User:Sebastian Hudak/Open Directory

aka: neat stuff that happens to be on our web

this wikipedia page is copied from this page on my website. the page on my website may be more up to date, but it also may not be. this page is probably fine regardless.

warnings

 * warning: the way stuff is categorized makes no sense and is inconsistent. you'll be sure to find something i'm sure.


 * warning: there is no guarantee that any particular site will be up at any given time.


 * warning: i don't host anything listed here, unless it explicitly says so. i take no responsibility for what may be on a site at any point in time.


 * warning: as you can see, this site looks awful. i will probably never redesign this and you're stuck with this shit-fest. like the material listed here, this open directory's stylesheet too is inconsistent and kinda fucked.


 * warning: neat is subjective. maybe none of this is neat to you. if you don't like this open directory, i encourage you to make your own.


 * warning: these aren't even warnings, i don't know why i'm calling them warnings.


 * warning: if you want me to add something, update something, or remove something from the directory for any reason, please contact me talk to me. i'd be happy to hear whatever you have to say and i'll probably respond.

archives

 * flash
 * other
 * licenses
 * software

aggregators

 * laarc - a self-hosted version of hacker news. this place is very small and very inactive, but occasionally something interesting will pop up here.
 * lobsters - my favorite aggregator. lobsters has a focus on tech, and there's always stuff here that i enjoy. the discussions are also nice. it's also active enough that i can come back every couple days and have lots of stuff to enjoy.
 * hacker news - the most active and popular aggregator on this list. honestly, this place is okay-ish. most stuff here i can also find elsewhere, and i'm not extremely interested in everything this place has to offer. it's here if you want it though.
 * tildenews - a self-hosted version of lobsters for the tilde community. there's some cool stuff here. it's kinda inactive, but occassionally things will pop up that strike my attention.

curated

 * cron.weekly - every week there's a new "newsletter" of sorts containing all of the noteworthy and cool news of the week, as well as cool software or other things.

blogs

 * drew devault's blog - intelligent posts about computers from a free software developer. although devault receives very mixed reactions from those who know about him, i personally enjoy what he posts, even if it's sometimes hit or miss.
 * graham cluley - computer security news. he also apparently has a podcast but i don't listen to it so i don't know if it's any good.

directories

 * href.cool - this is the site that inspired me to make this directory. although the stuff here doesn't always exactly align with my interests, it's still pretty damn cool. give it a visit!
 * my linux and vim notes - not actually my linux and vim notes. this isn't really a "directory" per se, but it will probably lead to you discovering the existence of something you didn't know about before. this list is looooong.

interesting

 * 2bit - this site is so fucking cool. it's creative, it obviously has a lot of effort put into it, and the topic is really niche which i absolutely love. i just love that this site exists. it perfectly embodies what the internet should be.
 * bill wurtz questions - bill wurtz is a treasure as is. if you haven't heard of him, look him up. you won't regret it. his entire website is also awesome because of how it perfectly represents him while also being so damn simple. however, i specifically linked to the questions page because i love the concept (and it's executed really well). you ask a question, and he answers it in his typical bill wurtz style. you can scroll through all the questions and look into bill's mind. there's a button on the top right that lets you see random questions. bill is very active on this site and i sometimes find myself just mindlessly reading questions and answers on here. 10/10 highly recommend.
 * hi (onion service) - the premise of this "blog" is cool. there's really no good way for me to explain this, so if you have tor i'd recommend you visit. it's the exact opposite of what you'd expect to find on the "dark web". BLACKLISTED BY WIKIPEDIA
 * kick scondor - this website looks...weird, to say the least. however, this guy is really cool and posts some cool projects and things and stuffs on this site. he also created href.cool, which is what inspired me to create this directory. so, thanks dude.

opinions

 * dig deeper - this guy has strong opinions on certain topics (most technological), and makes interesting points in certain posts. i don't agree with everything he says, and to be honest i haven't read everything on here either.
 * spyware - i respect the creator of this website. some of the classifications are kinda radical (firefox has a "high" rating for spyware), but that's what gives it its charm. i don't know whether or not this site is still actively maintained or updated.
 * stallman - richard stallman has said some pretty cringe things, but i won't discuss that here. this man basically single handedly created the free software movement (and by extension the open source movement), and is the reason that "linux" as we know it exists today, from his work on the gnu operating system. this is his website, where he puts political notes and stuff. he's incredibly opinionated, and some of the stuff here might rustle some jimmies, which i think can be good.

cool

 * any browser campaign - this site is very outdated. it still talks about netscape and internet explorer being browser monopolies. however, the message still applies today, with chrome and chromium dominating the web. strive to make your website viewable with any browser, and even if you can't support every browser, don't bar people off from accessing your site just because of their browser choice.
 * bubbles right now - press the button to make an iot bubble maker blow bubbles for five seconds. really cool idea. one of those things that makes you think "damn i should've thought of that".
 * cookie clicker - everyone's heard of cookie clicker. however, i think this game is still underrated. it's still seen as that browser clicking game. the way i see it, it popularized the genre and still does it best out of all games. no annoying popups, no microtransactions, plus consistant awesome updates and cool game mechanics makes this a really fun game, weirdly.
 * ghostchat - created by the people who made the wiby search engine, ghostchat is an anonymous chat room thing that's designed to run in a web browser on low powered commputers. it uses an auto-refreshing frame to load messages. it's very inactive, but sometimes there's one or two people on. i wish it were more active though.
 * jspaint - the original ms paint recreated entirely in javascript to run in your browser. it even has some extra stuff like uploading to imgur and collaborative editing.
 * plain text offenders - calling out websites that still store passwords in plain text in 2020.
 * six degrees of wikipedia - find the shortest possible route from one wikipedia article to another by only clicking the links in the page to other articles. this is super cool, especially when picking two relatively unpopular and unknown topics and watching how they connect to one another.
 * solitaire winning - click to win! and also to completely distract yourself from whatever you're supposed to be doing.
 * wiby - wiby is a really interesting search engine. it only searches sites that were manually put in, and the sites don't have any extra unnecessary css or javascript. it's basically a search engine for the old 90s to early 2000s web but in 2020, and it's really cool. it's definitely not something you'd want to use as your main search engine at all, but i don't think that's the point. there's a lot of stuff that can be found here that you may never find otherwise.

wtf

 * dihydrogen monoxide - this site looks like it wasn't updated since 2001, but there is so much effort put into this that it could be mistaken for a real thing that a real health organization created warning about the dangers of dihydrogen monoxide.
 * forehead world records - this is something that my friend and i somehow stumbled upon a while back. there's a man named peter durdik who holds hundreds of world records. every single one of them is of him balancing random objects on his forehead for a long time. i don't know what this guy does. i don't know who he is. i don't know if he has a life. all i know is that he is an absolute legend.
 * surveillance camera man - i don't know how to feel about this. this video is very weird and unsettling. a man goes around with a camera and just records videos of random people. when they ask why he's doing it or what he's doing or ask him to stop, he calmly just says he's recording a video. it's his calmness that makes me uncomfortable. the people will yell or even call 911, and he'll just stand there and keep recording. it seems like the point he's trying to make is that there's surveillance cameras everywhere recording everything you do, and people are okay with that. so why aren't they okay with a random person walking up to them and recording them without permission? it's honestly an interesting point, however i'm still unsure about the ethics of this. i don't remember how i found this, but i'm glad i did, even if it made me uncomfortable. this person might be mentally ill, or they may be an intelligent person trying to make a valid argument. i suppose it can be perceived in many different ways.