If you're interested in retro stuff, I highly recommend checking out Byte Magazine's archive at https://worldradiohistory.com/Byte_Magazine.htm. They have issues dating from 1975 to 1994, and the search functionality is pretty good.
While not all of their content is of high quality, there are some fascinating gems hidden in there. For instance, their February 1992 issue has a section on Archie, one of the earliest internet search engines:
> For many people, particularly programmers and engineers, the Internet means "info- booty": shareware and freeware source code, documents, graphics, and data sets available by file transfer downloads and from E-mail servers. Sites like UUNET and The World each have several gigabytes' worth of publicly available archives. These are but two of the hundreds of sites with archives accessible via these methods. Even admitting a fair amount of redundancy among archives, it still adds up to about 100 gigabytes, and new sites and offerings are coming on-line every day.
> With so many different archives, it can be hard to figure out where (and at what network address) to access the items you want. If you don't know what you want beyond compilers or CP/M applications, it's even more overwhelming.
> The "archie group" at McGill University (Montreal, Quebec, Canada) has one solution to the problem: archie (archive without the v), the Internet Archive Server Listing Service (for access, see reference 2). Archie is a central database of information about Internet-accessible archive sites, plus server programs that provide access by telnet, anonymous file transfer protocol (FTP), E-mail, and the Prospero distributed computer system.
The archive at World Radio History has much broader interest, with hobby electronics, professional electronics, radio and TV management and programming, and some popular music history.
I miss Byte and Nybble mags. There are no good programming/computer mags that take you into the software and teaching programming at different levels.
Not just beginner, intermediate, etc., but software and low level hardware for specific chip sets.
Raspberry PI mag is the closest thing. Maybe I should just downgrade my desktop to a RPI and enjoy the hobby again. Maybe, build a robo-dog/cat/creature.
Quality is evident immediately from the lead story on Noema: "A Parliament of Earthlings". Fascinating read for a Sunday morning on AI efforts to enhance whale conservation (with plenty of knowing nods to Star Trek IV). At least the first half of the article felt that way. But instead the article just sort of devolves into a rolling argument for a "Gaia 2.0" hypothesis. Curious, I delved a bit deeper. And what I found is a kind of supremacy of faith in our ability to delivery planet-scale geoengineering. Terraforming Planet Earth, in a nutshell ;)
I haven't heard of Jim Simons before, so I looked him up on Wikipedia. He sounds like quite a character. I, too, would stop wearing socks and fund a non-profit science magazine if I had a billion dollars.
I feel I get a lot of value for the $60 I pay annually to read The New Yorker online. [1]
It's not perfect, but it's become essentially the only place I consume "long-form articles about interesting stuff"-type content, which I think they still do better than anyone.
Agreed about the New Yorker. Likewise, agree with the exact same description for the Atlantic. And I have bounced back and forth between them over the years.
Be sure to find out to see if you can check out issues from your library through Overdrive/Libby. Granted, I have to read it via a browser but can still read for free.
Same. I find it hard to read long and complicated articles from a screen, and I would pay a lot for a weekly subscription to dead-tree magazine Quanta.
Right now I print articles I'm interested in, which is far from the most efficient solution.
The Conversation (https://theconversation.com/) publishes news-style articles by working academics and graduate students, so the contributors typically have a technical background relevant to the subjects they are writing about (making the publication comparable to Quanta).
Nautilus magazine also publishes excellent science journalism (https://nautil.us) with high-quality writing comparable to Quanta. In contrast with The Conversation, the contributors are typically professional journalists and writers—the writing quality is therefore often much higher and more literary than The Conversation's, though Conversation contributors have relevant specialist knowledge more often than Nautilus contributors.
Also, Lapham's Quarterly (https://www.laphamsquarterly.org) is perhaps comparable to Noema, as the magazine publishes essays and analyses of modern issues, often via making comparisons between current affairs and important parts of history. This looks similar to Noema's approach of analyzing current events from an academic perspective, from noticing references to academic publications in several essays featured on Noema's front page.
