Here follows a dump of blogs, software, and other random things that I find interesting, entertaining, or otherwise useful to list. Chaotic work in progress, hopefully some of this proves meaningful to somebody at some point in human history.
Blogs
mattlakeman.org -- a great blog with content on the many countries Matt has visited, covering travel experiences as well as relevant history, geography, political context, etc (lots to learn). Also a number of thoroughly researched and well-argued essays on topics as diverse as k-pop, the Aztecs, and dog ownership. And some very interesting/disturbing 'experiments' where he subjects himself to sleep deprivation, sensory deprivation, weird diets, etc for the sake of just seeing what happens.
chinatalk.media -- lots of interesting articles on China, especially regarding Chinese technology, politics, and foreign policy
marginalrevolution.com -- blog run by Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok, lots of interesting content on economics, technology, and other things that the authors find interesting. Mainly consists of link dumps and short essays, lots of good content to think about, and the comments section sometimes hosts good debates.
noahpinion.blog -- Noah Smith's substack on economics, politics, technology, and other interesting things. He almost always has something interesting to say, worth reading.
middlestage.blogspot.com -- a blog with lots of interesting book reviews, I've discovered a lot of authors and books through this blog and learned plenty of random cool things about the world
manuelhinds.substack.com -- Manuel Hinds's (former Finance Minister of El Salvador) substack, lots of good commentary on politics and economics. If you sort by 'top posts' there are some very helpful articles for understanding dollarization.
daviddfriedman.substack.com -- David Friedman's (yes, Milton's son) substack -- lots of topics but mainly economics, politics, cultural commentary, and discussions of logic and statistics.
scottsumner.substack.com -- Scott Sumner's substack on economics, politics, and other random stuff. Great for learning about monetary policy and the idea that central banks should set NGDP targets rather than inflation targets.
paulgraham.com/index.html -- Paul Graham's (ycombinator founder) writings on startups and interesting ideas on how to think, write, and work better
northsouthnotes.org -- substack of Vincent Bevins (author of The Jakarta Method), currently in an experimental phase where it's trying to become a global affairs magazine with articles from several authors. Interesting articles so far, and I'm excited to see what this transforms into.
codeforces.com/blog/adamant -- Adamant's codeforces blog, one of the best sources on the internet to learn about obscure competitive programming tricks. Lots of cool stuff on combinatorics, generating functions, and competitive programming algorithms
gbroxey.github.io/blog -- Griff's blog on math and programming, the posts on summing multiplicative functions are the best resource for navigating Project Euler's number theory problems. Lots of fun combinatorics and number theory posts, and great for learning to solve Project Euler's number theory problems
mylittleinfinity.netlify.app -- Kira's blog on math, coding projects, random thoughts, and life updates. New blog but already lots of interesting stuff.
News Sites and the Best Authors on Them
My bread and butter sites: Reuters, Associated Press, reason.com, The Guardian, and El País
Other really good sites I follow: BBC, Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, The Economist, The Atlantic
For Indian news, theprint.in + thewire.in + scroll.in + outlookindia.com + newslaundry + reporters-collective (this last one for long-form investigative journalism) + sanhati.com (very left-leaning but often interesting content, with emphasis on West Bengal)
Best authors at theprint.in who are worth following: Praveen Swami (the best), Amitabh Dubey, Vir Sanghvi, DK Singh
Aparna Bhattacharya and Joydeep Sarkar at thewire.in write many good stories on West Bengal
Hacker News (news.ycombinator.com) is good for tech news
Useful software stuff
EndeavourOS -- easy-to-install Arch-based Linux distribution, my first introduction to Arch and an OS I recommend to anyone wanting to transition to using Linux. Installing base Arch as a complete newbie is difficult, but EndeavourOS has all the benefits of Arch while also being friendly to beginners. EndeavourOS, or any lightweight Arch installation, gives you much better computer performance because the OS has less bloat, and it also gives you greater control over your computer than most other Linux distros. If you're using Windows or MacOS, then pretty much any Linux distro has the advantage of "it's not spyware" -- please just don't use Windows if you're on a personal computer and have the ability not to.
The Arch Linux wiki, the best online documentation for anything related to Arch Linux.
Ibus, a tool that lets you switch between multiple languages' input methods easily -- useful if you find yourself typing in languages that don't use the Latin script. Ibus Avro is a Bangla input method that works very well with Ibus, and for simplified Chinese, I use ibus-libpinyin to get pinyin input.
Gboard offers multilingual text input on Android, very easy-to-use and the best solution I've found so far.
cmus, a command line music player that can work with any imaginable file format. This, combined with a large collection of very-legally-acquired mp3 files, is how I listen to music. No bloatware (a blessing for my low-RAM computer), no advertisements, no algorithms psychoanalyzing you based on your music tastes, just a good music player.
spotDL, the easiest way to get your own collection of very-legally-obtained mp3 music. Python tool that will download all the songs on a Spotify playlist as mp3's, incredibly useful
Neovim, a terminal text editor that is lightweight and offers lots of productivity hacks (Vim key bindings!!), easy configuration using Lua, and good language server options. I use this text editor for 99% of my writing+coding needs, it's awesome. For help learning how to use Neovim, the Primagen videos on Youtube are very helpful.
Pandoc and how you can use it to compile LaTeX code to HTML for publishing to the web. This is how I get math and physics blog posts up on this blog.
Alacritty, good terminal emulator that's easy to configure and requires very little mental gymnastics. Works for my case, might work for you as well.
Use i3 and picom for the best window manager and compositor combination. One evening spent on configuration and you'll have a bloat-free, aesthetically pleasing setup that's great for productivity.
