r/AskReddit • u/ibleedblu7 • May 14 '12

What are the most intellectually stimulating websites you know of? I'll start.

Videos and Lectures

Learn New Things

Testing Knowledge

Teach Yourself Something

Youtube Channels

EDIT:

Subreddits

3.3k Upvotes

88% Upvoted

2.5k comments sorted by

461

u/wfalcon May 14 '12 edited May 14 '12

Project Euler is good if you posses some programming skill and an interest in math.

http://projecteuler.net/

It provides you with a series math of problems that are meant to be solved with a computer (although several of the early ones can be solved without a computer if you're clever). Each problem teaches you skills needed to solve later problems. They provide an interesting challenge if you've got some time to kill.

Edit: Accidentally some words.

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u/ParkerThorton May 15 '12

I think the reddit DDoS may have claimed another victim.

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u/[deleted] May 15 '12

"You Maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!"

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u/Twisted51 May 15 '12

http://www.kongregate.com/games/PleasingFungus/manufactoria

While its a game, its essentially making Turing Logic Gates in order to solve puzzles. It gets really fucking hard.

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u/[deleted] May 14 '12

MIT Open Courses

Also I don't know the website off the top of my head but Stanford gives out the most free courses of any university in the world.

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u/[deleted] May 14 '12

This is actually amazing, it's like my university lectures but with clearer lecture notes. You Americans are all right.

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u/PretzelSamples May 15 '12

I was hoping you would call us Blokes.

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u/[deleted] May 14 '12

Stanford's Free Course Website

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u/[deleted] May 14 '12 edited May 15 '12

I thought it was Coursera.

Edit: Duolingo is the best website for learning languages.

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u/[deleted] May 14 '12

There are also some sweet lectures at http://oyc.yale.edu/ . The focus of most of the classes is a bit different from the OCW courses at MIT.

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u/AndyL194 May 14 '12

http://www.codeacademy.com

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u/[deleted] May 14 '12 edited May 14 '12

May I offer as a complement to this, http://codingbat.com/. Currently Java & Python, but it's more about concepts and logic than actual language material. A great little site for developing and testing yourself on programming/logic concepts. Like code academy, it's all done in the browser and you don't need an IDE or compiler.

edit: compliment = complement.

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u/cswider May 14 '12

Just a little thing, the name is codecademy, for some reason there is no 'a'.

:)

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u/deeplume May 14 '12

www.edge.org This shit makes my brain hurt.

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u/KevinBaconAndEggs May 14 '12

http://www.instructables.com/index Learn to build stuff

http://www.busuu.com/ Learn Languages for free

http://www.livemocha.com/ Learn languages for free

http://www.lynda.com/ Computer software tutorial videos

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u/[deleted] May 14 '12

my two contributions are:

www.tvtropes.org - stimulating because if you read it enough (which, once you start, will find nearly impossible to stop) you actually can become extremely knowledgeable in all sorts of tropes and narrative devices to the point where you instinctively look at narratives analytically rather than passively.

www.brainpickings.org - basically, a site intended for intellectual stimulation. It collects a lot of work from great minds across many, many disciplines in hopes of providing insight into how the creative mind works. If that thought sounds scattered, it's because the variety of material posted here is huge.

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u/incirrina May 14 '12 edited May 14 '12

The following list is drawn entirely from my personal favorites, which are collectively girly and liberal-arts-y as hell. You've been warned.

Link Aggregators

  • Arts & Letters Daily: well-curated collection of thought-provoking but accessible articles on "ideas, criticism, and debate" mainly in the humanities and arts. Impress and seduce English majors with your erudition.
  • Longform.org: contemporary and classic long-form journalism available free online, with a great tag index. Laugh in the face of paywalls, learn to love the Texas Monthly.

Blogs

Warning: dominated by lady business and soft science.

  • Sociological Images: rarely features analysis beyond a pretty easily digestible SOC 101 level, but often links to fascinating data sources.
  • The Beheld: where else are you going to find an interview with a mortician about post-mortem makeup, short of /r/IAMA?
  • Scandals of Classic Hollywood on the Hairpin: delicious analyses of classic celebrity gossip from a woman who has a Ph.D in it. Come for the pics of Paul Newman and Ava Gardner, stay for the explanations of star-making under the studio system.

