Do you know of any obscure useful websites?

This To That tells you what type of adhesive to use to glue different materials together. It's handy for Halloween when suddenly you need to figure out how to attach vinyl to styrofoam or something (hot glue)

Useless in every country except one though. Never heard of these brands
- A small instance of USDefaultism, but I appriciate OP's thought.
- I agree it would be better if the site included brands from other countries too, but it can still be used as a starting point. I'm sure you could Google the item and figure out the equivalent where you're from.

https://favicon.io/favicon-converter/ - Convert an image to a favicon file in many formats.

https://ninite.com/ - Easiest way to set up a new Windows PC with the latest common applications without toolbars, prompts, or anything like that. Not necessarily obscure but I like to peddle it.

https://www.printablepaper.net/ - Need a check register? Graph paper? Lined paper? College ruled or wide ruled? Dot paper? Calendars? If it's on paper, chances are you can find it and print it here.

https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/ - Need a good bedtime story? This site is best read right before falling asleep.

"bedtime story" 🤣🤣🤣
- SCP-7311 🥺
FYI: Ninite has largely been superseded by Chocolatey
- Chocolatey isn't really made for the DIYer setting up their computer for a one-off install - for that I always recommend Ninite. Chocolatey is useful for enterprises and advanced DIYers though.
- Another FYI: winget is usable if you wish to use a native solution. It has its shortcomings over choco, but usable.
  
  MS learn page
- Though isnt chocolatey a paid service? Ninite is free...
https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/ - Need a good bedtime story? This site is best read right before falling asleep.

my favourite place to generate nightmares
https://realfavicongenerator.net/

It's very magical in that it creates a favicon for a website for nearly all major platforms and includes the manifests. You literally drag and drop and you got a pro configuration for free.

It's great for developing for mobile apps, web, and PWAs all at once.
I like the last one. Have you read about the penis tree?
WAIT! Is the SCP wiki the inspiration for Control?
- Definitely

Want to know something about published science fiction or fantasy? Forget Goodreads or Wikipedia bibliographies, the ISFDB has ridiculously comprehensive details about every book, author or magazine I've looked up.

https://www.isfdb.org/

Google will give you ISFDB results if you search for an author or title plus "isfdb" but it's not nearly as high in the rankings as it should be.

Awesome!! Hadn't seen this before.

I think this goes on some list I've started of old-style fecking awesome web pages that represent exactly what us old timers are talking about when we say the internet has lost something vital. No frills, community driven, information rich and dense web page producing long lasting value. Just compare this to some recipe page with flocks of ads.

https://port87.com

An email service that uses addresses like yourname-appname@port87.com to organize all your email into a folder for every app/service.

You can also make these addresses screen senders before their email goes through, for something like yourname-friends@port87.com.

You can mark them as public and they’ll be included in a list if someone emails the bare address (yourname@port87.com), so you can share your bare address all over the internet without getting spam.

(Full disclosure: I created and operate this service.)

So, you can do this with gmail already. What's your pitch on why someone should use Port87 instead of Gmail (besides the obvious Google is evil, etc.)?
- A lot of services have stopped accepting + addresses as valid, or even stripping them before saving. So at least for a while, - addresses could be more useful
- You can also do it with Protonmail. myname@protonmail.com turns into myname+service@protonmail.com
- you can also just buy your own domain and set it up your gmail/whatever as the catchall, then use appname@mydomain.com
- It's not Google. I'm sold.
- It is trivial to strip +xyz from all of the email addresses in a list.
Where is the pricing?
- I don’t have it on the promotional site right now, but here’s the breakdown:
  
  Receive unlimited mail, 500MB storage: Free
  
  Send unlimited mail*: $1/month
  
  2GB extra: $2/month
  
  10GB extra: $6/month
  
  20GB extra: $10/month
  
  100GB extra: $20/month
  
  1TB extra: $40/month
  
  There are upcoming features that I haven’t done the market research and cost analysis for yet to determine pricing, but these are the features that are still in development:
  
  Native mobile app (right now it’s a PWA): Free
  
  IMAP/SMTP/CardDAV for third party clients and to import/export/sync: Undetermined price
  
  Custom domain with unlimited addresses: Undetermined price
  
  Additional users for you custom domain: Undetermined price
  
  * The reason for charging $1/month to send email is so that spammers won’t use my service to send spam. A spammer is very unlikely to divulge their real payment information.

This site will show you how to tackle any stain.

