to Scott's work
msluyter 10y ago
Slate Star Codex: http://slatestarcodex.com/ http://slatestarcodex.com/, for a lot of interesting socio-philosophical discussion on a variety of topics. Meditations on Moloch is one of my favorites: http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/
- Joeboy 10y ago
  Also the link threads are amazing time wasters. I urge you not to click on the link below if you value your life: http://slatestarcodex.com/tag/links-2/ http://slatestarcodex.com/tag/links-2/
  - exolymph 10y ago
    I actively avoid them because my Instapaper list is overwhelming enough.
- BigJeffeRonaldo 10y ago
  Leave it to STEMlords to reinvent Christianity
- exolymph 10y ago
  "I Can Tolerate Anything Except The Outgroup" is one of the greatest pieces of political writing ever. http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anything-except-the-outgroup/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anything...
  - eseehausen 10y ago
    It's interesting how much this reads like footnotes to Derrida , especially in the beginning (other cliffnotes here: http://www.iep.utm.edu/derrida/#SH7c http://www.iep.utm.edu/derrida/#SH7c or http://www.columbia.edu/itc/ce/s6403/jacques_derrida.pdf http://www.columbia.edu/itc/ce/s6403/jacques_derrida.pdf if you feel like reading the original). It's nice to see ideas move from so theoretical that LW and associated communities would likely dismiss to digestible forms like this. It gives me hope for communication amongst outgroups that are pretty virulently opposed to each other (Continental theorists and let's say the vanguard of popular "rationalism"), mostly due to their proximity.
o0-0o 10y ago
WOW: http://drunkmenworkhere.org/archive http://drunkmenworkhere.org/archive This is the rabbit hole you've been waiting for. Be warned!
mpeg 10y ago
http://everything2.com http://everything2.com is (kinda) still going strong.
- cthulhujr 10y ago
  About a month ago I started visiting again after years of it being long-forgotten. I was pleasantly surprised to see it's still (kinda) going strong. Reminds me a bit of Medium today, but a lot less preachy.
ohthehugemanate 10y ago
Reptilians. You're welcome. http://www.alternet.org/story/147967/inside_the_great_reptilian_conspiracy%3A_from_queen_elizabeth_to_barack_obama_--_they_live%21 http://www.alternet.org/story/147967/inside_the_great_reptil...
mathw 10y ago
TV Tropes. Just don't go there.
morenoh149 10y ago
http://history-computer.com/Library/ http://history-computer.com/Library/ some choice links Blaise Pascal's Privilege http://history-computer.com/Library/PascalPrivilege.pdf http://history-computer.com/Library/PascalPrivilege.pdf Ada's Sketch of the analytical computer http://history-computer.com/Library/Ada/Sketch%20of%20The%20Analytical%20Engine.htm http://history-computer.com/Library/Ada/Sketch%20of%20The%20...
jclem 10y ago
Ulillillia: http://www.ulillillia.us/sitemap.shtml http://www.ulillillia.us/sitemap.shtml Useful sections include the one on tips to speed up mowing the lawn. Less useful ones focus on things like how to open soda bottles.
- bass_case 10y ago
  I was surprised to find someone else posting Nicks site :)
alyandon 10y ago
For me, it's any page related to astronomy on Wikipedia.
hawski 10y ago
List of unusual articles on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Unusual_articles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Unusual_articles
- lbotos 10y ago
  I like Wikipedia random too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
failrate 10y ago
Pagat.com: someone attempting an exhaustive list of card game rules and variants (typically played with traditional decks, so no Magic the Gathering).
danharaj 10y ago
https://ncatlab.org/nlab/show/HomePage https://ncatlab.org/nlab/show/HomePage The nlab is a remarkable mathematical resource open to everyone. I've been using it to contextualize my mathematical learning since I was an undergraduate.
bsandert 10y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_eponymous_laws https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_eponymous_laws Which contains (apart from the obvious Murphy's law and Occam's razor) such pearls as the Peter Principle, the Dunning-Kruger effect, and Hofstadter's Law. 20+ tabs guaranteed!
- hacker42 10y ago
  In a similar vein, and perhaps even more useful, here is a collection of probably 100+ useful concepts and thinking tools (make sure to read all comments and also the comments in the linked article at the top): Concepts for Your Cognitive Toolkit https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10819355 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10819355
- Y201K 10y ago
  We share the same vice!
- raquo 10y ago
  Similarly, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases
- provemewrong 10y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_lists_of_lists https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_lists_of_lists
  - bjz_ 10y ago
    I like that it references itself under 'Miscellaneous'.
jmspring 10y ago
This is one of mine. I'm into history, in particular local and western history. http://www.sptddog.com/sotp/ http://www.sptddog.com/sotp/
larvaetron 10y ago
The Cutting Room Floor: http://tcrf.net http://tcrf.net
pault 10y ago
Atomic Rockets by a wide margin: http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/ http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/
- CydeWeys 10y ago
  Seconded. This was my immediate first thought as well. I love that someone has thought in such great depth on all of these issues.
manoj_venkat92 10y ago
https://www.brainpickings.org/ https://www.brainpickings.org/ The title truly says "A meaningful inventory of Life". I get lost in the labryinths in that blog covering science, philosophy, literature & art.
- J_Sherz 10y ago
  I highly recommend the newsletter: the founder sends out a carefully curated and thoughtful summary of the previous weeks articles so you can pick out the one's that interest you. It's my default Sunday reading.
draw_down 10y ago
The Last Psychiatrist, http://thelastpsychiatrist.com http://thelastpsychiatrist.com . Excellent insights into the ways we lie to ourselves, how we react to the media, and how society operates. I also love ribbonfarm, previously mentioned in the thread.
adamnemecek 10y ago
http://metacademy.org http://metacademy.org
erickhill 10y ago
http://www.sporcle.com http://www.sporcle.com It's not high-brow by any stretch, but is's a great time waster.
gtilma 10y ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/ https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/
- pixelHD 10y ago
  came here to say this, they have some amazing content! Sort by top > year/all time gives you tons of good stories.
heleph 10y ago
It's a little bit dated now, but the C2 wiki is a fun place to read about software development. There are quite a lot of patterns, anti-patterns, practices, rambling debates and just generally interesting ideas: http://wiki.c2.com/?DesignByCommittee http://wiki.c2.com/?DesignByCommittee
- _luckypierre 10y ago
  Absolutely love C2. Filled with funky little gems about finding meaning in life and work.
anton_gogolev 10y ago
http://rationalwiki.org/ http://rationalwiki.org/
jackhack 10y ago
Atlas Obscura - a collection of the world's most interesting/peculiar, and downright strange places. It's like a marriage of a world map + Ripley's Believe it Or Not. www.atlasobscura.com/
- 26 10y ago
  This made it to the front page of HN a couple months back, but it's worth posting again: http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/lake-nyos-the-deadliest-lake-in-the-world http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/lake-nyos-the-deadliest-l...
- mxuribe 10y ago
  Reading the titles of some of their pieces in their newsletter is awesome in itself! I subscribe to their newsletter, and its easy enough to ignore going deep, but again, I get such pleasure from the weird, fun, wacky titles of their pieces; I can't recommend them enough!
zerognowl 10y ago
Permanently opened: https://pinboard.in/recent/ https://pinboard.in/recent/
- idlewords 10y ago
  That made my day.
jimmaswell 10y ago
http://tcrf.net http://tcrf.net Some games have a ton of unused content left in them
Kenji 10y ago
a wave of molasses rushed through the streets at an estimated 35 miles per hour (56 kilometers per hour) Now, you wouldn't call that slow as molasses.
- a3n 10y ago
  No, that is exactly slow as molasses, by demonstration. It is the observed speed of a specific mass of molasses under observed conditions.
VLM 10y ago
I enjoy watching conference videos. https://www.infoq.com/ https://www.infoq.com/ Also search youtube for conference video playlists. I have my mythtv set up so downloaded conference videos show up as a channel just like a recording on my mythtv system, so I can just sit on the couch and watch a clojure conf or whatever just as if it were a recorded PBS program. Very convenient. As a side issue I raided archive.org for hilarious black and white silent films of Buster Keaton who was quite a comedian about a century ago.
minimaxir 10y ago
http://clientsfromhell.net http://clientsfromhell.net http://trenchescomic.com/tales/post/9810 http://trenchescomic.com/tales/post/9810 (dead, but a lot of content there)
neonhomer 10y ago
http://www.27bslash6.com/ http://www.27bslash6.com/ - lots of crazy stories from David Thorne Some particular good ones are: http://www.27bslash6.com/f26a.html http://www.27bslash6.com/f26a.html http://www.27bslash6.com/arguments.html http://www.27bslash6.com/arguments.html http://www.27bslash6.com/covers.html http://www.27bslash6.com/covers.html
- jatins 10y ago
  this is gold!
- Pigo 10y ago
  I always questioned whether his stuff is embellished, or complete fiction, but it doesn't stop me from laughing every time I read the story where he tries to pay with a picture of a spider.
