Top all-time · #824
OtherHand
Personal blog · otherhand.orgculturehistory
OtherHand is a personal blog at otherhand.org about culture and history. Since 2014, 78 different Hacker News readers have linked it 103 times, most often “The Hunt for the Death Valley Germans (2012)”. The last post was in 2019, but the archive is still widely read.
Often recommended · 27 of 40 sampled comments recommend it?
Why HN links it
HN readers link OtherHand for long-form accounts of search-and-rescue work, desert disappearances and Area 51/A-12 Blackbird history. The Hunt for the Death Valley Germans is the post most often recommended.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 40 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
If you’re here, you must be seriously lost. I’m sorry for your misfortune. That said, if you’d like to hang around a while and see what’s here, then feel free. But be warned, I’m pretty damn good at wasting other people’s time. Also be advised that without the burden of an editor I take far
Most-linked posts?
- The Hunt for the Death Valley Germans (2012)24 people · 27 mentions · first linked 2019-09-12
- The Hunt for the Death Valley Germans17 people · 18 mentions · first linked 2015-06-16
- Looking at the Bob Lazar story from the perspective of 20187 people · 8 mentions · first linked 2019-09-19
- /home-page/area-51-and-other-strange-places/bluefire-main/bluefire/particle-beams-and-saucer-dreams/6 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2019-10-10
- The Hunt for 928 or Has Anyone Seen This Spy Plane? (1999)5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2016-07-02
- The Hunt for 928 (1999)4 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2019-09-13
- /home-page/area-51-and-other-strange-places/so-ya-dont-believe-it-was-a-proton-beam-eh/3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2020-01-03
- /home-page/search-and-rescue/searching-for-bill-ewasko/2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2023-02-06
- /home-page/area-51-and-other-strange-places/looking-at-the-bob-lazar-story-from-the-perspective-of-2018/2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2019-05-05
- Historical speed of light measurements in southern California (2014)2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2019-09-13
What Hacker News says?
I think a lot of this type of writing shifted to Twitter and Instagram, but I agree this microblogging is not the same... it lacks the immersiveness of a good long story. On the other hand it has never been easier to set up your own blog with services like Netlify, Jekyll, Pelican etc. I recently started my own blog in this way, however it requires some coding skills... I know it’s a shameless plug, but here it is:…
Comment linking /
on “If I could bring one thing back to the internet it would be blogs”Submitted The Hunt for the Death Valley Germans as a story · 179 points
HN discussionThe quest he mentions as inspiration - Tom Mahood's "The Hunt for the Death Valley Germans" - is a fascinating read and worth your time. https://www.otherhand.org/home-page/search-and-rescue/the-hu... I first read it seven years ago and similar to the author, it inspired me to join my local Search & Rescue team which has been incredibly rewarding. I highly recommend doing that to anyone who wants to combine a love o…
Comment linking /home-page/search-and-rescue/the-hunt-for-the-death-valley-germans/
on “I built an ROV to solve missing person cases”Submitted Hunt for the Death Valley Germans (2015) as a story · 112 points
HN discussionMy favorite website: http://www.otherhand.org/ And my favorite article on it: http://www.otherhand.org/home-page/search-and-rescue/the-hun... (No association)
Comment linking /home-page/search-and-rescue/the-hunt-for-the-death-valley-germans/
on “Does anyone remember websites?”Submitted The Hunt for the Death Valley Germans (2012) as a story · 103 points
HN discussion[1] Tanya Khovanova, Soviet-American mathematician who became the second female gold medalist at the International Mathematical Olympiads. https://www.tanyakhovanova.com/ [2] Filippo Valsorda (cryptography) https://filippo.io/ [3] David Wong (cryptography) https://www.cryptologie.net/ [4] OpenBSD everything https://www.undeadly.org/ [5] blog with some funny articles https://idlewords.com/ [6] Might need a proxy/VPN…
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: Favorite Blogs by Individuals?”Submitted The Hunt for 928 or Has Anyone Seen This Spy Plane? (1999) as a story · 67 points
HN discussionhttps://www.otherhand.org/ - An interesting blog by a Southern Californian native who recount's search and rescue missions as well as other historical and scientific research. The best read it the The Hunt for the Death Valley Germans - https://www.otherhand.org/home-page/search-and-rescue/the-hu...
Comment linking /home-page/search-and-rescue/the-hunt-for-the-death-valley-germans/
on “Ask HN: Favorite Blogs by Individuals?”Submitted Historical speed of light measurements in southern California (2014) as a story · 41 points
HN discussionExactly. I started skimming the article like I do most these days, scrolling to the punch line while collecting the gist. When I got to the part about the ball being a knock-off, I was struck with excitement because I knew I wanted to read this whole thing, word for word. Almost as good as the story about the missing German family ( http://www.otherhand.org/home-page/search-and-rescue/the-hun... )!