Firefox+UBlock Origin extension+Dark Reader extension = good browsing experience with no advertisements and dark mode on all web pages so your eyes don't hurt.
Saving Money
Anna's Archive, non-profit that provides free access to almost every book or academic paper you could ever need in your life. Due to copyright laws, the feds periodically take down Anna's Archive domains, so the link provided might not function in a few months, in which case you should just google search for currently working domains. This will save you thousands of dollars over the course of your life.
Free Media Heck Yeah (fmhy), a collection of websites that let you access books, articles, movies, tv shows, music, etc for free. If there's a type of media, fmhy knows the website where you can download it.
You can find archived versions of news articles on the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine and archive.ph, allowing you to get past paywalls and read articles from a dozen websites without paying for a dozen subscriptions. I prefer to start with archive.ph by inputting the paywalled URL, and if I don't find it there, I go to the Wayback Machine.
Youtube Channels
Math,physics, statistics, and/or physics with a focus on teaching topics/concepts with intuition rather than line-by-line solutions of problems (as opposed to next section):
3Blue1Brown (one of the best, lots of great videos on math with some stuff also on physics and machine learning)
Primer (great videos on simulating things like epidemics, voting systems, natural selection, etc as well as cool explainers of some topics in statistics and probability)
Very Normal (the best statistics youtube channel I've found on the internet, excellent explanations of many interesting topics)
minutephysics, lots of interesting physics problems+concepts explained well using animations and conceptual knowledge rather than heavy math
Morphocular (infrequent uploads, 20 videos, lots of esoteric topics covered using animations and good explanations)
Maths 505 (the BEST channel for learning more advanced integral-solving techniques, awesome problems solved in creative ways, also has a great presentation style and sense of humor)
qncubed3 (the KING of contour integration, taught me 99% of what I know about it)
Gamma Digamma (covers some fascinating calculus problems with lots of my favorite 'advanced' tricks, great for learning niche calculus tricks)
Dr Barker (lots of fun problems, good presentation style)
Silver (the best channel for integration bee-style problems, also has a good sense of humor)
Dr3213 (no longer uploads frequently but has many good problems in his videos)
dy d Oscar (infrequent uploads but many cool problems with good presentation style)
EpsilonDelta (some really mind-bending videos on eccentric topics)
Eric Rowland (only 6 videos but all very good and on fascinating number theory topics)
Hmath (very cool videos on tricky integrals and series, in Russian but auto-dub exists)
Michael Penn (lots of videos on interesting topics, highly recommend)
Calculus Booster (covers more introductory content than the other links here)
It's Just Cinema -- some interesting video essays on films, but the main highlight is that this youtuber is part of the 0.01% of content creators who has learned how to use Youtube Shorts effectively. Tons of Youtube Shorts that introduce you to niche films and actually make them seem interesting. Well-presented content.
The House of Tabula -- incredible video essays on cinematography, film history, and analyzing movies. This youtuber has great taste in films and has introduced me to a lot of my favorite stuff, and he has deep knowledge of film history and the craft of filmmaking. Can not recommend this enough, some of this guy's videos will blow your mind.
Just One More Thing -- great video essays on films, often points out things I completely missed when watching a movie. Covers interesting films as well, e.g. The Handmaiden, Parasite, Yi Yi
China Unofficial Archives -- great collection of full-length Chinese documentaries, many with English subtitles. Mostly on social or political issues, amazing selection featuring directors such as Wang Bing and Zhao Liang.
Korean Classic Film -- awesome collection of Korean classic films with English subtitles. Lots to enjoy here, highly recommend checking this out if you like good Korean films
Gully China -- no uploads in 3 years, but some of his old videos introduced me to interesting Chinese films
History, current affairs, ideas about government policy:
Kraut -- lots of interesting history and thoughts on how it relates to current events. Informative, clearly-explained, and well-researched content.
Hoser -- interesting content on current affairs and history. Well-researched, entertainingly presented, and cool selection of topics (e.g. backgrounder on economic crisis in Sri Lanka, Guyana oil boom, how Taiwan became leader in semiconductor manufacturing)
Extra History -- LOTS of fun, well-researched videos on interesting topics in history. Wide variety: Nazi occultism, Garibaldi and unification of Germany, Inca Empire, and more
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver -- my favorite comedian, he covers the news with a great mix of research and humor. Great selection of topics, amazing humor -- a fun way of learning about what's going on in the world
Physics with line-by-line rigorous approach to problems:
Dot Physics (LOTS of videos on most topics covered in high school physics, as well as much of college physics -- well-explained, rigorous solutions to problems, great supplement to a textbook for any auto-didacts)
eigenchris (mini-courses on tensor calculus and much of the math behind relativity -- a lot of this is beyond my reach, but the 1% I can understand is very interesting)
Travel:
Siming Lan -- amazing content on travel in China. Visits very interesting, beautiful places and provides great commentary on the history and culture, helping understand the places she visits. Sadly no uploads in a year, but the old videos are great to watch.
Riri Travels -- great videos on travels in Japan, Southeast Asia, Australia, and New Zealand. Beautiful places, good camerawork -- you really feel immersed in the video as you see all the interesting places she visits
Computer science stuff:
Core Dumped -- operating systems, computer architecture, and how your CPU actually works, brilliant content here
IppSec -- best channel for HackTheBox CTF solution walkthroughs
AntsCanada -- everything to do with ant colonies, termite colonies, and other eccentric experiments with insects. Only place on the internet where you can see fire ants eating roaches and actually find it entertaining.