Ten Sites for Finding Wonderful Things
Ten years ago today Jason Kottke launched his influential blog Kottke.org. The site is a fascinating collection of...whatever Kottke cares to post there.
So prescient was his vision of the future of publishing though that today he's married to the co-founder of Blogger.com and can be counted among the earliest pioneers in the present era of online bricolage - the art of assembling diverse found objects.
Bricolage has become one of the most dominant themes of the new online world. The word may be French and unfamiliar, but you see the concept in action every time you read BoingBoing, for example. There are few blogs more widely read than BoingBoing - but it's in tribute to Kottke's 10 year anniversary that we offer the following collection of some our favorite places to discover marvelous things online. All are curated by the careful eyes and hands of one or a few editors, making these sites a different experience than places like Digg, Del.icio.us Popular, PopURLs or elsewhere.
Not only are these types of sites widely read, they are also inspiring a cultural renaissance of bricolage on sites like Tumblr and FFFFound.
Great Sites to Find Fantastic Things
Note: If you are reading this story by RSS, you may not be able to see the dynamic list of recent popular stories from each source. You can click through to the live site to see them. Speaking of RSS, reader Víctor Hernández created a spliced feed of all the blogs below into one at this URL.
BoingBoing
BoingBoing is the biggest mover and shaker here. It's a group blog with an art and politics slant. It's a great place to discover "wonderful things" in large quantities. You probably already knew that, though, because you probably already read BoingBoing.
| Nov 7 | Zoomquilt II: Flash zoom-through painting The Zoomquilt II, a 2007 sequel to the jarring Zoomquilt of 2004, is an even more hypnotic Flash zoom-through collaborative painting with bits from more than 30 different artists. Zoomquilt 2 (via @Chris_Carter ) |
| Nov 7 | What MP3 player should I buy? I'm in the market for a new MP3 player -- my second-gen iPod Nano is finally dead, and I don't want to buy another iPod, or any other player with DRM built in. I figure that any company that wants to devote its engineers to figuring out how to frustr.. |
| Nov 7 | Tiny jack-o-lanterns carved in seed-pods Master haunt modeller Ray Keim sez, "After a little bit of experimentation and a lot of patience, I figured out how to carve Putka Pods [ed: small, pumpkin-like dried seeds] into extremely tiny jack-o-lanterns!" Putka Pod Possibilities! ( Thanks, Ra.. |
| Nov 7 | Saturday Morning Science Experiment: Surgery On a Beating Heart And Now, Some Ripped-From-the-Headlines Context..... First, why a beating heart? Traditionally, if you had a clogged artery on your heart and doctors wanted to sew in some "bypass" arteries to get around the sluggish ones, the surgeon would shut you.. |
Waxy Links
Waxy Links is the link blog that rides beside Upcoming.org co-founder Andy Baio's blog Waxy.org. Baio has taken to doing investigative blogging on various topics on his main site, but his link blog is a widely loved river of weird. When your link blog is hot enough to have an ad from the uber-boutique ad network The Deck on it, then you know you're a monster.
| Nov 6 | Unreal Engine 3 development kit now free for non-commercial use huge announcement, along with the recent free release of Unity Indie |
| Nov 6 | The Big Picture's series on Martian landscapes Kai's Power Tools in real-life [ via ] |
| Nov 3 | Eric Testroete's papercraft portrait Halloween costume incredibly creepy, like videogames leaking into the real world [ via ] |
| Nov 3 | Mark Pilgrim's history of the IMG element told through annotated conversations from 1993 [ via ] |
Neatorama
Neatorama is a lot like BoingBoing, but a lot less high-brow and a little more fun. Regular games of "What Is It?" challenge readers to identify photographs of old and unusual objects. The whole site is almost a clearinghouse of weird and it's a much quicker read than BoingBoing. The long list of authors is lead by Biochemist Alex Santoso, who started the blog as a hobby in 2005.
| Nov 7 | Having Fun with "Google Suggest" The “autofill” feature of the Google search box was designed as a timesaver, but the suggested searches can also be entertaining. Writing in Slate , Michael Agger compared the autofill of “less intelligent” and “more i.. |
| Nov 6 | Which Browser Would You Marry? With the advent of competing browsers came some fierce loyalty to one brand or another. Some people would go as far to say they “love” their browser of choice. That got Grace Smith thinking. If you had to marry a web browser, which o.. |
| Nov 6 | Drench You may have to lose once to figure out how the game Drench works, but then it’s a lot of fun! Select your next color to make your paint splotch bigger, and try to cover the entire floor in paint. You only have a certain number of moves for ea.. |
| Nov 6 | Glottal Opera ( YouTube link ) Thread tiny cameras through the singer’s noses and focus on the larynx. Then have them sing sweetly and see what it looks like deep inside. The singers are Juleiaah Boehm, Emma Deans, Alexi Kaye, and Sally Stevens. -via b3ta |
Laughing Squid
Laughing Squid is a great place to find cool art, projects and photography from San Francisco and elsewhere. It's the work of web-hosting company owner and aficionado of cool Scott Beale.