  - pitaa 10y ago
    As someone who personally had business dealings with a company/person mentioned in one of those stories, I can say that the story perfectly matched the personas of those involved, which has me absolutely convinced that it actually happened (at least in some form). Extrapolating this to the other stories on the site, I have always assumed that they are in reality more truth than embellishment.
    - Pigo 10y ago
      That makes me happy to hear. After visiting /r/thatHappened you just stop believing anything funny or amazing is real online.
      - Natanael_L 10y ago
        Obligatory /r/nothingeverhappens Or to stay on topic, /r/talesfromretail and its friends
    - kirrent 10y ago
qwertyuiop924 10y ago
TVTropes is the big one, the vortex from which all other rabbit holes stem. The SCP foundation is also excellent, and The Digital Antiquarian is my new favorite. Fallen London is a browser MMOCYOA on steroids, and it's glorious. The Jargon File (before ESR ruined it with the latest round of updates) was amazing, and still is great fun. Bash.org is another classic rabbit hole, although far from the best for that purpose. And Youtube contains many rabbit holes, but my favorite by far is Tom Scott's youtube channel. Also of note is Tom & Matt's Park Bench, where he vlogs with Matt Grey on a semi-regular basis, Yahtzee Crowshaw's channel, where he used to play games with Gabriel Morton in his "Let's Drown Out" series, and Channel Awesome. Just, all of Channel Awesome.
- Bartweiss 10y ago
  Fallen London is dangerously brilliant - think of browser games like Kingdom of Loathing, but with a spectacular depth of storytelling and complexity. It also has an interesting rapid-feedback structure; instead of things like lengthy 'fights' everything runs on probabilistic outcomes. ...would you happen to know if Ambition: Enigma is real? No hints, but one of the devs suggested it wasn't and I'd like to at least know if there's actually something to look for.
  - qwertyuiop924 10y ago
    I have no idea. I'd say check the wiki, but that's spoilerific. By the way, did you see the excellent article about the Seeking The Name quest on RPS? https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2016/06/20/seeking-mr-eatens-name/ https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2016/06/20/seeking-mr-eaten...
    - Bartweiss 10y ago
      The wiki implies it's probably real, and links to two relevant things, but doesn't go further - Enigma is locked down almost as hard as Seeking The Name there. I hadn't read it until just now, but that's a really good piece. It's a fascinating quest, to the point where I have a second character for it and have seen it discussed in several places. I think StormingTheIvory had a pretty good essay, despite being a source I usually have serious issues with. It's an utterly bizarre quest. I think there's an important hole in game design literature centered around things like Seeking and I Wanna Be The Guy. It's this whole school of consciously abusive game design that completely contradicts basic principles. Seeking The Name is even weirder than most, because you can't even justify it in terms of skill challenges. The best analogue I have is the self-destruct button in Starship Titanic, which is literally just a big red button you can hit to lose the game. RPS is the first source I've seen offer a justification for this sort of behavior. If a game can't be genuinely punishing, then what's the point of putting up challenges in the first place?
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
jturolla 10y ago
http://www.yhchang.com/ http://www.yhchang.com/ I recommend "Subject Hello" and "AH"
mindcrime 10y ago
Very recently I've spent a lot of time on ai.stackexchange.com and electronics.stackexchange.com, so I guess both of those are in contention. Even more recently, I've been indulging some nostalgia related to my time as a firefighter by spending a lot of time on Youtube looking at videos of structure fires from around the world. It's kind of addictive to play "arm chair incident commander" and sit there going "why'd they stretch a 1-3/4" line instead of a 2-1/2?" or "why didn't the first in engine lay their own supply line" or "why aren't they using elevated master streams here", etc., etc., etc.
IsaacL 10y ago
I posted a list of them a while ago. For several years I was interested in alternative worldviews -- grand sweeping theories of reality. Here's my list: http://ribbonfarm.com http://ribbonfarm.com https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Sequences https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Sequences http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.co.uk/ http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.co.uk/ http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.co.uk/ http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.co.uk/ http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/ http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/ https://meaningness.com/ https://meaningness.com/ http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/ http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/ Enjoy :)
- Analemma_ 10y ago
  I remember that list, because I said then what I'll say now - posting a list like that on a site like this is akin to handing out bags of heroin at a school :P . But I guess it's what the OP asked for.
  - artifaxx 10y ago
    At least you learn something from reading these sorts of sites. Heroin doesn't do that...then again I may just be justifying an addiction.
    - type0 10y ago
      Some neuroscientists would argue that addiction is a form of "learning".
      - artifaxx 10y ago
        That's an interesting way of thinking about it, in some cases there is overlap. Both do transmit dopamine and reinforce neural connections. However this is just one of many types of "addiction", so I think the relationship goes both ways with learning having the potential to be one of many types of addiction.
      - ccvannorman 10y ago
        I guess you learn about reinforcement loops at an intimate level, which is probably good for machine learning/AI
yoodenvranx 10y ago
1) There is a Wiki for almost everything you can imagine. I am pretty sure you can spend whole weekens just clicking around in some random GoT, LotR or Harry Potter wiki 1.1) My current favorite is reading about the Warhammer 40k universe: (http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Warhammer_40k_Wiki http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Warhammer_40k_Wiki and http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Main_Page http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Main_Page) 2) reddit.com is a never ending source of entertainment if you know how to use it: 2.1) Go to any sub which kind of interests you and sort either by "top" or "controversial" for "all time". "controversial of all time" is especially interesting if you apply it to subs like /r/relationships (if you are into that kind of thing). 2.2) Start with this post on interesting subs: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/28il5s/what_is_a_primarily_text_based_subreddit_i_could/cibatnb/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/28il5s/what_is_a... /r/UnsolvedMysteries and /r/AskHistorians are by far my favorite subs at the moment 2.3) /r/ThreadKillers/, /r/DepthHub/, /r/goodlongposts/ are also a good sources of interesting posts 3) If you are into DIY, building boats, woodworking, metal lathes, surface grinding, scraping, and stuff like that, then you will and endless supply of videos on YouTube. /r/ArtisanVideos is a good source for interesting videos. If you want to find your own content you should have a look at this list: https://www.reddit.com/r/ArtisanVideos/comments/3v264a/meta_lets_make_a_list_of_artisan_youtube_channels/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ArtisanVideos/comments/3v264a/meta_... My favorite channels are This Old Tony (his newer videos are incredibly well made and very funny if you like dry humor. Check out his video on how to cut threads on a lathe https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lb_BURLuI70 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lb_BURLuI70), Abom79, Clickspring, Keith Rucker, Keith Fenner, Stefan Gotteswinter, Walter Sorrells, ... 4) Reading trip reports on https://www.erowid.org/ https://www.erowid.org/ is also a good way to waste a lot of time
- qwertyuiop924 10y ago
  For 40k, it's hard to go wrong with 1d4chan, the offical wiki of 4chan's /tg/, and home to such legendary tales as Ruby Quest, Love Can Bloom, The Golem's Garden, The Hamlet of Tyranny, Drew The Litch, The Millenial King, the Dread Gazebo, and the now legendary tale of Old Man Henderson, as well as a wealth of bizarre invented games, even weirder settings, and 40k and tabletop related content.
- 10y ago
agentgt 10y ago
* Unusual religions on wikipedia particularly Scientology. * Rogue waves (it is not that deep of a hole but for some reason I find it interesting). * Knot theory and category theory (again not sure why). * Social Psychology on wikipedia * Ben Thompson's Badass blog (more for humor and a little old now. not sure if it is updated) [1] * If you are an older mid to late 30 something like me X-Entertainment [2] used to be an awesome rabbit hole (no it is not a porn site). Sadly it is very very broken rabbit hole with collapsed tunnels all over. The author's penchant (Matt) for 80's crap ultimately succumbed to complete utter disorganization and proper backups. It is a 404 wasteland. I recommend googling "x-entertainment and he-man" (yes it is scary to google such terms but trust me) [1]: http://www.badassoftheweek.com/list.html http://www.badassoftheweek.com/list.html [2]: http://www.x-entertainment.com/index1.html http://www.x-entertainment.com/index1.html
unoti 10y ago
My favorite from an information perspective is The Great Leap Forward (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward). Another honorable mention is that I've been having a great time learning about AI techniques competing at codingame.com. It's something that's easy to get into, and hard to leave, for me.
Gmo 10y ago
I lost countless hours reading the archives of The Internet Oracle : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Oracle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Oracle I'm actually wary of woodchucks because of that now :D
ashmud 10y ago
One of the earliest www rabbit holes I remember visiting: https://www.chroniclesofgeorge.com/ https://www.chroniclesofgeorge.com/ Surprised MF has not been mentioned, yet. http://www.metafilter.com/ http://www.metafilter.com/
- qwertyuiop924 10y ago
  I had not heard of Chronicles of George. I have been laughing almost continuously reading it.
