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Here at Maximum PC, we've always done our fair share of website recommendation articles--including a couple of doozies from the past few years. And of course we're not the only ones who do this sort of article either; it's a proven popular format. But this year, we thought we'd mix things up a little bit. Rather than just focusing on what's services are popular, or which web apps will make you the most productive, we wanted to take a look at what's fun on the Internet.
In that spirit, our February cover feature is going to be 100 Websites You Need to Visit Before You Die. These are sites that will either entertain you, educate you, or just plain blow your mind. They're not the kind of website you put in your bookmarks bar and come back to again and again--they're the kind that you email to your friends along with a note that says "holy s*** check this out."
So today we've got the first 50 of our 100 Websites You Need to See Before You Die. Where are the other 50? That's where you come in. Once you've read our picks, let us know your own. We'll be picking 50 of the best user submissions to round out our list for the magazine. Anyone who's submission we pick will be in the running to win a whole bunch of awesome prizes (stay tuned tomorrow for full contest rules, prizes and limitations).
So, without further ado, here's the list:
Its name taken from John F. Kennedy’s famous 1962 address to Rice University, We Choose the Moon is an interactive history exhibit from NASA, allowing you walk through the Apollo 11 Mission, stage by stage. Each stage has a CG visualization of the mission, as well as real audio from mission control and the astronauts themselves. If you’re a space buff and haven’t seen WeChooseTheMoon yet, you need to drop everything and check it out, stat.
Commissioned to help sell Doritos (of all things), Hotel626 is a decidedly non-snack-related horror puzzle game, which challenges you to escape from a haunted hotel while solving challenges and avoiding an untimely demise. The puzzles aren’t going to thrill seasoned adventure gamers, but the overall production value is impressive, as is the novel use of elements like your webcam, microphone, and even your cell phone.
One thing though: you can only play the game at night. (If you’re sneaky, you might try changing your system clock to sometime after 6PM)
Have you ever wanted to conduct your own miniature trip-hop orchestra of French hipster clones?
Wait, stop, don’t go yet. Actually check out Incredibox, it’s an awesomely-executed music creation web-app, which lets you create your own a capella groove by clicking and dragging different parts onto a lineup of cartoon Frenchmen.
Ok, it’s hard to explain—just try it out.
The Dionaea House is an example of “hyperfiction,” a story told through more than just a single running narrative. A bit like an alternate reality game minus the reader participation, “reading” The Dionaea House involves following a number of threads on different blogs and in comments. We won’t tell you anything about what The Dionaea House is actually about, because figuring that out is the fun part.
Older than the Dionaea house, and less intricately-constructed, Ted’s Caving Page is nonetheless a marvelously creepy example of how to tell a story well on the internet. Like the previous example, the less you know about Ted’s experience in the cave the better, but let’s just say that those who are claustrophobic or afraid of the dark might want to avoid this one.
When you were a kid, did you ever play 20 Questions? You know, where you think of a person, place, or thing, and then your friend gets to ask 20 yes-or-no questions to figure out what it is? Well, it turns out that 20 questions is one of those games, like chess and reversi, that’s better played by computers.
Think of any character at all, from a movie, tv show, game—anything. Then just answer Akinator’s questions to the best of your ability. No guarantees, but we think you’ll be impressed.
Does your mouse have a scroll wheel on it? You’d better hope it does (and seriously, what decade are you living in if it doesn’t) because Record Tripping is a seriously cool, seriously inventive game that pairs wheel-turning puzzles, record scratching, and Alice in Wonderland. The whole thing’s played with just the scroll wheel and the left mouse button, so assuming you’ve got both of those, head on over.
Sure, the annual State of the Union address might seem a little dry for an afternoon timekiller, but that’s exactly what they’ve done here, with data visualizations, statistical analysis, and searchable texts of every single address. History and politics have never been as addictive as this.
An experiment from MIT’s media lab, Personas takes your first and last name, scours the internet, then spits out a composite image of what it thinks you’re like, based on what it found about people with your name. Of course, unless you happen to have a completely unique name you’ll see data from lots of people other than yourself, but that’s sort of the point.
Don’t let this page’s Spanish intro throw you for a loop, you don’t need to speak a word of it to appreciate the music and visuals contained here. Even if floating, lyrical melodies aren’t your thing, stick with it to check out how the “ink” cursor effect changes to reflect what’s going on in the song’s lyrics.
Comments are closed on this article
Mortal_M
September 26, 2011 at 8:36pm
I went to Ted’s Caving Page and I was hooked, I couldn't stop reading and I even got scared. I will remember this story for the rest of my life. I would recomend to read it at nigth.
If whoever wrote this makes a book I would buy it without thinking about it.
kubo.almighty
February 23, 2011 at 6:44pm
Big fan of www.albinoblacksheep.com. Several funny/stupid videos and plenty of entertaining, time wasting games.
almekhlafi
February 14, 2011 at 6:35pm
Very good article and this nice explain
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franklyn
January 17, 2011 at 7:56am
input :
"there are more things in heaven and earth than are imagined in your philosophy"
...10 translations later we get:
"Heaven and earth will have some more of his philosophy"
synthetic_man
January 10, 2011 at 2:23pm
http://www.111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111.com/#
It used to have an awesome midi soundtrack as well.
