πΈοΈ The Cool Side of the Web
Resn's little helper is the story of Jethro Elf and his ritual flute playing.
T'is a mighty fine site, English, with some beautiful interaction design and animation.
There's another WebGL experiment here but this hopalong orbits visualizer is a little trippy and not for the timid.
π€ Robots et. al.
ROBOTS is IEEE's guide to robots which are conveniently ranked by creepiness.
The top 5 is never going to change. Robots really hit maximum creepiness early, and there's something to be said for that kind of achievement.
I also found this creepy link to Halloween masks made by AI. It has a paywall, but you can see the masks before the pay-fold kicks in.
Have you ever wanted to watch Boston Dynamics' Spot twerk?
A few months ago I thought I'd never ask the question, but now I see it was always going to end this way.
Homemade robot bartender mixes a Long Island Ice Tea with the press of a button πΈ
Maybe I misunderstood those guys all along.
βοΈ Tools and Resources
Optimole is a new image optimization tool.
This beast includes direct integration with Amazon Cloudfront in over 130 locations.
Plus, moles are pretty cute.
Galio is a beautifully designed, free Open Source React Native framework.
This is a great way to get some Android and iOS apps built quickly without breaking anything. The bundle includes a tasty base theme, components that are ready to go, and that sweet typography you love so much.
Browse or delete your Google search history with this Google provided tool π΅οΈ
It's a trap!
I feel like it might clean the top layer, but there's no way it removes everything.
π·οΈ Design & Development Arena
Things are not always what you think they are. Transparency Report #44.
An interesting monthly series on the trials and tribulations of running a business and growing as a person.
How to use domain storytelling to build domain knowledge π
Domain Stories are designed to help everyone understand a domain, to identify what is core, to segregate bounded contexts, and to constitute ubiquitous language.
π± Slightly Terrifying
Scientists invent tiny βwaspβ drones that can open doors 40 times their own mass.
Nothing about a wasp shaped mechanical drone bench pressing a door makes me feel safe.
Rage rooms are an interesting self-help phenomenon π¨
There is an element of The Purge when you take "move fast and break things" to the level of personal growth.
Those wacky guys at MIT are at it again.
"BeeMe" will allow you to control an actor and defeat an evil AI program. Commands will be crowdsourced and voted upon.
Whether you're playing a game or giving AI a heads-up for the future is anybody's guess.
π€ Articles of interest
The dystopia will not be published; sci-fi and censorship in China.
There's also a good list of sci-fi and speculative fiction outside the west. The list includes the Mars Trilogy from Kim Stanley Robinson which is the definitive Mars colonization story. It's big, bold, and brassy.
π Backwards talking dreams - Fun stuff
Outro
That's the end of another weekly adventure. I'll return next week with another batch of weird links.
If you would like to share some weird links then Twitter is a fine medium for it.
Stay away from the kool-aid,
Chris