- badatusernames 10y ago
  Wow, it has been years since I've been to this site. Thank you! I used to customize this ticketing system. It was Peregrine Service Center before HP bought it. And we had a George too. Ah... the memories
  - lee_ars 10y ago
    Sorry—we used Remedy Action Request System at the George job. Source: I'm the webmaster and I was there :)
- dredmorbius 10y ago
  I'm sorting through suggestions and was glad to see MF mentioned. Exceptionally high-quality discussion.
donretag 10y ago
Russian dash cams on Youtube. Simple. Effective.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
zichy 10y ago
* C3TV, the Chaos Computer Club media library with hundreds of conference talks: https://media.ccc.de https://media.ccc.de * Art of the Title, in-depth analyses of movie title sequences: http://www.artofthetitle.com http://www.artofthetitle.com * Damn Interesting, it's damn interesting: https://www.damninteresting.com https://www.damninteresting.com * LEGO subreddit, do I need to say more? https://www.reddit.com/r/lego/ https://www.reddit.com/r/lego/
hexane360 10y ago
Things I won't work with: http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2011/11/11/things_i_wont_work_with_hexanitrohexaazaisowurtzitane http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2011/11/11/thi... Accident reconstruction/investigation videos. NTSB, CSB, and OSHA have some really in-depth ones: https://youtu.be/tMsjJWJFBbA https://youtu.be/tMsjJWJFBbA https://youtu.be/gDTqrRpa_ac?list=PLUXYDid45duP-lg8Kh_hSw841OY4r2Dz7 https://youtu.be/gDTqrRpa_ac?list=PLUXYDid45duP-lg8Kh_hSw841... Also, +1 for TV Tropes Edit: Also, http://www.scp-wiki.net/ http://www.scp-wiki.net/ has some classics.
- yoodenvranx 10y ago
  "Things I won't work with" deserves an extra highlight! I am not interested in chemistry at all but I read all the blog posts about once a year because the author is just so good with words.
paradite 10y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=dang https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=dang I could read this for days.
- qb45 10y ago
  > We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12773066 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12773066 and marked it off-topic. You bet ;) edit: Shit, I totally missed the point. I see it now.
mmagin 10y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway_revolts_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway_revolts_in_the_United_...
stinkytaco 10y ago
http://www.edge.org http://www.edge.org is up and down, but mostly up. Reddit can be, depending on your community. But I miss Kuro5hin.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
acdanger 10y ago
https://gcaptain.com/ https://gcaptain.com/ A maritime news site. Fascinating subject matter and the occasional naval disaster video.
niftich 10y ago
Scrolling to random places on Google Earth https://geoguessr.com/ https://geoguessr.com/
jttam 10y ago
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (http://www.bls.gov/ http://www.bls.gov/) is just fascinating enough and just badly organized enough that I never seem to be able to get to the same useful piece of information twice. And thus I constantly find myself looking at other interesting facts about the US labor force.
- meterplech 10y ago
  As an intern project years ago I had to all the BLS data into a database for analysis. Any time I ran into an issue I would call them directly. Little known fact that every BLS data set has a source.txt file with a phone number to call. You might think of government agencies as massive bureaucracy, but I was amazed at how helpful and knowledgeable everyone I spoke to was (and that the calls were answered at all). They would answer my immediate question and often explained the logic that went into the data structure. Making survey data structured is quite challenging and I gained a lot of respect for the work they do. Anyway, if you go down this rabbit hole, maybe make it an IRL rabbit hole and giving them a call may help get to your answers quickly.
seizethecheese 10y ago
AskReddit's top all time threads. Less intellectual, but very entertaining. Some of these have incredible human stories. https://m.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/?sort=top&t=all https://m.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/?sort=top&t=all
azaydak 10y ago
I spent lots of time reading this and following the linked pages while in graduate school. I learned a lot but it didn't help graduation to come any quicker. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_paradoxes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_paradoxes
hkt 10y ago
http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts There is always something stimulating and new in the archives, which go back years for some programmes. Also, every episode of "Short Cuts" (available above) is usually something amazing that you've never heard of. "Resistance" and "Rivals" are both great starts.
bluebeard 10y ago
Speaking of alternative world views and world building... I recently fell into a Wikipedia hole reading about the Islamic view of Angels, King Solomon and how he bent 72 demons to his will, Renaissance magic, and Hoodoo. It gets weird.
shp0ngle 10y ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/DeepIntoYouTube/ https://www.reddit.com/r/DeepIntoYouTube/ Definitely this one.
fosco 10y ago
Did not want to duplicate others but here is one I did not see on anyones list. https://mindhacks.com/ https://mindhacks.com/ -- Neuroscience and psychology news and views.
zby 10y ago
I have a feeling that it will be this thread!
ap22213 10y ago
For me, it's the History of Mathematics archive: http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/ http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/
0xdeadbeefbabe 10y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com https://news.ycombinator.com
r0m4n0 10y ago
Browsing medical diagnosis codes... https://www.cms.gov/Medicare/Coding/ICD10/2016-ICD-10-CM-and-GEMs.html https://www.cms.gov/Medicare/Coding/ICD10/2016-ICD-10-CM-and... Some of the most mildly interesting: V9543XD Spacecraft collision injuring occupant, subsequent encounter W5602XD Struck by dolphin, subsequent encounter X35XXXD Volcanic eruption, subsequent encounter X52XXXD Prolonged stay in weightless environment, subsequent encounter Y0881XD Assault by crashing of aircraft, subsequent encounter
- protomyth 10y ago
  Sadly, my first job out of college involved these codes after we wrote a rural health grant. The money and pain that went into that thing still wakes me up at night. The codes (and the cost of acquiring the "book" along with filling out the forms) gave me fits and actually made me think heavily about calling in sick for work each morning in the shower.
  - snovv_crash 10y ago
    There must be a code for that...
    - bduerst 10y ago
      ICD10-code induced trauma and anxiety, initial encounter
      - gridspy 10y ago
        Sounds likely to be F4311 Post-traumatic stress disorder, acute
    - protomyth 10y ago
      I would expect its more the domain of the other document I dread: the DSM-IV
- arglebarnacle 10y ago
  Some more: W2202XA Walked into lamppost, initial encounter W34111A Accidental malfunction of paintball gun, initial encounter W5629XA Other contact with orca, initial encounter Y36511D War operations involving direct blast effect of nuclear weapon, civilian, subsequent encounter V657XXA Person on outside of heavy transport vehicle injured in collision with railway train or railway vehicle in traffic accident, initial encounter Y92331 Roller skating rink as the place of occurrence of the external cause
mcfrankline 10y ago
All of this http://www.bofh.net/ http://www.bofh.net/ Bastard Operator from Hell
brightball 10y ago
The US Civil War has been mine for the last couple of years. The sheer volume of history and contributing factors, decades of build up, aftermath, affects on the US today, etc. My goodness, the economics of the whole thing are just fascinating. All the internet debates I saw when the confederate flag came down got me really interested in how so many people could know TOTALLY different things about the most historically significant event in the country. Now I've got about 12 books covering things in different ways (and there are so many more). Thanks to the Library of Congress and Google's efforts to scan books it's really easy to check citations as you read when you're having those "There is no way that's real" moments followed by "Holy crap! That's real?!?!" The whole thing has sparked an overzealous interest in history, which is the subject that interested me the least when I was younger. Now I give serious consideration to pursuing a doctorate one day with the aim of being a History professor when I get closer to 50 (which is still a decade or so off).
- rdtsc 10y ago
  I have been to Gettysburg multiple times. Once did a guided tour of the battlefields with a guide. It was very interesting. I wasn't born in this country (WWII is the major battle I learned about) but it was still fascinating seeing sites and learning the history, since it is my new country I want to know as much as possible about it. It is a different understand to see the place and be told, here is where attacked, then retreated, so many people died here and so on. What are some other interesting US Civil War battlefields or sites (Antietam, I would guess, Fort Sumter?)
  - m741 10y ago
    Fort Sumter isn't really a major site (it's got a lot of name recognition, but not much happened there compared to other places). Antietam is one - the bloodiest day in American history. Then there's a whole bunch in Virginia: The Wilderness, Spotsylvania, Fredericksburg, Manassas (site of two major battles). Further south, Vicksburg, Shiloh, Chickamauga, Stones River are all major sites. You probably haven't heard about any of these (maybe Manassas), but they're among the biggest battles of the war. The Virginia sites are all huge, historically speaking. Shiloh is a particularly beautiful battlefield. Vicksburg is the most impressive, because it's one of the few with obvious remains of battle - it was basically a trial run for WWI. Most battlefields have a low line of earthworks and some craters, but it's tough to picture what they looked like.
mrdrozdov 10y ago
https://github.com/mrdrozdov/rabbit-holes https://github.com/mrdrozdov/rabbit-holes
DanBC 10y ago
Here's a database of children's books that have won awards. http://www.dawcl.com/ http://www.dawcl.com/ It's an amazing compilation.