Beale's posts regularly hit the front page of Digg and his excellent photos are regularly ripped off without attribution by mainstream media outlets.
| Nov 7 | Montage of Scenes From Movies Where the Actors Are Saying the Title of.. Videogum has created a really great montage featuring scenes from movies where the actors are saying the title of film they are in. via Waxy This is a blog post from Laughing Squid , subscribe via RSS , Twitter , Facebook & FriendFeed . |
| Nov 6 | Minimalistic City Bike Doesn’t Use A Chain Forget about fixies , Grand Rapids, MI design company Jruiter has created a really cool prototype for a minimalistic inner city bike. The design is so simplified to the point that it doesn’t even have a chain, instead the pedals directly drive.. |
| Nov 6 | 8-Bit Wedding Invitation Based 1980’s Atari Games Madrid based illustrator and comic artist Carla Berrocal created an awesome 8-Bit Wedding Invitation for one of her clients that was inspired by 1980’s Atari games. via The Daily What This is a blog post from Laughing Squid , subscribe via RSS.. |
| Nov 6 | Improv Everywhere: I Love Lunch! The Musical “I Love Lunch! The Musical” is the latest mission by Improv Everywhere , where they staged a spontaneous musical during lunch in The Atrium at Trump Tower in NYC. The mission was filmed as part of a segment for The Today Show , wh.. |
JoshSpear.com
JoshSpear.com is run by "one of the youngest brand strategists in the world," Josh Spear, and has a long list of regular contributors. Spear and crew regularly find some of the coolest art, music, craft, design and marketing projects on the web. In addition to speaking and writing around the world, Spear runs SpearCollective, an artist management collective.
| Nov 3 | Papercraft Self Portrait Artist and designer Eric Testroete , in his own words: I made this as my costume for Halloween 2009. It was kind of inspired by big-head mode seen in videogames. I really wanted to get the faceted geosphere look with wireframe. So awesome. Check ou.. |
| Oct 29 | Krink Mini Cooper Legendary New York street artist Craig “KR” Costello customized a Mini Cooper S with his signature KRINK aesthetic. The car was shown today at Erste Liebe Bar in Hamburg, Germany. A vernissage takes place at Vicious Gallery on October 31st. Want. Vi.. |
| Oct 23 | Mike Leavitt’s Carboard Shoes Give him some recycled cardboard, paper bag, along with some glue and acrylic paint, and artist Mike Leavitt could create just about anything, including the replica sneakers above. You can pop by the Fuse Gallery at 93 Second Avenue in NYC to see th.. |
| Oct 23 | What do birds eat? Well, human trash. Easily some of the most unsettling photographs I’ve seen in a very long time– but oddly important to spread around. Artist and photographer Chris Jordan always nails the point. These photographs of albatross chicks were made just a few weeks a.. |
Fresh Creation
FreshCreation is run by Dutch creative Martijn van Osch. The site collects oddly creative works from around the world and almost always includes a video for every post. FreshCreation was the inspiration for our recent post here on the future of interface design.
| Oct 23 | Eye Gesture Recognition Move over voice and motion recognition. The new kid on the block is eye gesture recognition. Not with a camera either but an ear bud that detects nerve signals. |
| Oct 10 | Transcendent Man Trailer for a documentary about Ray Kurzweil called Transcendent Man . Ray is… strange. Depending on who you talk to, he is either a genius or a mad man. |
| Sep 23 | 4 Minutes Of Incredible Facts And Figures There a millions of ways to visualize information. Xplane’s latest video brings together incredible info and trends around the internet, social media and more, and tries to guess where we are headed. The computer in your bloodstream stuff is k.. |
| Sep 15 | Experience The 5 Senses This impressive video was made by BYU design students and faculty for the 5th Typophile Film Festival. Wow! Beautiful. It’s about the 5 senses and how they contribute to and enhance our creativity. (via resettheworld ) |
PicoCool
PicoCool says it "is dedicated to bringing you tiny bytes and obscure content from the world of peer media, social networks and subcultures. Cool content from real people." Lots of great finds from Etsy and other beautiful, small things. The site is run by web designer Emily Chang, whose company did the new design for RWW.