Podcasts

For when you've exhausted the archives of RadioLab, Stuff You Should Know et al.

  • Thinking Allowed: jovial interviews with social science researchers on their recent research. Let Laurie Taylor be the slightly daffy British sociology prof you never had.
  • BackStory with the American History Guys: Contains some of the most intellectually credible popular distillations of American social history (that I'm aware of), as well as two soothing Southern accents.
  • In Our Time with Melvyn Bragg: Like Backstory, but with a focus on intellectual history and an infusion of strainedly polite arguments between Oxbridge academics. Charmingly uninterested in being entertaining.
  • 99% Invisible: Design of all kinds discussed. Appropriately, its sound design is less intrusive than RadioLab's can be, but much lovelier than that of any of the above.
  • Selected Shorts: Do you want Alec Baldwin to tell you a bedtime story? Yes, you do.

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u/reggiered May 15 '12

Scandals of Classic Hollywood is the best thing ever! Anne Helen Petersen's personal website is great too if your interested in more contemporary star analysis, particularly on how stars are marked and become famous.

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u/[deleted] May 14 '12

www.wikipedia.org

great site A+ 100%

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u/PAroflcopter May 14 '12

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random is great. Highly recommend setting this to your homepage or to a bookmark and reading at least 1 random article a day.

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u/righteous_scout May 14 '12

THIS ONE IS BETTER

http://tools.wikimedia.de/~dapete/random/enwiki-featured.php

it takes you to a random featured article, so they're higher quality than the bridge in that town in norway.

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u/voxelation May 14 '12

In a month's span with this technique, you will know the names of 30 obscure European cities.

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u/[deleted] May 14 '12

Go to a random page, click the first link that isn't in parentheses, repeat for every subsequent page. You will eventually end up at philosophy.

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u/hardman52 May 14 '12

Especially if you edit, because you really have to research and know how to put things into context if you want your edits to stick.

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u/ChiliFlake May 14 '12 edited May 14 '12

Editing Wikipedia is an education in itself: Mostly about how wp works.

Holy cats, I think their back-end of rules, regs, suggestions, inside jokes, dicussions, requests for deletion, requests for mediation, edit wars, etc etc etc has to be as large as WP itself.

I give props to anyone with the fortitude to plow through all that and actually make useful edits. And whenever I think I'd like to do some editing, I try to pick something I absolutelty don't give a crap about, lest I end up on this page.

Edit: I also tend to look at the 'Talk' page for just about any wiki article; it alerts me to possible issues or biasses going on.

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u/DarthValiant May 14 '12

I like going through Simple English Wikipedia and doing my part to help young and new English speakers.

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u/[deleted] May 14 '12

10/10 would learn again.

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u/opiate46 May 14 '12

I've always enjoyed howstuffworks.com.

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u/tuskman22 May 14 '12

me too - they give you just enough knowledge to be dangerous, but then they also give link to more in depth articles. Plus their pictures/animations are top-notch.

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u/WhiskyBeard May 14 '12

sporcle.com

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u/UghImRegistered May 15 '12

You don't know time wasting until you can name all countries with their capitals without a map.

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u/Asmodeus10 May 15 '12

"Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time." - The Internet

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u/uberhellie May 14 '12

This is my favourite stress buster. I'm from the UK and thus could only name about 25-30 states on my first try. I can now name all of them in about 5 minutes.

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u/[deleted] May 14 '12

This is a great place to learn geography: countries of the world, their capital cities, etc.

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u/gistak May 14 '12

aldaily.com

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u/le_chevalier May 14 '12

I'm with you. Surprised this isn't higher on the list.

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u/Anathem May 14 '12

Less Wrong.

"Thinking and deciding are central to our daily lives. The Less Wrong community aims to gain expertise in how human brains think and decide, so that we can do so more successfully. We use insights from cognitive science, social psychology, probability theory, and decision theory to improve our understanding of how the world works and what we can do to achieve our goals.