yoloswagins 10y ago
I'm partial to everything2.com. Back in the early 00's, everything2 tried to be a Wikipeida, where people could post multiple entries on a topic. The best part is reading 16 year old, long form essays about places. The recent stuff is short stories, but the essays of the bay area from the peak of the bubble are fascinating. Highlights: * http://everything2.com/title/The+NoCal+Super+Layoff+Unemployment+Collecting+BBQ+Moonlit+Bowling+Noder+Meet http://everything2.com/title/The+NoCal+Super+Layoff+Unemploy... * http://everything2.com/title/San+Mateo+bridge http://everything2.com/title/San+Mateo+bridge
- melloclello 10y ago
  I grew up reading everything2 and I dearly wish the internet was still more like that Some links: * http://everything2.com/title/catting+weird+things+to+%252Fdev%252Faudio http://everything2.com/title/catting+weird+things+to+%252Fde... * http://everything2.com/title/How+to+destroy+the+Earth http://everything2.com/title/How+to+destroy+the+Earth
- blt 10y ago
  I loved everything2 and contributed some mediocre content in high school. Looking back, everything2 was probably my first exposure to information about software development beyond HTML and Flash. There were a lot of Linux, C, Perl, Jargon File type people on the site.
cooper12 10y ago
I'd add https://publicdomainreview.org/ https://publicdomainreview.org/ which I've found to have a large variety of topics covered. I could also spend ages looking through http://www.textfiles.com http://www.textfiles.com. Lastly, https://monoskop.org/Monoskop https://monoskop.org/Monoskop, "a wiki for collaborative studies of the arts, media and humanities."
trelliscoded 10y ago
Orion's Arm is a collaborative world building project for the far future. The articles on monopole physics and wormholes are quite detailed, and the implications of higher levels of sentience are very interesting. http://www.orionsarm.com http://www.orionsarm.com The SCP foundation has been mentioned, but a lot of people don't know they have a sister site. http://wanderers-library.wikidot.com http://wanderers-library.wikidot.com The wikipedia articles about unsolved problems in physics and emerging technologies are huge click holes for most nerds: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_emerging_technologies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_emerging_technologies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unsolved_problems_in_physics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unsolved_problems_in_p... Reading about neolithic archaeology is way more fun than you might think. 10,000 years ago people built these huge sites with literally stone age technology, and the nature of their rituals and beliefs are mostly unknown. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neolithic#Early_settlements https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neolithic#Early_settlements Shodan is a search engine for devices on the Internet. Looking at other people's queries is a good way to get started. Every time you think, there's no way someone would connect one of those to the Internet, you find out that at least 10 people have gone and done just that. https://www.shodan.io/explore https://www.shodan.io/explore Running an NTP server in the public pool gives you the IPv6 addresses of all kinds of whacko IoT stuff. Every once in a while p0f can't figure out a TCP/IP stack that's connecting to my server, so I connect back and there's sometimes a really weird device with an open telnet or HTTP port or something. About once a month I have to call someone to tell them that they misconfigured their firewall when they turned on NTP and I'm logged into an air conditioner on a cruise ship or another bizarre combination of thing and place that I never thought I'd ever say out loud. Browsing the logs is a never-ending source of amazement. PSA: connecting to public NTP servers exposes you to people like me, don't do it unless you have to.
- MichaelMoser123 10y ago
  Great answer, thanks. Following the comments in your profile page is a rabbit hole by itself - another rabbit hole: looking at other comments by people with great HN contributions...
b3b0p 10y ago
The Giant Bomb [0] and if you are a premium member [1] it's even better. There are hours of timeless premium only videos and podcasts. If you like video games at all or have any interest in video games it's worth every penny and second invested. [0] http://www.giantbomb.com http://www.giantbomb.com [1] http://www.giantbomb.com/upgrade/ http://www.giantbomb.com/upgrade/
tsunamifury 10y ago
https://www.edge.org https://www.edge.org This is a very under-the-radar organization funded by the whos-who of Silicon Valley. See the "Billionares Dinner" they host yearly in Napa. They have great resources such as Philip Tetlock x Daniel Khanmen Superforcasting mini-course and thorough discussions by great thinkings around tech and ethics.
- dredmorbius 10y ago
  Meh. I stumbled across The Edge via HN when the annual question issue was posted a few years back. Yes, there is the very occasional good response, but I'm increasingly underwhelmed by it -- the typical answer is self-serving (fund my research!), pie-in-the-sky, self-serving (fund my startup!), underinformed, self-serving (buy my product!), etc. Yes, there are exceptions. No, Sturgeon's Law has no risk of being revoked.
rdtsc 10y ago
http://www.commandlinefu.com/commands/browse/sort-by-votes http://www.commandlinefu.com/commands/browse/sort-by-votes Discover new command line utilities or combinations of them to solve various things. Learned all kinds of useful stuff. Things like I know but always forget about: python -m SimpleHTTPServer To server the current directory on port :8000 Then there is silly stuff like: dd if=/dev/dsp | ssh -c arcfour -C username@host dd of=/dev/dsp To output your microphone to a remote computer's speaker [note: you probably shouldn't be using arcfour in general for ssh, and it might be disabled on your site].
- rgreasons 10y ago
  helpful tip to build upon #1: you can pass a valid port number to the SimpleHTTPServer command to open that port instead of 8000.
  - 77pt77 10y ago
    What about specifying the interface? Last time I checked it wasn't possible.
- qwertyuiop924 10y ago
  python -m http.server, now. And /dev/dsp doesn't work: you have you sox or arecord/aplay to make that work now.
- sangnoir 10y ago
  > note: you probably shouldn't be using arcfour in general for ssh, and it might be disabled on your site Related tip: arcfour is a less secure but fast cipher. If you are mounting a virtual machine locally via sshfs, you'll get better performance by using arcfour (10-20% increase in throughput, IIRC)
anigbrowl 10y ago
http://www.fusionanomaly.net/nodebase.html http://www.fusionanomaly.net/nodebase.html http://fusionanomaly.net/anomalog2/ http://fusionanomaly.net/anomalog2/ Discordian society Google Scholar, legal edition
agumonkey 10y ago
Used to be c2.com. Oh it's been back up, a bit different though. http://wiki.c2.com/?LispMacro http://wiki.c2.com/?LispMacro
- superkuh 10y ago
  The c2 wiki doesn't even have text anymore. It's completely javascript and without JS enabled you can't see anything but a loading spinner. It's sad to see such an accessible website fall so low.
  - agumonkey 10y ago
    I wished to find the static pages on github, so far no luck.
sahoo 10y ago
Youtube, till I end in the weird side of youtube.
gprasanth 10y ago
StumbleUpon?
- soundstruck 10y ago
  StumbleUpon Slots: Open 3 browser tabs with SU, Stumble 3x and if you like all 3 suggestions, you win! Seriously though, I've found some cool things randomly with SU, and I think it's the slot-machine type of feel that I enjoy the most about it. It's like, "Take me somewhere, Internet!". :-) It is definitely a dangerous rabbit hole for me.
backtoyoujim 10y ago
do not venture into the contemporary board game landscape without several rooms to dedicated to humidity controlled shelf-space.
- splawn 10y ago
  You forgot the link: http://boardgamegeek.com http://boardgamegeek.com
tjbarbour 10y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tristan_da_Cunha https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tristan_da_Cunha The most remote inhabited island with a strange history with a few founding families, an exodus because of a volcano, an isolated economy/society and research into asthma as a genetic condition
easymuffin 10y ago
http://deoxy.org http://deoxy.org
- tinix 10y ago
  my people. got any more? i posted a bunch here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12778836#12784417 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12778836#12784417
wbhart 10y ago
http://www.themastertheorem.com/ http://www.themastertheorem.com/ It's a puzzle solving website. It isn't updated very regularly nowadays, but all the old "Theorems" are still there.
- blackbeard334 10y ago
  http://www.godtower.com http://www.godtower.com
sidthekidder 10y ago
Always good to keep the endgame of humanity in mind: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale
subjectsigma 10y ago
Something in a much different vein than other sites posted: http://drtenge.com http://drtenge.com (NSFW) This is a Tumblr blog going back years of extremely disturbing medical imagery and art of the same style. Oftentimes there's almost no context given to the pictures other than a name of the author or a title which makes them that much weirder. The images also tend to be associated with fascism or BSDM. I've spent at least a few hours trying to find more about some of the pictures because they were just too weird to go without explanation. The guy has one post about how he really values quality and obscurity in his images and nothing else; no explanation as to who he is or why he collects such horrible and terrifying art. I've always wanted to email him and ask what the hell is going on but I'm kind of scared to know. Obviously don't click on the link if you do not like gore.
lexhaynes 10y ago
I'm very interested in health and fitness and often lose hours at Mark's Daily Apple (primal lifestyle and health blog): http://www.marksdailyapple.com/tag/dear-mark/ http://www.marksdailyapple.com/tag/dear-mark/ The Getting Stronger blog is another wonderful health and fitness blog which focuses on training the mind to thrive in difficult conditions, though it has really amazing insights on diet and training as well: http://gettingstronger.org/about-this-blog/ http://gettingstronger.org/about-this-blog/
broskoski 10y ago
https://www.are.na/chris-sherron/feeling-futuristic https://www.are.na/chris-sherron/feeling-futuristic https://www.are.na/damon-zucconi/worldmaking https://www.are.na/damon-zucconi/worldmaking https://www.are.na/john-michael-boling/fictional-fashion https://www.are.na/john-michael-boling/fictional-fashion https://www.are.na/nick-demarco/yuppie-dystopia https://www.are.na/nick-demarco/yuppie-dystopia https://www.are.na/sam-hart/knot-theory https://www.are.na/sam-hart/knot-theory https://www.are.na/lukas-wp/arrangement-collage https://www.are.na/lukas-wp/arrangement-collage https://www.are.na/dena-yago/language https://www.are.na/dena-yago/language https://www.are.na/david-hilmer-rex/hybrid-organizations https://www.are.na/david-hilmer-rex/hybrid-organizations https://www.are.na/zach-rose/stoic-electronics https://www.are.na/zach-rose/stoic-electronics https://www.are.na/morgan-sutherland/diagrams--2 https://www.are.na/morgan-sutherland/diagrams--2 (disclaimer: I work on Are.na...it still contains my favorite internet rabbit holes, though.) Related, for maintaining a path during rabbit hole seshs: https://pilgrim.are.na/ https://pilgrim.are.na/
- leephillips 10y ago
  pilgrim.are.na looks very nice!
