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What do you think of the Wikipedia article about recent events in Honduras?

What are some good websites to learn about (1) varied topics and (2) current events?

  • What are some good websites to (1) learn about new topics in bite-sized chunks, and (2) to keep abreast of current events? If this has been asked before, I couldn't find the thread. The first question is rather broad, but what I'm looking for is a centralized location where I can learn about myriad topics in an easily digestible form. Wikipedia is a great reference, but after reading the pages on the World Bank and the IMF, for example, I understood much less than when I read an article I found online titled "The IMF and the World Bank: How Do They Differ?" Wikipedia gives too much detail, and it's hard to extract the salient points. Ideally, the site would be navigable in a way where I could pick a category (law, politics, and economics are particularly weak areas for me; maybe even science, although I need less work there) and then find a list of things I might want to learn about. Alternatively, it could be something like a blog format, where every day I learn something new. It's hard to think of topics when I know nothing about them. For the second question, I know I could just surf news sites, but again what I'm seeking is digestibility. I want to know the 10 hottest topics of the week, which I am happy to read about elsewhere. Mostly cocktail party conversation sorts of things.

  • Answer:

    I've actually used http://simple.wikipedia.org/ for easy-to-read, quick summaries of articles; this is great when the original Wikipedia article gives way too much specific, technical detail.

akprasad at Ask.Metafilter.Com Visit the source

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http://www.newser.com/, whose slogan is "read less, know more"

thylacine

I like http://givemesomethingtoread.com/. It's a collection of the most popular / most interesting articles that users of http://www.instapaper.com have marked out. Lots of interesting stuff to read over there.

titantoppler

http://theweek.com/home magazine has easily digestible current events summaries of the type you are describing.

LobsterMitten

One way I've found of doing exactly this is reading the "Most Popular" section or any of its derivatives on a news website. For example, I read the NYT "Most Popular" which is I think the top 10 most emailed articles for the day. I read it on my iPhone, and there are different categories, including Politics, World, Technology, and it refreshes pretty often. When I peruse those, I usually get a pretty good idea of what's going on. For the Globe and Mail newspaper in Canada, their website has Most Read, Most Emailed and Most discussed. Also try going to the Economist every now and again and checking out a few of the front page stories. General knowledge like this is great way to be able to maintain conversations with people. Good luck!

althanis

If you want to know current events type knowledge with a slightly deeper gloss than you'd get watching CNN, the BBC might be up your alley. I find that they tend to give really good background, as well as linking really well to related stories (the "Top Stories" and "Most Popular" sidebars are also pretty good). So for instance let's say you checked out http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12028263. There's an "analysis" sidebar (not sure if this is usual with all BBC articles, but OK, definitely interesting), and at the bottom of the page you have links to relevant articles on this same topic, links to coverage of the story from other news outlets, AND general web links about this issue. Granted, the BBC is not going to run an article called "Political Science: Yep, It Still Exists!" that is going to be an exhaustive explanation of Poli Sci as a discipline. It's very much linked to news and features journalism. But it's definitely a start. The BBC site is also fairly well hyperlinked, so it should be easy to jump around to different topics that might interest you.

Sara C.

The Economist, for sure. Bite sized, relevant info that covers a lot of topics worldwide.

muxnaw

it's not news it's FARK! http://FARK.com there's a lot of water-cooler conversation fodder and current events, too... but be prepared for it to be funny. this ain't CNN or FOX.

ChefJoAnna

instructables or wikipedia for the former; nytimes.com, news.google.com and news.yahoo.com the latter

lrodman

http://bigthink.com/ Big Think is a global forum connecting people and ideas.

RoseyD

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