satyrs.eu/linkroll

Welcome, weary traveller, to the illustrious Mx Tynehorne’s cabinet of hypertext curiosities! You can navigate the links on this page by clicking the provided tags below, or you can and visit a random entry.

Select a theme…

New

The latest and (some would say) greatest links.

Americana

Being an American on the internet is about as remarkable as being a fish in an aquarium, but these sites manage to do something interesting with it.

Some scream that they were Born In The USA at the top of their lungs; others merely whisper. Regardless, they all embody some form of the American dream.

Art

Works of art, ranging from your traditional paintings and drawings to the sort of incomprehensible mess you find at the Baltic.

Audio

Treats for the auditory senses. Immerse your ears in luscious orchestras, fascinating stories, or mashups of John Lennon’s “Imagine” and the song from Shrek.

Britain

Websites made in or about this old isle of Gramarye — or just ones that strike me as quint­es­sen­tially British, regardless of whence they actually come.

Classics

These sites have withstood the test of time, coming to you all the way from those halcyon days before they invented Facebook.

(My policy on these used to be “as long as they’re old enough to drink” — but time is a terribly slippery thing, and it was getting to a point where there were more sites with the tag than without.)

Collaboration

The spirit of the web. Things made by people working together — and that could include you!

Crafts

Wonderful things hammered together by people in the real world.

Directories

Websites like the one you’re visiting at this very moment are veritable treasure-troves of links out to yet more places, all there for your exploration. You can lose hours down these holes if you’re not careful.

Faith

All about The Fine People Upstairs. Abrahamic, polytheist, vaguely spiritual… it’s all here.

Fledglings

These new kids on the block have never known a time starting with 201– — practically fœtuses in the grand scheme of the internet. Let’s hope they stick around, eh?

Food

Us human folk can’t live without it, so it’s probably for the best that there’s so many delicious foodstuffs out there.

History

Digging up stones and stories from bygone yore, whether that’s 2007 or 7 BCE.

Inspiration

In making this very page, i have stood on the shoulders of giants. These are the people from whom i took inspiration, borrowed, copied, and lovingly stole to make this blessed mess.

Interactivity

Don’t be afraid to touch the exhibits. It’s the internet, it’s not like there aren’t a thousand copies…

Interconnexion

Little things all interconnected together. Wikis, directories, personal pages, and more…

The Netherlands

“If it ain’t Dutch, it ain’t much.” These sites are made in, around, or about the Netherlands, or are available in Dutch.

A lot of these are bilingual between English and Dutch, so if you’re utterly confused by any foreign text, have a hunt around for a language selector.

Oddities

Short bites of weird internet goodness. You’re the man now, dog!

Offbeat

Sites from people who march to a different drum. They might be outcasts, or have obscure, nerdy hobbies, or just have a queer way of looking at the world. Regardless, i find them all fascinating. Open your mind a little.

Outside

Those who have touched grass and lived to tell the tale.

(Just between you and me, dear reader, i think this is my favourite tag on the list.)

Personal

The vanity site, the earliest staple of the world wide web. A sadly dying breed nowadays — if you ask me, i think everyone should have one of these!

Place

Where-ness.

Serendipity

Just my luck! Try your chances, have a rummage around, and maybe you’ll find something you never even knew you wanted.

Skeuomorphs

Back before all the designers decided nowt was the new owt, everything on phones and computers looked like what they were meant to replace.

Your notepad had a paper texture, the camera made a cheesy shutter noise, and all the icons were lusciously rendered with glossy highlights and soft shadows. No more. These recapture a little bit of that magic — things that work like they do in meatspace.

Space

As i write this, the days are getting shorter, and it’s been absolutely wonderful to get the telescope out and just stare at the heavens again. Shame about the city folk. Maybe these sites will do?

Stories

You really think someone would do that? Just go on the internet and tell tall tales?

Subjunctive

In the arcane realms of grammar, the subjunctive tense is that which speaks of what might be, what might come to pass in the future, or what might have been had things gone differently. These sites speak of much the same.

Technology

I try to avoid talking too much about technology and code and all that nonsense, because it bores me and the average Mo to tears. Nevertheless, here’s some techie links for your techie needs.

