The web’s best hidden gems

I asked Kottke.org readers to tell me what were the best web sites that they knew about that most people have never heard of. Normally, each of these sites would be worth a blog post on its own, either a longer or shorter one. But this week, we’re…

A few of the sites readers suggested are actually (in my experience) quite well-known. However, if you’ve never been to Daring Fireball, Longform.org, The Millions, Hacker News, Every Frame A Painting, DuckDuckGo, LMGTFY, xkcd, Nautilus, The Internet Archive, Google Reverse Image Search, or, yes, Kottke.org, you should remedy that as soon as you can.

The rest of the suggestions are really quite something. I’d never heard of most of them. A few others I’ve loved and shared as a secret handshake between friends. In lieu of lengthy explanations, I’m just going to link them all and let you explore.

(This is what most web pages used to be: just long lists of links. We were such dorks back then. But maybe we were on to something.)

Note: The order is not a ranking, but simply an easy way I can count how many links there are.

Also Note: No money changed hands to feature any of these sites on Kottke.org, although in retrospect, that would have been a good idea..

Final Note: If the site required a login, or I couldn’t figure out what it was doing or why it would be interesting to anyone, I didn’t include it. Sorry.

1. Weird Fiction Review: “an ongoing exploration into all facets of the weird, from the classics to the next generation of weird writers and international weird.”
2. Pink Trombone: You kinda have to play with this one to get it.
3. Internet Hockey Database: Statistics, Logos, and Trading Cards.
4. diamond geezer: A lovely blog about trains and architecture in Great Britain.
5. MLB Uniforms worn on April 19, 2017: You can do this for any date you want.
6. Nepali: A Beginner’s Primer Conversation and Grammar
7. Swear Trek
8. Fuck You, Broccoli: “An in-depth exploration of vegetables and other so-called healthy foods.”
9. Spacetrawler: A science-fiction webcomic and comics blog.
10. Extra Ordinary: Another webcomic, about a little girl who has sweetly surreal adventures.
11. WPC Probabilistic Winter Precipitation Guidance: Tracks snowfall.
12. The Drawfee Channel: A video blog about drawing with digital tools.
13. Is it Christmas?: Current answer: NO
14. BoardGameGeek | Gaming Unplugged Since 2000
15. Free online Dictionary of English Pronunciation - How to Pronounce English words
16. Instant No Button! Unhappy Darth Vader on demand.
17. Seismic Monitor: Recent earthquakes on a world map and much more.
18. Autostraddle: News, Entertainment, Opinion, Community and Girl-on-Girl Culture. This site is great.
19. Superbad.com: I… I don’t understand this thing I’m seeing.
20. WWWF Grudge Match - Where useless knowledge breeds champions: If you’ve ever wondered, “What if Boris Yeltsin and Ted Kennedy had a drinking contest?” this site is for you.
21. The Griddle: A puzzle blog with free puzzles.
22. Badger Badger Badger.com! The Original Dancing Badgers!
23. Futility Closet - An idler’s miscellany of compendious amusements
24. Skyline - YouTube: “Esports analyst and coach focusing on the game Overwatch.” Two people suggested this.
25. The Vintagent: A vintage motorcycles blog.
26. CDC WONDER: The CDC’s online databases. Get as much government data as you can, while you can.
27. InfiniteLooper: Endless loops of YouTube videos.
28. The Morning News: A real blog. I love it.
29. Deadspin’s The Stacks: Old sports stories from out-of-print magazines republished with the author’s permission. I can’t believe I hadn’t been reading this already.
30. street dog millionaires: Two dogs, one from India, one from Africa.
31. FL@33 presents http://bzzzpeek.com: What do animals sound like in different countries? (Every language is different!)
32. JazzOasis.com - Pat Metheny on Kenny G: Jazz guitarist Pat Metheny takes Kenny G to the woodshed.
33. McMansion Hell
34. Scroll Down to Riker: Does what it says on the tin.
35. Flickr: The Commons
36. NYPL Digital Collections: This is amazing, and it’s all free to play with.
37. The Library of Babel
38. Bowiebranchia: “Nudibranchia or other opisthobranchia compared to the various looks of David Bowie.” Surprisingly compelling!
39. Play Later: Browse newly released albums and save them for later. Mostly a handy discovery frontend for Spotify.
40. www.Visual6502.org: Simulation of vintage computers and game systems in the browser.
41. Political status of Western Sahara: So are we going to have a new country in North Africa or what?
42. Antipope - Charlie’s Diary: Science fiction writer Charlie Stross’s blog.
43. Pi.co: Interviews with interesting people by journalist/investor Om Malik.
44. Deuce of Clubs: A Demonstrated Aptitude for Reasonable Mayhem: A site by Godfrey (“Doc”) Daniels, of Mojave Phone Booth fame.
45. The Well’s annual conversation with author Bruce Sterling.
46. Beyond the Frame: visual essays about TV and movies by Luis Azevedo.
47. Artsy Engineering: An information network and open-source software for people in the art world.
48. Hart Island Project Stories of unclaimed and unidentified people buried in mass graves in an island near New York city beginning in the 19th century.
49. Damn Interesting: a science, history, and psychology blog.
50. What’s Noka Worth? (Part 1) — DallasFood. A takedown of a hot, expensive artisanal chocolate maker… over a decade ago.
51. Mexican Table Salsas: The eGullet culinary institute’s discussion of traditional salsas, and how to make them.
52. Histography - Timeline of History: A mighty timeline view of every event in Wikipedia. That’s a lot of dots.
53. People Reluctant to Kill for an Abstraction, a movement: a short story/manifesto by George Saunders.
54. Langscape: an interactive map of all world languages, put together by researchers at the University of Maryland.
55. in Bb 2.0 - a collaborative music/spoken word project: twenty musicians, all playing in the same key — you get to mix and match.
56. Paper Planes: Use your phone to catch and throw paper planes to and from people all over the world.

There! That ought to be enough magic and wonder to last you through the weekend. Thank you, as always, to the readers who submitted links.

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