Bookmarks

This is a growing collection of links, facts, lessons, and other things I've found useful or interesting. I keep it here as a personal reference, but you're welcome to browse through and see if anything catches your eye.

Note: if you found this page useful, you may visit the TIL page for more frequently updated insights and lessons that I learn.

Science & Technology

• Eurion Constellation is a pattern on most banknotes that helps stop counterfeiting. Many image editors and printers block you from editing or printing money images if they spot this pattern.

• Don't save future timestamps in UTC because timezone rules can change for political reasons. Read my blog post on this topic.

• QWERTY took about 30 years to evolve. The first keyboard used ABCDEFG order. Read my blog post on this topic.

• This 46-minute explainer video from 3Blue1Brown on how holograms work is one of the best science explainer videos that I've ever watched. The channel has many other great videos on math and science topics.

Psychology, Laws, Fallacies, Effects, and Theories

Here are some concepts, rules, and effects that help me think more clearly and avoid common mistakes in reasoning.

• Confirmation Bias says that we tend to notice and remember information that supports what we already believe, and ignore what doesn't. I watch out for this, especially in arguments or debates.

• Murphy's Law says that "anything that can go wrong will go wrong". This is a good reminder to plan for problems, especially when building software. I always assume users will find ways to break things, so I try to prepare for that. Read a story on securing app licensing.

• Butterfly Effect says that small changes can lead to big consequences. For example, in 2024, an array of one less item caused millions of computers to crash and led to billions in losses worldwide.

• Survivorship Bias says that we often only see the successes and forget about all the failures. For example, people say "old songs are better", but that's because only the best ones are remembered — there were plenty of bad songs too.

• Benford's law is an observation that in many real-world datasets, smaller digits appear as the leading digit more often than larger ones.

You may checkout the website yourlogicalfallacyis.com. I use it often to sharpen my reasoning skills.

Art

• I usually suggest OK Go music videos for their exceptional practical effects and ultimate creativity. Especially videos like Obsession and Upside Down & Inside Out (also watch how they made it)

• "Windowpane" by Opeth (YouTube / Spotify) is a song I stumbled on in a Sunday column back in 2010. It's been on my playlist ever since and one of my all-time favorites. I always say that I want a QR code to this song on my tombstone so others can discover even after I leave.

History

I hated history in school — it felt pointless back then. But over time, I started getting curious about how we ended up here, what humanity went through, and what we might learn from it all. These are links and notes on history, old civilizations, and whatever else from the past catches my interest.

• Boustrophedon is a writing style where each line goes in the opposite direction (left-to-right, then right-to-left). I made a code snippet to show this in English.

• A fascinating visualization of 4,000 years of world history: JPEG / interactive version. I revisit this map often when diving into history and civilizations.

Websites

• Explorable Explanations is a fantastic collection of interactive illustrations on science, math, engineering, philosophy, and more.

• Bartosz Ciechanowski's personal website has many interactive articles explaining how things work. Great educational stuff.

• The University of Nebraska-Lincoln Astronomy Department has a great set of animations about astronomy. Some of my favorites:

  • Seasons demonstrator
  • Seasons and ecliptic simulator
  • Motions of the Sun simulator

• Yourlogicalfallacyis.com is a website that I visit very often to sharpen my reasoning skills.

• Acko.net is a good example of using 3D effects in websites.

• neal.fun is a blog by Neal Agarwal that is full of mini interactive games and fun web pages built using modern web technology. Brings back the good old Flash miniclips nostalgia.

• NowNowNow.com is a website that curates a large list of personal blogs from around the world that has a /now page. A great way to discover personal blogs.

• Riley Walz has some interesting projects, my favorites are: IMG_0001 and BOP SPOTTER.

• Visual Rambling has some nice illustrations. Dithering is one of the best.

Note: if you found this page useful, you may visit the TIL page for more frequently updated insights and lessons that I learn.