HN Explorer

Ask HN: What is the most unique website you’ve come across on the internet?

267 points by kandruszkow ↗ HN
What are some of your favorite websites you've ever come across on the internet? And why?

List for whatever reason.. the most obscure, interesting design, the worst design, etc.

I'm waiting to see some exciting findings.

271 comments

[ 2.0 ms ] story [ 298 ms ] thread
oeieog
https://www.lingscars.com/
kandruszkow
Well, that one was a shock; I don't even have to ask why hahah
dstick
That was amazing! Love Ling!
jzawodn
I came here to say the same. Best of the Internet.
Nextgrid
Not sure if it's just me or if it's not as bad as I remember it back in the day? Maybe my ad-blocker is interfering or Safari simply can't keep up with this level of madness?
theartfuldodger
Ling has definitely updated the site but the source code still has it's great art.
aasasd
Afaik there's a whole team working on the site. They gave talks about it, and videos of those are on YT.
forinti
I loved the source code.
ramesh31
Legitimately one of the best web sites ever made
unnouinceput
Quote: "Made in the People's Republic of China (Ling, not the website... which was handcrafted by Ling, in the UK)"

Definitely the guy has a great humor.

dazc
Ling is a woman :) I once asked her for advice about a website I was developing and she very kindly gave me some very detailed feedback.

You can probably guess what her advice was and I will always regret not having the nerve to follow it.

aasasd
Perhaps it's not too late to make another site.
waterpowder
Ling's a girl
unnouinceput
Now that you mention it and taking a closer look, it does look like one, but when I first took the look at the site my brain said "it's a guy".
jorgesborges
Ah, a squeeze-brains section -- nice.

  <!--  <div class="squeeze-brains">
        <img class="brain-head" src="https://images.lingscars.com/images/brains/ling-brain-head-index.png" alt="Ling top of her head" />
        <img class="brain-body" src="https://images.lingscars.com/images/brains/ling-brain-body-index.png" alt="Ling wide open head with brains" />
        <img class="brain-eyes" src="https://images.lingscars.com/images/brains/ling-eyes-detail.png" alt="Ling's crossed eyes detail" />
        <img class="brain-splat" src="https://images.lingscars.com/images/brains/ling-brain-splat-index.png" alt="Ling's brain blood splat" />
        <img class="brain-title-1" src="https://images.lingscars.com/images/brains/title-1.png" alt="Brains section title part 1" />
        <img class="brain-title-2" src="https://images.lingscars.com/images/brains/title-2-index.png" alt="Brains section title part 2" />
        <a href="/brains">Squeeze now!</a>
    </div> -->
aasasd
Note: the site works quite differently on phones, without changing the address.
fsflover
https://wiby.me/

Web search for pages which are "simple in design. Simple HTML, non-commerical sites are preferred. Pages should not use much scripts/css for cosmetic effect."

faeyanpiraat
The criteria of sharing a site is so lax, I’m kinda afraid of opening them.
[deleted]
(comment deleted)
0xedb
https://bruno-simon.com/ A fun, interactive WebGL personal site
can16358p
I tap start, a rectangle with height with animated strips appear, and nothing else happens?
bckr
I'm curious what browser you're using. This works for me on desktop and mobile chrome
drawfloat
Seems to be broken on iOS. Tap the button and a square appears, but nothing else.
tomcam
WOW thanks. Way more fun than if you describe it to me!
jrwr
https://jrwr.io -- It's my personal website with a fun "fake" terminal with a custom command set with a set of challenges to solve to gain more access levels in the machine. Its been fun to watch the commands come in.
fao_
Would be nice if clicking the off button closed the tab
jrwr
That is kinda hard to do in modern browsers, My main want is to blink the HDD light when you are typing, just never got around to it.
fao_
https://zombo.com
acheron
The only limit is yourself.
pmarreck
To this day, it's the only time I got over a minute of laughter out of someone (to the point that they cried) simply by showing them a thing they haven't seen before (this site, back when it was still new). Its absurdity can kill you, lol.
satsuma
but did you sign up for the newzletter?
mrdobelina
I love this. I feel much more powerful with this in background.
fsloth
news.ycombinator.com

For the reasons we come here year after year.

ryannevius
http://www.milliondollarhomepage.com/
verelo
Or it’s crypto native friend: https://thousandetherhomepage.com/
worldmerge
Wow, I didn't know you could load assets from a chain on the web. That's pretty cool.

I really want to learn distributed systems stuff like that this year: Blockchain/ipfs/ p2p / etc.

