Month: December 2015

Merry Christmas!

And of course: Happy Friday!

I hope your holiday has been fantastic so far. Here are some links!

HTML-909

A browser-based emulation of the legendary Roland TR-909 drum machine, rendered entirely in HTML5.

This is quite an achievement, seriously. Drop some beats for your Xmas afternoon!

R.I.P. Rosie Roach

“There has been a dead cockroach in the anthropology building’s stairwell for at least two weeks. Some enterprising person has now made her a little shrine.”

This reminds me of a deceased raccoon in my city from earlier this year.

The Scale Of The Universe 2

A web presentation that goes from the teeniest tiniest thing all the way up to the biggest, hugest thing.

Sent along by James H.

Retroball Christmas

Basically an arkanoid knock off but Christmas-themed. A fun little time-waster.

Crap-O-Matic Gift Generator

For those last second gifts when you care enough to send uh… crap!

Sent in by Emily J.

Happy, Happy Friday, and I guess we’ll see you next year!

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Welcome back, Friday! And welcome to the last Friday before the Winter Solstice.

Where I live it is unseasonably warm so I feel a bit conflicted about that.

But anyway we have these websites to look at…

Flowing Data: A Day In The Life Of Americans

“This is a simulation of 1,000 people’s average day. It’s based on 2014 data from the American Time Use Survey”

This is a great visualization of the breakdown of an average day in the life of a typical American citizen. Must have definitely taken some effort to create all of this.

Got Rhythm

“Can you keep the rhythm when the beat drops out?”

Addictive. Love it.

Madeon’s Adventure Machine

This is a great little web installation that lets the user create remixes based on tracks from the new album Adventure from the musical artist Madeon, a.k.a. Hugo Pierre Leclercq. I think it’s really wonderfully done.

Christmas Cat

A cute little xmas-themed puzzle game. Good for the little ones!

Apollo 17

A site that replays the media from the launch, orbit, landing and return of Apollo 17 in real time as it happened 43 years ago. You can start from the very beginning or jump into whatever day they’re currently on.

And here are some reads!

Some good reads this week, and I’m choosing from those that don’t have anything to do with guns or gun ownership or gun violence.

Kernel Mag: The world before ‘Star Wars’

It’s challenging to remember a time before the existence of Star Wars. This article breaks down the status of most of the sci-fi and fantasy movies that existed from 1976 to 1977, before George Lucas effectively reset the whole movie-making industry. It’s an interesting read.

Happy almost-holidays everybody!

And Happy Friday of course.

See you in 7 sleeps!

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Welcome to Friday!

Great to be here…

Okay: links time!

Google Santa Tracker

A vastly expanded Santa tracker from previous years. Sort of like an advent calendar for interactive xmas-related games and other things. But it also includes a kid-friendly code lab, so the little ones can get their feet wet with programming. That is a great idea.

Really well done.

Oldweb.Today

This has been making the rounds but in the past week it was extremely flaky, so I held off. This is a portal into Archive.org’s “Wayback Machine” which emulates what old web browsers used to look like when browsing old websites. An exceedingly nerdy recreation, but well done (when it works.)

Design a Wig

…specifically an 18th century wig. An odd choice but well done.

Sent along by Traci T.

Trail Cube

Basically you guide a cube through a series of obstacles. It starts off simple but becomes pretty hectic pretty quickly.

45 Amazing Facts You Didn’t Know About Christmas

Here’s a fun fact: You probably do know more than a few of these, but there are some interesting ones in here, like the Japanese tradition of reserving KFC orders 2 months in advance…

Finally, I strongly recommend Kottke’s Holiday Gift Guide, whose suggestions echo a lot of the same stuff I would have suggested, but from a source I like a lot.

Have a great weekend, Friday fans!

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Welcome to December’s first Friday Links. I honestly can’t believe it’s already December.

So here we go…

Marco Terenzi: Fine Miniatures

Artist Marco Terenzi manufactures mini-size hand tools, all of which are actually functional. Saws, hammers, tongs, anvils, etc. It’s a little crazy but the craftsmanship is impeccable.

The Vocal Ranges of the World’s Greatest Singers

Informative.

SmartyPins

A great little geography guessing game using Google Maps (of course.) There are others like this but none quite so well designed.

GangstaClause

An oddly violent shooter featuring Santa. Oooookay.

My Day With Leo

An odd photo tumblr that places celebrity faces over those of ordinary people in public situations. Some of them are awesome.

Suggested by Taylor M.

 

Have a lovely Friday and a terrific weekend everybody.

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