interesting

The Pudding reports on a project by media artist Yufeng Zhao that has built a search engine based on the photospheres in New York City available through Google Maps. Plotting text on a map provides insight on types of shops on a street, the dominant ethnicity in an area and more. The Pudding has also looked at what the most popular text is, removing common street signs.

Discovered via Tom Scott's newsletter.

Part of the project Blitzortung.org, Lightning Maps plots a lightning strike by detecting electromagnetic discharges through a community of over 6000 stations across the world. You're able to build and setup your own station for roughly 250 euros and join the network.

I discovered this through Matt Webb's blog where they list a few other interesting maps.

Your very own web-based aquarium. Discovered via weird_wide_web_hole.

Write your own game splash screens, created by Foone. Discovered via Robb Knight's weeknotes.

Discovered via Manual do Usuário.

I'll just leave this here.

Heavyweight lets you create important-looking letters in seconds.

Demand respect and get results by commanding the look of authority, without the price of one.

Discovered via Satyrs.

Discovered via indieblog.page.

Discovered via Walk Notes.

Discovered via Stefan Judis.

An interactive visual of the Earth's bio and techno mass over time. Created by Ménard and Shtarkman, discovered via Xanthe Tynehorne's Garden.

A "Hot or Not" styled site but for chickens! Discovered through a comment from Bo on Kottke.

Nicolas Magand shared this simple, but fun, game in their monthly link post. They in turn discovered this from a post from Kottke, where a commenter shared another chicken related site which I'll post in a nother submission here.

I've spend much too much time on both of these sites.

I wanted to track down a 53ft shipping container used to transport goods to the USA, that's when I came across "Matt's Place". A website with a huge collection of intermodal containers, sorted by type; documenting images, markings, and current owners.

The FAQ describes the site's purpose is to act as a photo gallery for "transportation historians, scale modelers, and people in the transportation industry". Always fun finding little corners of the web like this.

A few weeks ago while looking for a bridge's name, I found this website that lists all of the bridges in Amsterdam, with pictures!

The bridge I was looking for was unnamed and unnumbered at Van der Madeweg and Buitensinge but still listed on the site. The bridge had 1991 etched into it, from when it was constructed as part of the Southern branch of the Ringspoorbaan around Amsterdam, which opened in 1993.

I shared this in a toot, last weekend, it only makes sense to post it here too.

While looking for a bridge's name, I found this website that lists all of the bridges in Amsterdam, with pictures!

https://bruggenvanamsterdam.nl/

The bridge I was looking for was unnamed and unnumbered at Van der Madeweg and Buitensinge but still listed on the site. The bridge had 1991 etched into it, from when it was constructed as part of the Southern branch of the Ringspoorbaan around Amsterdam, which opened in 1993.

https://bruggenvanamsterdam.nl/madespo.htm

Brian on why 88x31 buttons are precisely 88x31. Discovered via misty.

A list of silly, but interesting, mastodon apps. My favourite? Mastodon on the 3DS!

Discovered via Jeff Sikes.

Incredible interactive animations to demonsrate the moons path around the Earth with the Physics behind it. While on the site checkout out the other articles to be just as amazed.

Discovered via 82Mhz.

For the vertically inclined, I present WikiTok, which is Wikipedia in TikTok form. Discovered via Tom Scott's Newsletter.

The modern Cookie Clicker by neal.fun, discovered via Simon Willison.

A clever captcha.

Discovered via jwz.

A video showing the amount wind turbines bend as visible from the inside. Originally discovered through Tom Scott's Newsletter.

This is an interesting read from Mark Blacklock on a bizarre brewer, Humphrey Smith of Samuel Smith Brewery, and his obsession with reliving the past, at the expense of much of the local community, his employees, and the many historic buildings acquired over the years. However, it doesn't seem to be that simple; the article has a lot to unpack.

Originally discovered through Tom Scott's Newsletter.

Isochrone maps can be used to depict travel time from a specific point in a given region. Václav Volheijn takes this a step further and creates a spacetime map that distorts based on travel time. In their YouTube video, I made maps that show time instead of space, they go over the development process. The source code is also available on Github.

The Europlug, a two-pronged AC power plug for regular household appliances, is surprisingly compatible with most of the world's plugs. The Wikipedia map, I discovered via Jiu on Mastodon, highlights this. I knew the British Type G plug with three flat poles could still technically be used, although not recommended(!), by pulling down the ground shutter and shoving a Europlug in.

In some types of BS 1363 [Type G] socket (but not all) the safety mechanism can be tampered with so that a Europlug may then be forced into the open line and neutral ports. The UK Electrical Safety Council has drawn attention to the fire risk associated with forcing Europlugs into BS 1363 [Type G] sockets.

