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Comment by mumblemumble | Hacker News Reader

I like it.

Coincidentally, the other day I was daydreaming about a search engine that favors sites that are updated less frequently. The thought being, the kinds of labors of love that characterized the 1990s Web that I still sometimes miss are still out there, it's just harder to find them amidst the flood of SEO dreck. So perhaps they could be made discoverable again with the help of a contrarian search engine that specifically looks for the kinds of things that Google and Bing don't like to see.

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Similarly, I wish there was a recommendation engine (for web, music, movies, whatever) that can show you what is the furthest away from your existing tastes. I've learned to re-create my Spotify account once every 6 months or so, as their recommendation engine becomes a boring machine after using it daily for some months.

I'd love to discover new content that is different from what I read/watch/listen to now, but it's really hard to know about genres you don't know about.

It's hard, though. I simultaneously want something far from my tastes, but I don't want to see Plandemic-style Ivermectin material, or Focus On The Family-style material. I want things that will push me out of my comfort zone sometimes, but it turns out I really don't want the thing furthest from my tastes; I want things marginally adjacent. I want them close enough to feel familiarity, but far enough that it challenges my worldview.

I don't think a recommendation engine can do that.

Doing that takes real work and curiosity. I'm afraid an algorithm will never be able to do it, particularly if you're into niche stuff. For instance I enjoy a lot a Japanese band called The Boredoms - but few people like it, and there's only 2 of their albums available in spotify.

Million Short [1] offers an option to omit results from popular domains. It's a different approach from what you describe, but I think the goal is similar.

[1] https://millionshort.com/

I think I like this method the most, honestly. There's something to be said for minimalist web design, but there's also something to be said for everything we've learned since the 90s.

Try this https://wiby.me/

Clicking 'Surprise me' gave me an interesting article from 1994 http://milk.com/wall-o-shame/bucket.html

That was a great read, thanks for sharing.

I had this problem recently trying to fix an Atari. There's a guy out there who has ton's of guides on doing video out mods but newer guide references the older. However googling the OG guide didn't find it so I manually scoured his old web page.

I like the idea. Tangentially, I wonder how one would find the right 'penalty' for more updated sites?

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