| Nov 6 | Cassette From My Ex: The Book 60 noted writers and musicians share the intimate stories behind mixtapes they've created in a book based on one of the most inspired blogs out there 2 Vote(s) |
| Nov 6 | Troika Moonshine 300collaborative literary project A collective of writers tasked with creating 300-word stories based on 3 words given to them by another artist. 2 Vote(s) |
| Nov 6 | Step by Step: a Lego Typeface STEP BY STEP TYPEFACE by Short at the Behance Network. 2 Vote(s) |
| Nov 6 | Spotter Drone by Dust Designer and artist Dust from Freiburg, Germany, presents his latest version of the non-armed ‘Spotter Drone’ for what he likes to refer to as “detection and recon about unknown areas and landscapes." The Spotter Drone was part of the Rollie Custom .. |
Swiss Miss
SwissMiss is a widely read design blog written by Swiss transplant to NY Tina Roth Eisenberg. Lots of physical objects here but not exclusively. Eisenberg's discoveries are regularly reblogged by other cool-hunting blogs.
| Nov 5 | Hey Milwaukee! Come see me speak! Hey Milwaukee! I am so excited to announce an upcoming tomorrow’s speaking engagement in your lovely town! Join me for an AIGA Talk on Friday November 6th , 2009 6:30pm at Hanson Dodge who will be generously hosting the event. We are lucky to .. |
| Nov 5 | Google Dashboard Also read the followin article over on Mashable: Google Dashboard: Now You Know What Google Knows About You . |
| Nov 5 | Simplicity is the path, not just the destination Simplicity, many people think, is an end in itself But they’re getting it backwards Simplicity is the path, the means It’s not a far off destination, somewhere in the future It’s right here, right now It’s taking things one a.. |
| Nov 5 | This morning at casa swissmiss: swissmiss : “Oh no! G! Come Look! We have a water leak in our bathroom!” G: “Oy!” silence, staring swissmiss: “Kinda pretty, huh?” (snapping photos) G: “Yup!” |
NotCot
NotCot is a beautiful site that collects image-based links to projects around the web. The site was founded by UX designer Jean Aw and Web 2.0 loving Cognitive Scientist Danial Frysinger. The site's organization is remarkable as well. Entries are navigable by time, popularity or by random selection.
We Make Money Not Art
we make money not art is a phenomenon that simply must be seen to be believed. Run by an international trio of curators, the site's aesthetic is oddly fascinating. When the word "bricolage" comes up, we make money not art is the first blog that many people think of.
| Oct 26 | The pavilion i wish i hadn't missed at the Venice Biennale Everyday, someone cleans the marble floors of the Palazzo with a mop dipped in water mixed with the blood found on the site of murders committed during the drug wars in Northern Mexico. How long will traces of it remain on the sole of your shoes? co.. |
| Oct 21 | Galleries we love - Heliumcowboy in Hamburg I doubt there are many galleries like Heliumcowboy. First there's that name. Charming and puzzling. Not even an interview with the gallery director has helped me uncover its origin. Then of course there's the artists the space represents. Since its .. |
| Oct 14 | Interview with Fernando Llanos No one dons the moustache like Fernando Llanos. He's a video artist, a musician, a writer, a blogger, a curator, he makes drawings, he's the über macho-looking Mexican guy who walks around the city with a chihuahua in his bag. He also produces tv sh.. |
| Oct 12 | Book review - Unfolded - Paper in Design, Art, Architecture and Indust.. Paper conquers the third dimension and demonstrates the undreamed-of possibilities it holds today for lightweight construction, product design, fashion and art continue |
Those are some of our favorites. What are yours?
We'd love to know.
Comments
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uncrate.com has been a consistent favorite of mine.
Brian, that is a very manly site to suggest. :) I hadn't seen Uncrate before this weekend at SXSW when I found out that one of my friends writes there! Small world. Thanks for adding the link.
I don't know how you missed http://freshome.com/, a great website that amazes me every time I visit.
M!hai, we "missed" probably hundreds of great blogs that do this kind of thing. That's what comments are for and thanks for yours, that site does look interesting.
Take a look at Veerle's blog on webdesign, she's well known within that community and delivers great tutorials etc on a very beautifully designed blog: http://veerle.duoh.com/
I am often pleasantly surprised by http://telstarlogistics.typepad.com/telstarlogistics/
Kris, thanks for mentioning Veerle! I've worked for an organization whose website she did design for and agree that she's awesome.
Marshall please edit my comment, because I've posted the link with a "," at the end. Yes ..there are a lot of websites where you can find interesting things, and for a topic like this you would need a very good research that would take months, to ovserve what are the best website. Personally I love Freshome, and that's why I wanted to recommend it.
I like INQdrop.com. It's a online community for people who want to share their stories and opinions. It' a great distraction from life!
*suckingup*
One of the best sites for finding cool things? AreDubDub ( http://www.readwriteweb.com ) of course!! i guess it depends on what's "cool" to you.... ;)
*/suckingup*
I'm a fan of browsing LFSTYL (www.lfstyl.com).