Tomfoolery

Playing with expectations. Doing things you’re not meant to. Pranking. “It’s a free country, man!

Utility

Stuff what’s actually useful.

Video

It’s a bit barren, this one, because Youtube has a stranglehold on the idea of putting video on the dub dub dub. Maybe try my list of interesting videos from there?

Volume

“Wait, you can do that?” These websites are brought to you in three, count ’em, three fabulous dimensions!

Words

Playing around with the written and spoken word is one of humanity’s oldest pass-times, whether it’s cracking jokes at the mead-hall, alliteration and rhyme around the campfire, or crude etchings on the walls. It must be something innate to our species — you don’t see monkeys doing Beowulf.

sbnation.com/a/17776-football

It’s not all about sports, i promise. It is, however, one of the best uses of hypertext for storytelling i’ve seen in a long, long time. I don’t want to spoil it, so go read it for yourself!

(A word to the wise, though — don’t bother with the sequel unless you’re just in it for the sports stuff.)

Also by Jon Bois: The Bob Emergency

Created 2017-07-05, added 2020-02-13

1pixelmoon.com

A simultaneously tedious and engaging explanation of just how big outer space is.

Created c. 2014-03-04, added 2020-02-26

underunderstood.com/podcast/episode/911-hoax

Every so often, a photo of a smiling little boy, totally oblivious to 9/11 happening in the background, does the rounds on Reddit. But is it real? One brave podcast crew tries to find out.

Created 2019-07-30, added 2023-08-03

abarothsworld.com

“An eclectic mixture of my interests including models, optical illusions, historic buildings, roleplaying games, heraldry, puzzles and gardening.” In a similar vein to Rivendell further down the list, i’d say.

Created c. 2007-07-23, added 2024-02-07

adamcadre.ac

The website of one Adam Cadre, interactive fiction pioneer and creator of the Lyttle Lytton contest, honouring the worst possible opening lines to a novel one could ever come up with.

Also featured are film critiques, restaurant reviews, and an annotated list of favourite songs.

Created c. 1999, added 2021-11-20

adelfaure.net/ascii

A French collection of ascii art — with its own custom font and everything! I have a special fondness for the medium, due to some personal connections i shan’t be bringing over the cyber-curtain.

Created c. 2021, added 2024-02-07

afterthetone.com

Archived answerphone messages, found somewhere between the dumpster and the donations box.

Created c. 2009, added 2021-11-20

alltooflat.com/pranks/cube

One of the first documented pranks on the oft-tomfooled Astor Place Cube in Man­hat­tan.

This site hasn’t been updated in almost a decade now — things like that always make me think, who’s paying to keep the lights on? Feels like it might not be long for this world.

Created c. 2003-07-06, added 2021-01-23

annas-archive.org

If anyone asks, i didn’t show you this, okay? It never happened. Just scroll past. Nothing to see here.

 Other things i didn’t show you: Vimm’s Lair, Bypass Paywalls, Soulseek

Created 2022-12-09, added 2023-08-03

anthology.rhizome.org

A history of art made for the internet, from the ’80s up to the modern day.

Created 2016-10-27, added 2021-11-21

applerankings.com

Apple lore. The knowledge that there exists a cursed apple, an apple more disgusting than the Red Delicious, will forever keep me up at night.

Created c. 2021-03, added 2022-11-19

arkmsworld.neocities.org

A sprawling personal directory packed into the vague shape of a house — but, like, one of those Hogwarts houses where the rooms keep changing behind you and you’re not quite sure how it all manages to fit inside the exterior.

Created 2014-07-26, added 2021-01-23

artybollocks.com

“My work explores the relationship between Bauhausian sensibilities and counter-terrorism. With influences as diverse as Rousseau and Roy Lichtenstein, new insights are manufactured from both constructed and discovered textures.”

Created 2011-06-10, added 2021-11-21

astronaut.io

You are an astronaut floating over the Earth, observing Her people’s everyday lives. These clips have been uploaded to Youtube fresh off of the camera with file names like IMG 1923, never meant to be seen… but now, they are.

Created c. 2017-01, added 2020-08-05

belowthesurface.amsterdam

The stories told by a variety of interesting things found in a canal in Amsterdam during excavation of a metro line.

