HACKER Q&A
📣 jordanmorgan10

What websites simply make you happy to visit?


Simply put - what websites make you happy when you visit? Perhaps they inspire you, you learn something - whatever it is. Is there one you'd go to on a bad day that might cheer you up?

For me it's the SNES Manual Archive[1], which is a way to browse nearly every single SNES manual. It's the nostalgia angle for me, and I love showing my oldest boy how gaming used to be.

So I'm curious, what are your website "comfort foods", it could be anything inside tech or maybe something completely beyond it. I'd love to find some to add to my bookmarks.

[1]: https://sites.google.com/view/snesmanuals


  👤 superchroma Accepted Answer ✓
I'm consistently pleased that https://zombo.com continues to exist.

👤 fuckcensorship
As I mature as a web developer, I become increasingly fond of simple, functional, and minimal JavaScript sites like nearlyfreespeech.net[1]. It always loads quickly, it’s easy to find what you’re looking for, and I find the simplistic styling of the site visually appealing.

[1]: https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/


👤 MisterJoe
Not exactly anwering your question, but I think you will enjoy reading this: it's about a father who goes through video games history together with his son. I will do this in a few years :)

https://medium.com/message/playing-with-my-son-e5226ff0a7c3



👤 khaledh
For me it's bitsavers.org. It's a treasure trove of old computer manuals and publications. I'm always fascinated by the original ideas and products that had a lasting impact on how things are done today.

👤 beardyw
Futility Closet is always interesting and/or amusing.

https://www.futilitycloset.com/


👤 pleb_nz
Hackernews for sure.

Simple and to the point


👤 lastangryman
A bit odd, but I love the Redis docs. The list of commands, going through each of them and reading the implementation details and possible use cases.

I am not as up to speed since the RedisLabs sponsorship, but Redis as a whole used to feel like a very pure expression of lost programming ethos. Small, complete, not a gazillion dependencies and frameworks needed. Just well written software, well documented with none of the marketing rubbish (why is everything "Blazingly Fast") and services upsell with other tools.


👤 mdolah
As silly as it sounds, I'll browse the wikipedia page for "list of decepticons" Often, I'll name various drives / devices on my home network after them, but it's just fun to see the names that the creators came up with

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Decepticons


👤 batisteo
For me it's http://perdu.com (lost dot com in French) witch a I use as connection checker. It has been online for years, decades actually.

👤 I_complete_me
Sometimes I need to look at the screen and see nothing so https://allblackscreen.com/ to clear my brain.

👤 muzani
TV Tropes. Design patterns for entertainment. It triggers the part of my brain that enjoys learning something new, as well as the part of my brain that loves junk.

👤 octokatt
Schlockmercenary.com — a very silly sci-if comic that for decades updated every day. The writer reached the end of his arc in 2020, and I lost my favorite morning start-up page.

I still go there and hit the Random button, but it’s not quite the same.

If you’ve never read it, I highly suggest it. He won a Hugo award.


👤 anthonyhn
Netscape's news portal page [0]. Loads fast, basic HTML, and uses official Netscape branding!

[0] https://isp.netscape.com/news/


👤 chizhik-pyzhik

👤 Michelangelo11

👤 ampham
Neal.fun — just for fun at the end of the work day when I can no longer concentrate.