Well, hang me. I had the entire thing filled out and then had an error and it didn't post, now I've gotta write it all over again. Apologies if it seems rushed, it had more flair originally before I borked it.
1. An overhead view of a structure (manmade or natural) which provokes interest
This is the top of the California Academy of Science, a museum I've visited a number of times. What's cool about it is the fact that the entire roof is covered in plants. It blooms nicely in the spring. If you look in the lower-right-ish, you can see a platform where you can take an elevator to and look around. Those tubes you see on the hump-looking bits provide light to the museum.
https://imk2dd.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/new-image-3.jpg 2. Animals behaving like humans (bonus points for non-domesticated/wild animals)
I read a Ripley's Believe it or Not story about this once, apparently the owner claims that the lizards in the picture just naturally sit like that when calm and that he didn't even teach them to do so.
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/02/18/22/315A967100000578-0-image-a-56_1455833419966.jpg 3. People caught misbehaving by Google Street View
Does this count? It's one of my favorite GIFs.
https://media.giphy.com/media/108YjDOJq6XXaw/giphy.gif 4. Something cool from your hometown (if you have privacy concerns, you can lie)
I'm from the California Bay Area (if you don't know where that is, think San Francisco), and there's a lot of neat things about this place. One city that I sort of called home for a few years due to visiting there so frequently to visit my grandma is Oakland. It was basically ground zero for the Black Power movement and a lot of the civil rights pushes of the 1960s. The Black Panther Party had its base of operations there and my mother has memories of meeting Huey P. Newton when she was a little girl (I think he bought her some candy and called her "little sister" or something).
Edit: Another really rad thing about the Bay Area is that the 3 main cities in it (San Francisco, Oakland, and Berkeley) served as ground zero for 3 different movements in the 60s and 70s. San Francisco was sort of the stronghold of the LGBT movement (and contributed to the hippie movement to some degree), Oakland, as I said, was Black Power and civil rights, and Berkeley was really the biggest hub of the hippie movement there was. In fact, even today, very little has changed about Berkeley. If you walk down Telegraph Avenue, although time has changed, you can still see much of the general attitude and even some of the sights and sounds that were present over 50 years ago. Tie-dye shirts still sell, I've seen a legitimate commune there made out of an old Volkswagen Type 2, and part of the street perpetually smells like weed.
5. A haiku
You want a haiku?
That's a pretty tall order.
I'm not sure I can.
6. Fun discoveries from map-based interactive software (e.g. Pokémon Go)
I assume something like this counts? There's this dude who makes drawings by cycling around with an app that tracks his path.
https://static.boredpanda.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/bike-cycling-gps-doodle-stephen-lund-52__700.jpg 7. Great music you discovered online
I really dig this adaption of H.G. Wells' "The War of the Worlds". I find it to be substantially more exciting than the novel. I think this video has ads or something in the audio, I listened to it on Spotify, but I wasn't sure how OP would feel about Spotify links.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tM-Ww_eGLU Edit: Here's a Spotify link for those of you who use it.
https://open.spotify.com/album/3bL2PsJDuY8NJbC0Tfx7RQ?si=Sc22MDh5Q0C5K1Lw0Nkofw 8. An Easter egg found on a website (if you submit an actual Easter egg it better be amazing)
If you head to GOG's home page and enter the Konami code, you'll get something interesting.
9. Digital relics of a time gone by
GOG.
Less jokingly, here, have the Space Jam website, which has been untouched since 1996.
https://www.warnerbros.com/archive/spacejam/movie/jam.htm 10. Novel uses of the Internet
I dunno if you want a more specific example (if so, I can dredge one up), but I find the idea of the ARG where you have to look stuff up outside of the game, download stuff, send emails, etc., to be fascinating.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternate_reality_game 11. An awesome web game
"The Asylum: Psychiatric Clinic for Abused Cuddly Toys" was always one of my favorite web games from my online Flash days.
http://www.parapluesch.de/whiskystore/test.htm 12. Fun with Internet bots
Cleverbot's kind of the obvious one.
http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/facebook/000/096/464/derpbot.PNG 13. A story about how the Internet has personally affected your life
This is gonna sound kind of sappy, but it really broadened my perspective getting to talk to people from all over the world as I've been able to do with GOG. I never knew a darn thing about any country or the people in it save for America until I got here. Made quite a few pals, it really is something to be able to communicate with anybody in the world (especially for somebody with a slim social life like mine).
14. An interesting font
Zalgo's always a fun one. Doesn't show up properly on the forum, so here's a link.
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/6e/5c/80/6e5c80b6ddfc628410303e9b9cf7e8f6.png 15. Unexpected web privacy/security concerns
Well, there's always this link that, if clicked, will send your IP to my email address.
(Note: Will not actually send your IP to my email address. It does serve as a mildly interesting example of how easy it is to get information like that, though.)
http://www.youramonkey.com/?m=IDmask9WP82hCmUeu 16. A beautiful building
San Francisco is full of great architecture. Here's the Conservatory of Flowers, lit up at night.
https://imgur.com/a/xV5lt2b 17. A glorious meme
I have whole folders full of memes.
https://imgur.com/a/02kJ5zF 18. A historical tidbit
My favorite story is that of Emperor Norton. I feel it quite defines the spirit of San Francisco. I'd originally put a whole paragraph or so full of info, but it's 4 A.M. and I wiped this entire post twice already, so I'm just going to settle for a Wikipedia link because this whole error thing has screwed me over and is giving me a headache.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_Norton Edit: So, to give you some actual story rather than just a Wikipedia link, this guy is amazing. After going broke with a series of bad investments and being down and out in his early 40s, he straight-up decided to declare himself Emperor of the United Sates and Protector Of Mexico, handing out pamphlets to people in the city telling them that he was now in charge. What's so amazing is that everybody just went along with it. They treated him like royalty and considered it an honor to have him around, giving him his own uniform and having him give lectures at fairly prominent places. A short list of his accomplishments:
- To pay off his debts from his investments (in Peruvian rice, no less), he decided to print his own currency. Even crazier still, the currency was actually
accepted and circulated around.
- Issued a decree that anybody caught referring to San Francisco as "Frisco" would be required to pay a fine of what is, in today's money, about $700. A fitting punishment, really.
- Got officially listed in the 1870 census as having the occupation of "emperor"
- Possibly the most impressive of all, he issued a decree that a suspension bridge should be built between San Francisco and Oakland. Over 60 years after the decree, the bridge was actually built and still connects the two cities to this day. It's the widest bridge in the world.
19. Technology going so very wrong
http://www.roboticgizmos.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/06/Baby-Bottle-Robot.gif 20. A recipe
You said it had to be a recipe, not a
good recipe.
https://imgur.com/a/HMwstyf 21. Old people trying to understand the Internet
If the forum doesn't count, I suppose there's this.
https://imgur.com/a/pZIgQln 22. Your favourite conspiracy theory
The Berenstain Bears alternate universe theory.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berenstain_Bears#Name_confusion 23. Something you contributed to the Internet
I made a text adventure some years ago. It's good for a cheap laugh or two.
http://textadventures.co.uk/games/view/wcbckrajeeuoasvstf3xiq/the-tower
