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Ask HN: What's the coolest website you know?

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Re: Ask HN: What's the coolest website you know?

#123

Post by jffry »

Nk26 wrote: post #114
yeputons wrote: post #72

https://www.mcmaster.com/ is fast . I've never been to Georgia, I don't live in the US, I don't even need hardware. But I still enjoy just clicking on random links and seeing a swift response.

I don't know if they still have it but they used to have a giant catalog that was the same thing in paper form. Super thin paper thousands of pages of just random stuff.

You can flip through one from 2012 on the Internet Archive! https://archive.org/details/mcmaster-118_202012

Re: Ask HN: What's the coolest website you know?

#124

Post by usrn »

Agamus wrote: post #60
Nextgrid wrote: post #7

https://zombo.com

Since about 1998, whenever I need a rickroll-style URL placeholder for whatever reason, I use zombocom. This is my favorite website ever, because, quite simply, you can do anything at Zombocom. For those who don't get it, in the late 90's there was a distinct sense that internet websites might just solve all of the world's problems, and we just hadn't imagined yet how it was going to happen, and most people hadn't re…

Looking back I think the optimism for the internet in the 90s and early 2000s wasn't nearly as inaccurate as everyone says it was. There was certainly a lot of nonsense but I think most of what people thought would happen did end up happening, it just took decades instead of a few years.

Re: Ask HN: What's the coolest website you know?

#127

Post by vvanders »

sircastor wrote: post #118
redanddead wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I like about it is that it's a no-BS e-commerce store, get in and get out. I've seen people shopping for hardware on reddit say that the navigation is clunky and confusing, and IIRC they said the products are price-gouged? I'd be curious to know what other users here with an eye for design think of it, and if they know of similar websites, as I've been working on a hardware e-commerce store (mainly for my own us…

> I've seen people shopping for hardware on reddit say that the navigation is clunky and confusing, and IIRC they said the products are price-gouged? I think these people are used to shopping from Amazon and Home Depot. They can get their bolts and random specialty items and it comes cheap. When you’re talking about a quality, precision piece of hardware, one where you know the manufacture and have reliable dimension…

Yup, you see the same thing in industrial automation, even Automation Direct[1] which is on the cheap end is going to be 5-10x what HD/consumer options are. That said you know what you're getting and also that you'll be able to get support/replacement parts on short notice(I had one of their flow sensors go bad on me and they RMA'd + shipped with absolutely zero hassle).

[1] https://www.automationdirect.com

Re: Ask HN: What's the coolest website you know?

#129

Post by usrn »

redanddead wrote: post #81
yeputons wrote: post #72

https://www.mcmaster.com/ is fast . I've never been to Georgia, I don't live in the US, I don't even need hardware. But I still enjoy just clicking on random links and seeing a swift response.

What I like about it is that it's a no-BS e-commerce store, get in and get out. I've seen people shopping for hardware on reddit say that the navigation is clunky and confusing, and IIRC they said the products are price-gouged? I'd be curious to know what other users here with an eye for design think of it, and if they know of similar websites, as I've been working on a hardware e-commerce store (mainly for my own us…

I love the UI. You know what's clunky? Amazon. Amazon's UI is awful and their search is the worst (it's just about useless and I think that's by design.) It looks pretty though and I doubt you'll hear people on Reddit complaining about it.
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