your daily online brainfood

[Solar]

or, what do you read regularly? and why? culture, polemic, politics, etc. it could be specific as hell or more vague & varied. i'm interested in seeing folks' digital "pull list" so yeah, have at it. always looking for new shit to read too. follow up with short descriptions of the links for like-minded people to check out. for me:


what a diddlyibg nerd

Home | The New York Review of Books for when you can't afford the newyorker :'(
The New Inquiry eclectic, sem-topical musings, leftist; sometimes shite.
TheAtlantic.com roving lens on america; ngl, i mostly read for the features. ta-nehisi coates is bae.
Brain Pickings trivia, ish, culture; a classier version of 'mental floss'.
3quarksdaily: daily varied anthology of articles from across the web. can be a hit or miss, but there's always something.
https://www.guernicamag.com/ "a magazine of art & politics". i swear it's not as boring as it sounds.
CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names america-centric but often with a geopolitical focus. hardline journalism. occasional quality dip but some lengthy pieces over the years have been excellent.
http://badassdigest.com/ film stuff. sometimes video games & other pop culture. filmcrithulk is one of the most imp critics we have right now. fight me.
WeAreMany.org socialist vids & audio.

i excluded some other things which fall under the category of 'brown ppl shit', 'law shit', as well as my feed for world news. i try to make it a habit to read at least one-two good-ass article a week to counterbalance a nimrod lyfe and these sites help out. but yeah, what do y'all read & why? i'd be interested in seeing uberspecific bookmark folders too.

 

[Ordeith]

"Brain Pickings" is the most timely and relevant site on my list. The rest — of which there are few, really — deal with things so far removed from today's society that it's a wonder I know anything about real life.


- Medievalists.net is a hub for content about the Middle Ages. Barring the occasional Buzzfeed-style quiz, most featured articles are actually theses from students and professors, with some very niche obscure interesting topics. When I lack the time to read two-hundred pages, little featurettes like these are pleasant quick reading.

- Language Log, first shown to me by Hidden, is a fun little blog that discusses all things language-related — though it deals primarily in English topics. The content is varied, to say the least. Sometimes it's a discussion of Mark Zuckerberg's efforts to speak Mandarin; at other times, it's an analysis of "confusion noises" like "er" and "um," across different dialects of English. And sometimes it's just silly and amusing.

- Atlas Obscura documents strange and little-known locales, usually with some excellent photographs. They once featured a piece on Europe's oldest chained libraries, which I'm too lazy busy to find right now. Instead, have this piece on a repurposed Roman garbage dump.

- Siliconera is gaming journalism, sans "gaming journalism." They're much better connected to Japan than most gaming news sites, and sometimes they showcase little-known titles from across the Pacific. If this can be called "brainfood" at all, it's junk food. But I visit it regularly.


I have a few more, but I also have an appointment this afternoon. I may remember to finish this list.
Thanks for your list, Solar! The New York Review of Books might have gained a new reader today...

 

[Hidden]

Best thread.

what a diddlyibg nerd

Home | The New York Review of Booksfor when you can't afford the newyorker :'(
The New Inquiryeclectic, sem-topical musings, leftist; sometimes shite.
TheAtlantic.comroving lens on america; ngl, i mostly read for the features. ta-nehisi coates is bae.
Brain Pickings trivia, ish, culture; a classier version of 'mental floss'.
3quarksdaily: daily varied anthology of articles from across the web. can be a hit or miss, but there's always something.
https://www.guernicamag.com/ "a magazine of art & politics". i swear it's not as boring as it sounds.
CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names america-centric but often with a geopolitical focus. hardline journalism. occasional quality dip but some lengthy pieces over the years have been excellent.
Badass Digest film stuff. sometimes video games & other pop culture. filmcrithulk is one of the most imp critics we have right now. fight me.
WeAreMany.org socialist vids & audio.

I'm actually more familiar with and prefer the New York Review of Books--idiot that I am, I didn't realize you could read some of it online for free. Today is going to be a good day.

filmcrithulk is one of the most imp critics we have right now. fight me.

You introduced me to filmcrithulk, but having only read his wordpress blog, I had completely missed all of his writings since December of last year. Today is going to be a busy day....

I'll have to check those other sites you mention out at some point, especially Guernica Magazine.

"Brain Pickings" is the most timely and relevant site on my list. The rest — of which there are few, really — deal with things so far removed from today's society that it's a wonder I know anything about real life.