Digg?
fun blot where scammers get toyed with.
http://emailscamsarefun.blogspot.com/
Thank you for the mention! YAY! Waving from NYC!
Thanks for adding Fresh Creation to the list!
Good to see that I achieved my goal: inspiring others.
Grtz from Holland ;-)
www.FindLikeMinds.com for the things that influence people.
These sites can be a great help when I want to create videos or design graphics.. sometimes new ideas comes just from readig. and new content that are interesting is one of the best input!
Thanks for sharing this post! I love it
someone should give me an invite to ffffound. :(
loveless@ gmail.com
http://gemssty.com has some interesting 'tidbits' (as it says) from time to time too~
awesome post! I've always wanted animal superpowers. Or maybe I just hoped that someone would randomly come pet me and scratch my belly as I was walking down the street, i always get those two confused...
really nice list ^^
haha.nu has some really fun stuff. a lot of vids. They showed an artists work, Nanami Cowdroy, who was so talented, I hired her to design a tattoo for me.
Aw, you guys are sweet. Thanks for the linky love, Marshall.
roaming the US and the world for cool stuff. my new fav site for beauty/art/and ads. please visit my site and email me to say hi! http://www.gavinwassung.com
thecoolhunter.net
We cover one amazingly cool thing every day at http://fresharrival.com
I think that http://amomentofawesome.com is a great (although newer) site for finding awesome stuff!
I am going to suggest Open Culture (www.oculture.com) where you can find podcasts and videos that will make you smarter. It includes free audiobooks, free foreign language lessons, free online courses, and smart YouTube video collections.
Here are some links to good pages:
http://www.oculture.com/2006/10/audio_book_podc.html
http://www.oculture.com/2007/07/freeonlinecourses.html
http://www.oculture.com/2006/10/foreign_languag.html
http://www.oculture.com/2008/03/youtubesmartvideos.html
http://www.bestsnippets.com has nice collection of cool, funny stuff too.
I have a mashup of digg, reddit, delicious and a bunch of other sites at http://www.jimmyr.com/
www.bulentongun.com looks promising
Thanks for including us!
http://www.subbmitt.com
For my weird/wonderful things, I read:
Neatorama
Boing Boing
Ectomo
Nothing to Do With Arbroath
Dave Barry's Blog
Dark Roasted Blend
Mental Floss
Brass Goggles
Cynical-C
Dethroner
Infosthetics
MAKEblog
Making Light (the Nielsen Haydens' blog)
Neil Gaiman's blog
Warren Ellis's blog
It's strange that you don't have FFFound.com on your list.
inspire me now! (http://szymon.tumblr.com/)
have you seen this?! (http://ohhaveyouseenthis.blogspot.com)
bevel and boss (http://bevelandboss.blogspot.com/)
are all pretty wonderful. :)
josh spear?
maybe if you're into reading a steady stream of shilling for overpriced, corny-ass crap nobody needs. oooo, new colorways for some wack ass sneakers!
its like reading the ads in a magazine and not the articles.
Here is a mashup if you can't get to your favorite feed reader.
186kps
Thanks for the great list!
I'm not sure HOW you could have missed the truly wonderful'Proceedings of the Athanasius Kircher Society' http://www.kirchersociety.org/ and, for Japanese strangeness, 'Pink Tentacle'http://www.pinktentacle.com -- these are my 2 most go-to blogs...but perhaps I just have minority tastes....
In itself, this page is a wonderful thing! I really appreciate the inline, live RSS feeds — great idea. Only thing, I wish there were more visuals to catch my eyes! Thanx for this compilation. :)
Thank you all so much for all these suggestions! Really great to discover these sites in comments that I didn't know about before.
www.damninteresting.com
It's only updated every week or so, but I have never been disappointed with a post. Articles from obscure science and history topics that provide some of the most fascinating reading I've ever seen on the net.
I'm a fan of albotas.com. Stands for 'a little bit on the awesome side'. They have news on random stuff like art, toys, movies, comics, japan, video games, gadgets. It's pretty much every site on the internet (that isn't porn) smushed together.
Shameless beg for ffffound.com invite. God I've been regularly using this site for over a year and CAN NOT find anyone with an invite -it kills me! (that should say something about how great it is)
pees oh pees
[/crying]
cellardoor504@gmail.com
If you're interested in anything French you're going to love www.frogsmoke.com
I try to highlight cool stuff on my site here:
www.CONTEMPOZINE.com - men clothing stores
U forgot about http://growabrain.typepad.com
http://bornrich.org
Metafilter. Perfect....
www.blather.net
A Welsh View (xo.typepad.com) is really good, together with "Blame it on the Voices"(http://blameitonthevoices.blogspot.com/) but my favourite is "aboutcolonblank"(www.aboutcolonblank.com).
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