This wording always has me imagining beefy American footballers tackling stained carpets.
Sadly, today I was greeted with this message: We have discontinued our stain solution website.
- How much does the "textile world" change? How does a method of cleaning fabric become outdated? I have so many questions!

to keep up to date on zoomer slang: Bruh.News

"Study Finds That No One Really Knows What They're Doing" can relate.
- Right? Like half the site is nothing but Onion News headlines lol.
Came for the slang, stayed for the music!
DAMNED

Free Media Heck Yeah. The largest collection of Free stuff on the Internet

https://fmhy.net

This is amazing. I am in love with this site already. Thanks for sharing!
- No problem! So many resources on that site.

For those in school:

https://www.desmos.com/scientific - badass scientific calculator. Desmos has a mobile app as well.

https://www.madeintext.com/subscript-generator/ - Helpful for typing out shit like: Na₂HPO₄ + H⁺ → NaH₂PO₄ + Na⁺

Also Windows Key + Period will open up a menu with a shit on of emojis and special characters, for things like that → arrow.

^note that it's got tabs on both the top and bottom of the menu

Man, this made me remember that the win+period -window used to have a search bar in it. Loved it. Then suddenly I guess Microsoft thought that it was too convenient because it vanished.
- It simply uses the text field you use it in as the search bar, you can just start typing and get results.
- It still -kind of- does, it's just not super intuitive anymore. Open the menu, select the tab, then just start typing your search. The text you type will appear in the text field you were typing in before opening the win+. menu, but as you type it'll filter the emojis and symbols down to the ones that match your input, and then replace your input when you click one.
  
  Really should just have a search bar. -_-
https://www.desmos.com/calculator is what I use every time I have to plot any graph
also win+; for emoji!
just tried it, Windows/Meta + Period also works on KDE Plasma 5. 😀

If you need a bed or bedding, https://www.sleeplikethedead.com/ collects and distills online reviews from everywhere about it.

If you need earbuds, http://www.scarbir.com/ does similar.

If you need earbuds, http://www.scarbir.com/ does similar.

This guy is gold! I've bought a few pairs of cheap headphones after reading his comparisons and reviews, and all have been spot on! He tests on both iPhone and Android, and he explains the differences in sound quality if very approachable and concise ways. When I need headphones again, his site is my no 1 stop.
- Also for earbuds, Crinacle

Idk how obscure it is but Paul’s Online Math Notes https://tutorial.math.lamar.edu/ are the best math guide I’ve ever had. It got me through an engineering degree

Looks like its down for the moment
- Lemmy hug of death

https://it-tools.tech/

Bonus points is you can host yourself with docker. It has a bunch of handy tools for computer related projects.

For Windows, you can use devtoys for an offline version of this https://devtoys.app/
I love this!
This is awesome!
What does it mean to host oneself? Is that like being a guest in your own house?
- You can set it up on your computer to run as a local website. You access it by going to your local computer IP address followed by the port it's on.
  
  I set mine to run on port 8084.
  
  192.168.1.10:8084
  
  If I put that into my browser it loads the website directly from the computer I'm hosting it from.

https://www.whatfontis.com/

Figures out what the font is from an uploaded image. I've used it multiple times.

There's also WhatFont add on/browser extension that lets you highlight text on a website and it'll tell you what font it is!
I always use https://whatthefont.com/ although mostly cos the name's funny which makes it easy to remember. Any idea which is better?

seirdy.one has this great index of google alternatives that can be used.

Anna's Archive and z-library are the best way I've found to pirate books

Don't forget about Libgen and all its instances. I heard they pull books from z-lib but I'm not sure how it works anymore.
- Anna's archive is a meta indexer, pointing to libgen as the sources.
Mobilism dot org has been my saviour for well over a decade for books
Audiobooks too?
- No, but !lemmy.dbzer0.com/c/piracy recommends audioaz.com as a good source of pirated Audiobooks

http://remove.bg is a website that makes removing backgrounds from photos or artwork a lot easier! I think it uses A.I or something, it's been super helpful for me a couple times.

privacyguides.org has a ton of awesome tips on how to navigate technology these days without becoming a walking data point for everything you have contact with.

The first and foremost thing that comes to mind is the wayback machine. It lets you archive and immortalize any moment in a website's history.

Though I may be cheating a little here because it's actually a toolbar, another obscure, highly useful "website" is the Hypothesis toolbar. It adds a comment section to any webpage merely by existing.

