Ask HN: What are your favorite thin websites (text only or limited images)?
95 comments
is /river a concept or standard I haven't come across?
Yes, although I can't imagine many people would recognize the concept yet.
http://scripting.com/2014/06/02/whatIsARiverOfNewsAggregator... http://buzzmachine.com/2006/08/22/the-river-of-news/
http://scripting.com/2014/06/02/whatIsARiverOfNewsAggregator... http://buzzmachine.com/2006/08/22/the-river-of-news/
I feel like Dave Winer was talking about Rivers earlier than that. I found a reference back to May 2005 from Nick Bradbury creating of FeedDemon
http://nick.typepad.com/blog/2005/05/river_of_news_1.html
http://nick.typepad.com/blog/2005/05/river_of_news_1.html
I'm sure you're right! My goal was just to share a couple of useful references.
River = a stream of streams
I've mostly seen it used in the context of news readers.
I've mostly seen it used in the context of news readers.
its not always called river.
hckrnews.com is a river for news.ycombinator.com, but it doesnt use the term. they just describe it as "a chronologic list of items" vs the most popular/upvoted.
hckrnews.com is a river for news.ycombinator.com, but it doesnt use the term. they just describe it as "a chronologic list of items" vs the most popular/upvoted.
This site about bicycle touring is so content-heavy it's ridiculous: https://www.crazyguyonabike.com/
Browsing journals "by locale" is the best armchair tourism on the internet.
Browsing journals "by locale" is the best armchair tourism on the internet.
Try this UK car rental site, absolutely insane: http://www.lingscars.com
For those outside the UK and/or are unaware, this is a real business. The owner, Ling Valentine [0], even appeared on Dragon's Den seeking investment of £50,000 [1].
[0] https://twitter.com/LINGsCARS
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vtib4WZW_4M
[0] https://twitter.com/LINGsCARS
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vtib4WZW_4M
My god, the autoplaying YouTube video disguised as yet another GIF...
The Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da one ain't half bad, though: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2whZLX8nDw
EDIT: is there an established subgenre for "Chinese knockoff surf rock"? Because if there is, I want a hell of a lot more of it.
The Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da one ain't half bad, though: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2whZLX8nDw
EDIT: is there an established subgenre for "Chinese knockoff surf rock"? Because if there is, I want a hell of a lot more of it.
On the same topic, the epic Ken Kifer's Bike Pages: http://www.phred.org/~alex/kenkifer/www.kenkifer.com/bikepag...
And in similar style from a similar era, Ian's Shoelace Site: https://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/ (the Ian Knot will change your life, though I use the double-Ian Knot to never re-tie laces again).
And in similar style from a similar era, Ian's Shoelace Site: https://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/ (the Ian Knot will change your life, though I use the double-Ian Knot to never re-tie laces again).
That is probably one of my favorite sites ever. I learned so much from that. RIP Sheldon.
Different topic (cameras/photography) but same site style; simple, content focused:
http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/reviews.htm
http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/reviews.htm
Steephill follows the same model. The website is the absolute reference for cycling fans when the professional season is on: http://www.steephill.tv/
a lot of the other ones are almost purposely ugly. this one I really like though. minimalism and utility dont also need to be deliberately disjointed.
http://lucumr.pocoo.org/ and http://http2.info/ are simple yet feel carefully crafted.
http://lucumr.pocoo.org/ and http://http2.info/ are simple yet feel carefully crafted.
Oh my god that's painful to look at..
Ahhh! It's stuck in my brain!
Ahhh! It's stuck in my brain!
gov.uk is surprisingly easy to navigate and use.
It's often said but the revamped design is excellent and the designers should be commended. I used to have to assist my parents whenever they needed to fill in a government form online and my mum in particular found it stressful, with pages having all sorts of timeouts and conflicting instructions. A lot of services used to be very fragmented and lacked cross browser compatibility. They manage it easily themselves since the UI became much more accessible.
Wow, that site should be used in webdev courses. It is lean, functional and not in any ways bad looking.
