My online activity seems to be in a loop comprise of hackernews, email check, and google news recently. It seems all these sites are updating very slowly; or am I checking too frequently?<p>What interesting stuff are you browsing recently?
I've been trawling subreddits to get a ground-level view of common narratives that we hold on to but have never thought to collect data on.<p>For instance, there's a common and oft-repeated notion that food delivery apps are screwing over drivers, not just restaurants. So I've been reading the Couriersofreddit sub to get the story from the horses' mouths:<p><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/couriersofreddit/" rel="nofollow">https://www.reddit.com/r/couriersofreddit/</a><p>It turns you can make quite a bit driving for GH/UE (well in some geographies), so much so that a $15/hr job with benefits is unattractive.<p><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/couriersofreddit/comments/gkmuc4/would_you_take_amazon_driver_for_15hour_plus/" rel="nofollow">https://www.reddit.com/r/couriersofreddit/comments/gkmuc4/wo...</a><p>I want to work towards a just world, but I believe the first step is to really understand the system of incentives and what is actually happening on the ground, as opposed to simply taking in oversimplified media narratives.<p>Subreddits are watering holes for folks in the field. I think their unvarnished perspectives are interesting data points (albeit skewed towards a Reddit-centric demographic).
> It seems all these sites are updating very slowly; or am I checking too frequently?<p>Congratulations, friend. You have arrived at a kind of limbo that in all likelihood you will end up at again in the future. I congratulate you, because you have arrived at the point where you have "synced" -- that is to say, you have processed material from your desired channels from the post to the present moment such that this feeling you are experiencing, an almost emptiness or that of negative space, encapsulates and closes in upon the definition of "present moment".<p>Give it a day, and new content will arrive in your familiar channels. You'll consume it, and return to this familiar, interstitial area.<p>Perhaps now is as good a time as any to consider directionality. Is it a good time to go back on material you've previously processed and re-process it for refinement? It will only deepen your intuition and the firmness of your intellectual grip. Is it time for you to seek out a new channel, as you're doing here? That too, is a new adventure. Is it maybe time to begin forming your own channel? So too could that be a new adventure.<p>And if none of those sound appealing? Well, perhaps that is even more appealing. Perhaps you, like many other folks, have finally come to that point where you ask "what's next?" to a deafeningly loud internal silence. This is good. This is where the interesting stuff happens.<p>If I can give you a word of advice -- don't feel so inclined to have to come up with an answer immediately. It's possible that you may need to keep your internal eyes and ears open for when the answer finds /you/.<p>And to answer your question in a more literal manner -- take a look at what you've liked, commented on, and favorited on Hacker News. You can probably identify some areas that you tend to enjoy exploring. Try and find folks/communal spaces on Twitter and Reddit (maybe YouTube too, if possible) that also explore those areas. From there, you can branch out, whether it's talking directly with those folks to get a sense of what they think is interesting that you might not know about (this is the best way, IMO) or following new paths out further.<p>But, I will stress: try and soak in the feeling and fully absorb it. To run away from it could be to waste it, and it's something that you may one day look back upon as more rare and valuable than it originally felt.
In support of my offline diversion from working too much. Been researching Hugel Kultur. Another approach to raised beds. Most of the research is around what organics in the area I live make sense.<p><a href="https://www.permaculture.co.uk/articles/many-benefits-hugelkultur" rel="nofollow">https://www.permaculture.co.uk/articles/many-benefits-hugelk...</a>
I've been browsing the likes of people on Twitter. It works like this: find one person you think is interesting or does interesting work, and go to the 'likes' section of their profile. Scroll through their likes until you find something else that's interesting. Click through to that person's profile, and repeat. You can find some really cool stuff doing this, especially if you happen upon someone with similar taste. It's a great way to surface content without waiting for the algorithm to serve it up to you.
I always rep Wikipedia's "random page" function [1]. Random page is especially useful if you are cooped up at home and can't access normal sources of randomness like close conversation with other people, the rustle of leaves in trees, sunlight filtering through passing clouds, etc.<p>[1] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random</a>
These aren't signs that you're not finding the right feeds. They are signs that you need to unplug a bit and go do something in meat space. The Internet will still be there when you get back ;-)
"Two Minute Papers"
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lu56xVlZ40M" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lu56xVlZ40M</a><p>GTC 2020 Part 2 was pretty good
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeScfkCm3b4" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeScfkCm3b4</a><p>Mostly I'm in a rut as well
Probably the least interesting, esoteric, and useless topic but it's a rabbit hole none the less: the taxonomy of ancestors of modern-day elephants such as the Deinotherium (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deinotherium" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deinotherium</a>). A lot of them look wild and they're interesting to read up on.
