Issue 73
Talk to Transformer 🤖 Illustrated Sci-Fi is a web based sci-fi magazine with brilliant design and mixed media storytelling 🚀
13 OF THE WEB'S BEST LINKS🌟 TALK TO A NEURAL NETWORK 🌟 FLOOD TRACKERS 🌟 ALGORITHM WOES
Heya,
I missed a week while I traveled to Berlin for WordCamp Europe. Back this week with a bunch, fewer than usual, a cool links for you. Talking to a modern neural network was easily the best way I wasted time last week. However, things did get crazy fast, so be careful who's reading over your shoulder.
I am including a quick link at the top. I just started using the meditation app Waking Up with Sam Harris. It has been really good in learning mindfulness. I can't recommend it enough.
Enjoy,
Chris
🕸️ The Cool Side of the Web
Talk to Transformer 🤖
Enter a snippet of text and it will be completed by a modern neural network (the ancient ones having fallen out of favor some time ago).
A word of warning, I put in "You dirty rat" and got a fairly explicit short story, so...use it with caution when the kids are asleep.
talktotransformer.com
Illustrated Sci-Fi is a web based sci-fi magazine with brilliant design and mixed media storytelling 🚀
If you like sci-fi, then check out this experiment with canvas and shaders to make planets mentioned in Asimov classics like Foundation, Empire, and so on. You can even make your own.
illustratedscifi.com
This graphic shows you American states and the countries who are their economic equals.
gzeromedia.com
⚒️ Tools and Resources
Track This will flood your browser with 100 tabs designed to confuse and tempt trackers 🛤️
You can choose the alter ego of your dreams; filthy rich, corrupt influencer, or just a doomsdayer waiting for the end. It's up to you. 100 tabs will open and the trackers will go wild.
trackthis.link
In celebration of the Slack IPO, this is "Eyeballs' 👀
It is the visual equivalent of the feeling you get after a bug crawls on your skin when you feel thousands of bugs crawling all over your skin.
codepen.io
Comic character generator 💬
I love this one; you get a range of different characters and styles. They even come with obscure poses like sitting in a beanbag explaining. Finally, if you want to use them on your site, then you can collect the code at the bottom of the page.
If you enjoy designing your own characters, then you might be interested in Stubborn the illustrations generator.
It has quite a few hoops for you to jump through but if you need an, almost, bespoke flat design character it should help.
gramener.com
A tale of two pens and how <shape-outside> wrecked my hopes for being good at CSS.
This one hit me hard with love
codepen.io
🥇 World of WordPress
I am considering switching hosts for my WordPress sight in August. This survey has me almost convinced on who I will switch to 🔭
codeinwp.com
Codecademy vs Pluralsight vs Treehouse: After my dalliance with <shape-outside> I realized I need more help making my way through CSS.
themeisle.com
🤔 Articles of interest
How many algorithms does it take to screw up a business?
I am reading 'Thinking, Fast and Slow" and I am at the point where expert opinion and algorithms are being directly compared. *Listen to the algorithms seems like counter-intuitive advice but that's because I read these articles about small business and the bizness of algorithms and advertising.
The problem of experts gaming algorithms gets a good run in this article about a chef who'd had enough of being Yelped upon. It has all the shady business practices we have come to expect from internet advertising.
Now, the flipside of featured snippets and a business owner who lost traffic to, what I think, is an awesome feature. I love the quick answer, particularly for recipes, simply because it saves me from scanning an entire page for the snippet I need. However, how the answers come to be seen as 'correct' is slightly more troublesome.
Finally, Nancy Drew and The Red-Handed Lyric Thief. Apparently Google has been stealing lyrics from Genius. In a move, you'd expect from a site called Genius, Morse Code was put into the lyrics to try and catch the algorithms out.
Algorithms caught. Algorithms don't care.
The headline says it all: Robotic fish powered by electronic blood can swim for 36 hours 💉
newscientist.com
🎮 Fun & Games
Neave Interactive has a bunch of interactive sites to help you get from 3pm to 5pm without a nap.
My pick has to Neave.tv which has a bunch of obscure ads and videos. The Furby ad followed by an old Godzilla clip was an incredible way to start my day.
neave.com
Outro
That's the end of the week for me and it's only Thursday.
If you have anything cool to share, then I would like to assure you that I am very cool. You can hit me up on Twitter. I am a little slow sometimes, but I am there.
The ol' forward button isn't too far from your cursor, so feel free to forward this puppy on.
If you just arrived, full of robot blood, then you should sign up before your 36 hours runs out. Sign up here
have a great week,
Chris