Created 2018-06-13, added 2020-03-05

beneathvt.com

“Do not enter the steam tunnels.” These are the adventures of a rag-tag group of explorers at one Virginian university.

Created c. 2009, added 2021-11-21

billwurtz.com

Bill Wurtz’s home page is wonderfully bare-bones, and filled with all sorts of hidden nooks and crannies; the anagrams page is a personal favourite.

 Also by Bill Wurtz: La de da de da de da de day oh

Created c. 2005, added 2020-02-13

bridgesonthetyne.co.uk

The surprisingly interesting history of the bridges that span the Tyne gorge — and a bunch of other rivers throughout the North East, just for good measure.

Created c. 2006, added 2021-11-20

brienne.org

An online exhibition about a 17th-century trunk of letters sent to a museum the The Hague.

Created 2015-11-04, added 2020-03-06

ccru.net

??? “Warwick University maintains that the CCRU was never a sanctioned academic project, with some faculty going so far as to assert that the CCRU ‘has never existed’.”

Created c. 2000, added 2022-11-19

colornames.org

A collaborative effort to name every colour. 2½ million and counting!

Created c. 2017-11, added 2021-05-16

theconditionalorchestra.org

Procedurally generated music based on your location.

Created c. 2017-10-20, added 2020-02-13

confluence.org

I’ll let this “organised sampling of the world” speak for itself:

“The goal of the project is to visit each of the latitude and longitude integer degree intersections in the world, and to take pictures at each location. The pictures, and stories about the visits, will then be posted here.”

Created c. 1996-02, added 2022-06-08

corru.observer

Someone on Neocities linked me to this, telling me to check out “[their] friend’s personal site”.

Dear reader, it is emphatically not just a personal site: it is, without hyperbole, one of the best damned things i’ve ever seen on the internet. It’s a game… website… comic… well, i don’t know, TV Tropes would call it a “web original” — it’s a thing where you play as, uh, an undercover archeologist hacking into memories stored in an alien computer recovered from the bottom of the sea?

You think it’s going to be a horror thing at first, but then it suddenly shifts gears entirely and instead becomes uber-charming and makes you realise why people liked Homestuck so much despite the janky presentation. I’m converting to whatever religion this is. Praise Corru!!

Created 2021-04-18, added 2023-08-03

cuberule.com

A delightful and 100% objective categorisation of carbohydrate-based foods. We can finally be sure that a hot dog is, in fact, a sandwich, although this also requires accepting that pork pies are a calzone.

Created 2018-10-17, added 2020-02-13

curiousnotions.com

I always get a bit lost trying to navigate around here; there’s no real central index, so one winds up clicking around a lot and seeing what’s there. Maybe that’s a good thing.

Created c. 2000-08, added 2024-02-07

curlie.org

Formerly known as Dmoz, Curlie is the original diectory for surfing the ’web. It’s getting on a bit now — many of the listed sites are absolutely ancient — but i don’t think that’s a bad thing. It’s internet history at your fingertips, this!

Created 1998-06-05, added 2021-11-21

davidrumsey.com

A collection of mainly old and antique maps. I could spend hours here; beautiful cartography is my greatest weakness.

Created c. 1996, added 2020-12-06

dedalvs.com

David J. Peterson is probably the closest thing the field of conlang­ing has to a celebrity, having done things as high-profile as Game of Thrones’ Dothraki. This makes it all the more surprising that he has a wonderful little hand-coded website for his other conlang­ing projects. Those aren’t even my favourite part, though: that honour goes to the Smiley Awards, an annual award given to a language that “makes [him] smile”.

Inspiration: Mr. Peterson’s site was the thing that inspired me to have an HTML presence to begin with; the earliest design of this very site was copied from his. (I’ll link an image when i get around to finding one…)

Created c. 2004-05-21, added 2020-08-05

diamondgeezer.blogspot.com

Life as viewed from London E3, by someone with an ever-more-accurate nom de plume. There’s 20 years’ worth of material to dig through; a real treasure trove if you’re interested in attractions or transit in the area.

Created 2002-09-08, added 2020-09-23

diamondssuck.com

A personal rant about why diamonds aren’t all they’re cracked up to be, and why you should consider buying the more vibrant moissanite instead.

