Random Site of the Week Archive (2008-2014)

Where some ideas are stranger than others...	RANDOM SITE ARCHIVE at the Moonspeaker
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PREVIOUS RANDOM SITES OF THE WEEK The links below all open in the same window or tab as this page by default. Clicking the star (★) at the end of the entry will open the headline link in a new window or tab instead. This seems to me to be the best way to make it a bit more convenient to visit random sites without closing or losing this page while not making it a surprising or annoying default. Based on my tests so far, the new tab should pop up to the right of the parent tab, and the new window on top of the parent window. Another thing to draw attention to is that this feature began in 2018, and so some sites have changed a great deal over the past several years. If you want to be sure to get a sense of the version of the site that originally featured on The Moonspeaker, it is worth looking the link up on the wayback machine and dialling back to at least the year of the random site date. This is especially important for multi-author, political projects and their associated blogs, which will inevitably reflect changes in personnel and other outside pressures. With politics also come accusations of various types of malfeasance, which may or may not be well-grounded when made or at the time the site was encountered, so it is all the more important to check the source. Current \| 2008-2014 \| 2015-2016 \| 2017 \| 2018 \| 2019 \| 2020 \| 2021 \| 2022 \| 2023 \| 2024 \| 2025 London Review of Books - Translating Lorem Ipsum (2014-03-27) : Admittedly this isn't so much a random site as an addition to the "lorem ipsum" thread on this site. This article also appears, barely rewritten at the Guardian. In this original version, skip down to the second indented block if you are already familiar with lorem ipsum text. ★ Satimage - Smile (2014-02-05) : If you are on MacOSX, despite Apple's recent development of an allergy to its own scripting language, Applescript is still a premiere tool for automating tasks. Satimage is a French company, and they have a nice collection of osaxen and the like for download which are quite useful. ★ Paper For Fountain Pens (2014-01-26) : I have been on a quest for a notebook with paper reminiscent of a "blank bible" for some years, and while I have found something close but small at Manufactum (13cm x 10cm), these guys may actually have it. In addition, Inkophile confirms that the paper is fountain pen friendly. ★ CSS Tutorials at YourHTMLSource (2014-01-20) : This has been one of my standard reference sites for up-to-date CSS basics for literally years. Ross Shannon's explanations are clear, concise, and full of code snippets for trying out. ★ Ubuntu Manual Project (2014-01-12) : My *NIX chops have gotten a bit rusty despite the fact MacOSX is part of that family now, so I set up a dual boot into Ubuntu to get back up to speed. Then I found myself needing a decent introduction to the Unity interface (let's just say my feelings about it are mixed) and the best one I've found is provided by this open source manual project. ★ Latinitas Viva (2014-01-10) : Following on the Graeco-Roman theme of the previous featured site, let's move on to a more multi-media oriented approach. On Latinitas Viva you can listen to newscasts and various samples of ancient Latin text, a huge help for picking up where the accents go without literally checking syllable lengths. ★ Perseus Project, The (2013-12-29) : If you work with ancient languages, are learning ancient languages, or are just plain curious, Perseus is the site you want. Graeco-Roman texts are at its core, but there are also many searchable texts in english including translations and ancillary works. ★ Open Source Shakespeare (2013-12-09) : One of the best websites for all your Shakespeare needs on the web. All the plays, all the sonnets, and looks like all the long form poems skinned with a thorough search engine and glossary of terms. The developer even has a concordance in there, which is pretty impressive. ★ International Standard Paper Sizes (2013-11-26) : Yes, this link is pure geek. However, it is becoming relevant to more than just grad students and academics in general. More and more north american businesses are running into issues because of the retrograde paper sizes here that make it sheer shrieking misery to enlarge or reduce drawings, among other things. ★ ViHart.com (2013-11-18) : Here is a snazzy site; Vi Hart makes fascinating videos, usually on mathematical topics. Her explanation of logarithms is brilliant, making a far better analogy than I have ever seen before to make them more transparent. UPDATE: After learning more about weebly, this quick update needs a correction, Hart's site on weebly is still online by chance, as she has not retained her web domain. Weebly itself is in a process of steady dissolution since its acquisition by another webhosting company called square, so the weebly link will likely go dead in the next 6 to 12 months.