HN Explorer

Ask HN: How do you find the weird parts of the web?

372 points by bittercynic ↗ HN
I used to have an easier time finding truly weird material to read on the web. Things like:

subgenius.com timecube.2enp.com

Things on the fringes of sanity, or sometimes far over the line.

Any resources for finding material that is way out there, but manages to steer clear of hateful/racist/bigoted patterns of thought?

122 comments

[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 168 ms ] thread
themodelplumber
What about a search engine? https://search.marginalia.nu/
betwixthewires
Second this. You can find all kinds of interesting writing and documents with this search engine, I actually came here to say this.

There's also places on the web that are not right off the highway so to speak, you can find them by delving into smaller communities like forums, fediverse is a good place to find stuff like that. weboasis.app has links to a ton of small back road link aggregators and forums. The real internet exists, it's just google and Facebook aren't going to show it to you.

earthboundkid
I think these things have always spread by message boards. Today that probably means Reddit.
narrator
Search for strange and controversial topics on http://yandex.com . The results are totally different from the mainstream search engines which try hard to prevent fun "misinformation" by always sending you to the sites that never say anything strange.

For example, try "solar warden" (not the video game or the novel which is what the mainstream sites want to tell you about) on Yandex if you want to go down a fun rabbit hole.

uejfiweun
This was indeed a fun rabbit hole, thanks for sharing. I love learning details of these secret technologies, even if it's all bullshit. There was another good rabbit hole I went down recently from a reply I got to a comment, may be of some interest to you: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32148218#32148898
yaddaor
I like that the mAiNStrEaM SIteS actually provide relevant results instead of placing fringe, absurd conspiracy theories first. Seems in line with Russian destabilisation campaigns though so maybe that on purpose?

And providing rt.com's propaganda as #2 on "Ukraine invasion"? Totally not suspicious.

OP asked for "manages to steer clear of hateful/racist/bigoted patterns of thought" though.

narrator
How is the idea that the u.s government has a secret space program that is flying around the universe under our noses with godlike technology hateful/racist/bigoted?

Is it now racist/hateful/bigoted to believe in alien technology conspiracies just because anything that's not official government information can be automatically labeled as such? I think the whole solar warden thing and the universe of b.s around it is kind of fun in a timecube kind of way and that attitude that anything that contradicts the government is racist/hateful/bigoted has killed a lot of the fun of the internet.

boltzmann-brain
It's part of the post-fact world that was built up by Dugin's design. This is central to destabilization efforts. They've been trying this for a very long time - Eastern Europe was flooded with shoddily printed ufology magazines in the late 90s, often mentioning topics or sightings in Russia, and in retrospect probably just straight-up translations of centrally written articles.
sterlind
I'm with you, it's fun. I got Coast to Coast vibes reading one of the pages on it. and I remembered Gary McKinnon from a Count Dankula video about him - didn't realize the conspiracy theory was connected to what he saw when he hacked NASA in 2002.
OrangeMonkey
Its the new communism.

Anything I do not like is racist/hateful/bigoted.

shiomiru
Feels similar to the new McCarthyism.

Anything I do not like is communist.

pessimizer
It's the new nationalism.

Anything that wasn't in an official press release from my government, party, or King is foreign subversion.

yaddaor
Sorry, I guess I read other things into "hateful/racist/bigoted" than reasonable. Conspiracy theories have become so insanely dangerous that I saw red flags. Might be a language issue, I am from Estonia.
verisimi
Well done citizen! +50 points.

You have unlocked access to bank loans and your children can now go to a level 2c school!

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suoduandao2
You'd probably come across better if you avoided having both russophobia and bigoteering in one post. One or the other would just imply you have strong opinions, both implies something much less value-neutral.

If the last line was self-criticism reflecting that the russophobia is inconsistent with OP's request I apologize, that's not clear from your wording.

beermonster
A search for Solar Warden on DuckDuckGO [1] finds results for me, if you're referring to top results on Yandex about 'The Secret Space Program & Black Budget'?

I stopped using Google years ago as I find their search results, aside from being plagued by ads and people trying to game the results, have just become less useful. Which mainstream search engines are you referring to (I think DDG use bing).