Nextgrid
> I didn't know you could load assets from a chain on the web

Presumably it's just using a proxy? As far as I know there's still no way to have the browser interact with the blockchain directly unless you use a non-standard extension like MetaMask.

verelo
JS can interact with an RPC endpoint directly, but the individual would have to provide one (either as you're suggesting via a proxy) or directly in code. This project is actually by a friend of mine, i should ask him...ive never bothered despite also working in the web3 space myself. All our work is done server side, so we just use our own RPC endpoints and nothing is shared with the public.
marginalia_nu
I got you, fam

https://dannarchy.com/

https://dreamcult.xyz/

https://stonepages.com/

http://spacekate.com/

https://wiki.xxiivv.com/

http://sod.jodi.org/

http://www.lileks.com/

daniel-s
Do you keep a catalogue of these?
marginalia_nu
Yeah, gotta catch 'em all and all that.

https://memex.marginalia.nu/links/bookmarks.gmi

https://memex.marginalia.nu/links/fragments-old-web.gmi

ecliptik
Your site design is really nice. Original and much different than the usual navigation patterns you see and I like it's on both http:// and gemini://.
marginalia_nu
Thanks, it's a bit of an experiment.

I do think the filesystem metaphor can be pretty powerful, and backlinks are also amazing.

dublin
Just a warning that exploring James Lileks' site will suck you into spending a completely unreasonable number of hours marveling at his outstanding sense of humor (he wrote a great piece last week on the passing of P.J. O'Rourke) as well as the simultaneous wonderfulness and awfulness of mid-century American culture and life. The Gallery of Regrettable Food is a destination on its own, and the Matchbooks Collection will leave you amazed that they are so interesting...
Finnucane
It's pretty amazing that Lileks has kept it going for so long. I remember this being a major time-waster 25 years ago. Still haunted by The Gobbler.
leephillips
I agree about the matchbooks. Some are hideous, but the best leave me astonished: the design talent there is really humbling. Imagine being able to make a tiny matchbook so beautifully evocative, so full of promise. Look at this one: http://www.lileks.com/match/museum/bars/1.html. I want to go there now.
debo_
Those first two links really made my day.
moh_maya
https://y-n10.com/

The website of the Nintendo founder's family office. It..is just beautifully designed, and a homage to the original game consoles and the entire art form of PC gaming when it started.

Earlier thread on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26803201

asaph
Warning: If you click on the logo at the center of the screen, music plays, which may bother others around you.
earthboundkid
Yeah, but everyone has been WFH for two years now…
ChrisRR
I don't know about other countries but in the UK it's been almost entirely back to work for months now.
ectopod
I don't know anyone spending more than one day a week in an office in the UK. Trains are very under-utilised. Business owners in city centres are still grumbling about the lack of trade.
MisterSandman
Theory: any conversation on Hacker News that can boil down to WFH discussion, will.
chefandy
Yeah but some people live with other people. Even developers.
kgwxd
Thanks for mentioning it. I was excited about the site without my speakers on, now I'm over the moon!
xdfgh1112
Most browsers have the option to mute all sites by default unless you explicitly give permission. I find it quite useful!
alberth
Love this site. Does anyone know what typeface/font is used?

I'm referring to the typeface that is similar to Inter (but isn't).

chefandy
I think it’s Univers, designed by Swiss type designer Adrian Frutiger in the mid-50s. The lower-case ‘a’ was the first glyph I saw distinguishing it from Helvetica and Helvetica Neue, and the uppercase ‘R’ was the first I noticed distinguishing it from Helvetica Now, Arial and Frutiger.

There’s a zillion fonts that look like Helvetica/Univers/Akzidenz-Grotesk but most professional treatments will just use one of those and make sure it’s leaded, kerned, weighted and laid out properly. The Helvetica documentary is a fun watch that will also give a useful overview of these sorts of type families.

The differences are pretty subtle. Though the typeface is beautiful, a less skillful design would render it unremarkable. The typesetting and overall design— i.e. contrast, relationship among elements, controlling the path of the eye with visual hierarchy, etc.— is What makes the type really shine here. If you like this vibe, you might enjoy the posters of long-time MIT graphic designer Jacquelin Casey.

eezurr
Wow! I've been using the internet since the 90s and I have never had my hair blown back by a webpage before. The isometric view certainly hits the nostalgia button.

Edit (from the site): "Japan was once globally renowned for its people's quality of unique creativity teamed with a pioneering mindset. Their innovation and inventions changed the world. But that golden era has long been gone. It seems that the quality Japanese people once possessed is overshadowed by worry and fear."