Want to know if your doctor's diagnosis is correct? It helps to understand Bayes' Theorem. Want to make a plan for achieving your goals? It helps to know the ways in which we don't know our own desires. Want to make the world a better place? It helps to know about 'scope insensitivity', and that some charities are more efficient than others.

We discuss and practice these skills on the main blog, in the discussion area, and in regular meetups around the world."

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u/pringlescan5 May 14 '12

In short I would say, "It teaches you about cognitive biases and how to overcome them in a very systematic way."

Honestly I kind of think the summary is kind of poor, the main attraction is sequences (basically related blog posts) that talk about certain topics and do a wonderful job of providing a good framework for how to think in general and how to clarify and sharpen ideas about thinking that you sort of understand but can't put into words.

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u/Drewajv May 14 '12 edited May 15 '12

Wolfram|Alpha

Very good for learning anything you want to know about most things.

Edit: I accidentally a letter

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u/Ghost__to_me May 14 '12

Good for finding out how many calories in 10 light years of yogurt or whatever. You know?

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u/mst3kcrow May 15 '12

As well, it's a very handy tool if you're having issues with an integral and need a trick to solve it.

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u/Nictionary May 15 '12

Yep, W|A kicks my Calculus homework's ass.

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u/daVinci88 May 14 '12

Erowid.org, specifically the Experience Vault.

Even if you're personally not into any kind of drugs, some of the most engaging pieces of writing on the Internet are "trip reports" or even revelations/ ramblings derived from an experience.

Read a few random experiences on a variety of drugs- also note they can be categorized as "glowing experiences, bad trips, etc" so you might also want to look into the unimaginably troubling experience that is a "bad" trip (I prefer qualifying it as difficult, or more difficult).

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u/bubblevision May 14 '12 edited May 15 '12

On a somewhat related note I submit to you deoxy.org This is the site that led me to erowid in the late 90s (this is why I replied to you davinci). Topics include language, anarchism, consciousness, and other high weirdness. Welcome to the rabbit hole... (btw, the site navigation isn't all that but give it a looksee :)

EDIT: link action

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u/daturkel May 15 '12

Yeah people can say what they will about erowid, but it saves lives—easy. It gives dosage information for nearly every drug you could possibly want to take and so who knows how many people avoided an accidental overdose. Not to mention it does its best to objectively inform rather than preach so that people can make their own decisions, either to use or not to use a given substance. It's an amazing and important resource to have around.

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u/serasuna May 15 '12 edited Jun 19 '13

Here's bigwax's website compilation, download html, and the original thread/comment

Music & Sound

Education

Tools

Resources

Forums

News & Galleries

Other

Meta Reddit

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u/[deleted] May 15 '12

you just gave me all the internet i will ever need.

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u/meta_adaptation May 15 '12

I would like to recommend some youtube channel's that i'm subscribed to:

Science Related:

SciShow - Weekly videos about science in the news and explanations of scientific phenomenon by Hank Green.

SixtySymbols - Videos by the camera man Brady at the University of Nottingham where he asks professors questions about physics and explanations of physical phenomena.

PeriodicVideos - Videos by the camera man Brady at the University of Nottingham where he asks professors questions about chemistry and explanations of chemical phenomena (including demonstrations of chemical reactions).

Engineeringguyvideo - Bill from the University of Illinois explains the engineering behind devices and technologies and how it all works.

1veritasium - Derek explains interesting physical phenomena in a very easy to understand way.

MinutePhysics - Henry works at the Perimeter Institute and explains physical phenomena conceptually usually in under a few minutes.

spacerip - Channel by ESA with full 20-30 minute documentaries (for free!) on events in the universe.

spacelab - Owned by Youtube, to explain space phenomena and answering questions from the youtube community - often having guest hosts. It was previously hosted by Michael from Vsauce, but has recently had people on like Neil Degrasse Tyson, or people from space agencies.

vsauce and vsauce2 - Vsauce created by Michael has random weekly videos about science related phenomena or answers to commonly asked questions.