  - broskoski 10y ago
    thank you!
fenchurchh 10y ago
gwern. He hits the sweet spot and all topics are worth reading. http://www.gwern.net/ http://www.gwern.net/
matiasz 10y ago
http://practicaltypography.com/ http://practicaltypography.com/
iamleppert 10y ago
Sam's Laser FAQ by far: http://www.repairfaq.org/sam/lasersam.htm http://www.repairfaq.org/sam/lasersam.htm I could read that thing all day. It's been around forever, and it reminds me of what the Internet used to be...lots of useful content, simple layout, "hypertext". LINKS! He's been maintaining it for years and my go-to source for anything laser related.
chanandler_bong 10y ago
oh god... why did I come here? Like I needed to find more rabbit holes.
rpeden 10y ago
I enjoy listening to simulated activations of the EAS (Emergency Alert System) on YouTube. A few interesting ones: Nuclear Attack: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZIynuYDRVA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZIynuYDRVA Alien Invasion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKre_8rufrw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKre_8rufrw Russian Invasion:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYOlnuxZzNQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYOlnuxZzNQ Clown Sightings: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUugY4VfgZc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUugY4VfgZc I always find the EAS activation tone to be kind of bone chilling (which I suppose is its intention). I hear it so infrequently here in Canada that it really grabs my attention immediately. Listening to the fake ones online probably makes it worse, though. When I heard the emergency alert tone come on the radio while driving from Toronto to Ottawa, I checked the skies for UFOs. Ended up just being a tornado warning. :)
pvitz 10y ago
http://www.search.lores.eu/indexo.htm http://www.search.lores.eu/indexo.htm Many old things, but most ideas are timeless.
ckozlowski 10y ago
AirVectors is one of my favorite reads; containing well researched, highly detailed articles on aircraft. He updates once a month. The list is immense. http://www.airvectors.net/ http://www.airvectors.net/
hossbeast 10y ago
The (very long) Wikipedia article, "The Universe". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universe
bass_case 10y ago
http://www.ulillillia.us/mainindex.shtml http://www.ulillillia.us/mainindex.shtml
Tiktaalik 10y ago
If you want to peek into some obscure video games and history HardcoreGaming101 is a good entry point. http://www.hardcoregaming101.net http://www.hardcoregaming101.net
snake117 10y ago
Recently I have taken it upon myself to gain a basic understanding of philosophy and linear algebra. I found this primer book (http://www.qcc.cuny.edu/SocialSciences/ppecorino/INTRO_TEXT/CONTENTS.htm http://www.qcc.cuny.edu/SocialSciences/ppecorino/INTRO_TEXT/...) and I try to read it when I have some free time. For linear algebra, I have been watching this MIT OpenCourseWare lecture series taught by Gilbert Strang: https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/mathematics/18-06sc-linear-algebra-fall-2011/ https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/mathematics/18-06sc-linear-algeb... MITOCW is a great place for anyone looking to expand on their current knowledge base and an alternative for those seeking to take a course that they did not have the opportunity to take in college.
agumonkey 10y ago
libgen.io ps: sci-hub too
- dredmorbius 10y ago
  Absolutely. https://worldcat.org/ https://worldcat.org/ offers a unified online library catalog (though not the materials -- LibGen helps with that). https://archive.org https://archive.org has a stunning collection of freely-distributable (out-of-copyright or publicly-licensed / public-domain) works. The local library ain't bad either.
WCityMike 10y ago
TV Tropes is the definitive rabbit hole: http://www.tvtropes.org http://www.tvtropes.org For me, a close follow-up is the SCP Foundation: http://www.scp-wiki.net/ http://www.scp-wiki.net/
- delecti 10y ago
  SCP was a great rabbit hole, until I took some psychedelics after I'd been reading it during my downtime at work the previous few weeks. I spent much of the trip seeing the face from SCP-87 [1] bulging through the inside of my eyelids. I haven't been able to enjoy browsing it since. [1] http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-087 http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-087 (bottomless staircase below a school)
  - taneq 10y ago
    SCP is an real mix between "Agents of SHIELD" type weirdness and the occasional truly disturbing nosleep material. I dig into it every now and then but usually stop when I read something I'd rather I hadn't.
- labster 10y ago
  I'm a cofounder of All The Tropes, a noncommercial advertising-free fork of TV Tropes: https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Main_Page https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Main_Page Because we don't have advertising, we can take a low censorship approach while protecting your privacy. We'd love to have you come on board if you have many hours that you're not using.
  - qwertyuiop924 10y ago
    I've been interested in ATT, but the community is significantly smaller, and the community is a big part of the draw of TVT. What disgusted me was what TVT said in response to ATT. There was a thread essentially claimed it was a weird XXX trope site that was ripping them off: nobody corrected this perception, and nobody even disagreed, despite the fact that looking at the FAQ for five minutes would have made it abundantly clear that this wasn't the case. The mods then said that ATT "didn't deserve any more attention or discussion" and pretty much outright said that mentioning it further was asking for a ban. It says something about a community when they aren't mature enough to discuss their competitors and legitimately assess them, instead constructing strawmen and saying that anybody who talks about it will be banned: TVT, of all places, ought to know better.
scythe 10y ago
If you start looking up everything you eat on http://ndb.nal.usda.gov/ http://ndb.nal.usda.gov/, you know it's gone too far.
ed_blackburn 10y ago
Wards' Wiki: http://wiki.c2.com/ http://wiki.c2.com/
- Typhon 10y ago
  Seconded, it's worse (better) than TvTropes, in this regard.
numeromancer 10y ago
https://encyclopediadramatica.se https://encyclopediadramatica.se is a wild ride.
msldiarra 10y ago
Medium.
salzig 10y ago
Starting today -> this post on hackernews: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12778836 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12778836
deutronium 10y ago
http://www.halfbakery.com/ http://www.halfbakery.com/ -- Awesome collection of people's ideas
djfryer 10y ago
Data Elixir - Definitely! http://dataelixir.com http://dataelixir.com
daxorid 10y ago
This will not be at all well-received here, but in the interest of answering the question earnestly: https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/2hczx1/adolf_hitler_the_greatest_story_never_told_2013/ https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/2hczx1/adolf_hi...
- qb45 10y ago
  Funny, I just started to read https://archive.org/details/TheYoungHitlerIKnew https://archive.org/details/TheYoungHitlerIKnew
crisnoble 10y ago
MixesDB: A crude but detailed wiki of (mostly electronic music) live mixes and radio show archives: http://www.mixesdb.com/w/Main_Page http://www.mixesdb.com/w/Main_Page, what sets it apart is the track listings.
comboy 10y ago
https://urbit.org/ https://urbit.org/ - deep and exciting one This article [1] is a good start even though it's 6 years old. It's not vaporware anymore, I haven't checked it in a while, but it seems to be actively developed. If you feel that you've learned enough programming languages that you have a problem finding anything new this may give you some dopamine. 1. http://moronlab.blogspot.com/2010/01/urbit-functional-programming-from.html http://moronlab.blogspot.com/2010/01/urbit-functional-progra...
- oever 10y ago
  Urbit reminds me of a programming language that was featured a while back on Hacker News. It was a purely functional language and each function and data structure was addressed by its cryptographic hash. Functions and data structures did have convenient labels, but linking was done by the hash. So you can have as many different versions of a function as you like. Your code is never broken by updates. You can apply updates at your convenience.
  - melloclello 10y ago
    I believe you are thinking of http://unisonweb.org http://unisonweb.org
    - oever 10y ago
      Yes, that's it. It's beautiful.
poshli 10y ago
http://anusha.com/ http://anusha.com/ https://www.youtube.com/user/gluse/videos https://www.youtube.com/user/gluse/videos
earleybird 10y ago
Olegs tarpit: http://okmij.org/ftp/ http://okmij.org/ftp/
dandare 10y ago
First you open you left eye: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unsolved_problems_in_physics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unsolved_problems_in_p... the you open your right eye: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unsolved_problems_in_mathematics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unsolved_problems_in_m... and then you smile at the world: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Complexity_Map.svg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Complexity_Map.svg
davesque 10y ago
Reading about any mathematical topic on Wikipedia. For example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limit_superior_and_limit_inferior https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limit_superior_and_limit_infer... --> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partially_ordered_set https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partially_ordered_set --> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_relation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_relation --> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_number https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_number --> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cauchy_sequence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cauchy_sequence ... Even if I think I know what's being discussed in the article, there's always some interesting extra detail or alternative way of explaining things that's worth reading.