Related:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8Mj7_0Lok0 - Talk at TxJS about the UX design process
They also have their manual online talking about some important aspects https://www.gov.uk/service-manual/design/form-structure
The talk pages that Maciej (Pinboard) makes are refreshing.
http://idlewords.com/talks/
http://idlewords.com/talks/
I'm very pleased with how my own website[0] has turned out. It uses no JS and a very small amount of CSS. I think it has just enough styling to give it a distinct look and make the reading experience pleasant on all devices. Pages average around 10kb
0: https://hugotunius.se
0: https://hugotunius.se
I like it, especially the colors. Would have added some margin to the top, though. But very pleasant.
I recently rebuilt my blog and used similar ideas; minimal CSS, no JavaScript, static site generator. It's actually interesting to see that some (front-end) developers tend to have very minimalistic sites.
I recently rebuilt my blog and used similar ideas; minimal CSS, no JavaScript, static site generator. It's actually interesting to see that some (front-end) developers tend to have very minimalistic sites.
http://www.textfiles.com
It's got many of the classic text files and zines from my BBS days. Tons of nostalgia.
It's got many of the classic text files and zines from my BBS days. Tons of nostalgia.
One of the most read german blogs:
https://blog.fefe.de/
Does not even have html headers :)
but only readable with custom CSS
http://amasci.com/ - Science Hobbyist, the homepage of Bill Beaty. I've been perusing it off and on for 15 years and keep discovering neat things. First found it via "Evil Genius Hoaxes" http://amasci.com/hoax.html
National treasure
Nice! But even they have a "read more" button instead of just displaying the article straight.
Normally those bug me a great deal but because the page loads so fast and the focus is on resource constrained users the `read more' option doesn't bother me at all. I'm constantly frustrated by JavaScript `read more' links though, which take an age to render the rest of the text on mobile devices which is where I do an ever increasing percentage of my reading.
http://slatestarcodex.com/
https://www.gwern.net/
https://metafilter.com (comments and best-of)
https://www.gwern.net/
https://metafilter.com (comments and best-of)
http://perdu.com A short domain only served with HTTP so it's useful to trigger all the wifi MITM login pages
Thank you! I used to go to www.marca.com for that same purpose, but this is much lighter and is easy to remember.
Does craigslist count?
Awesome text only weather. Recently posted on HN. http://wttr.in
Hacker News
Not limited images, but I like the craigslist ui. It's not visually attractive, but it's intuitive.
http://foopee.com/punk/the-list/
Shows (mostly punk/rock) in the bay area. Straightforward. Up to date. Gets the job done.
Shows (mostly punk/rock) in the bay area. Straightforward. Up to date. Gets the job done.
My friend's site about games and pixel art is designed as an homage to old text adventure games: http://www.retronator.com/
- BBC's old mobile site, discontinued in 2015
- https://braille.wunderground.com/
- http://www.smh.com.au/text/ and any other news source that still bothers to make RSS-like versions
- https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc-index-100a.html
- https://braille.wunderground.com/
- http://www.smh.com.au/text/ and any other news source that still bothers to make RSS-like versions
- https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc-index-100a.html
I really don't like the whole AJAX thing they did after they went down. Now if I visit in a text-only browser (w3m), I just see "[sping]" (the alt text on their spinner). Kind of sad for a static website, especially a wiki.
Craigslist
> PRICE: $8,500
When I was looking into advertising there, it was $2,000. Guess he's doing well. I don't envy him though. Being a full time blogger has to be one of the most soul-killing jobs. All that keeping up on the most boring and annoying bits of latest information, and repackaging it, all the while trying to not look biased. I just couldn't do it even if I wanted to.
When I was looking into advertising there, it was $2,000. Guess he's doing well. I don't envy him though. Being a full time blogger has to be one of the most soul-killing jobs. All that keeping up on the most boring and annoying bits of latest information, and repackaging it, all the while trying to not look biased. I just couldn't do it even if I wanted to.
I was always under the impression that he's not full time. He posts sporadically, usually around big Apple news, and it seems more out of personal interest than dedication to his job.
Plus, I don't see him as trying not to look biased. If anything, he completely disregards attempts to -- he frequently states that something is his opinion, that seems to be the appeal of the blog. That it's completely biased and all one man's opinion is what makes him so polarising.