Not browsing per se but I've been reading <a href="https://datadass.dev/" rel="nofollow">https://datadass.dev/</a> and reading source code of various storage engines and their documentation. SQLite and Postgres have a very good documentation with implementation details. The plan is to write my own storage engine. I'm creating a spec for my own implementation for now. This has been keeping me busy while I'm not doing my regular work.
For mindless browsing when you’re trying to fill a few minutes, I’m quite a fan of Mix [1]. I believe this used to be stumbleupon. You simply enter your interests and it keeps suggesting related content.<p>[1] <a href="https://community.mix.com/blog/2019/2/27/introducing-the-mix-app-for-android" rel="nofollow">https://community.mix.com/blog/2019/2/27/introducing-the-mix...</a>
Took a break and have been thinking and researching idealized/better/pure ways of doing things. E.g. exploring alternative:<p>- number systems. Base 12 would be nice.<p>- systems of measurement. Adjusting the SI base unit to be even powers of Plank Units seems ideal.<p>- calendar systems. 12 month years, 5 week months, 6 day weeks (with an extra 5 or 6 day week at the end of the year) seems nice.<p>- time system. A new time system based off 12. Sub-units are 2 hours, 10 minutes, 50 seconds, 4.16 seconds, and .3472 seconds. Time can be a normal number then like A63.B8<p>- languages. Lojban seems awesome!<p>- coding. Replacing C and C++ with D and Rust, and Python/R/Matlab with Julia.<p>- taxes. Land value taxes really do seem awesome.<p>Probably over half this has been via Wikipedia.
Sign up for newsletters from interesting people, they'll send you down more rabbit holes than you'll need. Corey Doctorow, Robert Sloan, Tim Ferriss, Kneeling Bus, Jeremy Singer-Vine, The Convivial Society, Eric Weinhoffer and Peter Attia are a few to check out.<p>After that and Hacker News, I suggest setting up a decentralized media account such as Scuttlebutt, Beaker Browser, or Mastodon.
I discovered wiby.me the other day and found this site called neocities and there I was able to find a large amount of blogs/personal sites with cool designs that reminded me of the old days on the internet.
I'm kind of feeling like I reached the end of the internet the past few days. I'm sure I'll find another rabbit hole soon enough, and I really need to get outside more right now anyway so it's not a bad thing. Might have to do more with having a pretty long spell of rainy days.
A friend and I are curating a list of finance articles - <a href="http://topstonks.com" rel="nofollow">http://topstonks.com</a><p>Trying to keep it funny, edgy, and informative.<p>If anyone knows of a place to find interesting articles on High frequency and algorithmic trading, let me know!
If you are looking to try something new I launched <a href="https://taaalk.co" rel="nofollow">https://taaalk.co</a>.<p>It's a platform for longform online discussions between two or more people. You can read other people's or make your own.
Mostly experimental drugs and their histories. Given the pandemic, I'm reading a bit about drugs like Remsdevir. Bloomberg put out this great longform article [1] on how Gilead had the foresight to actually ramp up Remsdevir production when the inital reports broke out of Wuhan.<p>Also, historically how drugs went through clinical trials, experimentation, production etc. The anti-HIV drug AZT is well documented, and there's a great article here [2] by TIME if you're interested.<p>[1] - <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2020-gilead-remdesivir-coronavirus-treatment/" rel="nofollow">https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2020-gilead-remdesivir-co...</a><p>[2] - <a href="https://time.com/4705809/first-aids-drug-azt/" rel="nofollow">https://time.com/4705809/first-aids-drug-azt/</a>
It has been like that for quite some time for me too. I try to avoid tempting to add more to it. No news for me. If it is important/interesting enough, I will hear it on Twitter or from my wife.<p>So, for me, it is;<p>- (Desktop): HackerNews, Twitter, Email mostly<p>- (Mobile): Photography / Videography. Text mostly. Phones calls are rare.<p>If you want to fill in, try starting a reading habit or even better, writing. I've 2 stickies right in front of me on the wall just above the monitor that says "Read anything today?" and "Wrote anything today?" I'm failing on the writing part and struggling to make it happen.
