Help me fall in love with the Internet again

April 26, 2009 6:26 PM

I have reached the end of the Internet. Well, my Internet, anyway. Please recommend some sites that will refresh my surfing experience.

I feel like I visit the same 5-10 sites over and over. As you can imagine, it's getting really boring (with the exception of The Meta, of course, which is always marvelous).

So, what cool sites would you recommend for me to try? My interests are eclectic, so I'm open to pretty much anything. Tell me which sites you find wonderful and why.

Thanks in advance!

posted by cloudsandstars to computers & internet (37 comments total)

It would be helpful if you told us what those 5-10 sites are.
posted by stray at 6:31 PM on April 26

Stumbleupon is a good way to find new, interesting sites.
posted by spockette at 6:32 PM on April 26 [2 favorites has favorites]

I subscribe via RSS to a lot of aggregator or link sites, like The Daily Beast, Microkhan, The Inquisitr, and the blue.

I also subscribe to RSS feeds from magazines. Right now, I read Wired, The New Yorker, Businessweek, Portfolio, Rolling Stone, and Slate.

With the above two kinds of sites, I find a lot of cool and eclectic stuff.

Also seconding Stumbleupon. You might even check Digg, but the quality of stuff on there has gone way down.
posted by reenum at 6:37 PM on April 26 [1 favorite has favorites]

Reddit is my drug of choice. Any user can make a sub-site dedicated to any subject, from questions, to politics, or even the offbeat.

Be warned, it's addicting.
posted by hellojed at 6:42 PM on April 26

My personal favorites at the moment:

zeaLOG - life-tracking, personal metrics, etc

Ultracondensed Movie Reviews - hysterical super short and sarcastic movie reviews

Fail Blog - self explanatory. sometimes painfully funny.

BrokenPictureTelephone - like the ol' game of telephone, but online.
posted by Edubya at 6:43 PM on April 26

post secret is often wonderful~people decorate postcards and write secrets anonymously. Sometimes the secrets are marvelous, some shocking, some boring, but almost always there is something stimulating. Good to do with a friend or lover. Refreshes every Saturday night around midnight.

Domai for tasteful nudes. Mostly eastern European young pretty women in happy, less pornographic, style.

Worth 1000, fun "photography" much photoshopped. You'll find pix of all those combined animals here and lots of other imaginative pix.

Good question. Will help spread the wealth around.
posted by davoid at 6:43 PM on April 26

It would be helpful if you told us what those 5-10 sites are.

The only reason that I didn't list those is because I'm really looking for different stuff. New horizons, you know, that kind of thing. Didn't want my usual haunts to flavor the answers.
posted by cloudsandstars at 6:45 PM on April 26

Yeahbutt—If you don't tell us what those five are, it's easier to rehash them.

What I check pretty regularly:

Fivethirtyeight.com: Politics done right.
Joshreads.com: Daily comics mocked.
MarkMaynard.com: Liberal in Ypsi does fun stuff.
BlessYouBoys.com: Because I love the Detroit Tigers.
Ilxor.com: The I Love Music board has pretty much replaced traditional music criticism for me.
posted by klangklangston at 6:50 PM on April 26 [1 favorite has favorites]

boingbong.net
cuteoverload.com
englishrussia.com
seconding postsecret.com
notnswf.com
violentacres.com
overheardinnewyork.com (and the rest of that family)
posted by pyro979 at 6:51 PM on April 26 [1 favorite has favorites]

Telling us the sites could help steer the answers towards those new horizons, cloudsandstars. Without knowing the kind of thing you've grown tired of, we're bound to give you some "stale" answers.

In absence of that, I'd recommend Wonkette for snarky political humor, Futility Closet for interesting stories and anecdotes, AVClub for pop culture musings and TV/movie/music reviews, and Daisy Owl for a pleasant ongoing comic strip to read.

