Resources
Here lie resources I have found useful, strange, or just unusually alive over the years.
A note (2026): Link pages feel different now. Search engines answer, LLMs synthesize, and Perplexity has become extremely, well, perplexive. Still, there is something fun about a hand-built trail of links. It is not efficient. That is partly the point.
Treat this page like a cabinet of curiosities, not a syllabus. Some links are practical, some are deep references, and some are here because they have the particular smell of an older internet where people built enormous pages because they felt like it.
If you want to look at a previous iteration, check out my old website where I linked to resources that excited me at the time. That repo is not maintained anymore, so some links may be broken.
Start Here
- The Missing Semester of Your CS Education: The stuff universities assume you will somehow learn by osmosis: shells, editors, debugging, git, profiling.
- Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs: The classic wizard book for learning how programs can be thought about.
- Security Engineering: Ross Anderson’s broad, opinionated book on dependable systems and security.
- Refactoring Guru: Design patterns and refactoring explained with visual clarity.
- Build Your Own X: Learn by rebuilding databases, games, operating systems, networks, and other beasts from scratch.
- Project Based Learning: A giant list of tutorials organized around making things.
- No Debt CS: A self-study computer science path without the tuition-shaped crater.
Computer Science
Programming, Systems, And Architecture
- Linux From Scratch: Build a Linux system piece by piece.
- Linux Kernel Teaching: Labs and teaching material for kernel internals.
- Linux Insides: A guided walk through Linux internals.
- Advanced Bash-Scripting Guide: Old-school, still useful, very internet.
- Linux Network Administrators Guide: Network administration from the deep reference shelf.
- Writing an OS in Rust: A beautifully structured OS-from-scratch series.
- The Little Book of Rust Books: A map of Rust learning resources.
- Rust Design Patterns: Idioms, patterns, and anti-patterns in Rust.
- The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Python: Practical Python conventions and ecosystem guidance.
- Scipy Lecture Notes: Scientific Python, from NumPy to image processing.
- Rosetta Code: The same programming tasks implemented across many languages.
- The Power of Prolog: A sharp, surprisingly fun doorway into logic programming.
- The Algorithms: Algorithms implemented across languages.
- Algorithms by Jeff Erickson: Excellent free algorithms notes.
- VisuAlgo: Data structures and algorithms as animations.
- CS 61B: Berkeley’s data structures course.
- CS 61C: Great material on machine structures and computer architecture.
- Parallel Computer Architecture and Programming: CMU’s parallel systems course.
- Computer Architecture History: A historian’s page for processor architecture.
- Recent Processor Architects: A useful people-map of architecture history.
- FireSim Basics: FPGA-accelerated hardware simulation.
- ZipCPU: CPU design, formal methods, and hardware debugging rabbit holes.
Cryptography, Security, And Privacy
- Practical Cryptography for Developers: A clear practical cryptography book.
- Useful Cryptography Resources: Matthew Green’s resource list.
- Applied Cryptography Group: Stanford cryptography research group.
- Cryptology ePrint Archive: Preprints for modern cryptography.
- Crypto Anarchy: A wiki around crypto-anarchist ideas and history.
- Approachable Cryptography: Friendly explanations of cryptographic constructions.
- PicoCTF Primer: A beginner-friendly cybersecurity primer.
- picoCTF: CMU’s cybersecurity competition platform.
- OpenSecurityTraining2: Serious low-level security training.
- CyberChef: The Swiss army knife for encoding, decoding, compression, crypto, and forensic transformations.
- OSINT Framework: A map of public-source intelligence tools.
- Privacy Guides: Privacy tools and practices without too much theater.
- IntelTechniques Online Resources: OSINT and privacy links from Michael Bazzell’s ecosystem.
- Free Haven’s Anonymity Bibliography: A deep bibliography on anonymity systems.
- I2P: Anonymous network project.
- Freenet Documentation: Old, strange, and historically important decentralized publishing machinery.
- Windows Sysinternals: Essential Windows internals and troubleshooting tools.
