Ask HN: What are your favorite internet rabbit holes?

[adminu]

I am collecting my favorite internet rabbit holes on my website (https://ph-uhl.com/links/internet-rabbit-holes/) and went through my old lists but I think I lost a few of the good ones.

So I was wandering, what are your favorites? The stuff that you loose a night to, when finding it?

[japhyr]

The Hunt for the Death Valley Germans always comes up in these threads. I've read through it a couple times over the years, and probably will again at some point.

https://www.otherhand.org/home-page/search-and-rescue/the-hu...

[bombcar → japhyr]

DVGs is fine for the hoi polli but the real connoisseurs are all about Bill Ewasko (finally located).

[mapmap → bombcar]

Does Tom have recent writings on this? I could only find news articles from 2022.

[bombcar → mapmap]

You have to go to YouTube and some of the other people searching.

This is a good one: https://youtu.be/2J9wsJb8P1Y

(Part one is good too, but part two is the theorizing one)

[runjake]

If you like the outdoors, this 16-years running thread is a good, very long rabbit hole.

The premise is "What's the weirdest thing you found in the woods when you were out in the middle of nowhere?". It has everything from Bigfoot, to Old West stuff, to UFOs, to cultists, to dead bodies.

https://www.ifish.net/threads/weird-findings-in-the-woods.14...

I first read it over several days and check back every year or so for new posts.

[orbz]

The SCP Foundation[1] always gives me fond memories of growing up watching the X-Files and similar shows.

Also TV Tropes[2] is fun to learn how derivative or novel aspects of your favorite shows are.

1: https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/

2: https://tvtropes.org/

[DylanSp → orbz]

And you can combine them - the TV Tropes for the SCP Foundation is one way to find SCPs to read! Browse the Nightmare Fuel pages [1] for horror, or the Funny pages [2] for a more comedic approach.

1: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/SCPFoun...

2: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Funny/SCPFoundation

[FreezingKeeper]

Always an amazing read for me

https://forum.expeditionportal.com/threads/democratic-republ...

[kriberg → FreezingKeeper]

Holy bananas, what an adventure. Thanks for linking this :)

[ledauphin → FreezingKeeper]

wow.

[Lammy]

https://tcrf.net/ — it’s cool to get a window into the creative process

[cpach]

https://www.folklore.org/

[smada]

chinacat's massive thumbprint lsd story from shroomery.org

https://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/1...

[hnthrowaway0328]

Actually archive.org has a tons of interesting stuffs. I downloaded all Dragon magazines and many ADND 2e modules so that once I semi-retired I can convert some modules into computer games, given that we have an appropriate engine then (Neverwinter nights is a good one but it's going to be too old 15 years from now).

[CrypticShift]

https://www.are.na/ as a network of connected channels.

Random example channel: https://www.are.na/krish/visions-of-the-web

[DylanSp]

The Digital Antiquarian has a _lot_ of interesting writing about the early history of video gaming and home computing. https://www.filfre.net/sitemap/ has the full list of posts, starting from the beginning of the blog; the history they cover is mostly in chronological order.

[is_true]

Old maps and stuff related to some places I go often.

I've found old bottles and to date them I started looking for archives of old newspapers. Worst use of my time, haha

[shoebham]

https://theforest.link/

this site redirects you to random cool websites.

[altdataseller]

Mentour Pilot series in YouTube explaining what happened behind many airplane crashes

[saintradon]

cicada 3301 is up there

[DarrisMackelroy]

The Bobbit Worm Chronicles: https://www.michiganreefers.com/threads/the-bobbit-worm-chro...

tldr: a guy spends a LONG time trying to kill a bobbit worm in his fish tank

[anakaine → DarrisMackelroy]

I found myself trying to remember the name of this recently. Thank you!

[Nicholas_C]

If only StumbleUpon was still around...

[caravan778]

why nobody mentions conspiracy theories? i think its a great mental exercise

[mkbkn]

Askreddit subreddit

[AK42]

Ask.metafilter.com is a good one