I don’t have a link to share, but I’d like to thank OP and every comment in this thread. There are some gems here. Of course one can google, but when something is recommended by a human, and is purely based on merit, it is much more trustworthy than a random site filled with ads looking to make a buck.
I used to be a fan of The Economist but after a while I figured out that it’s better at sounding smart than being smart. If they ever write about a field you know we’ll you’ll see what I mean.
Hadn’t seen Noema before, thanks for the pointer - someone already mentioned nautilus, Aeon.co is quite good with a very diverse set of topics, and Hakai (https://hakaimagazine.com/) has some very good environmental writing.
It's not going to be that relevant to many people here, but there is a longform soccer writing magazine called The Blizzard which is excellent. It's edited by Jonathan Wilson of 'Inverting the Pyramid' fame.
Harper’s magazine is great for general interest (much less pretentious than the New Yorker). One of the oldest magazines in the country.
Noema has some good stuff, although check out their advisory board. So many high profile neoliberal ghouls that the first time I saw it I thought it was a joke. It introduced me to Byung-Chul Han, for which I am forever grateful. Hope they can keep it up since they were hiring for a senior editor for a while there recently…
If you have a tablet, it’s worth checking out the apps PressReader and Libby. I’m not sure if it works in other countries, but in the UK you can login with your local library card number (which you should be able to sign up for online) and get access to lots of free digital copies of printed magazines (and newspapers) including high quality stuff like The Economist
It's along the lines of Quanta or Nautilus but with more of an investigative type of work, the main goal being bringing under-reported science-adjacent issues to light.
They do have a slightly leftist tilt but it's still mostly professional. I haven't really noticed them doing that thing left-leaning publications do where they act as though some matter of opinion is fact, and can't conceive of counter-arguments. They do a good job investigating all angles, in my experience.
I had the pleasure of accidentally meeting one of their editors for something entirely unrelated, but we did chat about the magazine and I was pretty impressed with her desire for rigor rather than agenda.
https://thinking-about-things.com/ is great, it's one interesting article three times a week. I've learned about a lot of interesting blogs/publications from them.
[+] [-] mapierce2|3 years ago|reply
Quanta https://api.quantamagazine.org/feed/
Noema Magazine https://www.noemamag.com/feed/
Aeon https://aeon.co/feed
Nautilus https://nautil.us/feed/
The Point Magazine https://thepointmag.com/feed/
Asterisk Magazine https://asteriskmag.com/feed
Symmetry Magazine https://www.symmetrymagazine.org/feed
n+1 Magazine https://www.nplusonemag.com/feed/
Harpers Magazine https://harpers.org/feed/
Low←Tech Magazine https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/feeds/all-en.atom.xml
Public Books Magazine http://www.publicbooks.org/feed
The New Atlantis https://www.thenewatlantis.com/feed
[+] [-] pncnmnp|3 years ago|reply
While not all of their content is of high quality, there are some fascinating gems hidden in there. For instance, their February 1992 issue has a section on Archie, one of the earliest internet search engines:
> For many people, particularly programmers and engineers, the Internet means "info- booty": shareware and freeware source code, documents, graphics, and data sets available by file transfer downloads and from E-mail servers. Sites like UUNET and The World each have several gigabytes' worth of publicly available archives. These are but two of the hundreds of sites with archives accessible via these methods. Even admitting a fair amount of redundancy among archives, it still adds up to about 100 gigabytes, and new sites and offerings are coming on-line every day.
> With so many different archives, it can be hard to figure out where (and at what network address) to access the items you want. If you don't know what you want beyond compilers or CP/M applications, it's even more overwhelming.
> The "archie group" at McGill University (Montreal, Quebec, Canada) has one solution to the problem: archie (archive without the v), the Internet Archive Server Listing Service (for access, see reference 2). Archie is a central database of information about Internet-accessible archive sites, plus server programs that provide access by telnet, anonymous file transfer protocol (FTP), E-mail, and the Prospero distributed computer system.
https://worldradiohistory.com/Archive-Byte/90s/1992/Byte-199... (page 147)
Also, there is Communications of the ACM (https://dl.acm.org/magazine/cacm). Many of their articles are free to read.