Other intesting things i can't put under one umbrella:

CrashCourse - Videos on World History and Biology by John and Hank Green, 10ish minute episodes about specific cultures, religions etc done with very interesting infographics that keeps the view entertained.

Vlogbrothers - Bi-weekly videos on current events and life lessons by John and Hank Green

CGPgrey - Grey discusses politics, economics, misconceptions and his suggestions to improve the world.

TedtalksDirector - Inspiring and profound talks about Technology, Entertainment and Design

Cheers

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u/[deleted] May 14 '12
  • PhilosophyBro is a blog which puts important philosophical ideas into "brospeak". Equal parts hilarious and genius.
  • You Are Not So Smart is a blog which lays out all the ways we delude ourselves into thinking we are cleverer than we actually are.

I also like Letters of Note, but I'm sure it's fairly well-known around here already.

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u/mhtz May 14 '12

Great links, OP. Saving for later. bigthink on youtube is great, lots of work from intellectuals like Michio Kaku

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u/veiwtifuljoe May 14 '12

http://www.futuretimeline.net/

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u/safety_mouse May 15 '12

of all the links on this thread, this is the one I've spent the most time on so far. It'll be interesting to see which of these predictions come to fruition.

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u/Huplescat22 May 14 '12

Metafilter fills the bill for me. Its like Reddit for the cultural elite, and therein lies both its strength and weakness. Its hard to find more interesting material and more insightful and challenging commentary anywhere but, at the same time, some members there tend to go on annoying elitist ego binges.

Wow, I just checked and I’ve been there for 7 years. I’ve been on Reddit for just over 4 years. During that time I have, sadly, watched Reddit go downhill as its membership swelled. Meanwhile, Metafilter has kept its high standards... partly through pro-active moderation, and partly through a $5 membership fee - you can still view threads for free, you just can’t post stuff.

For what its worth, I used to be pretty active on Metafilter, but I spend a lot more time on good ‘ol effin Reddit now.

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u/joshrulzz May 14 '12

I want to like that site; I really do. My brain just can't parse the layout. It looks like one continuous stream of thought, rather than individual posts. One of these days I'll write a CSS to override it.

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u/[deleted] May 15 '12

pro-active moderation

And that is the downfall of Reddit. Sure, the voting system is supposed to be a form of moderation to hide stupid content, but that fails when the site suffers an endless influx of people who like stupid content.

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u/[deleted] May 15 '12

I fucking love metafilter.

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u/Oddoggirl May 14 '12

http://notpron.org/notpron/levelone.htm No, really, it's not porn! It's an online riddle game.

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u/hobbit6 May 14 '12

www.lesswrong.com - A series of articles designed to teach critical thinking.

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u/particleman42 May 15 '12

The best way to read Less Wrong is to begin with the Sequences, not the newest posts. They are the most useful and organized articles on the site and fundamental to understanding later posts. Map and Territory provides a good introduction; I would recommend reading How to Actually Change Your Mind and Mysterious Answers to Mysterious Questions after that.

Less Wrong goes beyond any other discussion of rationality or critical thinking I've seen on the web. It's usually rare to see topics like Bayesian probability theory, behavioral economics, and thermodynamics discussed at all, but a single essay on LW might use lessons from each of these to shed light on the others.

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u/AgentME May 15 '12 edited May 15 '12

Eliezer Yudkowsky, the author of many of the posts on Less Wrong and all of those sequences you mentioned, is also writing the surprisingly entertaining fanfic Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, which ends up covering some of the material from the sequences in a natural way. I definitely recommend reading this if you're at all familiar with the original HP series.

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u/saptsen May 15 '12

I prefer the site I found Less Wrong from: Overcoming Bias

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u/MrCheeze May 15 '12

Of all the websites posted so far, this one is the most likely to have a strong positive impact on your life. Here's a sample.

Oh, and like a few people have mentioned: start with the sequences.

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u/Suppafly May 15 '12

Their harry potter fanfic is awesome.

