Here are some cool websites I like! Some are rare, some are not, but all of them are good.
Art
- ArtFight - A yearly art trading competition that takes place in July. It's fun, and if your art is your job, it’s a good opportunity for the dreaded 'networking'.
- Charaster - ASCII art program! Fun if you have time to kill. Has ANSI color support, too.
- Consumer Aesthetics Research Institute - A site dedicated to the documentation of different aesthetics across history. Good source of reference.
- JS Kidpix - Just the original Kidpix art program, recreated in JavaScript. I love using old art programs to make retro style art, this is very useful for that.
- JS Paint - The original Microsoft paint, also recreated in JavaScript! I don't use this as often, just because I have MS Paint in a WINE package already. I hope they make a version for the second edition of paint as well.
- Kandi Patterns - A database of patterns for kandi and perler bead art. Kandi is a type of beading art originating in rave subculture that uses colorful plastic pony beads.
- Pixilart - This is an excellent web application for pixel art. Supports layers, mirroring, and has a dithering tool I find myself missing in other pixel art programs.
- The Bezier Game - If you come from primarily a raster graphics background like I do, then this is a good site for training yourself to use the vector pen/line tool. Starts easy, gets more complex.
Audio
- 8tracks - This one is signup only, and right now they're recovering from almost going out of business, so they're region-locked, but a decent VPN should get you around that. It's sort of a...modern mixtape platform? You submit and listen to playlists in a set order. My favorite is 'fuck study, here's some acid'. Good for exploring hyper-specific genres or maybe sharing character playlists, if that's what you're into.
- Eternal Jukebox - This is used to infinitely extend a song for as long as you like. Works best with instrumental tracks.
- Incompetech - A classic royalty-free music site, beloved by many a small-time YouTuber. Also offers a bunch of public domain paper patterns, including blank sheet music.
- Mario Paint Music Composer - An approximation of the original Mario paint composer.
- Tom Lehrer Songs - Tom Lehrer audio files, sheet music, and lyrics available for download. This will stop working in a couple of years. Lehrer is a childhood favorite of mine.
Communication
- Fediverse Observer - This is an index of Fediverse instances you can sign up for. If you are jumping off the sinking ships of Twitter, Reddit, Instagram, or Facebook, it might be worth a shot to look at this.
- ProtonMail - One of the more secure and privacy-oriented email services out there. It is a freemium service, but the free version suits me fine, even if it doesn't integrate into 3rd party email software.
- SpaceHey - The MySpace revival site. It's important to join with friends, because the user base is predominantly teenagers whose other main social media is TikTok, and if that's not you, you're not going to get very much out of using the site as-is.
- Tumbex - Lets you browse tumblr without an account. If you want to do that. For purposes.
- When2Meet - A handy little tool for figuring out timeframes for things based on availability in a group.
Education
- Desmos - If you somehow don't know about this I am so sorry. It's a graphing calculator, but with some extra features like sliding variables and share-ability.
- Learn To Read Hebrew - A useful resource if you're learning Hebrew!
- RogerHub Final Grade Calculator - There is more to this website, but I find this useful for calculating my grades, it's got everything!
- WordHippo - Thesaurus, dictionary, rhyme finder, translator, etc. all in one site. I use this when I'm writing sometimes, it’s very useful.
Games
- A Dark Room - This is a browser clicker game at first, but it turns into more over time. Also is available as a mobile app.
- Backloggery - Keeping track of the games you've beaten, own etc. I honestly don't log in very often, but you might have more fun with it than me.
- Flight Rising - Dragon game, sort of in the same genre as NeoPets I think? A completionist's worst nightmare / wet dream.
- Infinitle - An endless Wordle clone with adjustable word length and an option to include unusual words! It is fun and also, fuck the NYT! :)
- Kittens Game - Has described itself as the 'Dark Souls of incremental gaming' and I think it's earned that right. Praise the sun!
- NationStates - This is a fun game where you can make your own country and act as its leader. You can add lore and fight against other countries in challenges! You can form a region with your friends' countries, too!
- Objection.LOL - Makes fake ace attorney conversations. I believe it even supports making fan games. The best application of this I've seen to date is the dumb lawyer quotes series, which you can watch here.
- PokeClicker - Another clicker game, themed around Pokemon but with different game mechanics and all the regions. I haven't finished it yet but very addictive!
- Pokemon Showdown - A competitive Pokemon battle site, not affiliated with Nintendo or GameFreak. The other players can be petty about losing. They will say unkind things about your mother. Pretty fun though.
- The Mud Connector - A site to find active MUDs, aka Multi User Dungeons, the root of the MMORPG genre.
- Universal Paperclips - Another browser clicker game, this one is about an AI made to make paper clips.
- Wii Guide - A guide to modding a Nintendo Wii. I've got to set aside the time to actually finish modding mine...
- Wobble Town - This is a kind of Tamagotchi-like game, you raise a little creature and feed them and everything. You can also embed your pet into your website, like I've done on my homepage!
Tech
- AlternativeTo.net - Great site to search for software with, especially good for if you're preparing to switch operating systems. (Switch to Linux!!)
- Build Your Own Internet - I'm super interested in meshnets, amongst other decentralized internet tech. I want to form one, but haven't had the time yet!
- PRISM Break - This is a guide on how escape or minimize your inclusion as a subject of global surveillance programs!
- Real Programmers Don't Use Pascal - A bit of programmer humor, the supposed checkboxes for the characterization of the mythic 'real programmer'.
- RegExr - This is a regex sandbox with documentation. I can't count the number of times i've used this for programming projects in school.
- Snowfall Garden - This is where I generated a falling star effect that I used to have on my site. I’ve removed it, but I now use the star particle as a custom bullet point. You can select from the particles that have already been made, or create your own!
- The Story of Mel - Another bit of programmer humor. A satirical story about a hardcore programmer named Mel. This is passed around in computer science / programming circles a lot. it's my favorite bit of tech mythology!
- Themer - This is a website where you can generate color themes for most popular IDEs, terminal emulators, and text editors, as well as a few other things like KDE color schemes and some HTTP browsers.
Friends
- Eliyah's Ramblings - My neocities recruitment count is 1, and this is that recruit. The site is minimal (for now) but the entity behind it is cool; I guarantee it.
- Nicolas Rose - I keep bothering him to update his website. He might be weirder than me
- Zack Matthews - I’m legally required to like their film/animation work. Go watch their short films on YouTube.
Miscellaneous
- 12ft Ladder - Removes paywalls from news articles. I don't need to tell you how useful this is.
- Alphabetizer - Exactly what it says on the tin, but so much more. You can use this to sort lists, strip HTML tags, remove duplicate items in a list, and stuff like that.
- Atlas Obscura - A travel guide for unusual and, well, obscure, attractions. Even if you don't have the budget to travel, it might be worth checking out what's in your immediate vicinity.
- Internet Archive - This is a fantastic site. Every time I think I know everything on there, there's more. A massive multimedia library for everything.
- Kitsu - I jumped ship from MyAnimeList a few years ago, this is an open source alternative that I found and started using then. It's perfectly sufficient for my needs, though the mobile app's not available in my region anymore.
- Lasagna Love - This is an organization of volunteers that will make a meal for people in rough situations. You can join, or you can request a meal, you don't have to be food insecure to get one necessarily.
- TheStoryGraph - I use this in place of Goodreads because it's not owned by SCAMazon. Book listing can be a bit messy, but such is the cost of freedom.
- WatchCartoonOnline - Exactly what it says. Watch cartoons online. Yo ho ho!