- fatdog 10y ago
  Kolmolgorov complexity, conditional entropy, beach holiday write off.
keithpeter 10y ago
http://www.thebookoflife.org/ http://www.thebookoflife.org/ Quite nice now and again.
- aalhour 10y ago
  I loved this, thanks for sharing!
dopeboy 10y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II easily. I grew up when the History Channel was nicknamed the "Hitler channel". I've read Manchester's the Last Lion, Shirer's The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, and will soon be ordering Ullrich's Hitler - Ascent. Saving Private Ryan is in my top 5 favorite movies of all time. This is currently my wallpaper: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/5/59/US_Army_WWII_field_artillery.jpg/1280px-US_Army_WWII_field_artillery.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/5/59/US_Army...
gnarbarian 10y ago
Mythology on wikipedia. Pick a category and you can get lost for days: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuatha_D%C3%A9_Danann https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuatha_D%C3%A9_Danann I also love watching philosophy videos on youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpkRh3qVh_Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpkRh3qVh_Y I also highly recommend BBCs "In Our Time" series. Quality broadcasting covering innumerable subjects about history and philosophy.
rhapsodic 10y ago
http://www.shorpy.com http://www.shorpy.com - Old B&W photographs from the Library of Congress research archive.
arethuza 10y ago
"The Geograph® Britain and Ireland project aims to collect geographically representative photographs and information for every square kilometre of Great Britain and Ireland" http://www.geograph.org.uk/ http://www.geograph.org.uk/
edem 10y ago
Dwarf Fortress Reddit.
rabboRubble 10y ago
Hacker News?
nicklaf 10y ago
Encyclopedic, opinionated, humorous, and even quantitative guide to 20th century pop and rock, from the point of view of a Russian Linguist [1] who thinks The Beatles, The Who, The Rolling Stones, and Bob Dylan have never been topped: http://starling.rinet.ru/music/index.htm http://starling.rinet.ru/music/index.htm [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgiy_Starostin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgiy_Starostin Even if you disagree with him on details, if you have similar taste, you can basically look up any album and see which songs might be hidden gems. It's also amusing to read his take on just when a particular band began to decline in quality.
- loeber 10y ago
  Reminds me of Piero Scaruffi's project at scaruffi.com.
arcaster 10y ago
/r/datahoarder and /r/controllablewebcams
dates 10y ago
Wikipedia goes on and on and on and on. Here is a good facebook group with pointers to interesting pages I may not have found otherwise: https://www.facebook.com/groups/coolfreakswikipediaclub/ https://www.facebook.com/groups/coolfreakswikipediaclub/
isomorph 10y ago
This website of Death Row information, including chilling last words... https://www.tdcj.state.tx.us/death_row/dr_executed_offenders.html https://www.tdcj.state.tx.us/death_row/dr_executed_offenders... Similar: http://www.goodbyewarden.com/#214 http://www.goodbyewarden.com/#214
cessor 10y ago
I enjoy rabbit holes with much less meaning, such as: http://z0r.de/ http://z0r.de/ or http://www.theuselessweb.com/ http://www.theuselessweb.com/ The last one is great. I once discovered this gem: http://www.pointerpointer.com/ http://www.pointerpointer.com/
- ignorantguy 10y ago
  i can't stop laughing.... this site is really a gem.
- ninjachen 10y ago
  http://www.pointerpointer.com/ http://www.pointerpointer.com/ is coool
VonGuard 10y ago
Gallery of US Nuclear tests. Lots of info at this site, beyond just American tests. http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/Tests/ http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/Tests/
unimpressive 10y ago
Pokemon glitches are an incredibly interesting rabbit hole. They provide a good mix of video games and low level programming goodness: https://www.youtube.com/user/TheZZAZZGlitch https://www.youtube.com/user/TheZZAZZGlitch https://www.youtube.com/user/ChickasaurusGL https://www.youtube.com/user/ChickasaurusGL These two channels together will give you everything you need to get started and document close to every known glitch in the pokemon games. Well that and perhaps TRRoses old website for background on what exactly is going on in these videos, but that got taken down. Bulbapedia probably still has what you need though: http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Glitch_Pok%C3%A9mon http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Glitch_Pok%C3%A9mon A favorite example of mine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5x9G5BWanWw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5x9G5BWanWw
mr_pink 10y ago
Discovering new human and bot algorithmic artists on twitter by searching for #generated: https://twitter.com/search?q=%23generated&src=typd https://twitter.com/search?q=%23generated&src=typd
drewlanenga 10y ago
This pretty much does it for me: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_lists_of_lists https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_lists_of_lists
tghw 10y ago
Reading medical study meta-analysis published by The Cochrane Collaboration[0]. There's some fascinating results that run counter to current medical advice. For example, "Vaccines to prevent influenza in healthy adults" concluded, in part: "Vaccination shows no appreciable effect on working days lost or hospitalisation."[1] [0] http://www.cochrane.org/evidence http://www.cochrane.org/evidence [1] http://www.cochrane.org/CD001269/ARI_vaccines-to-prevent-influenza-in-healthy-adults http://www.cochrane.org/CD001269/ARI_vaccines-to-prevent-inf...
gelstudios 10y ago
http://www.folklore.org http://www.folklore.org Stories about the development of the original Macintosh. So many gems in this collection, they get submitted to HN from time to time.
Mandarinas 10y ago
I'm sorry but it tempted me, my rabbit hole is: xvideos.com
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
donaldihunter 10y ago
That's easy, it's HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12778836 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12778836
mikevp 10y ago
The Lawdog Files http://thelawdogfiles.blogspot.com/ http://thelawdogfiles.blogspot.com/ Some's opinion, for which YMMV, but some of the stories... Like the one where he served a warrant on a meth lab while wearing a pink gorilla suit. I nearly suffocated laughing.
int0x80 10y ago
Right now, this thread!!
twic 10y ago
http://unicode.org/charts/ http://unicode.org/charts/ - leads you off into reading about languages, writing systems, the history of civilisation, obscure technical fields, medieval typesetting, that sort of thing
Ono-Sendai 10y ago
http://www.mathpages.com/ http://www.mathpages.com/
- effie 10y ago
  Indeed, lots of very interesting math and physics inquiries, with some original hard-to-find-elsewhere findings.
brianzelip 10y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com https://news.ycombinator.com
adrinavarro 10y ago
I do enjoy spending long amounts of time browsing the archive of WBW: http://waitbutwhy.com/ http://waitbutwhy.com/
Broken_Hippo 10y ago
I think I can safely pack myself away at home for a good, long while after reading this list.. and I'm gonna add to it. First off: No Such Thing as a Fish: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TO6_PRaY3aY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TO6_PRaY3aY Or the podcast: http://qi.com/podcast http://qi.com/podcast I have an interest in historical cooking. This one I've spent hours watching, despite the occasional advertising: https://www.youtube.com/user/jastownsendandson/featured https://www.youtube.com/user/jastownsendandson/featured World of Batshit - and other stuff by the same author - got me through a bit and I occasionally pass it onto others. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLmWeueTF8l819bt3sC72soaG4JtfqJFcg https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLmWeueTF8l819bt3sC72s...
topspin 10y ago
Sometimes I read a few months worth of NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commission) event reports. http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/event-status/event/ http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/event-status/e... Patients given excessive doses of radiation. Lost and stolen troxler gauges and their recovery (or not.) Reactor SCRAMS and their various causes, artfully downplayed with technical jargon. Drunken contractors escorted off reactor sites. 30 year old flaws discovered in power reactors. Someone's got to read this stuff...
narrator 10y ago
http://www.pubmed.com http://www.pubmed.com . Search anything medical. Don't know what a word means? Look it up on wikipedia... recursively. Read cited studies. Read studies that cite studies. You could spend the rest of your life reading this stuff. I've been doing it for years.
nicklaf 10y ago
"How the brain wires itself up during development, how the end result can vary in different people and what happens when it goes wrong": http://www.wiringthebrain.com/ http://www.wiringthebrain.com/ Very good at exploding conflations and weakly argued conclusions by those who would popularize and construe results in neuroscience.
testedafdad 10y ago
https://chartups.com/topstartups/ https://chartups.com/topstartups/ Charts of the startups that VC tweet the most. You can see the specific tweets too.
stephenhandley 10y ago
Without a doubt: http://internetkholeblog.tumblr.com/ http://internetkholeblog.tumblr.com/
- felipesabino 10y ago
  double post, it must be really good! but unfortunately the URL doesn't open :(
stephenhandley 10y ago
Undoubtedly: http://internetkholeblog.tumblr.com/ http://internetkholeblog.tumblr.com/
Dowwie 10y ago
Social science research Network: http://www.ssrn.com http://www.ssrn.com
p4rsec 10y ago
I have a favorite subreddit: www.reddit.com/r/talesfromtechsupport Fun to just peruse the stories and spend an hour or two reading. Some of them leave you shaking your head, others leave you feeling warm and fuzzy. And yet others make you want to defenestrate printers... Who knew how much fun* people had in tech support and IT? *sarcasm for effect Also enjoy reading the Bastard Operator from Hell stories: http://bofh.bjash.com/ http://bofh.bjash.com/
tinix 10y ago
fusionanomaly: http://fusionanomaly.net/nodes.html http://fusionanomaly.net/nodes.html aitrui: http://www.aitrui.com/ http://www.aitrui.com/ deoxy: http://deoxy.org/ http://deoxy.org/ levity: http://www.levity.com/ http://www.levity.com/ timecube: https://wayback.archive.org/web/20160112000701/http://www.timecube.com/ https://wayback.archive.org/web/20160112000701/http://www.ti... zero: http://www.t0.or.at/texts.htm http://www.t0.or.at/texts.htm biblioteca pleyades: http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/ http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/
tomphoolery 10y ago
The start of World War II, how Adolf Hitler came to power in the Weimar Republic, why the Nazis gained power and what motivated them to do what they did. I'm especially interested in the "unknowing participants" of the Nazi regime, like Wernher von Braun and Albert Speer. People who basically bought in to the ideal of a better German world and didn't really consider what that might cost in money, lives, and culture.