- Medievalists.net is a hub for content about the Middle Ages. Barring the occasional Buzzfeed-style quiz, most featured articles are actually theses from students and professors, with some very nicheobscure interesting topics. When I lack the time to read two-hundred pages, little featurettes like these are pleasant quick reading.

- Language Log, first shown to me by Hidden, is a fun little blog that discusses all things language-related — though it deals primarily in English topics. The content is varied, to say the least. Sometimes it's a discussion of Mark Zuckerberg's efforts to speak Mandarin; at other times, it's an analysis of "confusion noises" like "er" and "um," across different dialects of English. And sometimes it's just silly and amusing.

- Atlas Obscura documents strange and little-known locales, usually with some excellent photographs. They once featured a piece on Europe's oldest chained libraries, which I'm too lazy busy to find right now. Instead, have this piece on a repurposed Roman garbage dump.

- Siliconera is gaming journalism, sans "gaming journalism." They're much better connected to Japan than most gaming news sites, and sometimes they showcase little-known titles from across the Pacific. If this can be called "brainfood" at all, it's junk food. But I visit it regularly.

Like Ordeith, my reading list is far removed from the events of the present day, though I will binge through news articles indiscriminately when I get the urge. I am very intrigued by Atlas Obscura (the name itself is wonderful), and will also take a look at Medievalists.net before the next time I post in The Collected Works of Spurius.



Language Log is the only reading website I check regularly now. Therefore my reading list will have to consist of materials that I at one time visited daily and will now occasionally check for a good read.

Round and Square is an amazing blog written by my former professor of Anthropology and History, Rob LaFleur. He has a strong East Asian focus, which you will immediately notice in his latest series of posts translating and interpreting the Chinese Lunar Calendar, but that does not circumscribe his interests or his blog. My suggestion is to check the "Round and Square Topics" on the right side of the page (scroll a little ways down) and click whatever one looks interesting to you. It will be.

Aeon Magazine is an awesome online magazine that I should have never stopped reading, and I keep planning to jump back in at some point. Diverse topics written about in essays 2,000 - 6,000 words long. Some are sub-par, and you feel cheated after reading a long article that said little or nothing, but most are good. They also have a pretty cool short video section.

Omniscious Almanac This website does not have a daily publishing schedule, but even if it did I would never be able to keep up. The essays are long and often cover topics in philosophy that I have very little knowledge of. I've noted elsewhere that this makes me anxious about recommending it to others, since I don't feel I have the expertise to vet its articles and how well they cover their topics, but one that I do recommend whole-heartedly is The Imaginary Library, which is the essay through which I discovered the website.

Finally, these last two aren't properly "reading materials," but I enjoy them regularly:
PBS Idea Channel on Youtube features weekly(ish) talks on topics that often interest me and good links to other sources discussing those topics. Also, the Sinica Podcast is a series of podcasts discussing diverse aspects of modern China which I regularly enjoy and learn from.

If I can think of any more I'll post them later.

 

[KingdomKey]

I'm leaving these here: mentalfloss and newscientist. I enjoy reading both and I end up remembering both useful and useless trivia.

Mentalfloss: is good for learning new facts and answering questions that most common people have. It also recommends books and interviews people. The last magazine issue interview Daniel Radcliffe. Which was a good read and surprised me a little on what his views were and ect. Anyhow, it's a good source of information that can entertain you.

Newscientist: It talks about worldly issues along with new discoveries and anything scientific in general. Keeps you well informed about the world around you and what's happening in it. How there has been break through in prosthetic limbs or that modern medicine is said to prolong ones life that we've been trying to keep ourselves immortal after all. (xD) And talks of stuff that happened on iCloud and a various of things that it's good brain food.

 

[Ophan]

i didn't know about these things. I often take time off work to read stuff that makes me think....however it sidetracks me and often gets me into trouble, lol. I will definitely take a look into these various links.

There was a site a friend of mine pointed me to, that had interesting articles on science, history, even humor, gaming, and art. I wished i had saved it. Maybe you guys might know...

 

[Enchanted Rose]

*My facebook news feed
*Buzzfeed
*The Guardian
*Pitchfork
*Various fashion blogs
*BBC Good Food

I'm only half-joking.

I find that I prefer either very long works (like whole books that examine a subject fully in detail) or consciously superficial simplified lists. I often find 1,000-7,000 works very difficult to glean anything meaningful from.

But serious question here: how are you guys not mentally obese? Aren't you suffering from information overload?