Web Wanderings #13
Rediscover the joy of online exploration! Web Wandering shares a hand-picked selection of the most awesome websites you won't find anywhere else.
Welcome back from the dead. Cloudhiker had a wonderful Halloween event, and I additionally had a great evening with friends. We watched some good horror movies.
Just recently, Cloudhiker had another uptick of visitors and new users who came from Reddit. To be precise, from this thread. Every now and then, people ask about the old times of the Internet, what people miss and how they experienced the old times. And like in every thread StumbleUpon pops up - and people start to recommend Cloudhiker, which I absolutely adore! Thank you all for supporting me. 🥰
Let’s jump in to a few awesome websites now.
This edition is also available on Cloudhiker as a Collection so you can find, like and collect the sites there: Web Wanderings #13
Things fitting perfectly into other things
https://thingsfittingperfectlyintothings.tumblr.com
I have some little potion of OCD in me, I like things to be in order and clean. I get angry when I see the toilet paper role being hung up the WRONG WAY. (Yes, there is a right way to hang it up, it’s even in its original patent!)
And this blog, collecting photos of things that seem to be made just to fit on or into others give me a lot! I spent way too many time scrolling through it when I first discovered it.
Neal’s Ambient Chaos
https://neal.fun/ambient-chaos
I adore Neal for his creations. All of them are so funny, wholesome and interesting. They are very well done, and sometimes boil down to one very simple idea. (Spoiler: Neal will pop up in Web Wanderings in the future!)
So, in this web tool Neal tool the simple idea of doing an ambient sounds website. Enable rain, thunder, campire and so on. You know that, there are hundreds of similar sites. Yet… not a single other one becomes more weird the further you scroll. People working to highway sounds… okay, get it. A playground? Huh, weird. But construction, or a zombie invasion? 😳
DOOM Source Code
https://github.com/id-Software/DOOM
I normally don’t allow links to GitHub or similar sites on Cloudhiker. There are enough websites where you can explore software and download it. However, this one is different. Because it’s the original code of one of the most important games in computer games history: DOOM, by id software.
I read the story of its creation in John Romero’s book Doom Guy, and can deeply recommend it to anyone interested in games. BTW. I even met Romero on a programming conference, wholesome guy.
Papers We Love
I am not really in the scientific community (thanks to my horrible university for spoiling science for me btw), but I indeed heard a lot of discussions about papers being gatekept by magazines and publishers, who then sell access to it for an incredible premium, like “read this paper now for $90“. That wouldn’t be soooo bad, IF the money would actually reach the scientists! But it doesn’t. And that, with other factors, is the reason why people started to share papers in other ways. Papers We Love is one of these ways.
Self Parking Evolution
https://trekhleb.dev/self-parking-car-evolution/
In Web Wanderings #7 I shared an interesting tool which shows you how machines learn by repeating the same task thousands of times, with small modifications in between. Self Parking Evolution is exactly that, this time with a car which should park itself. Tell me once your car managed to park correctly. 👀
Do you like all those websites and want to explore more? Cloudhiker has 28,000+ sites all waiting for you to be discovered! Totally free, no account needed.
Putting Time In Perspective
https://waitbutwhy.com/2013/08/putting-time-in-perspective.html
I know this article has a lot of text and graphics. But I really ask you to take a few minutes (maybe even later), to scroll through this wonderful post. It is one of those posts which will leave you stunned, maybe even speechless. Because it shows how absolutely stunning time is when put into relation with the universe. And that is not to be meant to sound esoteric.
Tim Urban (quite a popular blogger) shares
What’s on Netflix
https://www.whats-on-netflix.com/library/
After this short excursion into philosophy, it’s time for some binge watching. Interestingly, with the raise of streaming services, a meme evolved: people spending their evenings not actually watching movies, but scrolling through the libraries searching for something to watch. What’s on Netflix may help you the next time before you start your movie night. Scroll through Netflix’ catalogue, by category, decades, or genres.
Factorio’s Belt Bug
https://pubby.games/factorio.html
Do you know Factorio? It’s a game about building a factory on an alien planet. What sounds pretty simple evolved into a classic. Because it redefined the genre of logistic simulations and lead to maybe one or two people ruining their lifes because they became addicted. And people care so much about the logistics in this game, that they look into the mechanics with a magnifier. This post dives into the mechanics of the Factorio conveyor belts.
The Insane Innovation of TI Calculator Hobbyists
https://www.thirtythreeforty.net/posts/2021/10/ti-calculator-innovation/
Not sure about you, but our math teachers permitted us from using calculators for most things. “You must learn to calculate with your head, you will need that later!“ Yeah right, can’t remember when I last calculated the square root of 893 because I had no calculator available.
Anyway, calculators are a quite special field of technology, with Texas Instruments conquering the market with plastic bombs that are actually more like a computer than a calculator. This post explores people who are really into calculators and doing awesome stuff with them.
Virtual Theremin
There are a lot of really weird instruments out there. One of them is the Theremin. It’s something that you would probably call a strange internet router, until some guy steps up to it, waves his hand and magically, sci-fi sounds appear out of the router. And yes, this website let’s you play with a virtual version of it! Neat.
Like every time, I would like to ask you for feedback. Hearing what you think, what you like or dislike, help me making Cloudhiker and this wonderful Web Wanderings series better and better. If you want to be notified on new editions of Web Wanderings, subscribe here:
When you’re done with this episode, why not hop on Cloudhiker and see what weird and wonderful corners of the web you can stumble into? 👀