★ DoctorWhoScarf.com (2013-11-12) : There are few Doctor Who costume items quite as iconic as the various scarves worn by the 4th Doctor, played by Tom Baker. If you'd like to know more about them, right down to how to knit one or more of them, this site is just what the Doctor ordered. ★ Frankenstein Notebooks at the Shelley-Godwin Archive, The (2013-11-04) : Tell-tale as it is that this archive is named only for the men associated with Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, it remains well worth having a look at the earlier drafts of her famous novel. Her writing style is tighter and less florid than her husband's. ★ British Library Digitized Manuscripts (2013-10-29) : In a decision that should warm any scholar's heart, the British Library has been digitising its manuscript collection, a collection including materials from the ninth century. One of the easiest starting points for non-scholars is Arundel MS 263, one of Leonardo Da Vinci's notebooks. The scans are excellent, well-lit with high dpi, allowing lots of zoom to examine details. ★ Beyond Victoriana (2013-10-23) : Continuing on the Steampunk theme, now let's consider a more literary and political side of the genre. I really can't describe the site better than Ay-Leen the Peacemaker herself, "[a] blog about multicultural steampunk and retro-futurism – that is, steampunk outside of a Western-dominant, Eurocentric framework." UPDATE: Caveat lector, this site is now an archive. ★ Steampunk Workshop, The (2013-10-15) : Suppose you have a love of the steampunk aesthetic and the maker philosophy that is tied to it, let alone the genre of stories subsumed under the label. And let's suppose that somehow you haven't yet found your way to Jake Von Slatt's website of awesome projects ranging from mods to complete builds – well now you've got the link to rectify that situation! ★ Creative Commons (2013-10-11) : If you've seen one of the variants on the logo at the right, then chances are you've just encountered a CC-licensed work. Creative Commons is a non-profit organization working for better copyright law. The website includes a form to help with selecting the correct license and associated wording for works. The licenses are generally plain language rather than intensive legalese. ★ No Tech Magazine (2013-10-07) : like Low Tech Magazine a site that covers the sorts of technology that really, we are encouraged to overlook. "No Tech" is a tongue-in-cheek sort of name too, because the articles posted to the blog are all about technology, the kind that begins from coming up with an efficient way to solve a problem as opposed to coming up with something clever and trying to find a problem for it to solve. ★ WolframMathWorld (2013-10-03) : an impressive on-line mathematical encyclopedia that is updated daily. It is an interesting example of an alterante model of internet encyclopedia creation from a wiki; this site has a primary curator with one assistant who vets and prepares the entries. ★ Book Arts Web, The (2013-09-17) : A great site for anyone interested in bookbinding and book art, it may also be referred to as "Philobiblon" from their domain name. Among the great resources they provide is access to issues of The Bonefolder and a central place for book-binding and reuse projects. ★ AlanTuring.net (2013-09-12) : The go to site for information on Alan Turing's contributions to modern computing, as well as introductions to the corrected history of computers, codebreaking, and artificial intelligence. It is maintained by Jack Copeland, who also contributed to the excellent anthology Colossus: The Secrets Of Bletchley Park's Codebreaking Computers. A great place to start is reading Alan Turing's own description of the enigma machine. ★ Edward Gorey House, The (2013-09-01) : Edward Gorey is one of my favourite authors, whom I originally discovered because of his unforgettable illustrations in a book by John Bellairs, The House With A Clock In Its Walls. ★ Contemporary Home Computing (2013-08-15) : Olia Lialina's extended essays on computing, web graphics, and neat conceptualizations like the Turing complete user. I can't quite decide if Lialina's penchant for animated gifs is charming or obnoxious, though. ★ Mark Rosenfelder's Metaverse (2013-08-13) : This is the home of the Language Construction Kit (LCK), an awesome resource for scifi/fantasy authors that is also available in an expanded paper or ebook edition. There is considerably more to Rosenfelder's site than this, including original fiction and essays. ★ Lorem Ipsum (2012-08-15) : For anyone who has needed dummy text to fill in a web or text layout for testing and presentation, this is your go to site. Besides the dummy text generator, it describes the origins of the dummy text itself in a treatise by Cicero. ★ Official M.C. Escher Website, The (2012-03-01) : A fabulous place to have a good look at an incredible amount of Escher's ouvre, especially if you need to find the name of a familiar piece. The scans are typically of a sensible size both in terms of loading time and detail. ★ Inquiries By Herodotus (2012-02-14) : A new on-line translation of Herodotus, including up to date photographs, photographic tours, and maps. The creating group is "Lost Trails", made up of photographers and several translators collaborating on archaeology-themed projects. ★ Boston Globe: Russia In Color (2011-12-31) : I don't spend time on mainstream sites often, but here is a happy exception. This page presents colour photographs from 1909-12 Russia. How is that possible? Have a look! (If the site seems to keep loading even after the photos are all visible, you can safely hit the "stop" button.) ★ Archimedes Palimpsest (2010-10-23) : a place to learn all about two formerly lost books written by the ancient Greek scientist Archimedes, The Method and The Stomachion. You can read transcriptions of the text or read from photographs of the original palimpsest filtered to make the older text visible. ★ Cool Tools (2009-04-21) : there are few places where you can find information on useful products, ideas, or tools with trustworthy reviews by people who have used them. Cool Tools is one of those rare sites, featuring items ranging from bluntly practical (wheelbarrow handle extensions for the very tall) to quirky and unusual (Little Nemo in Slumberland). 2016-06-26 UPDATE: Cool Tools has been through some unfortunate changes resulting in one of the ugliest layouts I've ever seen and a tragic drop in real content and attendant rise in advertising. It may take awhile for me to find a good alternative. ★ Apple Pro Tips Archive (2009-01-11) : once upon a time, it was possible to get MacWorld Mac Secrets Mac Bibles books. They were huge, experienced-users-oriented tomes that were acutely useful. Alas, they have vanished at least for the moment, due to the many people switching to Macintosh computers. The books labelled "Mac-bibles" right now have an unfortunate tendency to insist that readers need a lecture on how to use the mouse and drop down menus. Until the real thing is back, this site is a decent stand-in. ★ Hyperphysics (2008-11-16) : one of the many marvelous educational websites that began as a hypercard stack. It is in effect a non-linear physics textbook, including extensive examples and calculations. As a physics graduate, I have a favourite problem; check out how to calculate whether you could fall through the Earth if a hole were drilled straight through it. ★	How Random Is The Selection, Really? Mathematically speaking, not random at all. I bump into websites or webpages that strike me as cool, interesting, useful, or daft enough to have lots of fun with, and feature them. Being as I have eclectic interests, there will always be some thematic randomness, at least until there are enough sites picked out to be in obvious categories, which won't happen for awhile. I suppose you could consider this a hybrid of the blog roll that often resides on one side or the other of the screen on most wordpress blogs that I have read or touched on, and the old time "Links" page that used to be the backbone of the "web" part of the internet. Nowadays I am not sure whether webmasters and contributors spend much time anymore on thinking about how to add to the interconnections between websites online versus waiting for search engines to do much of the work, on top of rss feed subscriptions and the dreaded "social media." UPDATE 2018-07-16: Well, based on the sites I have been pulling together here, I think it is fair to say there are a few categories now. Science, math, and computer applications for a start. I have been adding more and more links to sources that in my view people should be able to read for themselves and decide whether or not they share the usual way the writer or group in question is depicted in the mainstream media. Publishing, Indigenous rights, history, and a smattering of linguistics, anthropology and archaeology. What Happens to Very Old Random Site Listings? If the site is still going strong, nothing really. Blogs and similar sites that have been switched into archives and no longer receive new posts or comments are marked as such once confirmed in their new state. A few sites and blogs now vanished from the internet are replaced by their archived versions at the internet archive. There were two links to pages rather than websites which at long last were rooted out. One was to a profile of Douglas Hofstadter formerly on the stanford university website, now only accessible via the internet archive. Protip, the profile gives far too much prominence to a book Hofstadter cobbled together while grieving for his wife who had died of a fast-moving cancer. The book is not very good and does not compare well to his most famous text, Gödel, Escher, Bach. Alas, Hofstadter has no real affinity for the web and the vagaries of united statesian copyright seem to have stymied most potential responding or homaging works in the vein of the online Library of Babel, which is too bad. The other link is to one of comedian Aamer Rahman's sketches, Fear of a Brown Planet – On Reverse Racism (alt source). This is a link to youtube from before it was served with https, and so does not properly redirect. Interested readers will be best served by searching for Rahman's channel instead. UPDATE: In a blur of unusual search engine success, I have tracked down Rahman's channel. I had no idea he had been on hiatus for seven years, and he has some great new material up.
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