I am an internet citizen. I love to browse, research, and get lost in rabbit holes. While doing so, I stumble across a lot of links to products, apps, books, articles, and so on. Since I do not want my bookmarks to become a lost and dead space, I try to sit down and go through my bookmarks every now and then, as well as revisit and reflect on all the links I gathered. Another practice to connect with my bookmarks more regularly, is writing blog posts like this one you are currently reading, in which I am sharing the interesting, insightful, fun, beautiful, and sometimes weird things I discover while navigating through the broad expanse of the internet.

So, let‘s get right into it.

Bookcase by Astropad

Turn any smartphone into an e-reader. Read comfortably. On your phone. From anywhere.

Bookcase transforms your smartphone into an ergonomic e-reader to prevent neck strain and hand cramps, while reading on your phone. I prefer reading books, and holding the actual book in my hands. However, I do own an ebook reader, which I am planning to use increasingly more again just because it is super comfortable to carry tens and even hundreds of books in the small form factor of an ebook reader. Besides that, I am a huge fan of reading blog posts and articles from the personal websites of the people I admire. Most of the time, I do that in fact on my phone. While writing this blog post, I was searching for arguments on why I should not order the Bookcase, well, I would like to inform you that it became my first purchase of 2025, as $39.99 was a great deal.

Berkeley Mono

Berkeley Mono™ is a love letter to the golden era of computing. The era that gave rise to a generation of people who celebrated automation and reveled in the joy of computing, when transistors replaced cogs, and machine-readable typefaces were developed, for when humans and machines truly interfaced on an unprecedented scale.

Whenever I stumble across new fonts, I immediately think about ways to incorporate it into my personal website. My personal website is constantly evolving and forever wip. In 2024, I discovered Berkeley Mono, a monospace font that has been especially developed for reading and writing code, as it has excellent legibility, distinct but not distracting glyps, and a comfortable line-height. Now, I am not a software engineer, I do not write code, yet, I love Berkeley Mono, it is simply beautiful.

Chronotrains - Europe Train Map

This Europe train map shows you how far you can travel by rail in less than 8 hours.

I have always loved traveling by train, but in 2024 I fell in love with it even more, as I experienced the Nightjet by ÖBB from Graz to Berlin. Although we traveled much longer and much more expensive compared to going by plane, it was still the most convenient and stress-free travel experience I ever had. Since I am already planning additional trips by train, I stumbled across Chronotrains, a lovely website that shows you how far you can travel by train in less than 8 hours within Europe, simply by hovering over a city with your cursor.

Marco

All your emails. One place. Manage all your inboxes effortlessly with a single app. Stay on top of your emails, no matter the provider or device.

If you read my post about my App Defaults of 2024, you found out that I moved back to Apple Mail after spending multiple years with Spark and other third-party email clients. You probably also found out that I am not that happy with Apple Mail, since it is missing some more advanced features I have experienced in other mail clients. However, the market for email clients is a bit meh right now. Therefore, I got excited when I found out about Marco, an email client that states to support any email provider, and every device. Sounds exciting, right? Nevertheless, I keep my expectations low, although I have high hopes, especially since one of the two developers behind the project, Isaac Hinman, wrote a great blog post highlighting the challenges which make developing an email client incredibly complex and costly. I wish them all the best, and will keep an eye on the development of the app.

WeDistribute

A publication dedicated to Free Software, decentralized communication technologies, and sustainability. This is a guerrilla publication developed by Sean Tilley (@deadsuperhero), developed to broadcast news to the Fediverse and other parts of the Free Network.

I am a huge fan of independent media, and it is great to see sites like 404 Media, Grist, Defector, Aftermath, or Hell Gate succeed. I discovered quite a lot of independently-owned publications throughout 2024, but I am especially excited about WeDistribute which focuses on decentralized communication technologies. In 2024, we have seen a lot of lovely projects entering the open web, and there is definitely the need for a publication covering them.

thriftmac

Links to 100% free Mac apps

Thriftmac is a lovely way to browse through and discover loads of free macOS apps. And when I say 'free', it means that those apps are totally free, so no in-app purchases, no ads, no subscriptions, no trials. A lovely project by Marc Rogers who also blogs at newsonaut about news and technology.

The Pudding

A digital publication that... explains ideas with visual essays, brings you hot takes with cool viz, make cool shit on the internet, brings you longform data journalism ...

The Pudding is a lovely publication which explains ideas debated in culture with visual essays. In case you would like to learn more about city climates, the greatest albums, dark patterns, streaming royalties, or accessible writing, without reading through a wall of text, The Pudding is the place to go. Every single essay they publish is basically its own website, packed with beautiful visuals, graphics, and interactions. It is so much fun browsing through it, I highly recommend it.

rotating sandwiches

rotating sandwiches ... that's it.

Rotating sandwiches is a website that displays ... sandwiches ... that rotate, that's it, and to me it is of the most fun things I stumbled across, and also one of the reasons why I love the internet.

feedle

It's a world of feeds.

I am a huge fan of RSS feeds and subscribing to them, building up a constant stream of blog posts from my favorite creators, writers, designers, and thinkers. Besides that, I also love to discover new feeds and new folks. Usually, that happens unintentionally when I am reading a blog post and I discover a link to another post from a different independent creator. But with feedle, I can search for specific topics and get results in the form of blog posts by independent creators.

Tiny Awards

Tiny Awards is a lovely initiative celebrating the personal internet, the web that is small and handmade, and not trying to sell you anything or monetise anything. Instead, Tiny Awards is focused on honoring the people using the digital tools we have access to to make all sorts of small, personal experiences. The winner of the main Tiny Award of 2024 (One Minute Park by Elliott Cost) received $500 sponsored by Zine, and a handmade trophy commemorating their achievement.

Bob Spotter

Riley Walz installed a box high up on a pole somewhere in the Mission of San Francisco. Inside that box is a crappy Android phone, which is set to Shazam constantly, 24/7. It is solar powered, and its microphone is pointed down at the street below. The idea of Bob Spotter is to capture vibes, as the microphone Shazams the music it picks up from the street and puts it into a constant feed. Again, another reason why I love the weird and fun aspect of the internet.

That's it for now, although, there are so many more links I discovered. But above is a great selection of a couple of them. From now on, I will make this a regular content series on my blog, since I had a great time browsing through all the bookmarks I saved throughout the past 12 months. As I am always looking for fun, insightful, interesting, exciting, weird bits of the internet, feel free to get in contact and share your most favorite links you discovered in 2024 too.

Artwork: Design by myself using Prismatic Generator by Jacob Waites