I Built a Small Home for the Interesting Internet

sawyer bobk — Mon, 28 Sep 2026 02:31:36 +0000

Most of the internet is now five websites wearing different fonts.

You open a tab to find something interesting. Ten minutes later, you have watched three short videos, seen the same AI tool listed on four “best tools” blogs, and somehow learned that a guy you went to high school with is selling mushroom coffee.

I missed the version of the web where clicking a link could lead somewhere genuinely unexpected.

So I made base31.org — a hand-built directory of cool sites, useful tools, tiny games, creative web experiments, and personal projects worth opening.

Not an app store.

Not a “top 500 AI tools” spreadsheet with twelve affiliate links.

Not a website that makes you create an account before you can see a button.

Just interesting things on the web.

What is base31?

base31.org is a small, independent directory for curious people.

Every project gets opened, checked, tagged, and given a real description before it goes in. The goal is simple: if someone clicks a link, they should land on something that is either:

Fun
Useful
Beautiful
Weird
Creative
Or at least weirdly useful

The site includes projects built on Base31 plus hand-picked sites from around the web. You can browse by category, sort entries, heart the sites you like, or hit “Surprise me” and let the internet make the decision for you.

Try it here: base31.org

Things I built for it

I wanted the directory to be more than a list of links, so I also started making small tools and projects under the Base31 umbrella.

A few examples:

App Screenshot — Generate polished screenshots for product pages, portfolios, presentations, and launches.
CompMails — A disposable inbox for temporary signups and quick testing.
Daily Wordle — A fresh daily word puzzle.
GitHub Explorer — Browse repositories and files, explore user repos, and use AI to help draft README files and documentation.
Image Compressor — Compress and resize images in your browser, including batch processing, without uploading them.
Is It Down — Check whether a site is actually unavailable or whether your Wi-Fi is just having one of its little moments.
Is It Taken — Check domain availability and see alternatives.
Password Generator — Generate passwords and passphrases, with an encrypted local vault option.
QR Code Generator — Create QR codes for links, Wi-Fi, contacts, and messages.
Share Files — Upload a file and get a shareable link without needing an account.
Word of the Day — Learn a new word with definitions and examples.

They are intentionally simple. I like tools that do one thing clearly, quickly, and without asking for your email address before they let you click “Generate.”

The sites I keep coming back to

The directory also has projects I did not build—just sites that make the web better.

A few favorites:

Window Swap — Open a window somewhere else in the world. You get a view from someone’s home, submitted by people everywhere.
Neal.fun — Beautiful interactive projects including The Deep Sea, Spend Bill Gates’ Money, and more.
Radio Garden — Spin a globe and listen to live radio almost anywhere on Earth.
A Soft Murmur — Mix ambient sounds like rain, coffee shops, thunder, waves, and fire.
Pointer Pointer — Move your cursor anywhere. Someone will point directly at it. It is pointless. It is perfect.
Zoomquilt — An endless collaborative illustration that keeps zooming deeper.
The Useless Web — One button that sends you somewhere unexpected and usually unnecessary.
Music for Programming — Long, carefully sequenced music mixes for focused work.
Httpster — A showcase of websites with strong, simple design.

That is the energy I want Base31 to preserve: the moment you find a site and immediately send it to somebody with, “You have to see this.”

Why build another directory?

Because search is useful, but it is not always fun.

Search engines are great when you know exactly what you need. But they are less great when you want to stumble into something cool. The modern web often pushes you toward the biggest brands, the most aggressively optimized pages, or a page that is mostly pop-ups with a small article trapped underneath.

Base31 is meant to be slower and more human.

It is a directory where:

Entries are chosen by hand.
Every link should lead to a real project you can use or explore.
Personal sites and small experiments have room next to utilities.
Visitors can discover something without an algorithm deciding what they should see.
Community-made sites can be uploaded, hosted for free, and added to the directory.

The goal is not to catalog the entire internet.

That sounds exhausting, and the internet would probably make a new JavaScript framework before I got halfway through.

The goal is to collect a growing list of places worth visiting.

Build something? Add it.

If you have a small project, a static HTML/CSS/JavaScript site, a strange browser experiment, a useful tool, or a tiny game, you can submit it to Base31.

The site lets you upload your files, add a title, description, and tags, then publish it for people to browse and vote on.

You can find the submission option at base31.org under “Add your own site.”

I am especially interested in:

Personal websites
Browser games
Creative coding experiments
Free tools
Useful developer utilities
Interactive art
Weird internet projects
Tiny sites that do one oddly specific thing very well

If you built something that makes the web feel a little less boring, it probably belongs there.

Try it out

Start at base31.org.

Click around. Hit Surprise me. Find something useful. Find something dumb. Ideally, find both.

And if you find a bug, have an idea, want to sponsor the project, or have a site that deserves a spot in the directory, email me at hello@base31.org.

The web is still full of good stuff.

You just have to wander a little.

Domains. Spent weeks trying to figure out the perfect name more my brand they I just gave up and picked base31, even though I new there was base44 and other companies I still chose it. Anyone else with this issue (base31.org) visit if you want.

sawyer bobk — Mon, 28 Sep 2026 02:24:07 +0000

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