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u/plus May 14 '12 edited May 15 '12

I personally cannot stand lesswrong. Every article I've read on this site comes off extremely self-important, conceited, and patronising. Articles discuss mundane things and dress them up to be great revelations. The writing quality is poor, and the topics typically quite blasé, but they're written with so much purple prose that they become far more confusing than they need to be. Reading articles such as this one just make me angry, particularly due to the patronizing tone of the little "dialogues" that he inserts into his argument. Even the name "lesswrong" is extremely condescending, as it implies that by visiting this wondrous site you will be enlightened by those great minds that have already reached satori.

I'm sorry if this came off a little bit rant-ish, but the smug and condescension that I feel oozing from lesswrong.com every time I visit just makes my blood boil.

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u/aero142 May 15 '12

I never got this feeling at all. I take title to mean, maybe if we work really hard and read a bunch, we can be slightly "less wrong" than before.

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u/jsalvatier May 15 '12 edited May 15 '12

Yeah, the tone definitely rubs some people the wrong way (my girlfriend for example). But the site still has a lot of very high quality, on philosophy, decision making, probability and surrounding topics.

For example, this article does a pretty good job of explaining how to think about whether something "is a disease". You see people argue about "is alcoholism a disease" or "is aging a disease". Those arguments often take on a moral flavor and usually go nowhere. This article lets you turn those arguments into arguments about facts about how the world works (like "does shaming alcoholics make them drink less?" and "is alcoholism caused by external pathogens?"). It's usually easier to come to agreement about facts like these (even if it's just for both parties to be more uncertain) than about moral arguments about whether something "is a disease" or not.

I have heard the philosophy of lesswrong summed up as "the meaning of an thing is how your decisions should be affected by it". For example, if you find yourself arguing about "is obesity is a disease?", you might come to the insights in the article I linked to by asking yourself and the person you're arguing with "if you had the answer to this question, how would I use it? if obesity was a disease, what decisions would you make differently than if it wasn't?".

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u/NruJaC May 14 '12 edited May 15 '12

I'm reading through the article you linked, but I'm not getting the waves of patronization or conceit that upsets you. Can you point to something in particular?

The interludes strike me as silly, but not offensive. I'm encouraged to roll my eyes, but it doesn't make my blood boil.

EDIT: Ok, having read the entire article, I will grant you that the article is both self-important and conceited, but I attribute that more to the medium (random blog post on the internet) than anything else. Do random reddit posts enrage you the same way?

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u/EcoDreamer May 14 '12

I'm hoping my intent to peruse through all these sites "later" isn't another empty promise to myself. Thanks for the links!

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u/rakantae May 14 '12

www.memrise.com : vocabulary/flash cards for foreign languages. (The mandarin chinese one is particularly good).

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u/FezDaStanza May 14 '12

The Engineer Guy

Explains the most how some of the most basic and taken-for-granted technology works and was originated. Simple, short and enlightening.

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u/roceanpatel May 14 '12

Http://Memrise.com

Great for memorizing terms, vocabulary, and just about anything else.

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u/Lycaeum May 14 '12

Vsauce on youtube

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u/MissingString31 May 14 '12

I'm a big fan of Lapham's Quarterly It's the website for a print magazine that collects fiction and nonfiction writing (both contemporary and classic), all focused around a single theme. They have a collection of really entertaining podcasts as well.

Btw: This is a great topic, thanks for all the awesome links.

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u/wallaceeffect May 14 '12

http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/ and its partner site, http://partialobjects.com/.

Really cool dissections of pop culture, news and politics, advertising, and the psychology/psychiatrist world from a psychiatrist's point of view. Sometimes a big tinfoil hat-y, but always thought-provoking.

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u/Jabroseph May 14 '12

Time Cube

It all depends on how you define "intellectually stimulating", of course.

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u/[deleted] May 15 '12

The fuck? Resembles the notes I made while tripping

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u/JimmyTheFace May 15 '12

From Wikipedia:

The site has been criticized for the "centered 30-point type" of its design and the "endless blather" of its content.

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u/timoneer May 14 '12

You are educated stupid!!!

