The Wonderous Internet

Despite the fact that we now have an entire generation of adults who have always known of the Internet, I am not one of them. I still remember the very early days of dial-up modems and the introduction of web browsers, and the seemingly remarkable things that were suddenly available, literally at your keyboard-tapping fingertips.

It takes more to wow me now, so much online business is ordinary, usual, expected. But I’m still finding the capacity to be delighted from time to time by something I stumble across. I hope my younger colleagues find this to be true as well.

Today I want to share with you a few (well, nine of course!) things I’ve come across online that I have found unexpectedly cool, and I know that word “cool” dates me too. I hope  you like these.

I want to give credit to Mitch Joel at Six Pixels of Separation, and his buddies Alistair Croll and Hugh McGuire, who have a weekly link exchange/round-robin that is the source for some, although not all of these links. You could do far worse than following Mitch in the future, his group always comes up with some very interesting stuff.

Perhaps you will be interested in the Emotive Modeler, a CAD/design too that takes in descriptive adjectives, and spits out 3D models based on its interpretation of these emotionally charged words. Some odd and interesting shapes here, but I must say most of them make sense.

Going beyond (way beyond) Alexa, You can learn how your BRFF – best robot friend forever – is going to be able to talk to you in a way that will make you feel like, well like he or she is a real person by studying WaveNet. Listen to the demonstrations in the bottom half of the article – amazing!

Nerds of the World (aren’t we all a bit nerdy now?)! Where is a great place to see a Lightsaber Duel? At the Fencing World Championship of course. The force was definitely with the combatants.

You too can write like the President! The new Tiny Hands font may become everyone’s favorite, if the boss has his way!

What would it look like if you took a single exposure that encapsulated every frame of a movie? Do you think you can guess what these movies are on Jason Shulman’s “Photographs of Films” page? See if you can pick out The Wizard of Oz, or 2001, A Space Odyssey.

Who are these Venture Capitalists? For in-depth insight into the people that are in charge of huge pots of money, you have to see The Future List. Don’t forget to drill down deep into each company. Maybe you’ll find that guy you used to make fun of in 7th grade on one of the lists.

Are you aware of the Hidden Cultures on the Internet, like Witch House or Health Goth? Truly, there must be something for everyone online. SMH.

There should be a site like this for every city. The Mapping London Blog will show you more ways to look at this venerable city than you can imagine. Want to see the distribution of surnames in London? We got that! How about all of the Tube routes, expressed as strings of Christmas lights? No Problem. All of the locations mentioned in John Le Carre’s spy novels? Yep. What a treasure.

I hope you find some of these gems as interesting as I did, and if you want to see more articles like this, let me know. dickd@innovaision.com