Arts and Letters Daily.<p>No commenting, but kinda like a HNs for the Arts:<p><a href="https://www.aldaily.com/alt/" rel="nofollow">https://www.aldaily.com/alt/</a>
Synchronizing my walking desk pace with the GBP/USD exchange rate chart on<p><a href="https://www.poundsterlinglive.com/data/currencies/gbp-pairs/GBPUSD-exchange-rate" rel="nofollow">https://www.poundsterlinglive.com/data/currencies/gbp-pairs/...</a><p>1 min, 30 min, 1 day, candles, kagi, baseline, heikin ashi, zoom in, zoom out, both axes.
Recently I browsed <a href="http://www.indieretronews.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.indieretronews.com/</a>. This is a site with information about new games for old computers like Commodore 64, Amiga and so on, and also for retro styled indie games for modern systems. I even posted it to HN.
The most interesting things I view online are from hackernews, reddit, etsy, advance.lexis, researchgate, medscape, sanctionedsuicide, and occasional youtube videos. Usually topics & areas of interested related to programming, law, medical, and homestyle activities like cooking & DIY projects.
Plug for a website I built to combat against this very 'loop' I too was experiencing.<p>It's a site for collaborative fiction through writing prompts, if you like reading or writing: <a href="https://www.storylocks.com" rel="nofollow">https://www.storylocks.com</a>
I’ve been researching and looking high and low for some kettlebells! It’s crazy how hard it is to find some hunks of cast iron right now.<p>Stuff like: <a href="https://helpatmyhome.com/best-kettlebells/" rel="nofollow">https://helpatmyhome.com/best-kettlebells/</a>
Hey, can you email me? (Email on profile.) I also get to that "saturated" place a lot and am not satisfied. I know there is more interesting content out there. I'm trying to solve the problem, so would love to chat to you/see if you eventually want to beta test.
Hey, I'm currently writing a newsletter on reframing ideas from pop culture using first principles, would appreciate if you could take a look: <a href="https://reframing.substack.com/" rel="nofollow">https://reframing.substack.com/</a>.
I've been getting back into pro starcraft watching the TSL, which is an ongoing tourney that just finished airing the first round today. Very interesting and challenging game. There is a ton of data out there in the form of past games to watch.
I’d say that the most satisfying reading are articles and documentation regarding things that I’m trying to get better at.<p>It’s good to be as well informed as possible on what’s going on in the world but there’s diminishing returns after a hour or so of news in a day.
Mostly CoVID19 related stuff for work and my ongoing blog series: <a href="https://github.com/DataForScience/Epidemiology101" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/DataForScience/Epidemiology101</a>
I was on a bunch of coronavirus stuff - subreddits, twitter etc. Dunno how healthy that is. Also the news has slowed a little. Also some self development related things eg. Naval on Rogan which I liked.
> or am I checking too frequently?<p>Your unit tests are running too slowly, otherwise you wouldn't be checking so frequently.<p>Oh, wait. That's me.
Obligatory plug for my subreddit, where I collect interesting links: <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/sonyasupposedly/" rel="nofollow">https://www.reddit.com/r/sonyasupposedly/</a><p>There's some crossover with HN, but plenty that you won't have seen.<p>Less obligatory plug for gwern's subreddit, which is great: <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/gwern/" rel="nofollow">https://www.reddit.com/r/gwern/</a>
If everyone's online activity and browsing patterns were made public it would destroy the profitability of Facebook, Google, and other companies conducting web surveillance as a means to generate revenue.<p>It would also obviate the need to ask a question like this. We could just search through user histories and discover new things that way.
Longform.org is a good resource for longer reads, if you get paywalled just pass them through Instapaper first.<p>Also Arts And Letters Daily<p>Naked Capitalism daily linkdumps (morning + water cooler at 2pm) have plenty of auxiliary reading material in them<p>Slate Star Codex comment section is always popping off, some discussions are more interesting than others depending on what you're into
Hacker News, Reddit, and lobste.rs are my regular loop. Comments often send me to a deep dive somewhere. Yesterday it was rereading stuff from Yudkowsky: <a href="https://www.readthesequences.com/" rel="nofollow">https://www.readthesequences.com/</a>