Created 2006-05-21, added 2024-02-07

hermeticfellowship.org/Dionysion

A directory of links in honour of Dionysos. Be advised, though, that it hasn’t been updated in eighteen years, and thus many of the links sadly no longer point to their intended destinations.

Created c. 1998-09, added 2020-12-29

drawing.garden

Remember when you were a little kid and you’d make art by gluing leaves and sticks you’d found onto paper? Welcome to the meta­verse, buddy.

Created c. 2020-05-11, added 2024-02-07

dreamwiki.sixey.es

The “DREAMWIKI” is a surreal wiki of twisty little interlinked nocturnal ramblings. Don’t miss the main site, which includes a subterranean tunnel system buried deep beneath the surface.

Created c. 2018-08-08, added 2020-06-12

earth.nullschool.net

What’s the weather like out there? Strangely mesmerising.

Created c. 2013-11-04, added 2023-08-03

etymonline.com

“A map of the wheel-ruts of modern English” — the definitive online compendium of the origins of English words, as compiled by one Douglas Harper of Penn­syl­vania.

 See also: Jeff from Florida’s resource of word-nerdery

Created 2001, added 2021-11-20

everynoise.com

You may be disappointed that it doesn’t literally play every noise at once. But it’s a fascinating data-driven look at how music is categorised, and incidentally a pretty good tool for discovering new artists!

Maybe you could argue this doesn’t belong in the “Directories” category. I think it counts, though — not a directory of websites, but definitely an equivalent format for music.

Created 2013-03-22, added 2020-02-13

exitmundi.nl

One day, the world will end — but how? This crumbling collection of possibilities (seriously, like a third of the images are broken) lays out the options.

Created c. 2001-02, added 2022-11-19

mango.pdf.zone/finding-former-australian-prime-minister-tony-abbotts-passport-number-on-instagram

“For security reasons, we try to change our Prime Minister every six months, and to never use the same Prime Minister on multiple websites.”

Created 2020-09-15, added 2020-09-23

florilegium.org

A collection of resources on mediæval life, collected for the benefit of the live-action role-play community.

Created c. 1999-03, added 2021-11-21

fraidyc.at

Alright, maybe this is just a glorified RSS reader with a few extra bits tacked on. But i love the way it organises content: just because someone posts more frequently doesn’t mean i want to see more of them!

Created c. 2019-11-04, added 2020-04-24

futuretimeline.net

What might the world be like in ten years? A hundred? A thousand, or a million? This site puts forward an answer.

Created c. 2008, added 2022-11-19

gefrin.com

“An eclectic look at some of the archaeology and heritage in and around Northumberland”.

Created c. 2003-04, added 2024-02-07

hryanjones.com/guess-my-word

Warm. Warm. Cold. Colder. Wa—freezing cold. Words change daily.

Created 2019-04-22, added 2020-12-06

50watts.com/Hoogspanning-More-Dutch-Safety-Posters

Along the same lines, here’s a horrifying Dutch firework PSA.

Created 2014-02-19, added 2024-02-07

horg.com

Horg.

Created 2011-12-01, added 2021-05-16

href.cool

oh shit things just got meta

A directory of links that were my main inspiration in creating this page. There’s so much cool stuff here, and i still haven’t reached the bottom.

I think it’s interesting that we have different methods of approaching the intertwingularity of things: href.cool has a hierarchical structure with a few sites repeated in different categories, while this linkroll has a flat tag structure.

Created 2013-03-22, added 2020-02-13

lileks.com

A recovering journalist’s archive of twentieth-century pop-culture and advertising Americana. Includes a “gallery of regrettable foods”.

Created 1997-02-01, added 2022-01-08

lindisfarne.org.uk

Though the official(?) website of the Holy Island of Lindisfarne looks like it hasn’t been changed in a decade, it’s still regularly updated to this day — they put a fabric texture on their GDPR nag, for foxache! I love it so much

Created c. 1998-01, added 2020-09-23

lu.tiny-universes.net

Another fellow sailor out here in these dusk days of the free web.

That was a bit wank-y, sorry — this is a pretty neat collage-style personal website full of random tchotch­kes and knick-knacks. Check it out!

Created 2020-01-12, added 2022-06-08

macpaint.org

A gallery of art created in the namesake antique computer programme.