[+] [-] TheOtherHobbes|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] macshaggy|3 years ago|reply
Not just beginner, intermediate, etc., but software and low level hardware for specific chip sets.
Raspberry PI mag is the closest thing. Maybe I should just downgrade my desktop to a RPI and enjoy the hobby again. Maybe, build a robo-dog/cat/creature.
[+] [-] hackandthink|3 years ago|reply
Quanta magazine is financed by the Simons Foundation (Hedge Fund billionaire).
Noema seems to be a pet project of Nicolas Berggruen (Hedge Fund billionaire).
The name sounded familiar: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolas_Berggruen#Berggruen_be...
[+] [-] ArtWomb|3 years ago|reply
https://www.noemamag.com/planetary-sapience/
[+] [-] mr_mitm|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] oliveshell|3 years ago|reply
It's not perfect, but it's become essentially the only place I consume "long-form articles about interesting stuff"-type content, which I think they still do better than anyone.
1: https://www.newyorker.com
[+] [-] ternaryoperator|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sphars|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] frutiger|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mFixman|3 years ago|reply
Right now I print articles I'm interested in, which is far from the most efficient solution.
[+] [-] kklisura|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wannabebarista|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] clmay|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nohaydeprobleme|3 years ago|reply
Nautilus magazine also publishes excellent science journalism (https://nautil.us) with high-quality writing comparable to Quanta. In contrast with The Conversation, the contributors are typically professional journalists and writers—the writing quality is therefore often much higher and more literary than The Conversation's, though Conversation contributors have relevant specialist knowledge more often than Nautilus contributors.
Also, Lapham's Quarterly (https://www.laphamsquarterly.org) is perhaps comparable to Noema, as the magazine publishes essays and analyses of modern issues, often via making comparisons between current affairs and important parts of history. This looks similar to Noema's approach of analyzing current events from an academic perspective, from noticing references to academic publications in several essays featured on Noema's front page.
[+] [-] abhgh|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] konradx|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] akudha|3 years ago|reply
In short, HN is awesome
[+] [-] joshmarinacci|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] viburnum|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] blueridge|3 years ago|reply
https://www.thenewatlantis.com/
https://thepointmag.com/
https://shop.generalsemantics.org/collections/etc
https://www.analogsea.com/
https://magculture.com/blogs/journal/jonathan-simons-analog-...
[+] [-] ibn_khaldun|3 years ago|reply
Please, start a blog or something. I mean you don't have to...but, yeah. Thanks.
[+] [-] roughly|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jnsaff2|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] optimalsolver|3 years ago|reply
Nautilus: https://nautil.us/
[+] [-] callistus|3 years ago|reply
* https://asteriskmag.com/ - they just published the second issue. I really enjoy the topics covered and the quality of writing.
[+] [-] walthamstow|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gregwithtwogs|3 years ago|reply
https://www.nplusonemag.com/
[+] [-] miguelazo|3 years ago|reply
Noema has some good stuff, although check out their advisory board. So many high profile neoliberal ghouls that the first time I saw it I thought it was a joke. It introduced me to Byung-Chul Han, for which I am forever grateful. Hope they can keep it up since they were hiring for a senior editor for a while there recently…
[+] [-] dinkblam|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tomduncalf|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] COGlory|3 years ago|reply
https://undark.org/
It's along the lines of Quanta or Nautilus but with more of an investigative type of work, the main goal being bringing under-reported science-adjacent issues to light.
They do have a slightly leftist tilt but it's still mostly professional. I haven't really noticed them doing that thing left-leaning publications do where they act as though some matter of opinion is fact, and can't conceive of counter-arguments. They do a good job investigating all angles, in my experience.
I had the pleasure of accidentally meeting one of their editors for something entirely unrelated, but we did chat about the magazine and I was pretty impressed with her desire for rigor rather than agenda.
[+] [-] saperyton|3 years ago|reply