Well That’s Cool… March 2018 Edition
This story is part of Matter Supply Co’s ongoing Inspirational Site Series. Once a month, we get together to share those experiences, old and new, that pique our interest, inspire us, and make us think.
Feel free to join in and share with us some sites you love.
Rebuilding Haiti is a Choose-Your-Adventure style narrative, where you are given the power to decide how the island recuperates from a recent earthquake. On the way to improving living conditions in Haiti, you will be toured around— seeing the people and towns you will be affecting. Rebuilding Haiti has exceptional storytelling and immersive visuals that make calling those tough choices, that much more impactful.
Vestaboard
An update on the classic split-flap displays made popular by train station schedulers, The Vestaboard allows you to control the board from your phone. Our favorite feature are the IFTTT style recipes that allow you to program the board to be automatically updated with different messages daily. It also works with apps like Slack, Twitter and Google Calendar.
Super Mario Maker
We love video games and programming, so it’s no wonder we love Super Mario Maker. The game takes the wildly popular concept of user generated content and building your own world (think Little Big Planet and Minecraft) to the Mario Bros universe. Our senior technologist David Fonnegra put it best when he said, “It’s awesome how something everyone loves is potentiated when thrown to the community”.
6 Alternative Uses for Blockchain
Originated to record Bitcoin movement, the technology behind blockchain is essentially a collection of transactional records (blocks) that cannot be changed without a network majority. This method of data exchange has infinite potential in other applications. Keeping track of where your produce came from or allowing voters to see if their ballot has been correctly counted are just a few possibilities.
Facebook Detectron
Facebook AI Research has open sourced their best in class object-detection framework, Detectron. The software aims to create intuitive object sensing for visual perception systems. The push to move this tech to open source reinforces the importance of research and rapid prototyping. It’s an emergent technology with nearly limitless applications.
3d Rendering
ThreeJS is a JavaScript library/API used to create and display animated 3D computer graphics in a web browser using WebGL. It also serves as a great platform for showcasing the best 3D experiences on the web. Get ready to fall down this rabbit hole of visually stunning interweb goodness.
Scaling Mt. Everest
A beautiful, interactive site that serves as your climbing guide as you scale the highest mountain on Earth. An unorthodox site convention, you start at the bottom of the page, at sea-level, and cautiously work you way up, higher and higher. You’re shown what creatures you would encounter, landmark comparisons and interesting facts as you climb to the summit.
A Bear’s-Eye View of Yellowstone
Yellowstone, America’s first national park is home to some of the most fearsome predators on Earth, bears. Nat Geo put cameras and tracking collars on two black bears and two grizzlies to gain a better understanding of these “opportunistic omnivores”. SPOLIER ALERT: There is a twist at the end. We loved the way this site turned a scientific case study and wove the data into a day in the life bear drama we couldn’t stop watching.
10x17
Our friend and design guru, Duane King showed us this project by one of our favorite designers, Eric Mortensen. 10x17 asked a selected few to pick their favorite album of the year and make visual representations. We love design challenges where the constraints become fuel for creativity. It’s a great mix where we discovered new music and uncovered new visual artists with great taste. The best kind of 2–4–1.
Creating vs Consumption
“Ever feel like you lose a large chuck of your day to social media and emails?”
This awesome podcast takes into consideration something that we feel most people suffer with: how can we create more and consume less? Active, more expressive pursuits versus passive, consumptive activities are much more fulfilling — if we leave the creation to a few and just start to consume more, we’re prone to fail as a society. We love The Living Experiment’s podcasts because they always finish off with very achievable challenges for the listers to immediately implement in their lives. So hey, put down your phone and go make something awesome!
That wraps up our March 2018 Edition of Well, That’s Cool…
We can’t wait to share more things we love. Let us know your favorite experiences or if you like what you see here in the comments below!
Matter Supply Co (formerly Pacific by Northwest) is dedicated to the craft of creating purposeful products and experiences that matter. Say hello next time you’re in Portland, OR or Medellin, Colombia or find us on LinkedIn.