Comment linking /home-page/search-and-rescue/the-hunt-for-the-death-valley-germans/
on ““Which word begins with “y” and looks like an axe in this picture?””Submitted The Hunt for the Death Valley Germans (2012) as a story · 23 points
HN discussionI came here to mention the Woodward Effect. I had never heard of it until last week when someone here on HN mentioned the blog of Tom Mahood (a former master's student of Woodward) in an entirely different context (namely: UFOs). It ended up sending me on a deep dive into the subject and, ultimately, led me to an article by Mahood[0] about the Woodward effect. The upshot is: > But Tom, is this stuff ……real? > I….don…
Comment linking /home-page/physics/graduate-studies-in-physics-at-cal-state-university-fullerton/
on “Latest EmDrive tests at Dresden University shows it does not develop any thrust”Submitted The Hunt for the Death Valley Germans as a story · 14 points
HN discussionreminded me of this captivating tale of tracking down wreckage from a destroyed A-12 Oxcart in the Nevada desert. https://www.otherhand.org/home-page/area-51-and-other-strang...
Comment linking /home-page/area-51-and-other-strange-places/bluefire-main/bluefire/the-hunt-for-928/
on “Pilot explains how he Survived Blackbird Disintegration at Mach 3.2”Submitted Looking at the Bob Lazar story from the perspective of 2018 as a story · 12 points
HN discussionInteresting to see Bob Lazar brought up explicitly here. I really like Otherhand's take on the situation. Very tenuous but interesting theory. https://www.otherhand.org/home-page/area-51-and-other-strang...
Comment linking /home-page/area-51-and-other-strange-places/bluefire-main/bluefire/particle-beams-and-saucer-dreams/
on “Mysterious New Jersey drone sightings prompt call for 'state of emergency'”Submitted The Hunt for the Death Valley Germans as a story · 4 points
HN discussionMaybe not as long but enough for a couple of nights: The Hunt for the Death Valley Germans: https://www.otherhand.org/home-page/search-and-rescue/the-hu...
Comment linking /home-page/search-and-rescue/the-hunt-for-the-death-valley-germans/
on “●●|●●●●●|●●|●”Submitted The.Best.Guzzler.Ever Joshua Tree National Park as a story · 3 points
HN discussionDepends on how you do it, but some people just don't give up on someone "walking away". For example, Bill Ewasko - http://www.otherhand.org/home-page/search-and-rescue/searchi...
Comment linking /home-page/search-and-rescue/searching-for-bill-ewasko/jt84-5122016/
on “Faking your death”Submitted The Hunt for the Death Valley Germans as a story · 2 points
HN discussionI'm pretty skeptical of Lazar. See this article for an investigative counterpoint of many of his claims: https://www.otherhand.org/home-page/area-51-and-other-strang... > A last item for your consideration to assess Lazar’s veracity is his academic background. He claims Masters degrees from BOTH Caltech and MIT in subjects they don’t offer and during time periods he couldn’t have physically been at either campus. In…
Comment linking /home-page/area-51-and-other-strange-places/looking-at-the-bob-lazar-story-from-the-perspective-of-2018/
on “Tom Delonge’s UFO Research Center Is Making Politicians Demand Answers”Submitted The Hunt for 928 (Has Anyone Seen This Spy Plane?) as a story · 2 points
HN discussionhere's one i like: https://www.otherhand.org/home-page/area-51-and-other-strang...
Comment linking /home-page/area-51-and-other-strange-places/bluefire-main/bluefire/the-hunt-for-928/
on “The slowest SR-71 Blackbird fly-by”Submitted The Hunt for 928 (1999) as a story · 2 points
HN discussionmy favorite A-12 read: https://www.otherhand.org/home-page/area-51-and-other-strang... that whole site is full of awesome accounts of his adventures out west.
Comment linking /home-page/area-51-and-other-strange-places/bluefire-main/bluefire/the-hunt-for-928/
on “The SR-71's predecessor used cesium-laced fuel to create radar-absorbing exhaust”Submitted The Hunt for a crashed spy plane near Area 51 as a story · 2 points
HN discussionA good read about being unprepared for the desert is "The Hunt for the Death Valley Germans" which is an amateur's search for answers on how a German family of tourists abandoned their van in Death Valley and then disappeared. https://www.otherhand.org/home-page/search-and-rescue/the-hu...
Comment linking /home-page/search-and-rescue/the-hunt-for-the-death-valley-germans/
on “NOAA Satellites Helped Save a Record 421 Lives in 2019”Submitted Nellis tracking facility near Reveille as a story · 2 points
HN discussion
