Totally useless websites3/7/2024 I started making websites in the late 90’s, my first website was on, and it was an offshoot of one of my zines. What got you into web development? What are you working on now? I also got a job at adult swim after they saw Cat Bounce, so I can attest: cats are Internet gold. In 2019 it won a Webby Award and I still get tons of email every week from people who either love it, hate it, or want me to make a site like it but with dogs. The weirdest/most surprising thing about Cat Bounce is that it’s had an incredibly long shelf-life. The working title of the site was ‘Internet Crowd Pleaser’ but I ended up calling it Cat Bounce because it was less of a mouthful and it was WYSIWYG (more or less). I also recognized the Internet-popularity of cats and I wanted to see if I could make something that would be a hit on the Internet. I decided to replace the balls that bounced around the screen with cut-outs of cats because I’m a cat freak. I made Cat Bounce in 2012 when I was fooling around with a physics engine in Flash. As I mentioned, we’re PhD students so it’s been kind of funny being more known for this website than our academic research. Some of my favorites include hours-long youtube videos dedicated to people scrolling on endless.horse, being included in a lecture at the Parsons School of Design, and a request from a student in Germany that we add https functionality to the site (which I eventually did, see ). The press coverage and popularity were unexpected, and we had no idea we were part of a nascent meme. What is the weirdest thing that has come from owning/running such a unique-not-really-having-a-purpose site? The coronavirus situation might throw a wrench into our plans. Also, fun fact: we’re getting married this May. Since then, I started a PhD in Electrical Engineering (Kyle was already in his first year of a math PhD), and we’re both close to graduating. How long ago did you launch the site / what are you working on now? Either infinite.horse was already taken or too expensive, so I brainstormed some alternatives and polled other attendees for which sounded best. The scrolling code was a quick hack by Kyle using an infinite scroll library by Facebook – the best part is how legs.html works.Īt the hackathon some of the sponsors gave coupons for discounts on domain registration and hosting. In 2015 we participated in the “Stupid Shit No One Needs & Terrible Ideas Hackathon”, which was organized by some friends of ours, so the time to make infinite.horse was nigh (or neigh, if you prefer). I joked about creating a website called infinite.horse. The idea of an infinite horse came to me in 2014, when I first heard that. What I learned is that people like useless stuff and that people are willing to hang posters of useless stuff on their walls. People that purchased the poster got a free link to, the digital version of the poster. I talked about this with my friend and graphic designer Anthony Burrill and he suggested to make a poster instead. I got a lot of questions from people asking me if I was working on a CMYK version but Cyan Magenta Yellow and Black are colours used for print, they do not come across on screens. is a homage to RGB (Red, Green, Blue) the colours used by screens to show us the internet. Was there anything surprising you learned while building rrrgggbbb? She was asking me to recreate the same thing but she wanted me to replace RGB with her first name. The site hes been incredibly popular (mainly because of it being featured on The Useless Web), but out of the millions of visitors, there was only one person ever emailed me. What is the weirdest thing that has come from owning & running such a “unique not really having a purpose” site? Long enough to stand out, short enough to remember. I wanted the domain to visually mimic the sound of the site so I settled for. Once I had figured out that I wanted to make a homage to the colours red green and blue, the domain and the code came simultaneously. What came first, the domain or the code & settle on the domain? What started as a useless design became a useless website. After designing it I thought that it would be nice to add some animation to the letters and then, for the full immersive experience, I asked Rimer London to create the sound. It all started with a spontaneous design that I made for the RGB letters. Initially I didn’t have the intention to create a site. What were the circumstances behind creating your site?
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