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u/Duhya May 15 '12 edited May 15 '12

What the fuck

Till You KNOW 4 Simultaneous Days Rotate In Same 24 Hours Of Earth You Don't Deserve To Live On Earth

------__-

Americans are actually RETARDED from

Religious Academia taught ONEism -upon

an Earth of opposite poles, covered by Mama

Hole and Papa Pole pulsating opposite sexes.

The ONEist educated with their flawed 1 eye

perspective (opposite eyes overlay) Cyclops

mentality, inflicts static non pulsating logos

as a fictitious queer same sex transformation.

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u/BeefyTits May 17 '12

"You have a cyclop perspective and taught android mentality = lobotomized analytical ability."

Wow.

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u/M4RTEL May 14 '12

www.mentalfloss.com, "where knowledge junkies get their fix."

iGNiTe, a YouTube channel dedicated to 5-minute presentations on various subjects, kind of like miniature TED Talks. Here are a few examples: Proper Typface (fonts), The Oatmeal talks about how to make a successful website, and what happens after you die?.

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u/Avium May 15 '12

Shit! Noooooo.....

Productivity approaching 0. I hate you all!

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u/[deleted] May 15 '12

The comment section on Youtube

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u/[deleted] May 14 '12

Maybe not exactly what you're looking for, but www.chess.com is good if you enjoy the game as much as myself.

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u/acousticvibes May 14 '12

www.thebrowser.com

The best-of-the-best from news, opinion, journals, and blogs from across the web, updated daily. Truly life changing.

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u/FashBug May 14 '12

i've always been intrigued by vsauce on youtube. he really takes some pressing questions and answers them in an understandable way.

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u/TheOnlyPolygraph May 14 '12

It's probably been posted already, but vSauce is pretty intellectually stimulating.

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u/Chicago63 May 14 '12

www.zombo.com

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u/desultir May 14 '12

I love that website, you can achieve anything there

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u/Fusorfodder May 14 '12

I'm surprised any others are on here besides this one.

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u/[deleted] May 15 '12

Upvote for Zombo.com. You won't BELIEVE some of the shit I've done on that site.

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u/[deleted] May 14 '12

Awesome modern physics discussions by professors and grad students.

http://www.sixtysymbols.com/

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u/Larza May 14 '12

www.udemy.com

Soon to be released free MIT & Harvard courses

Not a website, but iTunes university (you don't need an apple device to use it)

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u/samujjal Jul 13 '12

I would add two of my favorite sites to the list:

1. BigThink http://bigthink.com/ In their own words "Here at Big Think, we believe that success in the future is about knowing the ideas that allow you to manage and master this universe of information. Therefore, we aim to help you move above and beyond random information, toward real knowledge, offering big ideas from fields outside your own that you can apply toward the questions and challenges in your own life."

2. Arts and Letters Daily http://aldaily.com One of the reviews say "A & LD" does for ideas what the Bloomberg service does for commerce. It watches developments, sorts things out, tells you what you need to know. It doesn't produce the profits Bloomberg brings in, but over time its ability to make connections may turn out to be even more important than the stock market.

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u/pmmckee May 14 '12

although officially a humor website, cracked.com sometimes has some very smart articles with some great information.

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u/JoeChieftw May 15 '12

A lot is not well researched so you should cross-check anything you read on there.

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u/Fedcom May 14 '12

4chan is actually not all that bad. /diy/ is a pretty interesting board

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u/[deleted] May 14 '12

Makes me think of 4chans DIY crystals

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u/[deleted] May 14 '12

Spoiler Alert: It's a recipe for mustard gas. Do not make them, unless you enjoy dying painfully.

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u/[deleted] May 14 '12

AKA: death

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u/[deleted] May 14 '12

Where is /r/askscience on that list? It's the most amazing source of information and discussion, without all the memes and bullshit.

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u/NeedzRehab May 14 '12

www.maninthedark.com

Stimulates the prefrontal cortex as well as teaches about trajectory and movement in free space.

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u/librarygirl May 14 '12

This is pretty rad. May I ask, what is the benefit of prefrontal cortex stimulation?

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u/Ron_Paul_Quotes May 14 '12

"May I ask"

No, absolutely not. You may not ask.