Plus, I don't see him as trying not to look biased. If anything, he completely disregards attempts to -- he frequently states that something is his opinion, that seems to be the appeal of the blog. That it's completely biased and all one man's opinion is what makes him so polarising.
Gruber has been full time for very nearly 10 years.
http://daringfireball.net/2006/04/initiative
http://daringfireball.net/2006/04/initiative
Blogging is his full time job. All his revenue is through sponsorship, but he maintains a high reader count through active posting, which is why he can charge so much for advertising.
Can I say my website?
http://bryanmgreen.com/
As neither a professional designer or developer, I wanted a site that was very clean and easy to build (and adaptive) but shared critical information. The end result has made me quite happy.
http://bryanmgreen.com/
As neither a professional designer or developer, I wanted a site that was very clean and easy to build (and adaptive) but shared critical information. The end result has made me quite happy.
I was going to complain about the unreadably thin text, but apparently that's the default font-weight. WTF.
(And by the way, there's a typo in your font-family.)
(And by the way, there's a typo in your font-family.)
Font is too big and too thin, IMHO.
I can't believe nobody mentioned this given the site, but http://paulgraham.com. It literally altered the direction of my life.
tvtropes.org.
plato.stanford.edu, which is a philosophy encyclopedia by Stanford university.
plato.stanford.edu, which is a philosophy encyclopedia by Stanford university.
Kanye's clothing line, Yeezy, has an impressively minimalist site that works on desktop and mobile.
https://yeezysupply.com/
https://yeezysupply.com/
> minimalist
shows absolutely no content except for a handful footer links without 3rd party JS.
shows absolutely no content except for a handful footer links without 3rd party JS.
I have uBlock Origin enabled when visiting the site, and it works for me. What script are you blocking that loads images?
NoScript by default blocks third-party scripts (of which this site has plenty). In this instance it's some JS from shopify that's required for basic functionality.
Fair enough. Post said "(text only or limited images)", which I thought this site, especially being a fully featured ecommerce site, fit well.
Oh, I'm not saying you should not have posted it, not at all (I don't do that).
Just meant to show that minimalist design doesn't have to mean that it's technically clean or minimalist in any way.
Just meant to show that minimalist design doesn't have to mean that it's technically clean or minimalist in any way.
It's pretty minimalist in terms of design, which was the intent of the post I believe
There's something so satisfying about effective & practical minimalism like this.
frets.com
Straight out of the late 90s hand-written html, but by one of the greatest guitar luthiers alive, Frank Ford.
Want to see exactly how one would restore a pre-war Martin Guitar? You can see it. Truly amazing.
Straight out of the late 90s hand-written html, but by one of the greatest guitar luthiers alive, Frank Ford.
Want to see exactly how one would restore a pre-war Martin Guitar? You can see it. Truly amazing.
There is so much good machining stuff there. I remember reading all the posts when I discovered frets. I am going to see if there are any new posts right now...looks like all the machining content has moved to http://www.frets.com/HomeShopTech/ShopTips/tiplist.html
http://www.berkshirehathaway.com cracks me up
Mesmerizing and misleading. Looks like it was designed by the Dr. Bronner's soap guy (lists of links are organized by string length) but it turns out to be a giant buffet of bite-sized but well-presented scientific factoids.
RIP http://ntk.net
Has it really been 10 years?
Has it really been 10 years?
text only - complete car review - http://www.cars101.com/
www.telehack.com - classic hacking adventure game.
another vote for https://www.gwern.net/
skimfeed
reddit, craigslist.
www.ankhet.com
endless.horse
http://mediagazer.com/river
http://memeorandum.com/river
http://aldaily.com was already mentioned
http://scitechdaily.com aldaily sister science site
http://hckrnews.com
https://longform.org
https://longreads.com
..
https://redef.com doesnt fit the criteria, but its close, and i wish it had an option to turn off images.
two i dont actually visit very often - http://www.jimmyr.com http://popurls.com
..
as for page design itself.
http://lucumr.pocoo.org/
http://http2.info/