Blogroll
This page contains a bunch of links to things I liked reading or watching. Feel free to look around, and if you have a suggestion for something interesting to read or watch, don’t hesitate to drop me an email at robin@geheimesite.nl.
I use RSS a lot, and I maintain my own OPML file for keeping track of the feeds that I follow, which is available for download here:
DownloadInteresting things read
- History of the browser user-agent string
- Who’s Afraid of the Public Domain?
- Wesley’s Notebook — he’s such a good writer!
- What if We Replace Guns and Bullets with Bows and Arrows?
- Cool desktops don’t change 😎
- Shakespeare’s Missing Smile
- How and Why I Stopped Buying New Laptops
- The Frustration Loop
This blogpost by Ava Zeldman touched me in particular: Schmile.
Videos I particularly enjoyed
- Unlimited Ricepudding
- Line Goes Up – The Problem With NFTs
- The Art of Code
- Let’s Ban Cars! (Seriously)
- The Shape of Infinity
- The Rules for Rulers
- history of the entire world, i guess
- Games that Don’t Fake the Space
The State of the Web
I’m in the “big corporations ruined the web!!” bubble, as you might have noticed.
- Tom Scott: Why The Web Is Such A Mess
- Tom Scott: This video has XXX views
- Dylan Beattie: The Web That Never Was
- Tom Scott: This Video Is Sponsored By ███ VPN
I’m also not a huge fan of social media…
And some stuff related to AI:
Counter-movements
Tildes / pubnixes
I’m a huge fan of the concept of a pubnix: a public access unix server. It’s basically a shared *nix computer that a bunch of people have access to. Tildes are small communities on these pubnixes, inspired by tilde.club.
The State of Society
- Tom Scott: YouTube’s Copyright System Isn’t Broken. The World’s Is.
- SHAUN: Andrew Tate: How to be a Real Man (or: why patriarchy should be abolished)
Fun things around the web
- Sans Bullshit Sans: a font that replaces buzzwords with a “bullshit” label, using black font ligature magic
- Octodex: an octocat fanclub
- LOW←TECH MAGAZINE
- Windows 93
- Pointer pointer — Show this to your friends. Guaranteed laugh.
- Map of Reddit, or: reddit big
- After The Tone
- sandspiel.club
- neal.fun
- ncase.me
Computers & Programming
Here’s some interesting videos as well:
- Sebastian Lague: Exploring How Computers Work
- Kevlin Henney: Lambda? You Keep Using that Letter
- Dylan Beattie: Computational Creativity
- Computerphile: Floating Point Numbers
- Tom Scott: The Worst Typo I Ever Made
- Dylan Beattie: Ctrl-Alt-Del: Learning to Love Legacy Code
- Computerphile: The Problem with Time & Timezones
- Posy: Mouse Cursor History (and why I made my own)
- Circuit Rewind: FreeBSD: A Successful Failure - Linux: A Failing Success
Yup, I’m a huge fan of Dylan Beattie and Tom Scott :)
Text & Encodings
I’m fascinated by text encodings and Unicode. Here’s something to get you started:
Link directories
Here are some link directories that contain a bunch of links to cool things. The internet is beautiful, isn’t it :D
Science
- Veritasium: Why Gravity is NOT a Force
- Veritasium: The Science of Thinking
- Veritasium: The Logistics Map
- Veritasium: Chaos: The Science of the Butterfly Effect
- Veritasium: The Universe is Hostile to Computers
Math
- Veritasium: The Simplest Math Problem No One Can Solve — Collatz Conjecture
- Numberphile: The Golden Ratio (why it is so irrational)
- Numberphile: e (Euler’s Number)
- Veritasium: How Imaginary Numbers Were Invented
- Veritasium: Math’s Fundamental Flaw
Interesting mini docus
Interesting video about how the Titanic was designed, and why it ultimately sunk.
To think about
These are some interesting things to think about:
-
Drew DeVault: Should private platforms engage in censorship?
-
Tom Scott: Single Point of Failure: The (Fictional) Day Google Forgot To Check Passwords
I think these two videos by Wren particularly get you to think. They really offer some perspective and sense of scale. Plus, the editing is sooo good!
- Wren Weichman: VFX Artist Reveals the True Scale of Atoms
- Wren Weichman: Using VFX to Explain Why COVID-19 Surprised Everyone
Fun!!
Some sketches, philosophy, language theory :)
- Tom Scott: Ə: The Most Common Vowel in English
- exurb1a: Letter to Marble 3
- Tom Scott: Danger: Humans
- exurb1a: Meaning is a Jumper That You Have to Knit Yourself
- exurb1a: You (probably) do not exist
- Tom Scott: I promise this story about microwaves is interesting.
- Johny Harris: Junk Mail, Explained
- Johnny Harris: Why Americans Eat Dessert for Breakfast
- exurb1a: 27