Created 2011-05-16, added 2021-08-03

search.marginalia.nu

Filling the same slot the dearly departed Million Short took in the earlier days of this page, Mar­gin­a­lia Search searches just the smaller, more personal parts of the web — it’s more useful as a tool for spelunking for interesting sites than general queries, i find.

See also: Exa, née Metaphor, which leverages machine learning to let you write your queries in reverse — say, “Here’s a cool website about Northumbrian history” (which is how i found the afore­linked Gefrin).

Created 2021-02-05, added 2024-02-07

マリウス.com

This is a lot techier than i’d usually stand to put on here, but i respect the gumption of a Kata­kana domain name enough to forgive that.

Created c. 2015, added 2024-02-07

neglectedbooks.com

“Where forgotten books are remembered.” Filed under Americana, because really, is there anything more American than the thought that some plucky author had already written the Great American Novel all those years ago and noöne had noticed?

Created 2006-06-20, added 2024-02-07

neilcic.com/mouthmoods

The annoying thing about the Mouth tetralogy is that you’ll never be able to hear the normal versions of these songs the same way again.

 Also by Neil Cicierega: The entirety of 21st century internet culture

Created 2017-01-23, added 2020-03-18

parallel.co.uk/netherlands

There are ten million buildings in the Netherlands, and this fuck-off great map shows how old they all are.

 See also: Topotijdreis and the National Library of Scotland’s viewer for exploring old maps of the Netherlands and UK

Created 2019-08-28, added 2021-11-21

noclip.website

Noclip.website lets you fly through the abandoned worlds of old video games, set free from their cartridges, devoid of any players or characters. It’s like wandering around after the Rapture.

Created c. 2018, added 2021-08-03

nomorecorners.wordpress.com

The official website of the All About Roundabouts Society, and what quality roundabouts they are! This is what the internet was made for, really. Exudes very British energies, but seems to be based in the suburban town of Carmel, Indiana.

Created c. 2015, added 2021-01-23

icebergcharts.com/i/Obscure_Unsolved_Mysteries

None of the usual iceberg fodder — this is the real shit. A clamshell that fills schoolchildren with the urge to say “God died in there”. The surrealist movement being founded after someone heard a ghostly voice proclaim “there is a man cut in half by the stairs”. Hairy angelic ancestors. Directly into my veins!

Created 2021-11-29, added 2024-02-07

eev.ee/blog/2020/02/01/old-css-new-css

This is a whirlwind tour of the chaotic history of CSS, one of the three founding pillars of the web, peppered with just the right amount of jokes and fucks to be engaging but not irritating. As a bonus, the last part doubles as a pretty solid recap of all the neat things modern CSS can do!

Created 2020-02-01, added 2020-08-02

omfgdogs.com

The song playing in the background is a chiptune version of ”Fång­ad av en storm­vind”. You’re welcome.

Created c. 2012-02-28, added 2020-04-24

openverse.org

Absolutely indispensible if you’re running a CC0 website like myself — search the web for images that you’re actually allowed to use.

Created 2019-04-30, added 2024-02-07

orbis.stanford.edu

Like Google Maps for the Roman world. You can plot out a course from Britannia to Carthage and see how long it would take and how many bags of grain you’d have to fork over.

Created 2012-05-06, added 2021-08-03

orionsarm.com

The year is 12,569 CE. Terragen civilisation — to say “human” would be gauche when there’s robots, artificial intelligences, artificial life, uplifted animals, and genetically-engineered crea­tures of all types — has spread across a comparatively small pocket of the galaxy, but it’s made friends, enemies, and horrors beyond anyone’s comprehension. Wel­come to Orion’s Arm.

Created 2000-06-06, added 2022-01-08

orkneyjar.com

A repository for the history and culture of the Orkney islands, up in the far north of Scotland.

Created c. 1997, added 2021-11-21

paratheatrical.com

I, uh… i don’t really know what this is. I don’t remember how i found it. I get the sense that if i don’t share it a ghost will kill me in seven days.

See also: Vertical Pool Productions, from the same webmaster

Created c. 1996, added 2024-02-07

peelopaalu.neocities.org

Another big directory of links. This one has a more image-board-y, vintage tilt to it — musty old websites full of anarchic nerd stuffs.

