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Websites people say have changed their lives
51–60 of 78 posts
Re: Websites people say have changed their lives
#52The original Slashdot was an interesting site for me it introduced me the social web format. Previously my only social interaction was IRC. I don't think it changed my life but at the time slashdot certainly opened up a new world to me.
Re: Websites people say have changed their lives
#53Joel Spolsky's joelonsoftware.com and the now-dead "Business of Software" forum he hosted. I discovered that it was possible for normal developers without any business training to independently make and sell software online for a living. That's what I've been doing now for 10 years.
Re: Websites people say have changed their lives
#54Pubmed clinical queries section:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/clinical
If you or your family have any sort of medical issue, that's the best place to get high-quality, reliable medical information, especially in the "systematic reviews" section - which is basically journal quality summarization of the relevant research.
EDIT: to get the maximum benefit, you'll probably need to use Libgen together.
Re: Websites people say have changed their lives
#55After reading 3 feminist links, I gave up on the list. I don't like being patronised. EDIT: Ok, the SSRI article was good.
"This website changed me from a feminist into an even more extreme feminist".
I have trouble believing that the people who proposed those links actually underwent any significant change in their own mindset upon reading those links. More likely, those websites reinforced their preexisting beliefs, and the readers imagine that they might be a good tool for converting others to their own belief system, their "life-changing" nature being entirely speculative, and claimed in bad faith.
Re: Websites people say have changed their lives
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
Reddit impacted my life negatively and is a site I would never recommend to anybody in my life. It taught me that a lot of Americans hate Indians, and has probably forever changed my feelings to them negatively. It is the only addiction I have that I am trying to get away from, but always find myself going back. And the weird thing is, on some days, I specifically go look for the bad news.
As an American I have to say I don't know any Americans that hate Indians. So please don't think that because you have met some portion on Reddit that feel that way!
As an Indian living in the US, I don't know any either. However, there are only a limited number of people I know and I do go to Reddit to gain perspective on a number of things - and advice/opinions there have helped me in real life. So I often tend to trust (well voted) opinions there. Reddit hatred towards India combined with the much revered NYTimes also often showing signs of it has started to make me believe that there is more anti-India sentiment lurking in America than meets the eye
Re: Websites people say have changed their lives
#57Hacker News changed my life, I found my first job thanks to a Who's Hiring post. :) I'm surprised that Khan Academy isn't listed anywhere. Their videos were incredibly helpful when I was in college.
Second this. I have learnt about so many new technologies from HN, that 1) it pushed me to finally start my own venture, and 2) the technologies I have learnt about and use in my daily stack all came from HN posts over the years
Re: Websites people say have changed their lives
#58https://www.couchsurfing.com/
Was a big one for me. Along with Wikipedia, it's what I think of when I want to believe that maybe the internet wasn't such a bad idea after all.
Re: Websites people say have changed their lives
#59So is this just a big page of links? Are AIs writing blog posts now?
kottke.org is just a collection of interesting links with short description. But I like it :)
Re: Websites people say have changed their lives
#60REDDIT:
Reddit's /r/diy got me to learn a lot about electronics. The extremely detailed guides which led to something that could ACTUALLY BE USEFUL was a very good motivator.
/r/StopDrinking was also a lot of help for me (to help a friend). I owe a lot to the community there for helping my friend take control of his life again.
/r/fitness also helped me reach a healthy weight and lifestyle after I had a recent health scare.
/r/randomkindness helps me feel good by doing good for others.
/r/cscareerquestions helped me get a great job and taught me a lot about programming (/r/programming and language specific subs) and career.
Humans of New York:
This photoblog by Bradon Stanton was instrumental in helping me develop a much more open mindset about people and eventually led me to volunteer for the UNICEF after they covered a young girl directly impacted by UNICEF. The European Refuge Crisis was a similarly transforming moment for me.
Toastmasters International: This is kind of like Alchoholics Anonymous for people who haven't given a public presentation before.
Countless TED talks also helped shape my thinking and gave me perspective.
Since a lot of the HN populace doesn't like Reddit I wanted to clear it up that the key to using it productively is to follow only subreddits that fill a niche in your life. And prefer subreddits which have more text posts than link posts. Discussion with a wide variety of people is one of reddit's key strengths. As an example, I usually discuss and read comments about foreign policies on multiple country subreddits so that I can get an idea of how it impacts other countries and what the people are concerned about in the other places.