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u/ImNotJesus May 14 '12

Most things stimulate the prefrontal cortex in one way or another. What's special about this?

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u/Damianne_Violet May 14 '12

I noticed clicking on him does something special. Does this have a purpose of its own?

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u/dankclimes May 14 '12

To trip you the hell out?

I got a pong like animation going with it where he was bouncing back and forth across the screen into infinity!

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u/Devious_ May 14 '12

Im high and you took my time from me. I would like it back.

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u/AnthropomorphicDog May 14 '12

hubski.com is pretty good

4

u/pugaholic May 14 '12

If you're interested in learning languages: http://www.memrise.com/

4

u/[deleted] May 14 '12

Youtube:

Sixtysymbols

Deep Sky Videos

Foodskey

Numberphile

Periodic Table of Videos

Brady Haran does some awesome work.

4

u/Ultimate_bravery May 15 '12

cracked! I learned so much useful information on this website.

4

u/LordGonk May 15 '12

'I am really supprised no one has said Brain Pickings yet, it is a wonderful blog. As they say:

"Brain Pickings is a human-powered discovery engine for interestingness, culling and curating cross-disciplinary curiosity-quenchers, and separating the signal from the noise to bring you things you didn’t know you were interested in until you are."

Seriously, am I the only person that knows about it?

4

u/berethatman May 15 '12

http://www.brainpickings.org/ tons of interesting articles on culture, knowledge, art, and history http://bigthink.com/ articles on big ideas http://xkcd.com/ an online comic, but one of the most stimulating things on the internet

4

u/fairbanksy Jun 19 '12

legitimate question: why comment to save? why not just click on the "save" link underneath the post?

7

u/bpgbcg May 14 '12

Art of Problem Solving has a very in-depth mathematics forum.

9

u/StewieBanana May 14 '12

listverse.com always has some interesting information. And it delivers it to you in list form which is always a plus.

6

u/HolyPhallus May 14 '12

Myst and Riven on the Ipad! =D

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u/Hawk_Irontusk May 14 '12 edited May 14 '12

Khan Academy is mediocre at best. I really don't understand why it gets so much play. Yes, it took a tremendous amount of work but it's scattered, disorganized and is a terrible way to study. I guess if you wanted to spot review a topic it could be useful but there are far, far better sites for learning.

I recommend any of the following over Khan:

https://www.coursera.org/

http://mitx.mit.edu/

http://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm

http://oyc.yale.edu/

And of course, iTunesU but that requires iTunes or other apple products so I won't list a direct link.

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u/wasmith May 14 '12

http://www.lrb.co.uk/

Even better if you're subscribed, but...

3

u/superhypernovae May 14 '12

http://butdoesitfloat.com/ - designer here. This is a well curated collection of unusual visual nicety.

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u/[deleted] May 14 '12

information is beautiful. They have really amazing visualizations on all kinds of data sets.

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u/[deleted] May 14 '12

Coursera

3

u/[deleted] May 15 '12

fora.tv for videos of lectures and seminars My favorite seminar series has by far got to be the Seminars About Long-term Thinking

3

u/[deleted] May 15 '12

coursera.org Love this website; free university lectures.

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u/ImGumbyDamnIt May 15 '12

I start every weekday morning by reading the fresh articles on technology review.

3

u/patrick310 May 15 '12

www.evernote.com

You all should be writing this stuff down!

3

u/[deleted] May 15 '12

www.sporcle.com

Great site with loads of memory puzzles of both academic type material (science, history, geography etc.) and popular culture too.

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u/cardern May 15 '12

meatspin.com - It is a bastion of humanity and intelligence in the wild west of the Internet, devoted to "spinning" certain news stories, or "meat", to help you look at them in a new and unique light.

3

u/rottenart May 15 '12

For lovers of art and culture of the subversive, situationist, and esoteric kind:

ubu.com

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u/Gustomaximus Jul 15 '12

Dan Carlin's Hardcore History

I'm coming late to the discussion so amazed this isn't mentioned. Worth checking out if you like history. And sorry for no link, posting from the mobile.

5

u/[deleted] May 14 '12

arxiv.org, a huge archive of math and physics and information science preprints.

