16 of the most beautifully odd & useful places on the internet that you didn’t know existed

From the weird and wondrous to the mesmerizing yet educational and useful, check out these wonders of the internet that you probably haven’t discovered yet. With these secret corners of internet goodness, you’ll likely never be bored again.

1. Watch thunderstorms and lightning strike in real time.

Live lightning strikes are oddly mesmerizing.

2. Turn your handwriting into its own font.

Instantly baffle a teacher who asks for a ‘handwritten’ assignment with My Script Font.

3. Get a dose of instant nostalgia.

This trippy blast from the past interacts just like an old Windows ’93 OS – complete with solitaire, a Star Wars game, and old menu browsing.

4. Interact with the geography of Game of Thrones in an in-depth way.

You can see the exact location of any given main character at any point in the books or show.

5. Visualize grammatical sentence structure.

This is a grammar game-changer for the visual learner – type in a sentence, any sentence, and immediately see what each part is called and how they interact with each other.

6. Take in some bookshelf porn.

Better than being Belle in Beast’s castle. Almost.

7. Want to know what you should read next based on what you just read? Wonder no more.

Book seer compiles Amazon book reviews and recommends similar reads based on the book you enter.

8. Create your own custom map of the world or a single country, with the colors and descriptions of your choice.

You can make an ultimate food map guide of the U.S. (New Orleans has best beignets, California is the home of In N’ Out, Seattle has the best coffee), rank your top choices to visit and the attractions you’d want to see, or just wow your Geography teacher with a streamlined print.

9. Check out an interactive galactic map of Wikipedia.

The ultimate visible web of knowledge and connections.

10. Find any song from any movie.

Love a soundtrack from an obscure ’80s movie, but can’t find the songs? Solve your dilemma here.

11. Play with this trippy kaleidoscope image.

Perfect for putting on your favorite playlist and zoning out after a long day, it changes as you move your mouse. Find all the different varieties of graphics here.

12. Launch into instant website nostalgia with this page.

Type in any website name, and see what it looked like way back when.

13. Create your own nation and rule it as you see fit.

Benevolent, caring ruler or total dictator? Either way, it’s a fascinating and informative ride – and completely free to play.

14. Explore the London Underground with this 3D visualization.

Whoa, we don’t even have to be there physically to get lost in these tunnels.

15. Track live Sharks in real time.

Instantly see what Harvey and the gang are up to (and their unique migration patterns) with this live Shark tracker.

16. Watch as this website completely builds itself.

And possibly learn some coding in the process.

Happy exploring!