Also Metachat, for an unofficial extension of the Mefi Experience™.
posted by Rhaomi at 6:58 PM on April 26

PopURLs
fimoculous
SeriousEats
Neatorama
CakeheadLovesEvil
posted by geekyguy at 7:03 PM on April 26

i love kottke for finding new and interesting things.
(my current favs are postcards from yo momma, questionable content, and xkcd.)
posted by bellbellbell at 7:40 PM on April 26

One I forgot to mention: TVTropes.org, a Wikipedia-like site that aims to catalogue every type of storytelling cliche used in television, movies, and literature. It sounds dull, but browse around a bit and it's endlessly fascinating.
posted by Rhaomi at 7:54 PM on April 26

Ive been visiting The Awesomer lately.
posted by damn dirty ape at 8:03 PM on April 26

If you're into food, Tastespotting FTW. Pretty looking food, usually links to recipes (though not necessarily). Lots of daily updates, lots of archives to surf through. Dangerous when you're hungry or on a diet.
posted by knile at 8:14 PM on April 26

I like dvice its another gadget blog, just because I like gadget blogs, I don't think it has been mentioned here yet.

I also like fortean times breaking news links page.
posted by meeshell at 8:40 PM on April 26

ontd is good if you like to keep up with which celebrity trash
posted by meeshell at 8:42 PM on April 26

To be honest, I find the Wikipedia is still pretty interesting. Check out the Rotten library. Should keep you occupied for a bit. They also run the Notable Names Database.
posted by christhelongtimelurker at 8:54 PM on April 26

I tend toward fannish media-related things? So some my links are rather on the weird side. Not sure if that's what you're looking for, but...

Seconding TV Tropes. Really interesting, and quite a time sink.

Livejournal. Search by interest and you'll likely find a community to match that interest.

To go with davoid's suggestion of Postsecret, there's also LJSecret and Fandom!Secrets.

Others sites I like:

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

Delicious - searchable community bookmarks.

MetaFandom - fannish essays (tag cloud). In the same vein: MetaQuotes, Fandom Wank, Fandom Lounge, Random Lounge.

SurLaLune Fairy Tales - annotated fairy tales.

Yuletide Treasures - yearly fanfic exchange archive for obscure fandoms.

PaperbackSwap for swapping/buying books.

AllRecipes Daily Recipes Feed

Slickdeals and Fatwallet - internet deals.

Eatliver.com - crazy, naughty, funny pictures of insane internet. (NSFW)

Creepypasta.com - creepy stories. Also, Dionaea House and Ted's Caving Page.

Axis Powers Hetalia - scanlations of a Japanese web comic featuring anthropomorphic countries.

Digital Elfquest - archive of Elfquest comics.

RubyQuest Game Archive, and LJ Roleplay Listing.

Crunchyroll, Animesuki, and Fansub TV for anime.

posted by anthy at 9:00 PM on April 26 [2 favorites has favorites]

Not sure if this will appeal to you or anyone here, as it's pretty heavy on the nerd factor, but I spend way too much time at www.nasaspaceflight.com, an independent site that covers NASA activities in grotesque detail. In their forums you will find like-minded guys obsessing over every shred of data; for example, here are the threads where they are tracking STS-125 / Hubble prep activity (it launches in 2 weeks). This is a particularly useful during live events, when the community posts play by play reports of what's happening, in far more detail than you will get from NASA TV or press releases.

Similarly, whenever there's a breaking news situation involving a commercial aircraft, I head straight to the airliners.net General Aviation forum, where they will know everything before everyone else.

Emily Lakdawalla's blog at The Planetary Society is flat out fantastic. Alas, she just (like, 3 days ago) gave birth and so is out for a while, but she'll have substitutes, including Alan Stern who is a rock star in those circles. Even without those subs, though, there's years worth of fascinating posts about space science and exploration, mostly regarding unmanned probes to Mars and Saturn since that's what's been active lately.

