Cool web services and sites we really like.
It’s 2017 and it’s time to stop getting into flame wars with people over Twitter. Channel your rage into something better: Charity. Triggered is the site that lets you channel your anger at people on the website to a charitable donation.
Sacred spaces all have their own unique sounds and generally speaking, you would have to visit those spaces to hear them. Bells, the sounds of prayers and chants, all of these are audio signals that let you know where you are at. Sacred Spaces is a playlist featuring these and remixed them into cool music that you can listen to, for free.
Air quality is a big deal. Not just for people with health issues surrounding their breathing, but to perfectly healthy people as well! If they want to stay healthy, they might choose to avoid polluted air as much as possible. Inhaling a great deal of smog and other toxins is just not a great way to live. The BreezoMeter is the online map that tells you how bad the air really is.
You should learn sign language. We should all learn sign language. Even just a few words. If you’re trying to pick up the skill, Giphy is here to help! They’ve released a whole library of phrases to help you learn, using the gif format from Sign With Robert.
There are a lot of free stock image sites out there, we’ve shown you a couple right here. They’re great for finding modern images but what if you need something a bit more dated? There are image sites devoted to licensing historical images. Vintage Stock Photos offers a large selection of vintage goodness for free.
There are a lot of stock image sites out there and they have a lot of pictures on them. You can just Google search to find what you’re looking for but you’re going to get a lot of results that aren’t images meant for any sort of work. EveryPixel searches all the stock sites for you so you can get the best of the best.
Getting to sleep at night can be hard. We usually turn to TV or start scrolling mindlessly through our feeds on our phone while lying in bed. Both of these things are probably counterproductive. Why not try being bored? The Sleep With Me Podcast is so boring it pull you right into slumber.
It’s cold outside which means that there are an insane amount of germs just waiting to take you and your family out. Colds, the flu, and weird stomach issues are all over the place and they want to lay you low. Handwashing helps fight them but you can do better. Sickweather is the app that maps illness so you can avoid where it’s spreading.
Putting our phones down can be hard. They’re little boxes of distraction filled with all of our favorite ways to procrastinate and they can come with us just about anywhere. If you have hard time putting your mobile device down, check out Forest, the app and web extension that lets you grow trees in your off time.
I google a lot of weird things. Because I’m a writer and that’s the sort of thing writers do. Maybe you google weird things too and don’t want google to track everything you search for. Try Duck Duck Go, the search engine that cares about your privacy.
Travel should be for everyone but some of us need a world that has more options for accessibility to see it. It’s a real drag to get somewhere and realize you can’t enjoy it because you can’t navigate the area with your needs or to skip going somewhere because you aren’t sure if it will be something you can enjoy. Access Earth is the web app and community that helps you plan an accessible trip.
We’ve all done it, we’ve clicked on a link through social media and been taken by a story. It’s ok, it happens to the best of us! In fact, some sites run their whole business on “news” that is really just made up nonsense. Before you hit share, drop that link into Real or Satire, the site that will let you know if you’re looking at a trusted news source or not.
Some parts of the internet are weird. Click Click Click is one of the oddest websites I’ve encountered in a while. The point is to show you how much your computer can pick up from your simple movements but this site has sort of gamified it.
We’ve talked about the Merlin Bird ID app before but I’m bringing it back up because a new update allows it to do EXACTLY what we’ve always wanted. It can now ID a bird from a picture.
One of the BEST things about the holiday season are the gorgeous window displays in shops. The lights, the fun decorations, it’s all really lovely and no one does it better than New York City. If you can’t make it to the Big Apple for the holiday season, don’t worry, Google has you covered with Window Wonderland.