Created 2019-07-29, added 2021-11-21

theodoregray.com/periodictable

A literal periodic table of elements, with tons of samples and stories of how it was made.

Created 2002-04-15, added 2020-12-29

persepolis.getty.edu

A gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous recreation of the ancient city of Per­se­polis in all its glory. Technically runs on a phone, but i wouldn’t want to try it!

Created c. 2022-04, added 2024-02-07

phrontistery.info

I wish i’d known about this horde of words and word-related paraphernalia before starting the Compendium. It can be a bit impenetrable to browse, though…

Created c. 1996-10, added 2020-12-06

pikemalarkey.neocities.org

See? You don’t need fancy styles (or any styles) to have a site worth visiting.

Created 2020-03-06, added 2022-07-23

worlddreambank.org/P/PLANETS.HTM

Dozens of potential planets, from variations upon our home’s geography to completely new worlds. Contains an odd amount of naked furries, so, um, maybe don’t click through at work?

Created c. 2002, added 2022-11-19

pluto.zone

Pluto was beautiful. Pluto was there when you needed it. And then one day, it wasn’t anymore. I’m linking to an archived version here, but the original will never be forgotten.

Created 2015-09-06, disappeared c. 2019-04, added 2020-02-13

postbox.garden

An image board with a lovely gimmick: you have to submit your post as a physical letter to the webmistress. Slow, but always wonderful.

Created 2017-03-21, added 2023-08-03

qntm.org

Sci-fi stories, analyses of time travel, and assorted others by author Sam Hughes.

Created c. 2006-01, added 2020-12-06

queerbychoice.com

“You chose to be gay, sinner!”

“Ok and?”

Created c. 1999, added 2022-06-08

radicalcartography.net

I probably can’t justify adding this on its own merits — but man, i remember browsing this as a wee bairn, thinking “radical” was just meant in the nineties sense; no thoughts, just taking in the pretty maps.

Created 2003-04-21, added 2023-08-03

random.earth

Imagine you’re an astronaut, floating above the Earth. This is about what you’d see — randomly chosen serendipitous spots from around the globe.

Created c. 2020-04-12, added 2022-06-08

rddnickel.com/atlas.html

An absolutely astonishing amount of effort went into this, which seems to have gone entirely unappreciated — i seem to remember happening upon this entirely on accident! Go check it out; Mr Nickel deserves the hits.

Created c. 2012, added 2023-08-03

huh.art/red

Watching paint dry has never been so entertaining.

Created c. 2015-12-03, added 2022-07-23

retronator.com

A beautifully composed online magazine about beautiful pixel art. How they got Tumblr to coöperate with that design, i have no idea.

Created c. 2010, added 2020-03-19

rivendell.neocities.org

A site belonging to an elven-inclined engineer and conlanger who has, in his own words, “been a musician, a linguist, a gamer, a mystic, an actor, a DJ, a runner, a raver, a philosopher, an artist, a writer, and probably a few other things that are escaping my mind at the moment.”

Created 2018-10-21, added 2021-11-20

sacred-texts.com

An archive of religious and spiritual writings in the public domain from every corner of the globe.

Created 1999-09-03, added 2021-08-03

saintjohnsbible.org

The first illuminated Bible manuscript commissioned since the invention of the printing press.

Created c. 1998-12, added 2020-12-29

andymatuschak.org/scrying-pen/

This pen predicts what you’re drawing. Let it guide your hand.

Created 2018-03-04, added 2020-11-08

fieggen.com/shoelace

Reader, i’m going to confess an embarrassing secret: i was terrible at tying my shoes until well into my teenage years. That was until i found the Ian Knot — just the tip of the iceberg of one Australian’s terrifyingly large collection of shoelaceicana.

Created 2000-04-23, added 2022-06-08

skyscraperpage.com

"Xanthe, I fail to see why"— *click* —"a site just about sky­scrap­ers"— *click* —"merits inclusion on thi... oh no i’ve got twenty tabs of this open help"

Created 2017-01-23, added 2020-03-19

slowroads.io

Forza Horizon is so last year. Today’s kids are driving aimlessly and peacefully through virtual forests. In electric vehicles, no less!