Do the comments come from only other Hypothesis users?
- On Hypothesis, only someone else logged into Hypothesis can comment, if that's what you mean. If you notice someone on there with the name ThisInstrumentalBreak, that's me (you may notice me having used it to comment on this thread).

https://live.sympy.org/

It's basically an interactive Python session using a Python interpreter compiled to WebAssembly and which then runs locally on your device via your browser without having to install anything on your end.

It's very cool to check some calculation out very quickly on your phone or tablet.

Or if you want a full local Jupyterlab experience using the same WebAssembly tech: https://jupyterlite.readthedocs.io/en/stable/_static/lab/index.html (based on the JupyterLite project: https://github.com/jupyterlite/jupyterlite)

This is super helpful!

https://wiby.me/

Searches for web pages without JavaScript. The Surprise me! option is fun for finding random ass old sites too

edit: https://mapfight.xyz/

Compare the size of any two landmasses.

Love to take some wiby dives from time to time.

This time I landed on this cute little page for a married couple that posted newsletters and stuff for family and friends. Basically, they made their own Facebook page and bought a domain with their name and everything, been running it since like the mid 2000s it looks like. Even a whole ham radio section the husband put together. I was enjoying it till it became increasingly clear these two are fairly wealthy and I lost interest.
Thanks for that wilby link. Wow, this takes me back. What a joy to read the web like this once again!
Surprise me: http://batheinmymilk.com/

Um.......wtf......
- You only get one shot. Do not miss your chance to bathe. This opportunity comes once in a lifetime, Dave.
I have had a lot of fun with the surprise me option.
It wants me to pee standing up for some reason: http://mapsu.org/

Taking a chemistry class? ptable.com is the best Periodic Table site by far, packed with info and ways to visualize the relationships between elements.

Interested in what class doesn't teach you about the elements? Theodore Gray's Wooden Periodic Table Table website has a ton of very high resolution shots of the best samples you'll find, along with detailed backstory on where each one came from or how it was used.

If you have to write Objective-C for some unfortunate reason - http://fuckingblocksyntax.com/

If you have to write Objective-C for some unfortunate reason and your IT infrastructure doesn't like fun - http://goshdarnblocksyntax.com/

There's something wonky about the css on the second site. There's significant horizontal scrolling, but I can't zoom out.

No idea if this is obscure or not, but for creating diagrams I've found draw.io a very useful free website/tool (there's an offline version).
The ability to hide the entire model inside the png is really neat. You can upload the png in a wiki and later on just import it to alter it again.

Excalidraw is my favourite. Make diagrams look like sketches so that people don't take them too seriously.
- That looks quite interesting. Draw.io has a sketch option but they always look the same. This one really makes unique shapes every time create an object. Could be quite handy for quick throwaway designs. Thank you for the recommendation.
I'm gonna try this one today, thanks!

When I watch movies or TV shows, I constantly wonder how old an actor or actress is during the filming of it:

MovieAges.com

3d models of the human body, I use this a lot to troubleshoot which muscle I'm having tension/tightness in:

Human.biodigital.com

🙇🙇🙇 thank you for the human.bio link! I'm amazed this is free. What a gift.
ty for the human bio link! that will be great for sculpting

You might be able to find this website on Google, but if you are in the US, this can help you get the freshest produce. I use it all the time. https://snaped.fns.usda.gov/resources/nutrition-education-materials/seasonal-produce-guide

Huh. Apples are always in season.
- I did some searching and it turns out some apples survive up to a year in a controlled atmosphere, so they are fresh year round. Pretty nuts.
  
  https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2018/11/26/668256349/thanks-to-science-you-can-eat-an-apple-every-day
- Yeah that seems a bit strange

Noclip.website isn't all that useful, but insanely cool. Allows you to fly around maps of n64, GameCube and Wii games in 3d, rendered in your browser

Radio Garden - Listen to hundreds of radios around the globe (with a pretty interface to find your favorite radio station). Having lived in several countries, I have a list of radio stations I grew to like, and now I can have easy access to all of them.

With 20k GitHub stars not really obscure I suppose, but maybe someone doesn't know it:

https://gchq.github.io/CyberChef/

Works offline and you can chain recipes.

I spend a lot of time trying to figure out obscure undocumented data formats and cyberchef is absolutely incredible for that. Here's a fun little preview of what that looks like
- [Fixed link](https://gchq.github.io/CyberChef/#recipe=URL_DecodeRegular_expression('User defined','sysparm_properties%3D(.*?\)%26',false,false,false,false,false,false,'List capture groups'\)From_Base64('A-Za-z0-9%2B/%3D',true,false\)Gunzip(\)XML_Beautify('\\t'\)Syntax_highlighter('xml')&input=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)
  
  You have to escape all the ")" otherwise it ends the link.

