Each month I like to highlight some interesting tools, games, and articles that I have found. If it makes sense, I have included an archived link via the WayBackMachine. If you are able to support this amazing resource, here is the link. https://archive.org/donate
Utilities
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https://feather.wiki/ - (archived version) According to their website, "Feather Wiki is an app for creating personal non-linear notebooks, databases, and wikis that is entirely self-contained and runs in your browser." I am a big fan of useful programs that are small and have few dependencies. This tool can create a wiki and download it to your PC for you to view later offline, or on another device.
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News Feed Eradicator This is a great Chromium/Brave plugin that replaces your Facebook feed with an interesting quote.
The effect of this is that instead of visiting Facebook to get a dopamine hit from scrolling, you can use it instead for browsing classifieds, checking in on your community pages, or messaging family and friends.
I have already found that using this plugin has made me more productive and satisfied with my social media use. -
http://akkartik.name/lines.html - (archived version)
This is a text editor that allows you to add drawings to plain text documents. Part of the appeal of this to me is that you know that .txt documents will always be readable. The technical specifications are also so simple that one could easily write a program to read these documents long after the original platform is unsupported. -
https://kiwibrowser.com/ - This is a web browser for Android that allows the user to install any Chromium/Brave extension.
Time Wasters/Tech Demos
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https://somafm.com/
This is an old school internet radio channel with curated music and live deejaying that mostly plays indie and electronic music. -
https://github.com/44670/desmume-wasm - (archived version) This is a super cool WASM project that allows you to play DS games in the browser in full speed. I have tested this on an old iPhone and I was super impressed. You can host it yourself or there is a link that you can play on the readme. Go check it out!
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https://alula.github.io/SpaceCadetPinball/ - (archived version)
To those who grew up on earlier Windows versions like XP, here is a version of Space Cadet Pinball that can be played in the browser. The original executable was decompiled and rewritten in C++ so that it could be played in WASM. -
https://github.com/borisdayma/dalle-mini - (archived version) This is a super cool AI image generation tool that will generate text from any text prompt. I tried a couple with some hilarious results. The link to a functioning demo is in the README once again. Below is an example that I tried.
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https://r-rpg.com/ - (archived version) This is a fun little game that shows the power of simple, fun programming without ads. It is a old school text adventure with a twist. You create your character as you go along and not before.
Lifestyle/Prose:
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https://browsercompany.substack.com/p/optimizing-for-feelings - (archived version)
This article puts forth that relentless optimization harms the user experience and how software should be written in order to benefit the user as much as possible.
This is directly in contrast to much modern software that optimizes engagement, clicks, and likes. -
https://www.additudemag.com/stop-losing-things/ - (archived version) This article describes three practical ways to stop losing things. I have put a couple of these into practice and have already found them to be quite useful.
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Levar Burton on Notifications:
This is a quote from one of my childhood heroes from Reading Rainbow and Star Trek, Levar Burton. I think that notifications and the way that big tech companies exploit their users is one of the biggest issues of the day. Sometimes it feels like there is no escaping the endless scrolling and notification-filled world that we have created. However, there are small ways in which we can fight back without becoming tech fearing luddites. If you want to read the full original interview, here is the link. (Original full interview)
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https://www.folkstreams.net/films/talking-feet
This is a documentary about traditional folk dancing in the United States that is an interesting look into one of the uniquely American forms of music and dance. -
https://100r.co/site/home.html - (archived version)
This is an interesting blog that I have been reading lately.
The writers live on a sailboat while writing FOSS tools and games.
They take an interesting approach to software by writing software that minimizes power used.