Interesting Stuff

Things I found once and went back to. Some are worth an hour, some are worth a minute.

Worth reading

  1. 01UUID Versions

    Information about the different versions of UUID and the use cases for them.

  2. 02The backstory of the infamous .DS_store

    A short story about why the dotfile DS_store is even a thing.

  3. 03Permutation City

    A mind-bending Greg Egan science fiction novel about simulated minds, identity, and digital reality.

  4. 04The 500-mile email

    A legendary and bizarre sysadmin story about an email system that could only send messages exactly 500 miles away.

  5. 05Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Names

    A classic article detailing the myriad of incorrect assumptions developers make when designing systems that handle human names.

  6. 06The Egg

    A six-minute Andy Weir short story that quietly rearranges how you think about everyone else.

  7. 07The Last Question

    Asimov's own favourite of his stories, following one question from the first computers to the end of the universe.

  8. 08Wikipedia: Unusual articles

    Wikipedia's own curated list of its strangest pages. A guaranteed way to lose an afternoon.

  9. 0999% Invisible

    The design and architecture of everything you walk past without noticing. The podcast is the good part.

Worth playing with

  1. 10A History of the World on a timeline

    A interactive timeline that spans across 14 billion years of history, from the Big Bang to 2015.

  2. 11Earth Nullschool

    A mesmerizing live map of global winds, weather, ocean currents, and pollution patterns.

  3. 12Radio Garden

    Explore live radio broadcasts by smoothly rotating a 3D globe and tuning into local stations from anywhere in the world.

  4. 13Window Swap

    Look through someone else's window somewhere in the world. A beautiful way to travel without moving.

  5. 14Atlas Obscura

    A deep catalog of strange natural wonders, unusual places, and fascinating stories from around the world.

  6. 15The Scale of the Universe 2

    A smooth interactive journey from subatomic particles all the way out to the observable universe.

  7. 16Every Noise at Once

    Roughly 6,000 music genres plotted on one page, every single one clickable and audible.