Slugbait
November 29, 2010 at 1:38pm
We've all googled ourselves, we've googled each other, but for something really scary, look up yourself at spokeo.com. People I can't find at all via Google, I was able to find at Spokeo, and sometimes the amount of personal information available is shocking.
cepheus42
November 29, 2010 at 11:37am
Boing Boing - http://www.boingboing.net/
For arts and culture (and TSA merchandise regarding groping your junk), Boing Boing is THE place to go.
The Art of Manliness - http://artofmanliness.com/
Want to tie a tie... or properly smoke a cuban... or wrestle a gator? Here is where men go to learn how to be... men!
Wil Wheaton in Exile - http://wilwheaton.typepad.com/wwdnbackup/
Mr. Wheaton is grown up out of the Crusher persona, and has become a guru of all things good and geeky. Remember what Wil says: don't be a d**k.
HaitianSensation
November 27, 2010 at 8:42am
http://www.inbflat.net/ : Create your own soundtrack with various videos of instruments
iDaeth
November 24, 2010 at 9:19pm
Here's another one you should go to before you die; The End of the Internet: http://www.endoftheinternet.com/
cjdavis7
November 24, 2010 at 7:43pm
The astronomy picture of the day. Fantastic pictures accompanied by educated summary of what you're looking at. Often some history thrown in too.
apod.nasa.gov/apod/
Also in the astronomy vein...a site that forecasts the "seeing" at a location (how good the conditions will be for stargazing).
http://www.cleardarksky.com
Not sure if these two meet the criteria, but they are two of my recent finds:
Free audio books.
http://www.gutenberg.org
Free, WYSIWYG flash web site creator.
wix.com
flash739
November 24, 2010 at 5:27pm
Has anyone been to Jim Carreys Website? www.jimcarrey.com really trippy for a celebrity site.
Portal
November 24, 2010 at 2:58pm
I really like http://www.translationparty.com/, it's an excellent waste of time. What you do is enter a phrase, and it translates it back in forth from Japanese and English until the translation errors are removed.
aaronj2906
November 23, 2010 at 10:33pm
Kind of reminds me of something like "Phantasmagoria" from the 1990's.
QuadCoreAbe
November 23, 2010 at 7:37pm
THE IMPOSSIBLE IS UNKNOWN AT ZOMBO COM!!! YOU CAN WASTE YOUR TIME ALL DAY AT ZOMBO COM. AT ZOMBO COM, YOUR BOSS DIDN'T REALLY FIRE YOU FOR STARING AT ZOMBO COM ALL DAY. ENJOY MY HISPANIC ACCENT FOR HOURS !!!!
ONLY
AT
..
ZOMBO COM
AmTGMan
November 23, 2010 at 3:27pm
"Therefore, go once, waste a day, and then never look back. You’ll thank us later."
I can tell you that the bolded bit is a complete impossibility. Once you visit TVTropes, you will keep going back...
Ghok
November 23, 2010 at 10:18pm
Not if you look once, spend 5 hours looking at it, and then never dare go back for fear you'll get trapped again! Laughed out loud when I read the description.
madmaxx
November 23, 2010 at 1:18pm
download all these site addresses to a folder in my Favorites for Internet Explorer 8
blindhorizon
November 23, 2010 at 11:00am
so many good sites so little time to get to them while at work...LOL
sniggler
November 23, 2010 at 10:55am
YTMND and LMGTFY, for those of us who never knew the internet existed until 5 minutes ago <_<
sniggler
November 23, 2010 at 10:55am
YTMND and LMGTFY, for those of us who never knew the internet existed until 5 minutes ago <_<
Cleaver
November 23, 2010 at 9:19am
I always thought that AtomSmasher's Error message generator ( http://atom.smasher.org/error/ ) was an excellent timesink.
jjrocks
November 22, 2010 at 9:57pm
Two sites
http://www.newsmap.jp/ <- covered on another post but I still love it
http://www.paulgraham.com/ <- simple but informative
gendoikari1
November 22, 2010 at 9:33pm
Same here, although I did manage to stump it with Louis St. Laurent and the main character of Turkish Star Wars.
nmanguy
November 22, 2010 at 10:55pm
Yeah, it got stumped on Morgan Grimes and Jack O'Neill's Robot Clone, but it guessed Claptrap right.
weaslem32
November 22, 2010 at 8:48pm
www.rayoflight.net should be on your list. The website just went through an overhaul, but you can still find the legacy site in its projects page. This site has always been truly amazing utilizing flash in the greatest way. The site has been around for over 10 years and the creators are incredible artist. Truly a must see.
probus
November 22, 2010 at 8:44pm
Great list, but maybe 10 a day for 10 days would be better, because frankly I'm already suffering from information overload. That's my fault, not yours, but still.
"It's not you, it's me."