Created c. 2022-03, added 2022-11-19

slowways.org

Collaboratively-sourced quiet walking paths between every town in Britain. I can vouch for their accuracy, so give your local routes a try, why don’t you?

Created c. 2020-07, added 2021-05-16

souloftheworld.com†

The goal is simple: there is exactly one alignment where, if you were to put a cube inside the womb of broad-bosomed Earth, all six corners would poke out over land. It is time to build that cube.

And, uh, unrelatedly… i think this site might be haunted? I first found it from a now-deleted Reddit comment, where someone told the story of how they found an ominous black pyramid on their tropical vacation. So i stash the link away for later, and then, when i come back — it’s gone! Wiped off the face of the internet. And so i look on the Internet Archive, and what do you know, there’s all this stuff about Goddess-worship, sacred geometry… is… i… what? What??

Created c. 2002, disappeared c. 2023, added 2024-02-07

spirit-alembic.com

“A non-religious Mystical-Science New Age Order” that makes mead via alchemy. I think i may need glasses now.

Created c. 1999, added 2024-02-07

steen.free.fr

The personal website of conlanger Jan van Steen­berg­en. He’s a major contributor to the sprawling online alternate history setting Ill Be­thi­sad, the international Slavic language Interslavic, and devised a neat system to classify conlangs in the absence of any natural language families in which they can be grouped. His website was one of the things that inspired me to make this little site in the first place!

Created c. 2004-12, added 2020-12-29

superbad.com

Don’t click on me. It upsets the bees. Now you’ve done it. The bees have left.

Created c. 1997-06-30, added 2020-05-28

superpixelquest.com

You expect me to sit here and explain “Super Pixel Quest” to you? Dang thing doesn’t even have any words except the ones telling you how to click through it. Go take a look yourself. It’s cute.

Created c. 2014-07-07, added 2021-01-23

surf.city

22 channels about various topics... lean back and relax.

Created 2020-04-17, added 2020-04-24

tenochtitlan.thomaskole.nl

I am, admittedly, a big sop, but i teared up a little the first time i saw this 3D recreation of the ancient city of Tenochtitlan. All the things we’ve lost! And for what, rum?

Created c. 2023-09-02, added 2024-02-07

99percentinvisible.org/episode/ten-thousand-years

The ways we’ve come up with to communicate the danger posed by radioactive waste to future generations fascinate me to no end. Land art and green cats are just some of the interesting ones!

Created 2014-05-12, added 2020-02-13

galactanet.com/oneoff/theegg_mod.html

You were on your way home when you died. And that’s when you met me.

 See also: Kurzgesagt’s animated version

Created 2017-08-15, added 2020-03-19

theoi.com

Bountiful information on the Gods of ancient Hellas: mythoi, Their domains, epithets, and ancient worship.

Created c. 2000, added 2020-05-28

timecube.com†

No matter how weird you think the Time Cube story is, it always seems to get weirder.

Created c. 1997, disappeared c. 2015-08, added 2020-02-13

tixy.land

A “creative coding environment” of 16 by 16 bicoloured circles.

The programme showing on the screenshot is sin(t-sqrt((x-7.5)**4+(y-7)**4)), if you’d like to try it for yourself.

Created 2020-11-02, added 2020-11-08

unmuseum.org

The charmingly retro “Museum of UnNatural Mystery” explores the fringes of scientific (and a little bit of pseudo­scien­ti­fic) know­ledge. Try not to touch the iframes and musty 3D renderings; they’re very fragile…

Created c. 1999, added 2021-08-03

geoffreylandis.com/vacuum.html

What would actually happen if you dove into the inky black cosmic vacuum without a spacesuit? Less than you might think, explains a Nasa scientist.

Created 2000-06-27, added 2024-02-07

vole.wtf

Various fun games and jokes. My personal favourite is Can You Draw a Perfect Circle?— best i can do is 97.7%.

Created 2020-04-17, added 2020-04-24

en.wikipedia.org

Wikipedia can be considered living proof that humans are, fundamentally, nice. The fact that we’ve managed to keep an online encyclopædia running (ad-free, even!) for twenty years without it completely burning to the ground is really one of our greatest achievements, right up there alongside fire, electricity, and the guitar solo from “Free Bird”.

See also: Any list which includes Wikipedia would be incomplete without its cousin Wiktionary, my first port of call for any lexical needs.