I've seen this used quite a lot in the Middle East as appliances come with both the British and Europlug whereas all wall sockets are British. Looking at the map I was not aware of how much of world actually used Type G plugs.

Video description: A stock fireplace illustration frames looping archival video of the blasting RS-25 engines that launched the Artemis I rocket to the Moon on Nov. 16, 2022 (source: https://go.nasa.gov/4g6LnWc ). The illustration includes stone tiling, a pillow, a basket of firewood, and contains elements generated with AI. NASA added two framed pictures to the illustration. One shows an archival image of the Orion capsule flying through space. The other shows the Artemis logo. The audio features the roar of the rockets at a low level, with the addition of the sounds of a crackling wood fire.

Discovered via kottke.org.

A daily game, with an unlimited practice mode, to guess words through Morse code. Discovered via Tom Scott's Newsletter.

Rasmus has built a game in which the player has to sort food items in order of carbon footprint. The game gets harder with each new item as the list increases in length, a single mistake and it's game over. My high-score was 7.

They have also written a blog post about the release of the challenge.

A tour of what was once a secret NATO Joint Operations Center during the cold war that was built in a quarry in Maastricht. The tour is delivered by Gerard Smeets a volunteer and previously an officer that worked at the center. The YouTube channel covers other interesting stories from the Netherlands.

Ian Carroll published a write-up together with Sam Curry on how they were able to add arbitrary crew members to bypass security screening or ride in a jump seat in the cockpit of an aircraft. They used SQL Injection (that seems to use MD5 password hashes!) on FlyCASS, a software system small airlines use to manage authorisation for their crew members at airports.

What was more shocking to me was seeing TSA allegedly trying to cover up the error.

The TSA press office said in a statement that this vulnerability could not be used to access a KCM checkpoint because the TSA initiates a vetting process before issuing a KCM barcode to a new member. However, a KCM barcode is not required to use KCM checkpoints, as the TSO can enter an airline employee ID manually. After we informed the TSA of this, they deleted the section of their website that mentions manually entering an employee ID, and did not respond to our correction. We have confirmed that the interface used by TSOs still allows manual input of employee IDs.

This post was discovered through Arne Bahlo's newsletter.

I re-discovered the Web Design Museum through Arne Bahlo's newsletter a site that allows you to browse through decades of changes seen on websites and applications.

The website, by Eli Fessler, archives posters, labels, stickers and other documents related to COVID-19 at the peak of the pandemic from around the world. They're categorised by date, location, language and other parameters. This one's for the future history books.

I discovered this through Tom Scott's Weekly Newsletter.

The Holotypic Occlupanid Research Group, or HORG, work to classify and research plastic clips usually seen securing bread, fruit and other bags at the supermarket. The HORG calls these clips Occlupanids.

Occlupanids are generally found as parasitoids on bagged pastries in supermarkets, hardware stores, and other large commercial establishments. Their fascinating and complex life cycle is unfortunately severely under-researched. What is known is that they take nourishment from the plastic sacs that surround the bagged product, not the product itself, as was previously thought.

My favourite, the Coronaspinus chaos, since it looks like trees I drew as a child or as the HORG describes, "Chaotic crown of thorns."

I found the site from a CHUPPL documentary called The Bread Tab Conspiracy: $93,000,000,000 Disappeared.

A 2-D approximation of how an iceberg would float in reality.

Created by JoshData and inspired by GlacialMeg on Twitter. This was discovered on Mastodon through Stef Walter.

Chrono Piano plays music based on the current date and time in the major, minor blues or pentatonic scale. Discovered via Stefan Judis' Web Weekly.

A brief but interesting history of cursors, just like the title suggested. Discovered via Tom Scott's newsletter.

A collection of personal websites which have curated links to other websites. I've spent a few hours diving down rabbit holes after discovering the site through 82MHz's post a few days ago and discovered some interesting sites.

As described on the front page "checking a box checks it for everyone!", can't really say more to that. A fun website built by eieio, they also posted a writeup of building it.

Rotating Sandwiches does exactly what it says on the tin. It's a website with high quality gifs of rotating sandwiches. Now I'm hungry.

Discovered by being the 2023 tiny awards winner.

These simple but well written articles remind me of the many children encyclopedic books I read through as a child. Its good to see a format like this on the internet thats accessible for all and something which can be, and is, kept up to date.

Discovered via Nicolas Magand

An internet museum that starts from it'\''s origins as APRANET in 1977, marking major milestones in social media, e-commerce and the internet as we know it today.

Discovered via Nicolas Magand.

Like GeoGuessr but instead of Google Streetview you're given an image which you have to locate on a map along with the year it was taken. It's quite fun trying to take clues from the image in an attempt to date it. The images selected in the game actually make it lightly easier than random locations on Google Streetview with GeoGuessr.