- dredmorbius 10y ago
  The parallels and precedents from other (mostly) European powers is also telling. England (Ireland, Boer Wars, China, India, Indians, Carribean), Belgium (Congo), United States (look up the history of the American Legion, or of the Los Angeles Times, just to mention two), make the history of Italian and German fascism all the more chilling. That wasn't a fluke. As for Werner von Braun: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kTKn1aSOyOs https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kTKn1aSOyOs
roberthahn 10y ago
Back in the mid 90's there were 2 rabbit holes I loved to visit. One of them was the Monty Python website :-) The other one I haven't been able to track down. I'm hoping someone here can tell me what happened to it. It was an art site called "The Place" hosted by a university in Canada. It was a mixed media site with art, poetry and short stories. Does that ring a bell for anyone? I loved that site and wanted to visit it again many times. But "The Place" is a difficult term to search with these days.
Natsu 10y ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiLeaks/ https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiLeaks/ There's a lot of stuff going around and some of it seems like wild conspiracy nonsense, but the more you dig into it, the more entertaining it gets.
kasperset 10y ago
Browsing http://www.espncricinfo.com http://www.espncricinfo.com to read player profiles and then clicking on their first played games and then clicking on different player profiles and repeat.
msnangersme 10y ago
http://newsfeed.one/ http://newsfeed.one/ Reddit, Hacker News and more in one readable page.
mmaunder 10y ago
spy.org. Nothing there. Never has been since the 90s. It's intriguing.
mathgenius 10y ago
John Baez, this weeks finds in mathematical physics [1]. He started blogging this in 1993! there's so much stuff there now. I keep finding amazing things in the TWF's, and not wanting to close my browser tabs because it's so precious. And you wouldn't believe what he can do with a bit of ascii art. Truly he is one of the heroes of the internet. (He doesn't do TWF's anymore, but there's a bunch of other places where he posts stuff.) Try this one for starters [2]. The earlier ones are much more hardcore. [1] http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/twfcontents.html http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/twfcontents.html [2] http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/week236.html http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/week236.html
- JadeNB 10y ago
  > He doesn't do TWF's anymore, but there's a bunch of other places where he posts stuff. Now conveniently announced all in one place: https://twitter.com/johncarlosbaez https://twitter.com/johncarlosbaez . (See https://golem.ph.utexas.edu/category/2016/09/twitter.html https://golem.ph.utexas.edu/category/2016/09/twitter.html for the announcement.)
b34r 10y ago
The Wikipedia random article button.
b34r 10y ago
http://www.exitmundi.nl/ http://www.exitmundi.nl/ - a collection of end-of-world scenarios
manigandham 10y ago
Quora - start with something interesting on the newsfeed and just follow recommended articles from there. UI/UX is terrible now compared to early days but I can still get lost with hours of learning from some incredible writers.
MrBra 10y ago
Ok, now I have +20 tabs open and I'm only halfway through the comments. We know how most of the times we are compelled to read everything in a page until the end, but we also know how much does this attitude costs to us. So from now on I will stop reading and only take in consideration those links who will be posted in response of this comment, if any. Let's see if magic, or coincidence, works! I advise you to do the same! (If only we could come up with an acronym for this thing!)
visarga 10y ago
I listen to Robert Greenberg's classical music appreciation audio courses. He has published courses on Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Liszt, Schumann, Mahler, Verdi, Wagner, Stravinsky, Tchaikovsky and also on horizontal subjects such as orchestral, piano, opera, baroque music, romantic music, symphony and quartets (and much more). Sample: https://youtu.be/whgu7nX0sZc?t=522 https://youtu.be/whgu7nX0sZc?t=522 (debunking some Shostakovich myths) Greenberg is a gifted speaker, a composer and and music professor himself. He's sharing with us a burning passion for everything classical. If not for the informational content, then at the very least it's worth listening to him in order to infuse with his passion. After taking some basic notions about composers and music genres, I started a YouTube safari for unknown music and composers, I am 7 years into my search already. I listened to hours of classical every day since I started. YT is a treasure trove of historical recordings, you can do comparative listening and refine your listening abilities. There are so many composers almost nobody heard about, even professional musicians, that it's mind boggling. After all, there is a long history of classical music, hundreds of years in the making, and the level attained by Bach 300 years ago was already (and still remained to this day) cutting edge. Imagine how interesting it would be to browse videos and papers from 300 years history of computer programming. We are overwhelmed even with the production of the last decade. Classical music has such a wonderful deep history that is endlessly entertaining. A list of Robert Greenberg's courses is here: http://www.thegreatcourses.com/professors/robert-greenberg/ http://www.thegreatcourses.com/professors/robert-greenberg/
ktkization 10y ago
Being obsessed by the MBTI personality theory for months
stygiansonic 10y ago
I know it's weird, but I enjoy reading the court motions from bankruptcy proceedings. You can actually learn a lot about corporate structure this way. Of particular interest was the bankruptcy of Target Canada: https://www.alvarezandmarsal.com/target-canada-co-et-al/motion-materials https://www.alvarezandmarsal.com/target-canada-co-et-al/moti... The affidavit of Mark Wong, then General Counsel for Target Canada, in support of the filing, provides a lot of insight into how a large corporation would structure their business endeavour into another country: https://www.alvarezandmarsal.com/sites/default/files/Affidavit%20of%20M.%20Wong%20%28January%2015%2C%202015%29.pdf https://www.alvarezandmarsal.com/sites/default/files/Affidav...
ktkization 10y ago
Being obsessed with the MBTI personality theory for months
edem 10y ago
I'm surprised that no one mentioned wait but why yet: http://waitbutwhy.com http://waitbutwhy.com
waahwooh 10y ago
I'll start --- I once spent a couple days on a summer job looking through industrial incidents rel http://www.appsloaded.com http://www.appsloaded.com
maverick_iceman 10y ago
I have been spending way too much time learning about nuclear propulsion of spaceships. Reading a lot about Project Orion, Dedalus, fission fragment rockets etc.
unhammer 10y ago
Github is the new Wikipedia for me. I recently ended up reading about https://github.com/maandree/ponypipe https://github.com/maandree/ponypipe via the repo of some obscure window manager that I've already forgotten about etc.
maartennn 10y ago
One of my golden nuggets from ~15 years ago: 60x 1.com http://111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111.com/ http://11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111... You can click thru 60 times!
jamez 10y ago
Like many others, my productivity has suffered since Wikipedia became a thing. You may consider me a wiki-binger. I even made a simple webapp to curb my addiction: http://www.wikibinge.com/ http://www.wikibinge.com/ Still haven't come out of the rabbit hole.
zynthax 10y ago
http://ilol.me http://ilol.me
zynthax 10y ago
http://ilol.me http://ilol.me
k_vi 10y ago
This is deep, never gets boring - http://textfiles.com/ http://textfiles.com/
sunsbelly 10y ago
http://bookforum.com/blog/ http://bookforum.com/blog/ http://aldaily.com http://aldaily.com
cousin_it 10y ago
I love online fiction. Each of the following is very good and will take you many days full-time to get through. Homestuck: http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6 http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6 Worm: https://parahumans.wordpress.com/ https://parahumans.wordpress.com/ Freeman's Mind: http://www.accursedfarms.com/movies/fm/ http://www.accursedfarms.com/movies/fm/
diyseguy 10y ago
Back when the web was younger and sillier, I used to spend many enjoyable hours reading toastpoints (now defunct). But you can find archives of the limerick and bad fiction writing contests: e.g.: http://toastpoint.wordandpicture.com/limerick/limerick.html http://toastpoint.wordandpicture.com/limerick/limerick.html.