Created 2001-01-15, added 2020-02-13

windows93.net

A fantastical operating system with widgets galore.

Created c. 2014-10, added 2020-03-19

wmw.thran.uk

Always happy to link to a fellow directory connoisseur. That’s short for “well made web”, if you couldn’t tell.

Created 2021-08-28, added 2024-02-07

wolfmanmuseum.org

A treasure trove of art, live streams, and other such multimedia. Very noticeably inspired by the Geocities era of web design, with weird branching paths stretching throughout; it’s like exploring an actual museum.

Created c. 2017-01, added 2020-03-10

effectgames.com/demos/worlds

These evolving, interactive scenes were pixel-painted by Mark Ferrari — of Monkey Island note — for an obscure daily planner app back in the ’90s… and now they’re back! Also available as a wallpaper for your phone.

Created 2010-07-17, added 2022-07-23

yip.pe

Sixteen by sixteen pixels for you to doodle on and share about.

Created 2014-11-07, added 2024-02-07

Stats

  • Total number of sites: 110
  • Most common domains:
    1. .com 💰️ (48)
    2. .org 😇️ (25)
    3. .net 🕸️ (7)
    4. .uk the United Kingdom (4)
    5. .edu 🎓️, .garden 🌿️, .io the Chagos Islands, .nl the Netherlands, .zone ☮️ (2 each)
    6. .ac Ascension Island, .amsterdam [loc.country.nl/amsterdam], .art 🎨️, .at Austria, .city 🌆️, .cool 😎️, .earth 🌍️, .ee Estonia, .es Spain, .fr France, .info ℹ️, .land 🏜️, .nu Niue, .observer 👀️, .pe Peru, .website 🖥️, .wtf 🤯️ (1 each)
  • Oldest site: Probably one of confluence.org, davidrumsey.com, or paratheatrical.com, all of which hail from around early 1996.
  • Newest site: tenochtitlan.thomaskole.nl was put up in September of 2023.
  • Taggedest tag: Thirty-four sites are old enough to be considered Classics; less arbitrarily, twenty-two fall under the category of History.
  • Seldomest tag: Only two lonely sites sit under Videos, a consequence of the format’s hefty file size and domination by Youtube.
← Back to home

6 comments

The Satyrs’ Forest holds a myriad paths, and its navigators can neither vouch for nor condemn any exits found by visitors.
  1. Xanthe says…
    2w8373gz the United Kingdom

    Welcome to the brand-spanking-new comments section!! I was always a bit skittish about letting people leave whatever links they want, but eh, it’ll probably be fine.

    (P.S. — Please note that anyone using the comments just to self-promote will be given the traditional satyr punishment of having their flesh rended limb from limb.)

    Changelog, 2023 March 8

    • Removed some sites (don’t remember how many, soz) and added 7, totting up to a total of 92 sites and counting! (We’ll hit that big 100 one day…)
    • Removed the “Data” tag and renamed “Discovery” to “Serendipity”.
    • This page now finally remembers your preferred theme and language.
  2. Xanthe says…
    2w8373gz the United Kingdom

    Changelog, 2023 April 4

    Fixed a bug where changing the page language would land you in an infinite loop every time you reloaded the page. That was, as we say, not the bedoeling…

  3. Wanderer says…
    z2ccg0ve the United States

    I'd just like to thank you so much for putting these together, I browse this site every once in a while and it's brought me some of my favorite experiences on the internet.

  4. Xanthe says…
    2w8373gz the United Kingdom

    Changelog, 2024 February 7

    • Removed two sites and added twenty, bringing us up to a massive 110 total sites! 🥳
    • Added a new “Volume” tags, for sites presented in fabulous 3D.
  5. Xanthe says…
    2w8373gz the United Kingdom

    Changelog, 2024 February 8

    • Did some mild cleaning up after myself; a few mistags here, some spelling errors there.
    • Added some stats for the list to the end.
    • The tag buttons in the entries themselves work again, after i inadvertently broke them in the Great Hiatus Migration of 2023.
Please be nice. Comments may be edited for proper spelling and capitalisation, because i’m a pedant. Basic formatting: *bold*, /italics/, [//satyrs.eu links]→ More