[1] https://duckduckgo.com/q=solar+warden

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1970-01-01
StumbleUpon was the king of interesting yet random content. It seriously needs a reboot.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StumbleUpon

tsol
stumbled.to is a pretty good replacement. doesn't have the same categories and features, but I find some interesting content on there.
kencausey
That redirects to CloudHiker which I guess is a renaming?
hag
Thank you! I was going to mention StumbleUpon as well, but couldn't remember the name, haha. Used to use it way back.
Stamp01
You're on the right site for it.
wan_ala
I like looking at neocities. You can find some weird shit in links on message boards.
Apreche
You have to join the hidden un-Googleable communities where the people who create such things gather.
hectorlorenzo
Yes, this. I've recently been reading a lot about OSR and indie zine-like TTRPGs. Almost indiscriminate link-clicking seems to be the safest way to end up in the weird zones of any hobby. The beauty of it (in this specific case) is that the farther you go from mainstream, the more you encounter people who create stuff. Weird, wonderful stuff.
Kaibeezy
the farther you go from mainstream, the more you encounter people who create stuff

Well said and often true. There are quiet corners.

ericgoesoutside
Heh, my screentime went up this last week because I also recently discovered this rabbithole during a downtime from regular game night. Reading through old Zine-Quest (https://www.kickstarter.com/zine-quest) entries has been particularly fascinating.
vlark
Yes, but do you know about the Mongrel Banquet Club? The secret cabal of OSRians and their behind-the-scenes machinations? Google it my friend, google it. Many of the weird folk you allude to were members, I hear.
jawmes8
How did you find the timecube site?
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anothernewdude
I am on a pair of discord servers that have a bunch of weirdos. I know better than to advertise a small community though.
denkmoon
You read what other weird people write and follow your nose.
manuelmoreale
Few ways, in no particular order:

- are.na seems to attract people who have odd interests and it’s full of quirky websites

- webrings are still a thing and there’s a bunch out there worth checking out

- directories like https://512kb.club/ are usually full of interesting sites

- by following links on blogs and sites you find interesting

- some cool forums are still out there (https://forum.agoraroad.com/index.php)

Shameless plug but I am currently curating https://theforest.link precisely because of the issue you’re describing.

pdinny
I've found some really interesting reading on are.na. Something that I particularly enjoy about that mode of discovery is that it is more about curation and discovery. The smallness of the community (it feels small at any rate) means that there doesn't seem to be a big incentive to degrade the overall quality by using SEO-like tactics.
manuelmoreale
> Something that I particularly enjoy about that mode of discovery is that it is more about curation and discovery

Agree and also it feels like no one on the platform has anything to earn from their curation and as a result they use the platform as an actual tool for themselves. And so most collections are views into other people's interests and passions.

arbirk
theforest feedback: I like link sites to open in the same tab, like HN
dmurray
Shouldn't this be up to you and something you can change in your browser?
manuelmoreale
Interesting. You’re the first person to ask for same tab opening. But it might make sense for this particular case. I’ll have a think.
phphphphp
A link should always open in the same tab by default, unless there’s a compelling reason otherwise: for users who prefer to open in a new tab (like myself) they can use the appropriate shortcuts, menu options or click combinations. If you configure links to open in a new tab, it’s impossible for a user to open it in the same tab.
mkl
I think trust people to know and do what they want: left click or middle click. The problem with making the new-tab choice for them is they can't click in such a way as to keep the same tab. I have literally written browser extensions to fix auto-new-tab links, it's that frustrating.
manuelmoreale
This is a compelling enough argument for me to switch the default.
pessimizer
Another data point: I open almost every link in a new tab, but I also find it very frustrating when a link opens in a new tab by default.
erellsworth
I'm the opposite. I actually wrote a small browser extension to make HN links open in a new tab because it annoys me so much.

I can't disagree with what others have said about making it user-choice though. Maybe some kind of toggle switch that lets users set the behavior one way or the other would work?

entropie
You that you can open in new tabs with ctrl+click?