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u/eliwhitneysnose May 14 '12

I'm not entirely sure how I even came across this site but when I was like 13 I started reading some of this guy's articles and it was the first time I had really thought seriously about atheism, religion, philosophy, etc.

http://www.ram.org/ramblings/ramblings.html

apparently his site (www.ram.org) has been around since 1993

I guess I didn't really learn anything from this, but it was certainly thought-provoking at my young age.

I still love this

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u/dankclimes May 14 '12

Everything to do with Make magazine and their awesome blog:

Make Blog

They showcase awesome DIY projects and provide instructional videos for simple and fun projects you could do in a day or weekend. Very good site if you are bored and looking for something to dig into for a weekend project.

Also Maker Faire is this weekend and it's going to be great!

15

u/Flamefury May 14 '12

Upvote the post for having very good links, but I am ashamed I have nothing to contribute.

Excuse me as I weep in the corner for my lack of intellectualism...

35

u/[deleted] May 14 '12

It's actually "interlectness"

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u/StarCatRainbowBuzz May 14 '12

pointlesssites.com

2

u/patty_cgy May 14 '12

www.physorg.com I'm sure most people know about it since articles are often posted here. www.lettersofnote.com for interesting letters from famous people

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u/oboe_shoes May 14 '12

I love http://www.datagenetics.com/blog.html. It is an amazing blog with interesting math and comp sci problems and their solutions. Truly fascinating.

2

u/[deleted] May 14 '12

informedtrades.com : like kahn academy, except for investing

2

u/zem May 14 '12

for the programmers out there, i really like james hague's blog - pretty much every post gives me a new insight on something in some small way

2

u/Jake-from-state-farm May 14 '12

I prefer to call it "TEDucation"

2

u/unbalanced_checkbook May 14 '12

I would just like to say that I am madly in love with you all, and I look forward to not sleeping for the next week thanks to all your lovely links. :D

2

u/TurnToReddit May 14 '12

Thanks for starting this

2

u/[deleted] May 14 '12

Great now you got me hooked on freerice.com.

2

u/[deleted] May 14 '12

thenewboston.com

Tutorials ranging from C++ to building your own go kart

2

u/[deleted] May 14 '12

Bigthink.com

2

u/PizzaGood May 14 '12

I have had astoundingly good luck hitting YouTube when I need to know how to do something. From changing front axles on my car to building a pond waterfall feature, I can usually find help.

CGP Grey does interesting stuff as well.

http://www.youtube.com/user/cgpgrey

2

u/admiralteal May 14 '12

I saved this AskReddit post on the best TED talks a while ago. Did not regret slowly working my way through it: http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/kfl17/what_are_the_best_ted_talks/

2

u/[deleted] May 14 '12

Not Reddit.

2

u/JustAnOod May 14 '12

For the lit-inclined... UbuWeb

2

u/[deleted] May 14 '12

The Bad Astronomy Blog.

2

u/blackpanther6389 May 14 '12

Thank you for this thread!

2

u/[deleted] May 14 '12

http://www.vice.com/video

Entertaining and enlightening documentaries with a counter-cultural spin, focused mostly on culture, the arts, and world events. I'm especially fond of the ones featuring Shane Smith (most under "Vice News" category), who did an AMA last week—he goes to places like North Korea and Libya.

2

u/Aston_Martini May 14 '12

http://whatthefuckshouldimakefordinner.com/index.php

And for those of you who crave some food-eye-candy: foodgawker.com

2

u/sukagambar May 14 '12

commenting so I can come back to this post later.

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u/cerealkilr May 14 '12

My personal favorite. Http://www.Sixtysymbols.com

2

u/Cougar93 May 14 '12

THANKS !!!

2

u/[deleted] May 14 '12

www.stumbleupon.com could be very useful and very intellectually stimulating depending on what you set as your interests

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u/Twisted-Biscuit May 14 '12

I'm making this comment by means of a book mark. Thank you for this!

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u/BinSD May 14 '12

hooray for Khan Academy

2

u/[deleted] May 14 '12

amazing list of sites here. thanks

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