I've been using https://squoosh.app/ a lot recently. Found it in a similar thread

EDIT: It is an image compression site where the images never leave your device. Or so the privacy policy says anyway. It took some tweaking, but i've had some images with an 80%+ size reducrion with almost no perceivable quality loss.

can you edit in a description of what it does? (I mean it's pretty evident when you visit at first glance but just for others convenience)

in the mean time, for anyone reading, it's an image compression site
- Done, thanks for the suggestion. I forget things like that sometimes.
I'd also like to highlight TinyPNG. It does compress images pretty well and does batching of up to 20 images of 5 mb each for free.

https://tinypng.com/

And, of course, its counterpart SVG OMG with super fine grain controls.

https://svgomg.net/

Microwave Watt?? Converts cooking instructions to whatever your actual microwave is (mine’s a shitty 700w beast so I have to add about 50% cooking time to most things). http://www.microwavewatt.com/

I use that all the time. I have so many friends who just give it however long it says on the packaging and then complain their microwaves suck.

The only thing that can still throw me off course is when the packaging says: "microwave for about 7-9 minutes depending on your microwave". Bro, what am I supposed to do with this information? I'm ready to go watt for watt, I don't want to keep an eye on my microwave. I just wanna hear the bing and know it's done.

https://thistothat.com/

How to glue things together

brutalist.report The day's headlines delivered to you without bullshit.

If you often post links to music then Songwhip is invaluable. Give it a song and it generates a page with links to many common streaming services.

Here's an example.

It's not obscure, but i love APKpure to download beta versions of whatsapp

Why would you want to use beta versions of WhatsApp? Genuinely curious.
- Perhaps to get betta insight? 😜
- When they add a new feature i consider to be good i download the beta
- A lot longer ago Whatsapp wasn't a Facebook property

Check out c/internetisbeautiful

Hi there! Looks like you linked to a Lemmy community using a URL instead of its name, which doesn't work well for people on different instances. Try fixing it like this: !internetisbeautiful@lemmy.world
- Good bot.

Erowid.org

You can't mention Erowid without mentioning similar organizations like Dancesafe, MAPS and Bluelight. I'm not being hyperbolic when I say that I am only here today because of those sites. I am literally where I am today because of my time on Bluelight.
- I'm in my 40's. Erowid has been with me since I was a teen. I don't really know about the rest, but ty.
https://www.oglaf.com/
- I'm insanely confused.

https://flagid.org/

This site lets you identify flags by color, shape, charges etc.

Jesus Christ that's a lot of ads
- Does it have a lot of them? I have a blocker so I didn't know.

https://curlconverter.com/ converts browser requests to code, huge time saver

The Dev tools in Firefox (and probably other browsers) can do this, too. Not just curl, also fetch and other formats
- Yeah I'm copying those requests to curl and then put it inside the website to have a working Python code

somafm.com

A good selection of internet radio stations that has been around for many many years

Good opportunity to specifically recommend radioparadise.com - been supporting them for a very, very long time.

For all my fellow mechanical engineers out there, Custom Parts is an incredible tool for estimating tooling and production costs for injection molding, die casting, stamping, you name it. For runs all the way from 50 parts to 2 million I've found the estimates there to be consistently within 10% of the quotes we've gotten from suppliers

Edit: Corrected link, that's what I get for going off memory lol

Do you mean https://www.custompartnet.com/ ?
- I did indeed haha. Thanks

https://maki-chan.de/preventclose.htm

If you have a tendency to accidentally X out of your entire browser with all its tabs by an errant flick of the mouse, then this site as one of your tabs (need to click one for Chrome, as it notes) will have a popup asking if you're sure you want to close everything, letting you prevent that.

or you can just hit cntr shift t
- Or reopen your browser and have it restore the history. Yes, I know. But this helps you avoid even that minor hassle from happening at all.
I must clarify one thing though for anyone reading this, it sadly doesn't prevent browsers from crashing. Sorry to everyone who has Firefox or Opera as their main.

The only way I see to fix this issue is to use a different search engine which doesn't rely on google or bing. I only know of one which is brave but please let me know if there are any others.

The reason I say this is because it will increase competition and is better for users.