It's really interesting to hear that coming from the family office of one the largest companies in Japan. I can't imagine an American leader making a public statement like that (about the USA), probably because US companies prey on fear and FOMO.

halikular
It's bold of the Nintendo family to make such statements about Japanese society when they can't even get their own company under control themselves. Nintendo is probably the most universally hated gaming company and it's true of other Japanese companies as well. They seem to be scared of the internet and goes out of their way to claim copyright infringement on anything fan made having to do with their intellectual property. They will try take down everything they possibly can, it's so bad you have to fear covering any of their games, even their music on platforms such as YouTube. Any efforts to preserve old Nintendo games via e.g. emulation is quickly met with a lawsuit. Whether or not you comply with their requests they will try to sue you for millions, even children. Just check out all the recent cases on Google. https://www.google.com/search?q=nintendo+sues
eezurr
I think I understand why Nintendo heavily protects their IP. Their strategy dates back to when Nintendo first expanded into the US in the 1980s after the video game crash of 1983 (which partially happened because of the overwhelming amount of low quality games being produced then)[1]. They deeply care about quality and being associated with it. When they launched the NES, they heavily filtered 3rd party studios and created the "Golden Seal of Approval" for all of their licensed games. Their strategy works. People trust Nintendo to give them high quality entertainment. They even went as far as designing the NES box to look like a VCR appliance, not a video game console, all because of the negative association people had after the VG crash!

So expanding from that, they (rightfully, from a business culture perspective) don't want their IP being tampered with, nor associated with a product they themselves did not create. Nintendo probably spends a much higher percentage on R&D than the average video game company. They don't want all their efforts to be watered down from mimicry. They don't want someone to see Mario in a meme post on YouTube and associate Mario with that video. They want Mario to equate to the production quality they work really hard to produce again and again.

You're wrong about Nintendo being hated. People love them, because they trust Nintendo. And Nintendo in turn works extremely hard at building and maintaining that trust.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_crash_of_1983

exhilaration
Nintendo is probably the most universally hated gaming company

What? I think you need to step out of your echo chamber, I would argue Nintendo is probably the most universally beloved game/toy/entertainment company out there, maybe tied with Lego.

halikular
People like their games, but as a company they're horrible to their fans and gamers. Here just some of it from Charlie: https://youtu.be/5cSCLceDAjM https://youtu.be/dOKF9t-hfEw
y4mi
I'd agree that they're horrible and artificially make their products worse in order to sell you their pointless subscription service, but that doesn't mean it's not the most beloved gaming company at the moment.
honkdaddy
Charlie's definitely on the right track here, but I think it's worth mentioning that the vast, vast majority of Nintendo consumers don't know/care/understand about Nintendo's scummier practices.

I think it's possible that it can both be true that Nintendo doesn't always treat its fans very well, but Nintendo also makes far better games than any other publisher.

scubbo
> Nintendo is probably the most universally hated gaming company

That's a _fascinating_ claim. Just off the top of my head, I can think of Blizzard/Activision and EA who I think of as more-hated (for labour practices and working conditions; and for microtransactions and sequel-itis). I've never heard any opinion below ambivalence for Nintendo, and its fans are rabid.

dlp211
> Nintendo is probably the most universally hated gaming company

You are just not anywhere near objective reality [1]. Nintendo is one of the most beloved brands in the western world and I can't even comprehend what echo chamber you are in to think that Nintendo is hated.

There are certainly fair criticism of the company, I believe they are incredibly over zealous about their IP enforcement, but I doubt many people ever think about that when they are getting 100's of hours of entertainment value out of their hardware and 1st party software.

[1]https://www.marketingdive.com/news/nintendo-switch-american-...

alar44
No one hates Nintendo. Imagine being so impotent that you rage against likely the most popular gaming company in the US as a hobby. That's really fucking sad.
jallen_dot_dev
I think you're being downvoted for exaggerating an opinion that's really only shared among some content creators. But you make a good point about their overzealous copyright enforcement. It seems hypocritical to bemoan fear and lack of innovation when your company is perhaps the most prolific user of the courts (in the industry) to squash any creators who might possibly be infringing on your IP. It creates a chilling effect around games.
imwillofficial
This was insanely awesome. A sense of childlike wonder enveloped me when I navigated it
netsharc
I seem to remember seeing it in white, I wonder if it has dark mode, which depends on the daytime of Japan!
pmarreck
I didn't get it until I figured this out: Scroll down. lol