101 Websites worth seeing before you die. Really? (part 1 of 4)

best websites

credit: Salvatore Vuono

The February 2011 issue of Maximum PC has an article touting 101 websites you need to see before you die.  In this article, I will post the 101 links along with my opinion about whether it is really worth seeing.  This will be part 1 of 4 parts since there are 101 sites after all.

  1. http://ww.wechoosethemoon.org – Yes.  Make sure to see this site before you die.  The Apollo 11 mission to the moon is probably one of “the” greatest human accomplishments of the 20th century.  This site shows you the various stages Apollo 11 had to go through to land on the moon and return to earth.  The combination of animation and real footage gives you a good feel for that event.
  2. http://personas.media.mit.edu/ – Maybe.  It scours the Internet for information about the name you enter at the site.  When done it comes up with a graphical representation of your known persona.  You might as well see what kind of legacy online you will leave behind when you die.
  3.  http://www.wefeelfine.org – No.  It is a very visually luring site.  I’m not sure how it figures out the various information it is showing, but I imagine it has done some web searches on the web and has consolidated that information for visual representation.  Its content is definitely visually entertaining.
  4. http://soytuaire.labuat.com – No.  This site shows another way at listening to music…by doodling on the screen as various visual effects overlay on our doodle.  Interesting but not enough to waste your time on.
  5. http://false.jp – No.  Good eye candy, but could be just a waste of time.
  6. http://www.shapethehive.com – No.  It is one way to leave your mark on line; but I wouldn’t say it is really something to see before you die.  It is one interesting asynchronous collaboration site with visual effects, but I don’t see the point.
  7. http://us.akinator.com – Yes.  This is an amazing site.  I imagine it uses the power of the Internet to figure out who you are thinking of.  When I started playing it, I thought it would not guess who I was thinking of.  To my surprise, it guessed it and it even showed a picture of the character!
  8. http://www.dionaea-house.com – No.  This site is like reading other people’s email.  As with anything, it is hard to get interested in the site since it doesn’t give you a clue about what it is about, nor does it try to tell you what story it is trying to convey.  It’s like watching a movie from somewhere in the middle.  You don’t have a point of reference and can’t really tell where the story may be going.  So, I would skip this site, for sure.
  9. http://www.linerider.com – Maybe…if you like drawing and animation.  This site provides you with interesting drawing tools to create a path for the line rider.  In some of the sample works, some users have gone through some length to create the most elaborate line path for the line rider.  Interesting, but can be a time sink if you start tinkering with it.
  10. http://prettyloaded.com – No, absolutely no–unless maybe you like watching grass grow.  This site provides you a collection of “Loading” animations.  “Loading” animations are typically shown to show that something is loading.  This is typically what you watch, when you are waiting for something to load.
  11. http://anasomnia.com – Maybe.  Interesting animation of someone’s dream representation.  Turn off the light and see what happens.  It seems to just keep going on; but if you press the arrow on the top left, you’ll wake up the girl who is supposedly dreaming.   The images are basically line drawn images of some very abstract shapes and figures.
  12. http://www.stateoftheunion.onetwothree.net – Yes.  This site gives you a different perspective of the various state of the union speeches given by all presidents.  It can give insight into what the focus was of that time.  It even rates the president’s grade level for the speech given.
  13. http://hubblesite.org – Yes.  This site shows you some of the most amazing pictures of heavenly bodies as seen through the eyes of the Hubble telescope.  The pictures here will make you realize how seemingly insignificant we are in the big scheme of things.
  14. http://www.eyezmaze.com – No.  There are better things to do on the web than play games.  These games are time sinks.
  15. http://www.mcdlr.com/bsod – Yes.  You need to use this site to at least play a joke on someone at work.  If they are a techie and they happen to be running Windows 7, they’ll probably scratch their head.  Windows 7 doesn’t do BSOD!  If you play this trick on a non-techie, they won’t know any better regardless of which operating system they are using.  They will know, however, that something might have gone wrong.
  16. http://atom.smasher.org/error – Yes, if you like playing practical jokes on tech support, this site would be a good one to visit.
  17. http://mrdoob.com/lab/javascript/effects/ie6 – No.  Nothing seems to show–just white space.  What a waste.
  18. http://www.lmgtfy.com – No.  This is just an extra shell that will record what you typed and then transfer it to google’s search.
  19. http://blublu.org – Maybe.  This is an interesting site.  Viewing the site is like viewing someone’s scrap book.  The presentation is pretty easy to follow.
  20. http://www.mrwong.de/myhouse – Yes.  It’s probably a good idea to check out the world’s tallest virtual building before you die.  The author was pretty creative in creating such a site.  The project has since been closed, but apparently the site is still getting lots of visits.
  21. http://www.360cities.net/london-photo-en.html – Yes.  If you’ve never been to London, you can see a lot with this very high resolution (80 gigapixel) image!
  22. http://blueballfixed.ytmnd.com – No.  It is however a very interesting work of animated art.
  23. http://milliondollarhomepage.com – Yes, absolutely.  This is an example of how anyone can make it big on the Internet.  Just the right idea, and” BAM!!!” money rolls in.  The originator of this site made a million dollars selling pixels from his pixelated homepage.
  24. http://www.archive.org/web/web.php – Yes.  If you have time, you can see how the Internet has evolved through the web pages that have been archived here.
  25. http://www.cleverbot.com – No.  This is a site that looks like a search engine, but it is really an example of an online artificial intelligence (AI).  This reminds me of an old AI-like program, the name which escapes me, that existed way back in the late 1970s.  You can ask it questions, it responds.  It asks you questions, and you respond.  The program looks intelligent, but after a couple of exchanges, it isn’t.
  26. http://rulesformyunbornson.tumblr.com – Yes.  This has some over 500 snippets of wisdom.

Look for the next 25 on my next posting.

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