Just to be sure.

erellsworth
Yes, I'm aware. I'd rather not have to remember to do it every time though. Just personal preference.
prometheus76
In chrome-based browsers, you can also middle-click (mouse wheel click) a link to open it as a new tab.
mkl
That predates Chrome by many years, in Firefox if not Opera, Konqueror, etc.
erellsworth
99% of the time I'm using a laptop trackpad, not a mouse.
RajT88
I would agree that same-tab is desirable and the rest of us can use ctrl+click according to our preference.
Pyrodogg
Following this tangent, I think Twitter has some of the worst dark pattern UX about this. Sure, middle click opens a new tab but it also hijacks focus instead of loading in the background. It's really frustrating when I see X interesting things and want to open them all at once and then go through the tabs.
P5fRxh5kUvp2th
Do you or anyone else have webrings that are interesting for someone who is into programming, math, fantasy, and sci-fi?

I knew a few were still around, but I'm not aware of any that are actively maintained.

I'm aware sci-fi is technically fantasy, but that categorization has never sat well with me.

manuelmoreale
Sadly no, nothing that specific comes to mind. I'm personally part of the Indie Web Webring but that's as far as I go when it comes to involvement with web rings.

That said there's a few listed here you might want to check https://sadgrl.online/cyberspace/webrings.html

And if none of those is what you're after I say be the change you want to see in the world and start a new webring!

Kaibeezy
sci-fi is technically fantasy

Interesting you’re looking for niche stuff then un-niche-ing SF and fantasy, when you could so easily go many parsecs down that rabbit hole. Here’s one guide to their subgenres - https://larawillard.com/2014/12/10/guide-to-sff-science-fict... - and there are many.

You could do this for almost any topic. Drill down down down. Fungi and unsolved math puzzles and flatbread and occlupanids.

Get far enough down and you’ll find people discussing and writing. These are the hedgerows of the Internet. Nerds are in the details.

bch
> webrings are still a thing and there’s a bunch out there worth checking out

Oh wow. As an in-my-head joke, after I read the HN title, “web rings” was my answer to myself, casting my mind back to 1995… Imagine my delight to hear it’s still not only an answer, but a good one.

I don’t even know how much longer after Alta Vista vs Google “The Web” was interesting. My flip knee jerk assumption is Google optimized it all into the intellectual equivalent of the worst of children’s breakfast cereals. These days it’s HN and it’s community that serve as big role as jump-off point to interesting things.

status200
Is there a way to report theforest.link sites? One of the first ones I was directed to is casually antisemitic
manuelmoreale
Really? Can you send me an email with the link? hello at manuelmoreale dot com

Thanks

SllX
All you had to do was ask.

Here’s one I found recently: http://www.betainfoguide.net/

The social tech of 2007 in the web tech of 1997 for the tape tech of 1977. I swear if browsers still supported the blink and marquee tags there would be some of that on display here.

[dead] random123973
Markoff
TIL they have Discord

their megathread is way better than r/piracy

any list which doesn't include Pahe, PSA and Knaben is for me not worth reading

edit:

Greetings everyone, as you may know our discord server was nuked weeks ago along with several others, and so we have made the decision to move to revolt entirely.

You can get started by:

Registering[1] an account at https://divolt.xyz and logging in Join the server: https://fmhy.divolt.xyz Some points to note: 1 - this is an entirely self-hosted instance, so you must register a new one even if you already have one on the official instance.

senectus1
oh this posting is not good for my productivity...
jhoelzel
Mostly my social bubble and of course reddit! I even read hackernews through reddit, thanks to the sub forum. Otherwise there is the good old google bang for site:reddit.com for anything of interest =)

I can safely reccomend the appollo app for your phone.

wernsey
Always read the comments on HN.

This is the way.

sidcool
Reddit has a lot of such rabbit holes, but one needs to wade through a lot before finding it.
braingenious
Turn on posts from banned users on this site. I’ve seen some genuinely deranged stuff on here. One time a poster got into a really heated debate about censorship and ended up posting links to a detailed guide on how to commit suicide for some reason!

It wasn’t particularly fun but it was genuinely an odd thing to come across on today’s internet.

yreg
I respect the people who have been banned years ago, know it, and instead of creating a new user continue to post dead comments, screaming into the void.
csdvrx
> screaming into the void

No, not into the void, but to people who care and find their unique content so interesting, in a sea of conformity and boring repetitions of the same ideas again and again.

I have a special color for banned users, to read their words more carefully, because if they care enough to keep going, I care enough to listen.