Or, you know, just stay in the metaculturesnark comfort zone.
posted by intermod at 9:00 PM on April 26

1000awesomethings.com for a growing list of well, 1000 awesome things
1001rulesformyunbornson for the same sort of things as above
boingboing.net a directory of wonderful things
cakewrecks.blogspot.com bad cakes
dailydoseofimagery a photograph a day
englishrussia.com oddities from our favourite ex soviet power
foodporndaily.com daily photograph of food, so good that the name clearly makes sense
fuckmylife.com anonymous twitter length stories, some bad some good
graphjam.com jokes through graphs
last.fm download the scrobbler and let it clock up all of your music, it will recommend you new artists based on this information
lifehacker.com tech and life tricks and tips
nightjack.wordpress.com browse through popular posts he links in that recent post
omegle.com anonymous chat with a stranger, hit and miss as it depends on who you are talking to
passiveaggressivenotes.com does what it says on the tin
peoplewhodeserveit.com again, self explanatory
postsecret.blogspot.com updates every sunday, anonymous postcard confessions. mostly tragic and sobering though
reddit.com, sign up and configure your subreddits for better links
boston.com/bigpicture current affairs through high resolution photography. the internet needs more sites that display big pictures, why are we still stuck with crap 200x300 pictures as standard?
smbc-comics.com great webcomic
guardian.com/commentisfree good news commentary and opinion from The Guardian UK newspaper which I recommend too
thisiswhyyourefat.com pictures of food that is excessive on purpose
posted by tumples at 9:16 PM on April 26

Give Me Something to Read compiles popular bookmarks from Instapaper. It's handy if you're looking for something longer to read, if you're not in the mood for cat pictures.
posted by knguyen at 10:21 PM on April 26

http://cabinet-of-wonders.blogspot.com/
http://bibliodyssey.blogspot.com/

Both are in the "lovely and strange things from a long time ago" category, though they have different focuses.
posted by rivenwanderer at 11:12 PM on April 26

My first read every morning is 3quarksdaily.com. Always something here to get the gray matter churning.
posted by thaivagabond at 1:45 AM on April 27

popurls.com
posted by allkindsoftime at 3:48 AM on April 27

BTW, we've done this before at least once or twice.
posted by allkindsoftime at 4:00 AM on April 27

Mental Floss - If you go anywhere, go here. Interesting things about everything. And there's a daily collection of links, so it can lead you to more interesting places. They're actually a magazine, but this is a a link to their blogs section.
Pajiba - Scathing Film, TV and Book Reviews
The Speculist - Exciting & Positive developments in Science
Comics Curmudgeon - Hilarious commentary on newspaper comic strips
posted by Caravantea at 5:26 AM on April 27

When you're bored with the Internet, it's time to go outside. I don't mean this in a snarky way, it's a message I give myself pretty often.
posted by theora55 at 8:36 AM on April 27 [1 favorite has favorites]

indexed
posted by andshewas at 9:24 AM on April 27

J-Walk - strange and interesting
Izismile - diversion
DarkRoastedBlend - cool stuff
posted by Drasher at 10:09 AM on April 27

Related, previously.
posted by djgh at 2:28 PM on April 27

One link to rule them all: del.icio.us/tag/awesome
posted by mullingitover at 2:46 PM on April 27

www.forgottenbooks.org has over 1000 books that can be read online for free. I aggregated this list with the "1001 books to read before you die" list, and came up with 300 or so titles. Memail me if you would like the spreadsheet.
posted by toni_jean at 4:31 PM on April 28

Zombo.com It's the only site you will ever need to visit.
posted by flutable at 3:47 AM on April 29 [2 favorites has favorites]

WeirdUniverse contains my daily dose of News of The Weird, by Chuck Shepherd.
posted by Midnight Skulker at 1:31 PM on April 29

xkcd - Updates Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays
Buttercup Festival - Updates... every other Monday?

Savage Love - Updates Wednesdays
Orwell Diaries
Virginia Bicycling Federation

NACLA
Mother Jones

Ted
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
posted by aniola at 7:50 AM on April 30

I have a browser. Upon that browser sits a bookmarks toolbar folder. Within that folder are the sites I visit every day. Let me show you them.
posted by tehloki at 11:13 AM on June 27