- Windows Internals Book: Companion resources for the Windows Internals books.
- TPM-JS: Learn TPM concepts in the browser.
- Time-lock Encryption: Gwern’s notes on self-decrypting files and time-locked crypto.
- research!rsc: Zip Files All The Way Down: A wonderful example of software formats becoming haunted houses.
Quantum Computing And Post-Quantum Crypto
- Quantum Country: Spaced-repetition quantum computing textbook by Andy Matuschak and Michael Nielsen.
- Quantum Computing Since Democritus: Scott Aaronson’s lecture notes on computation, physics, and complexity.
- Preskill Physics 219: Quantum computation course material.
- Quantum Algorithm Zoo: A catalog of quantum algorithms.
- Quantum Computing Learning Resources: QOSF’s learning list.
- Microsoft Quantum Katas: Quantum programming exercises.
- Quirk: A delightful browser-based quantum circuit simulator.
- pyQuil Quantum Virtual Machine: Documentation for Rigetti’s simulator.
- Quantiki: Quantum information portal and wiki.
- Post-Quantum Cryptography at NIST: NIST’s PQC standardization project.
- CRYSTALS: Kyber and Dilithium project home.
- Classic McEliece Talks: Talks on a long-lived code-based cryptography candidate.
- Kyber, How Does It Work?: A readable explanation of Kyber.
AI, Data, And Scientific Computing
- Distill: Beautiful machine learning explanations.
- fast.ai: Practical deep learning with a strong teaching philosophy.
- Practical Deep Learning for Coders: The course itself.
- Dive into Deep Learning: Interactive deep learning book.
- Neural Networks and Deep Learning: Michael Nielsen’s introductory neural nets book.
- Spinning Up: OpenAI’s reinforcement learning intro.
- Deep Learning Drizzle: Deep learning courses, books, and tutorials.
- Google Machine Learning Crash Course: Practical introductory ML material.
- MIT 6.S191: MIT’s intro deep learning course.
- CS231n: Stanford’s computer vision course.
- Full Stack Deep Learning: Practical ML systems and deployment.
- Speech and Language Processing: Jurafsky and Martin’s NLP book.
- CS224U: Natural language understanding.
- CS224N: NLP with deep learning.
- Papers With Code: Papers, benchmarks, and implementations.
- UCI Machine Learning Repository: Classic datasets.
- Data Is Plural: Interesting datasets, sent weekly.
- An Introduction to Statistical Learning: Very good applied statistics and ML textbook.
- Reinforcement Learning: An Introduction: Sutton and Barto.
- Computer Vision: Algorithms and Applications: Richard Szeliski’s computer vision book.
- TensorFlow Playground: Neural networks you can poke directly.
- Data Mining Map: A compact visual map of data mining concepts.
- Apple Machine Learning Research: Apple’s ML research page.
- Everything We Know About the Apple Neural Engine: Notes on the ANE.
- AI Alignment Forum Library: A structured reading library for alignment topics.
Mathematics, Physics, And Theory
- Complex Analysis: An online complex analysis text.
- Hans Lundmark’s Complex Analysis Pages: Complex analysis notes and examples.
- Evan Chen’s Napkin: A compact map of modern math.
- Interactive Linear Algebra: Linear algebra with interactive explanations.
- LMFDB: L-functions and modular forms database.
- MathPages: Mathematical essays with an old-web soul.
- Keith Conrad’s Expository Papers: Clear math notes on many topics.
- The Physics Hypertextbook: Physics reference in hypertext form.
- The Chaos Hypertextbook: Chaos theory in web-book form.
- Chaos on the Web: Caltech course material.
- Complexity Zoo: Complexity classes, gloriously cataloged.
- CompLexicon: Complexity science glossary.
- Scholarpedia: Peer-reviewed encyclopedia articles, often by domain experts.
- HandWiki: Science, technology, and computing wiki.
- Remote Sensing Tutorials: Fundamentals of remote sensing.
