researching strange things.

All the time. I've looked up forms of torture, and weapons, and toxins, and diseases, just to name a few, not to mention historical conspiracies. How to fashion a lock pick out of a nail. And spent some times on some BDSM sites trying to come up with descriptions of pain that sound appealing or sensuous.

There was a thread on this a while back. And another before that too.

http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?p=9322198

http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=262421

http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=263600

And I felt weird researching the effects of marijuana... Lol

ScottM84 said:

And I felt weird researching the effects of marijuana... Lol

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Experiential research will do that...

For the last couple of years, my research history, and much of my stored research, would look like a plan to overthrow the government, destroy the power grid, and assassinate the entire leadership in Washington, all with only fifty men.

If you want to find some strange, dark places on the internet, do this kind of research for a time.

Jamesaritchie said:

For the last couple of years, my research history, and much of my stored research, would look like a plan to overthrow the government, destroy the power grid, and assassinate the entire leadership in Washington, all with only fifty men.

If you want to find some strange, dark places on the internet, do this kind of research for a time.

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Mine too! I was afraid with what my most recent searches would have been, so I had to reference a copy of The Poor Man's James's Bond.

SML7318 said:

Mine too! I was afraid with what my most recent searches would have been, so I had to reference a copy of The Poor Man's James's Bond.

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Great resource, but darned pricey, at least every version I've found.

Jamesaritchie said:

Great resource, but darned pricey, at least every version I've found.

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Yeah, I didn't think to ask my friend where they got it. I would have used a prepared credit card to buy it, but maybe that would have just made it more sketchy.

Tor browser. Deep web. Odd contacts. A friend with LexisNexis access. Some very strange info out there. I'm sure my normal Google history would make something ping! somewhere, but really, it's just for fiction.

... suicide bombers, North Korea and nuclear bombs as terrorist weapons - yes, the CIA would love by browser cache ...

how to sharpen a hypodermic needle

Haha, I know what you mean. I've tried to squeeze "for writers" or some variation thereof into every search I've done so that Special Operations (UK's equivalent to SWAT teams) doesn't blow a hole in my ceiling and rappel down into my living room.

"We've got you now, you sick bastard!"

WEM said:

... suicide bombers, North Korea and nuclear bombs as terrorist weapons - yes, the CIA would love by browser cache ...

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If not the CIA, the NSA probably has it.

Oh lord yes, mostly black magic, white supremacy, guns and various aspects of the criminal underworld for me.

And yet the fact that none of us (I assume!) have yet had our doors kicked in at 2am by the cops/feds/men in black does rather make all those internet surveillance panics look a bit lame

Well yeah, there's always that possibility I suppose

I've looked up enough weird things that yeah, I wonder if anyone is looking at me with shifty eyes.

https://duckduckgo.com/
https://startpage.com/

This thread alone would ping a lot of key words. I don't think I've yet seen "bomb" so here it is.

Other than that, I've finished up picturing a big server room, with a couple of hacked off IT guys going "we're going to have to modify the exclusion script again, there's another three new writers come up on our surveillance search"

Which is way more boring than men in black making holes in the ceiling.

The nice thing is, once you get published, the questioning by authorities is blessedly short.

elindsen said:

I've looked up enough weird things that yeah, I wonder if anyone is looking at me with shifty eyes.

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One person's "weird" is another person's bookmark.

I once wrote an article about prostitutes who use the Internet to ply their trade. Learned a lot of new acronyms one including GFE (girlfriend experience), DFK (deep French-kissing) and CIM (sorry, kids might be present),

Can't say it's been of much use in my regular life, but if I ever need to explain why escorts prefer their clients pass on the extra onions before a session and pay extra attention when showering to those shall we say, hard-to-reach areas, it's there for future usage.

Ahhh, salad-tossing. Another thing that's now problematic to search in libraries. XD

18th century penile prosthetics. Anything historical probably gets let off with 'crazy academic,' at least!

Other than the requisite explosives/weapons google searches, my "strange" usually involves wikipedia-ing common household objects to check what materials are present within them and at what composition.

This morning so far I've googled "chain link fence," "shovel," "aerosol can," and "paint."

KidCassandra said:

Other than the requisite explosives/weapons google searches, my "strange" usually involves wikipedia-ing common household objects to check what materials are present within them and at what composition.

This morning so far I've googled "chain link fence," "shovel," "aerosol can," and "paint."

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Please don't leave the premises. The authorities have been alerted.

It's not that I fear someone will think I'm going to do something untoward with chain link fence, shovels, and spraypaint--it's just my google history is so full of normal, easily identifiable objects that I probably seem like a very confused alien attempting to adjust to human life or else like a recovering brain trauma patient.


Also, I'm (inadvisably) doing some of these searches on the company computer... if somebody's tracking my browsing, they're likely quite perplexed.