# lost+found

Unsorted pile of links I sometimes urgently need in the middle of a conversation.

> Some file systems contain a special directory, called lost+found under Unix, where a file system check places lost and potentially corrupted files when the correct location cannot be determined, and so requires manual intervention by the user.

- Index of Aesthetics
  An impressive library of visual styles that are usually hard to name.
- Human Progress
  A collection of positive human statistics and optimistic charts.
- No Vehicles in the Park
  A short game that illustrates how one rule can mean different things to different people.
- Dead Drops
  A global network of anonymous, cemented USB drives for offline file sharing.
- FreeSewing
  Like GitHub, but for clothes.
- EndOfLife.date
  End-of-life (EOL) and support information is often hard to track, or very badly presented.
- Atlas Obscura
  A comprehensive database of the world’s most wondrous places and foods.
- Learn X in Y minutes
  A fast-paced intro to a new programming language or tool.
- Ithkuil
  An experimental constructed language designed to express more profound levels of human cognition briefly and clearly.
- Xah Keyboard Guide
  Keyboards, input devices, shortcuts, typing habits, and the ergonomics behind it all.
  See the list of Do-It-Yourself Keyboards.
- Our World In Data
  An overview of global data and long-term trends.
- Well-Kept Gardens Die By Pacifism
  Good online communities die primarily by refusing to defend themselves.
  Also available in Russian.
- Articles by Bartosz Ciechanowski
  Interactive articles about physics, math, and engineering. It’s probably the best website on the entire internet.
  My favorite post is the one about bicycles.
- The Cursed Computer Iceberg Meme
  An endless hall of shame and weirdness of computers.
- The Evolution of Trust
  A briliant interactive guide to the game theory of why and how we trust each other.
  The rest of this site is also pretty good.
- I Know What You Download
  Torrenting can leave traces.
  Check torrent downloads and distributions for your own or your neighbor’s IP address.
- Retries
  Requests over the network can fail.
  An interactive study of common retry methods for developers.
- No Tabs in IntelliJ IDEA
  “There are many ways to navigate a project inside IntelliJ IDEA (or any other editor) that doesn’t necessarily include having to look through a list of tabs and figure out where you have to click next.”
  Post from the VP of Program Management at JetBrains.
- An Interface Designed for Touch Typists
  If you think VIM is insane, you should definitely read about WordStar, which is still quite popular among many fiction writers.
- Ask HN: Programmers who don’t use autocomplete/LSP, how do you do it?
  Different opinions on writing code without using overcomplicated advanced tools.
- Your Computer Isn’t Yours
  An investigation into one of the many reasons why no one should use products from Apple.
- Yr from NRK and Meteorologisk Institutt
  A weather forecast site with a no-nonsense interface.
  Direct links: Belgrade, Istanbul and Yekaterinburg.
- Hoodmaps
  A crowdsourced map to navigate cities using marked areas and user-generated tags.
- ShadeMap
  This service calculates shadows from mountains, buildings, and trees for any date and time, and displays them on a map.
- Cost of Living Comparison
  A comparison tool lets you compare the affordability of two cities side-by-side.
- The World Factbook
  A massive CIA database on almost every country in the world.
  Handy when you need to check what kind of power outlets a country uses before you get there.
- Rules for Writing Software Tutorials
  Most software tutorials suck. Here’s how to make one that doesn’t.
- Pangram
  A sentence using every letter of a given alphabet at least once.
  An additional list in Russian and other languages.
- about:translations
  Firefox has a built-in translator. Not so smart, but works offline.
- No Config for Old Men
  A rant about how modern software won’t let you customize it anymore.
- Webcompat.com
  Bug reporting for the web.
  If a site breaks in one browser but not another, it’s a web compatibility bug. Report it.
- JSFuck
  An esoteric and educational programming style based on the atomic parts of JavaScript.
  It uses only six different characters to write and execute code.
- Smuggling arbitrary data through an emoji
  Unicode is broken. You can encode data in any unicode character.
- Common Mythconceptions
  A list of the world’s biggest myths and misconceptions — with myth-busting included.
- A Mathematician’s Lament — by Paul Lockhart
  A passionate critique of how math is taught and a vision of how beautiful it could be instead.
  Also available in Russian.