Issue 92
Another Week Of Weird And Amazing Tech Links Sourced From All Over The Web
🏋️♀️ HOW TO GET MOTIVATED; FREE VISUAL CONTENT FOR WEBSITES; BLACK FRIDAY DEALS.
Heya,
Winter is the most average of seasons, and it hasn't even started yet. However, it is still cold here in Europe and trying to find that happy place between toasty and frostbitten is not easy. The biggest problem is that I either get too warm and sleepy or too cold and fearing imminent demise.
All this is to say that motivation is tough to come by. Fortunately, I managed to find a good chart for rediscovering and maintaining motivation during tough times. I heartily recommend it.
in other links, some free visual content for your site; typography from the future; great Black Friday deals for developers and designers.
Enjoy,
Chris.
🕸️ The Cool Side of the Web
I love a cartoon that explains unusual tech stuff: how does DNS work with cats and anthropomorphic servers.
howdns.works
A good chart for finding flow when you are demotivated and procrastinating. 🧗♀️
This is a wonderful resource for finding ways to get around procrastination, the lazy brown dog that can hound the workday. It has multiple points of entry with strategies designed to overcome negativity, temptations, and fear.
alexvermeer.com
I've been waiting half my life for this: In March next year Half-Life comes to VR. 😍
If you're a certain vintage, then you know how amazing Half-Life is. Half-Life 2 is still one of my favorite gaming experiences of all time, and it looks like it might port to VR really, really well.
I have a 50% vote on the Family Appropriations Committee so I think I will manage to get a VR set passed into law sometime before March.
half-life.com
⚒️ Tools and Resources
API request builder - A free, fast, and beautiful alternative to Postman. 🔥
github.com
An interesting stock photo site with 25,000 AI photos available for download. 🤖
It has some interesting features like being able to switch the models in the images. The outcome is very GANny but it's still a great experiment. If you don't switch the model then the photos look perfect and come in a wide range of Instragram poses.
The only major problem I had was the absence of male models. I couldn't get them to appear no matter how far I scrolled down. One man's bug is another person's feature, I guess.
generative.photos
A collection of lllustrations built during 100 days of illustrations which now available for free.
If you need some free illustrations, then this pack has a hundred available. They look very nice with some excellent shading, shadow, and use of color throughout. Very bookmarkable.
illlustrations.co
My Notes is a Chrome extension which opens a note taking tab in the browser.
Unfortunately, for me, it is not available on Firefox yet. I played with it on Chrome and it is an effective way to keep track of ideas, thoughts, random musings about Replicants as you browse.
google.com
🕷️ Design & Development Arena
The Website Carbon Calculator is at version 2. ♻️
This is a great resource for anyone building websites with sustainability in mind. The calculator measures your carbon footprint and points you towards some solutions. If you're not too worried about sustainability, I still recommend running your sites through it; sustainability is also a feature of well-performing, properly large websites.
wholegraindigital.com
A deep dive into Blade Runner typography.
This is a very good take on the original Blade Runner. While it does focus heavily on typography, there is a lot of consideration for the movie, the plot, and production considerations. If you're a Blade Runner fan, then this is a unique take on a genuine classic.
typesetinthefuture.com
How to win the battle with typographic illusions. 🧙
This is a very interesting article about how designers manage to trick the eye into making letters appear the right size by making them larger.
typography.com
🥇 World of WordPress
A WordPress advent calendar with snippets til Christmas. 🎅
It's running from December 1 through Dec. 20 with a new daily code snippet from voluntary contributors. It already has commitments from the celebrity developers like Jeff Starr, Zac Gordon, and Tom McFarlin.
elliottrichmond.co.uk
A bunch of Black Friday deals that cover all your website needs from hosting through backups to plugins.
Be sure to check the comments for other deals
codeinwp.com
A curated list of the best WordPress hosting deals available on Black Friday. 🏟️
themeisle.com
Outro
As usual my link catching skills are better served via a reply to this email or a tweet if that's your jam.
Forwards, shares, recommendations are all welcomed and encouraged.
If you found your way here for the first time, then stop by the registration desk here and sign up.
Have a good one,
Chris