I would recommend Instapaper's curated list of articles, which tend to be long-form and more interesting than most, as well as The Browser ("Writing Worth Reading") for curated quality content. http://www.thebrowser.com

But you're not going to find quality content many times a day, no matter where you look.

Creating writing that's thoughtful, attractive, linkable, rewarding, and current is, apparently, a hugely challenging activity that even a billion people only manage to pull off a few times a day.

http://www.kuro5hin.org/

Quite how you measure that though... I always liked the idea.

Then I think you may be on the wrong news site. I'm not saying that to be a jerk, I'm just saying that HN is a community-curated news site where the stories that the majority of users find interesting gets to the top. If you don't fit into that majority then maybe it would be better to find a new site that is more suited to your tastes.

Random Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random

Ask.Metafilter (with accepted answer): http://ask.metafilter.com/home/answered

Hack a Day: http://hackaday.com/

LifeHacker Top posts: http://lifehacker.com/top/ or http://lifehacker.com/tag/top/index.xml

Wood Gears: http://woodgears.ca/

Cool Tools: http://kk.org/cooltools

http://www.aldaily.com/

http://3quarksdaily.com/

http://www.thenewatlantis.com/

http://edge.org/

Make something.

Now. Make!

I did make something recently, but with my free time and not at work, because basically work didn't feel it was important enough to pay me to make it. So instead of making it at work I look for other noise to fill in the gap when i've been coding for 5 hours and need a break.

But making something for the sake of making? I'm sorry but i'll never be one of those people. (Well, anymore. I have a directory full of 1/4 finished projects as proof of how productive it is to just make stuff for no reason)

(http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/podcasts/)

I recommend:-

http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/maths

http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/ahow

http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/americana

http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/analysis

...well, you get the hint. There are very many hours of great quality reporting there.

I loved Americana... until Radio 4 removed it and replaced it with an interminable panel game featuring four of the usual suspect "comedians" who seem to take up an inordinate amount of the station's airtime.

Now, I go the other way, and listen to a lot of stuff on NPR stations from the US.

There's lots of great journalism out there, and I mostly don't see anything wrong with that list you have there. Maybe little of interest to you, but all still news.

Go solve this one: http://000fff.org/slaves-of-the-feed-this-is-not-the-realtim...

You sound like a typical bored teenager, with too much time on their hands, wearing their boredom as a nihilistic badge of honor, expecting everyone to entertain them, while simultaneously acting as if they know everything, thereby supposedly being superior to the entertainers. If you can't find anything good to read, then use your apparently copious time to write something which you would want to read, and then anyone who responds positively to it will probably be someone like you. Find enough of these people, and you'll have created a self-entertaining community. Hackers build solutions.

You're right. I do know everything. Everything except how best to use my time when I occasionally want to waste it broadening my horizon with unusual and interesting information. I typically walk around the house in underroos bragging about how bored I am. Then I zone out to American Idol.

I'm not sure what kind of parallel universe I'd have to exist in where writing about things I don't know anything about is possible, but once I find that reality, by golly I'll take your suggestion to heart.

Hackers really are the Thomas Edisons of our time. Extremely productive in everything they do and never piddling away on something just out of intellectual curiosity. Hackers only seem to create practical solutions to the big problems facing the world today. I'm so glad every college graduate who's just landed his first job writing JavaScript for a start-up can refer to themselves with such a prestigious title. And with so much credibility!

What I don't understand about your comment is that you seem to believe that nobody ever gets bored at work or needs a break from a grind of meetings, coding, red tape, conference calls, etc. I envy your steadfast dedication. I, however, do actually need a break once in a while and enjoy reading about things that are interesting and new to me, or just enlightening in some fashion. Forgive me for crying about it into a thread about distraction.

No, they are pretty interesting. The teachers are boring, may be. History? The civil war? The Isreali-Palestini conflict? The poverty in the world? Water distribution in the world?

Go and look for the interesting parts. There are lot of interesting stuff in the world, apart from the tech scene. I wish I spent more time when I was your age reading about politics.

Sit in on some classes, check out the university library, find some clubs that seem interesting and hang out at their meetings, talk to professors and students -- maybe even get involved in some of the projects happening there. You'll get a lot out of this, I guarantee it. I can recommend this to people who've already attended universities too. Many of them could use some intellectual stimulation.

Hell, I could read Wikipedia for 8 hours a day and not get bored.

Interesting aside, I read "... a typical bored engineer..." the first time, which also worked.

Boom, boredom problem solved, plus nice contact network from all the cool folks I contacted and got to write something.