Electronics, Embedded, DSP, And VLSI
- Concise Electronics for Geeks: Electronics with Michal Zalewski’s usual clarity and bite.
- The Scientist and Engineer’s Guide to DSP: A classic DSP book.
- Circles, Sines, and Signals: A visual DSP introduction.
- Mathematics of the DFT: Julius O. Smith’s DFT book.
- Antenna-Theory.com: Antenna explanations without needless ceremony.
- Microprocessor Design: Wikibook on processor design.
- Embedded Systems: Wikibook on embedded systems.
- Web-Based Simulators for DSPs and Microcontrollers: A useful simulator list.
- Tiny Tapeout Digital Design Guide: Digital design through tiny chips.
- Google Silicon: Open silicon resources from Google.
- CHIPS Alliance Silicon Notebooks: Notebook-based silicon learning.
- fpga4fun: FPGA projects and explanations.
- PYNQ: Python productivity for Zynq boards.
- Cliff Cummings’ Verilog and SystemVerilog Papers: Hardware design papers from a known expert.
- Basic CPU: Build a small CPU.
- Learn FPGAs In Your Browser: Hackaday’s pointer to browser-based FPGA learning.
- Teach Yourself Verilog With This Tiny CPU Design: Another tiny-CPU doorway.
- Webots: Robot simulator.
- SJSU CMPE Embedded Courses: Embedded systems course material.
- ERC Handbook: Robotics and engineering club handbook.
- Over 1000 Articles About Embedded Systems: Jack Ganssle’s embedded systems archive.
Courses, Lectures, And Open Learning
- CS50x: Harvard’s intro CS course.
- Stanford CS 212: Operating systems and systems programming.
- CS109A: Harvard intro data science.
- CMU Practical Data Science: Course videos for practical data science.
- DeepMind Reinforcement Learning Lecture Series: RL lectures from DeepMind.
- Virtual Reality: Steven LaValle’s VR book.
- Machine Learning for Physics and the Physics of Learning: Tutorial workshop material.
- Pragmatic MPC: Secure multiparty computation course.
- CIRM Videos and Books Library: Mathematics videos and books.
- CosmoLearning: Courses, documentaries, lectures, and old-school educational internet.
- NPTEL: Indian technical course archive.
- IISc ECE Webinars: ECE webinar archive.
- College Compendium: Student-oriented learning links.
Knowledge Rabbit Holes
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: The philosophy reference.
- MIT Thesis Catalogue: Searchable catalogue for MIT theses.
- Wikenigma: An encyclopedia of unknowns.
- Esoteric Programming Languages Wiki: Programming languages as performance art.
- IFDB: Interactive Fiction Database.
- Curlie: Human-curated web directory, descended from DMOZ.
- Awesome Search: Search through awesome lists.
- Nautilus: Science essays.
- First Monday: Internet and society journal.
- Information is Beautiful: Data visualization projects.
- The Infinite Conversation: An endless generated conversation between Werner Herzog and Slavoj Zizek.
- This X Does Not Exist: A directory of generative “does not exist” projects.
- Codex Atlanticus: Leonardo da Vinci’s Codex Atlanticus online.
- Military Analysis Network: Technical introductions to US military systems.
- Gap Map: A map of unsolved scientific and intellectual problems.
Tools, Simulators, And Playgrounds
- GeoGebra: Interactive math tools.
- Quirk: Quantum circuit playground.
- DataMelt Examples: Scientific computing and plotting examples.
- OpenCV-Python Articles: Practical OpenCV examples.
- Python Turtle Academy: Small Python graphics projects.
- QuTiP: Quantum Toolbox in Python.
- Azgaar’s Fantasy Map Generator: Procedural fantasy maps.
- Aatish Bhatia’s Web Experiments: Interactive explanations and experiments.
- Karl Sims: Evolutionary graphics and artificial life classics.
- New Age Bullshit Generator: A pre-LLM nonsense machine that still has charm.
- Max Planck Institute for the Science of Decapitation: A beautifully committed parody site.