This is a continuation of a posting (101 Websites worth seeing before you die.  Really? (part 1 of 4)) regarding an article I read on the February issue of Maximum PC.  In the article, it listed 101 websites that they say you ought to see before you die.  I beg to differ on some of the ones listed.  What do you think?

1. http://demoscene.tv – No.  For some reason the videos on this site would not play.  I tried three different browsers.  If it actually worked for me, I might have a different opinion.
2. http://www.pbfcomics.com – Yes.  Good entertaining short comic strips.  Look at a few and you’ll get a quick laugh.  A little laugh here and there is always a good thing.
3. http://handdrawngames.com – Maybe.  If you like tower-defense like video games, you’ll like this.  WARNING!  This game can get addicting; you can end up wasting precious time playing this game.
4. http://zombo.com – No, absolutely not.  A waste of time.  It seems just babble on and on about you being able to do anything at their site, when in fact, you can do nothing at their site.
5. http://lparchive.org – No.  Seems to be an archive of old games, information about the, and some videos that show the look and feel of the game.
6. http://tvtropes.org – Maybe.  If you are a fiction writer, this could be a good resource for you.  This is a wiki site, and it definitely has tons of information to spark writing ideas.
7. http://autotopsy.ca – Yes.  Gives one a very good idea of circumstances anyone of us can be in before an unexpected collision.  The visuals and video are knit together to form a very cohesive presentation.
8. http://web.mit.edu/~jmcmicha/www/globegenie – Yes.  You don’t have to physically travel to see the world.  This Google map-based web application allows you to virtually teleport and view the world.
9. http://games.sticky.tv/cyrkam_airtos – No.  Lots of novelty here, but not enough to hold my attention.
10. http://www.fasco-csc.com/works/crimson/crimson_e.php – Yes.  If you aren’t from the generation that was fortunate enough to see the birth of the personal computer age, this site will give you an appreciation for how that generation of programmers created mysteries, puzzle, and adventure games.
11. http://www.tomscott.com/weather/starwars – Yes.  If you are a Star Wars fan, this is definitely where you will want to tune in for weather.  The site provides weather and temperature information that it tries to associate with the weather at a comparable location or planet.
12. http://sketchup.google.com/3dwh/buildingmaker.html – Yes.  This allows you to see buildings from models created on Google maps by fellow browsers.
13. http://maddox.xmission.com – Yes.  This is an entertaining blog of someone who claims he’s got the best web page in the universe.  If you are a sensitive or very politically correct, you can skip this site.
14. http://www.angelfire.com/trek/caver – Yes.  This is an interesting blog by a caver.  If you read the logs and look at the pictures and images, you will almost feel claustrophobic.  If you don’t like tight places, I don’t recommend this.  The bad this about this log was that it was never finished.  Could it be that the caver perished?
15. http://www.thefuckingweather.com – No.  I wouldn’t waste my time trying to get weather information from this site.
16. http://www.ilovebees.com – NO.  The site is supposedly about some person who loves bees.  However, the site appears to be messed up. I hope it isn’t infected with some sort of mal-ware; and I hope my computer didn’t get infected.
17. http://www.ugo.com/games/superhero-generator-heromachine-2-5 – Yes.  If you have ever thought of designing your own super hero, this site has templates and parts you can put together to create your very own super hero.
18. http://www.photosynth.net/ – Yes.  This is actually a Microsoft site.  It allows you to get a 360 degree view of locations and objects.  The content are actually a synthesis of multiple photos to give one a panoramic view of the subject matter.  It is awesome, and it allows you the opportunity to contribute to the content.
19.  http://recordtripping.com – No.  This site is a game.  I’m not quite sure what its objectives are, but the animation and audio sound pretty good.  Nevertheless, it felt like a waste of time.
20. http://www.incredibox.fr – Yes.  This is an interesting way of composing a virtual church choir.
21. http://www.thewildernessdowntown.com – Yes.  It is a good site to visit one time.  After the novelty wears out, you’ll just get tired watching the firm it automatically generated for your using the address you provided.
22. http://balldroppings.com/js – Yes.  This is an interesting play on physics and sound.  Here you can control the rate at which the balls drop, the gravity, and the walls that the balls will encounter as they drop and bounce.
23. http://doritoslatenight.com – This site is now closed.
24. http://gettheglass.com – Yes.  It’s about milk.  The 3D animation board game can get addicting.  The kids will surely love playing this game.
25. http://hotel626.com – Yes.  Check in to Hotel 626.  As the name implies, they are only open from 6pm to 6am.

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.