There’s so much amazing stuff on the internet, and I’m sure I’ve only seen a fraction of it, but let me share that fraction with you:
Blogs + Series
The Pudding – A data-driven publication that routinely puts out interactive or otherwise highly engaging explorations of interesting questions. One of my favorites analyzes how frequently the word “democracy” is used in Congress.
What If? – A series of ridiculous hypotheticals, analyzed with serious science and math, by cartoonist and former NASA programmer Randall Munroe, of the comic xkcd.
Math with Bad Drawings – Various cartoons, short stories, poems, and essays from math teacher Ben Orlin, who much of the world has to thank for introducing us to Ultimate Tic-Tac-Toe.
Subnormality – A webcomic about friendship, and struggle, and what it means to be human, and also sometimes about a man-eating sphynx that’s been roaming the earth since the early Bronze Age.
Individual Articles
Futurese (JBR Precoglang) – A constructed language from Justin B. Rye (who has plenty of other fascinating pages on his website) projecting what the English of the year 3000 might end up sounding like.
Our Fractional Universe – What if there were numbers between numbers known as “fractions”? What if you could have less than one cookie, but not have zero cookies – “half” a cookie? Impossible!
17776 – A multimedia story that investigates “what football will look like in the future” through the lens of some far-traveling sentient space probes. Also check out the sequel, 20020!
Browser Games
Infinite Craft – An alchemy game that allows users to create just about anything they can imagine. Seriously. I’ve managed to create every single country and every US state in this game, it’s amazing.
Absurdle – A maximally hard variant of Wordle with the goal of revealing as little information about the word as possible with each guess, created by the fantastic qntm.
NationStates – A political simulator that I’ve probably spent way too much time on since middle school. Answer questions to guide the future of your nation, changing everything from tax rates to your furniture restoration industry.
Universal Paperclips – Based on the concept of a “paperclip-maximizing” AI, a game where you go from running a paperclip business to colonizing the universe for resources to, nevertheless, expand your paperclip business.
Videos
Fool Time (Part 2) (Part 3) (Part 4) – A series by Jon Bois (also the author of 17776) investigating the invention of the telegraph and the attempts to lay the first transatlantic telegraph cable, and the ridiculous mishaps that occurred along the way.
Powers of Ten™ (1977) – A video originally produced for IBM that examines our world at every scale, from subatomic particles to the entire observable universe, in less than ten minutes.
The Bonkers Theory That Ancient Civilizations Weren’t Conscious – A video that, as it acknowledges, is more likely than not about an untrue or at least poorly stated idea, but still a fascinating one: How has human cognition changed since ancient times?