Gravityloss 10y ago
https://www.flickr.com/photos/sdasmarchives/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/sdasmarchives/ San Diego Air & Space museum archives. Currently they have a quarter million photos there and they're uploading new ones constantly. They have received a huge number of collections from very interesting people. Where else can you see original photos of Glenn Curtiss' first airplane, crashed zeppelin skeletons from World War I and hyper advanced Convair Centaur rocket stage manufacturing? Fascinating people in the photos too.
dmoney 10y ago
I see someone already posted http://www.everything2.com/ http://www.everything2.com/ (my used-to-be favorite) and http://www.fusionanomaly.net/fusion.html http://www.fusionanomaly.net/fusion.html . Another older one: (somewhat NSFW horror stuff): http://deathandhell.com/ http://deathandhell.com/ TBH my current rabbit holes are YouTube and repeatedly clicking "random" on http://www.smbc-comics.com/ http://www.smbc-comics.com/ . edit: Another couple old haunts: http://www.chaosmatrix.org/ http://www.chaosmatrix.org/ https://qntm.org/ https://qntm.org/
samblr 10y ago
Anybody remembers that old websites called books.. now kindle - best thing to happen since sliced bread.
grapeshot 10y ago
The Alternate History wiki and forum. http://www.alternatehistory.com/ http://www.alternatehistory.com/
danesparza 10y ago
A list of UFO sightings (including some from ancient history!): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_reported_UFO_sightings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_reported_UFO_sightings
twistybark 10y ago
shoegaze music on youtube

Analemma_ 10y ago

That's almost part of the problem though. My feelings about LW/the Sequences/SSC/etc. are complicated with lots of positives and negatives-- way too much to summarize in an HN comment when I'm supposed to be working ;) -- but the main negative I was referring to here is that they are incredibly potent "insight porn". That term was originally coined to describe the work of hacks like Malcolm Gladwell, and while LW et al are definitely on a level above Gladwell's crap, something can be true and still be insight porn, with all the addictiveness and consequences to your mental faculties that implies.

artifaxx 10y ago
Fair enough, I have had to make sure I don't lose myself as an insight junkie. When it comes to the consequences are you thinking of it damaging our ability to seek out insights for ourselves if they are so easy to read?
- jtolmar 10y ago
  The reason these works feel so insightful is that they link all their material together into a massive, cohesive worldview. Each additional detail makes it sound more true, even though rationally each detail is one more thing that could be wrong (ironic LW link: http://lesswrong.com/lw/ji/conjunction_fallacy/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/ji/conjunction_fallacy/). What you're left with after consuming the work is a single giant "fact" that's actually composed of a whole bunch of genuine knowledge and a whole bunch of nonsense, and it's mentally draining to toss the nonsense because it feels like it's somehow a key part of something valuable. The big cohesive viewpoint is a lot more seductive than the actual truth - that all of the material needs to be evaluated separately and there are no shortcuts for sorting it out. Or another way to put it: You really need to keep a critical eye towards each new fact that's introduced, but the entire appeal of this sort of thing is the idea that it's all one super-fact, so your critical thinking is at odds with your desire to enjoy the big picture.
- z0rg 10y ago
  The double plus enhanced version of the old spell "Charm monster" now comes with an option to raise awareness of the wizard mode in it's victims.

furyg3 10y ago

I don't even... why in the world would it be important for a doctor to differentiate being struck by a dolphin or struck by orca (side note: orcas are dolphins!).

protomyth 10y ago
Severity of injury?
- ghurtado 10y ago
  I've gotta believe that some dolphin injuries are more severe than some orca injuries. At any rate, once the code describes a situation so specific that it may only classify a few injuries a year, what possible benefit may come from that?
  - protomyth 10y ago
    Am I missing a table since I can find the orca thing, but it doesn't have a listing for bear. Please tell me bears are a bigger danger than orcas? // holy crud, the comment section is now a rabbit hole - good job karim
    - tiglionabbit 10y ago
      Yeah, bears are not specifically mentioned. You'd have to file it by W55.8: contact with other mammal.
      - ghurtado 10y ago
        You guys are either pulling my leg, or I just entered a Volgon message board by mistake.
        protomyth 10y ago
        Nope, we are quite serious. Download https://www.cms.gov/Medicare/Coding/ICD10/Downloads/2016-Code-Descriptions-in-Tabular-Order.zip https://www.cms.gov/Medicare/Coding/ICD10/Downloads/2016-Cod... and enjoy. So, an orca (9 codes) and a squirrel (6 codes) have their own damn codes but a friggin bear is in the other category?!? Heck, wolves, coyotes, bears, and mountain lions all don't have their own codes. I see a lobbying effort that needs to go on to show the true nature of dangerous animals in the US and quit hiding these attacks in the other category. On the other hand, I do like the difference between cats and dogs: W540XXA Bitten by dog, initial encounter W540XXD Bitten by dog, subsequent encounter W540XXS Bitten by dog, sequela W541XXA Struck by dog, initial encounter W541XXD Struck by dog, subsequent encounter W541XXS Struck by dog, sequela W548XXA Other contact with dog, initial encounter W548XXD Other contact with dog, subsequent encounter W548XXS Other contact with dog, sequela W5501XA Bitten by cat, initial encounter W5501XD Bitten by cat, subsequent encounter W5501XS Bitten by cat, sequela W5503XA Scratched by cat, initial encounter W5503XD Scratched by cat, subsequent encounter W5503XS Scratched by cat, sequela W5509XA Other contact with cat, initial encounter W5509XD Other contact with cat, subsequent encounter W5509XS Other contact with cat, sequela
        MichaelMoser123 10y ago
        Conspiracy theory: the diagnosis codes were compiled by Bears who tried to avoid attention to their own kind.
frabcus 10y ago
This was puzzling me (as a UK citizen). A clue in another comment hinted that it is about insurance. Still not sure why a dolphin would be covered in a policy but not an orca...
- Jill_the_Pill 10y ago
  Orca is a "killer" whale -- you were duly warned. ;)
- khedoros1 10y ago
  I don't think that it would be used to decide whether an incident was covered or not, just to categorize it for statistical purposes or something. It's the kind of data that might be used to say "shark attacks are up 23% on the US east coast over the last three years".
  - DashRattlesnake 10y ago
    It would be interesting to read a design document (or post-hoc technical analysis) that enumerates all the purposes that medical billing codes are used for. Maybe it would explain the easily-mocked craziness.
bduerst 10y ago
These are diagnosis codes, so it wraps up to national-level reporting - i.e. 35 people were injured by dolphins this year. Also, insurance companies get crazy nit-picky with what types of treatment they'll cover for diagnoses. There is an entire industry around scrubbing claims and making sure treatment meets the diagnosis codes.
- ada1981 10y ago
  Pretty sure my co only covers Dolphin and NOT Orca strikes.
Sanity_ 10y ago
Clearly that is the medical code for being struck by a Mahi-mahi, which can reach nearly 60lbs and travel at speeds above 55mph. /end sarcasm
audeyisaacs 10y ago
I believe it's for statistical purposes(if it's anything like death codes here in Aus). If there is an uptick in dolphin strikes, the Government(or some environmental management group) may do something about the dolphin problem.
tiglionabbit 10y ago
Probably because orcas are so much larger.
avip 10y ago
The only semi-plausible explanation is some weird insurance plan crafted for sea-world (et-al) staff. Neither Orcas nor (other) Dolphins were ever recorded to attack human beings out of captivity anyhow.
- tunap 10y ago
  Unless an over-amorous encounter could be considered an attack. Seems to be a real problem, wonder if there's a code for 'loved to death(drowning) by dolphin' https://www.google.com/#q=dolphin+amorous https://www.google.com/#q=dolphin+amorous
jasonlbaptiste 10y ago
Insurance billing. These need to be exact in order to correlate to a) rates negotiated b) data collected for future underwriting c) exact repayment. Medical billing is a crazy world.
- hackuser 10y ago
  Isn't all this coding a U.S. phenomenon? I've read that single-payer systems like Canada's require orders of magnitude less labor and paperwork.
  - danohu 10y ago
    In the UK there is still a lot of this, even though healthcare is centrally funded and (somewhat) centrally administered. I worked briefly with a company doing medical transcription. It opened my eyes to how much billing-related paperwork goes on in hospital back offices.

drdrey 10y ago

Z62891 Sibling rivalry Y93G2 Activity, grilling and smoking food Y9286 Slaughter house as the place of occurrence of the external cause Y6553 Performance of correct procedure (operation) on wrong side or body part X962XXA Assault by letter bomb, initial encounter X05XXXA Exposure to ignition or melting of nightwear, initial encounter

watmough 10y ago
I can think of examples of all of these. But I did have siblings, burn myself bbq'ing, know people who worked in the local slaughterhouse (knife in the arm to get off work), know of a surgeon who made this terribly sad mistake, live in the UK (IRA letter bombs). Ok, I kinda give up on the last one.
- RyJones 10y ago
  I knocked one of those quartz desklamps over on my bed when I was asleep. Set the blanket on fire, caused it to melt. Fortunately, I was awakened before I was injured. Not sure if that would count, though.
projektfu 10y ago
Sibling rivalry is a serious condition where your young child is trying to harm or murder your new baby.
provemewrong 10y ago
> Y6553 Performance of correct procedure (operation) on wrong side or body part That's horrifying.