Getting emotional over a million checkboxes

The thrill of the old web is alive in unexpected projects that bring people together in chaotic, creative ways.

Every once in a while, I miss the old web, where random experiments would just appear all the time. As much as new tools and technologies have made it easier to create websites, I feel like the fun ones have kind of vanished. Flash was a bastion of really crazy, fun, exciting new things you could experience every day when you opened your browser. It's been a while since I felt that way.

However, I did feel this way again recently with a really exciting project. This might not seem that crazy, but I promise you, this is a wild ride. We're talking about 1 million checkboxes. What is 1 million checkboxes? It's just what it sounds like: it's a million checkboxes on a website that had a billion checkboxes. What's interesting about it is that this set of checkboxes is shared across every person on the site. So, when I check a box, it's checked for everyone else there; the same goes for unchecking.

This almost became something like the Reddit Place board, where people could draw things and try to maintain them, constantly battling it out. It's similar in that sense, but it was its own website. I don't know if it's still up; I think he might have taken it down because it was brutal to run. This was a really cool project, and at the time, seeing so many people playing this together was unbelievable. He shut it down once every single box had been checked at least once, but the process to get there was absolutely crazy.

He has done a phenomenal job of documenting everything throughout, and he even made his first YouTube video to tell the story. I want to go through all of that with you all. I already reached out to Nolan, and he was really excited about this. I'm so excited to see his video and to hear the story in depth. This is the closest to the old web I've seen in a long time, and I want to go through this with you all, so let's do it.

This is the original blog post, which will give us the context of what happened and the chaos that ensued afterward. The post begins with: "I made a website; it's called 1 million checkboxes. It has 1 million checkboxes on it. Checking a box checks that box for everyone and makes some numbers go up. You can find it at 1millioncheckboxes.com."

Why? I don't really know. This idea came up in a conversation with my friend Neil. This is Neil. Fun, right? It has to be; there's no way this isn't. Of course, it's [__] Neil. There’s no world in which this type of brain isn't friends with the other people with it. On one hand, I was praying internally that maybe we finally had a whole separate place where new experiences were being created, but it seemed like Nolan here already is in that circle.

I would kill to have another corner of the web that creates people like this, but it seems like this corner is still the same one. It's awesome because he's not alone in coming up with these things; he can be friends with Neil. If you guys don't know Neil, you have to. He has created some of the most incredible web experiences I've ever seen. Infinite Craft is the one that most recently went viral, where you have elements, combine them, and it becomes things. Then you can access these things once you've created them over and over again.

I think it's using AI and it says, "What would these things combine into?" Then it comes up with a different word and keeps a key-value store of every combination so it can check for that combo, eliminating the need to run the computation every time. Now we have a really fun game, and even random non-tech YouTubers, like Ludwig, were doing speedruns of this—who could speedrun to these specific words? There were bonus points if you created a word that no one's done before, which would trigger a new discovery.

This is so cool! Infinite Craft is such a cool project, and to even come up with things like that requires a very special type of brain that I'm jealous of and do not have. The author of this is very similar, and I'm pumped that he has a friend like this because I can't imagine doing this alone.

Anyways, here are a few fun tricks that he used to make this work. To efficiently store the state, he used a bit array. Checking box zero just flips the first bit in that array. This is a fun point—remember this: he's using a bit array to store these values. I accidentally skimmed through some of how crazy this was before this comes up later, so keep that in your head.

=> 00:04:28

Celebrating the genius behind complex creations is essential; it's rare to find minds that can simplify the intricate while innovating.

Infinite Craft is a project that I almost made a video about, just breaking down how it works because it was so incredibly cool. I love it; it's such a cool project, and to even come up with things like that requires a very special type of brain that I'm jealous of and I do not have. The author of this project is very similar, and I'm pumped that he has a friend who is like this because I can't imagine doing this alone.

Anyways, here are a few fun tricks that he used to make this work. To efficiently store the state, he used a bit array. Checking box zero just flips the first bit in that array. This is a fun point; remember this. He's using a bit array to store these values. I accidentally skimmed through some of the crazy aspects of this before, but it comes up later, so keep that in your head. He stored the state in Redis, since Redis calls can easily flip individual bits of a value. I didn't know that; that's cool! He broadcasts individual toggle updates via WebSockets and pushes out a full state snapshot every 30 seconds or so to ensure that clients stay synced. He also uses React Window to avoid rendering checkboxes that aren't in view.

If you're not familiar with React Window, it's a package for virtualizing what section of the page is visible. So if you're not in a specific scroll area, it just won't render those components. Virtual scrolling is hard to do, but React Window does it really well.

Is there anything else you'd like to tell us? Not much; this was fun and fast. I did run into one bug that was baffling, and I'll tell you about it real quick. When we toggle a checkbox, the server does something like this: bit set index value. Pretty simple. This is the original implementation: size size size bits new un32 math. seal get to get a value set to set a value.

Now, look at what we get for each of these implementations when we set the first bit. We start, and we have these, and we insert two. Our Python implementation treats Bit Zero as the leftmost bit of the leftmost byte, while in JavaScript, we're grabbing the rightmost bit of the leftmost byte. What? Oh, oh! A byte's eight, and when you call the bit set, it was giving you the right bit of that byte instead of the leftmost bit of the leftmost byte. I think both of these are wrong, but fixing this meant deciding whether he wanted to use his model of data as 1 million bits or 125,000 bytes, and these are two different things. The bug appeared mid-React.

Enough about the bugs; I want to see the chaos of how this went. I was going to read the article, but since he wrote the article, he published a video, and I am very excited because, again, this is one of those rare, like, super creative minds. Finding these people is incredibly, incredibly unusual. Having them do something like this, get discovered, and then share this with everybody is even cooler. This is his first ever video. I immediately subscribed, and I'm going to do something else: I'm going to hit the bell button because there's no way this dude is going to post a video unless he's doing something else similarly groundbreaking. I want all of you to subscribe to him as well.

I'm going to put his channel link in the description now because if my view count on this video is higher than his sub count, I'm disappointed in you all. This type of genuinely novel approach to building cool, unique things on the web and then sharing it is something that we absolutely need to celebrate. He did something genuinely special here, and I want to make sure he is set up for success the next time he does something like this.

Let's give this video a watch, and also, if you want, feel free to go watch this video first and come back to see how I react to it—your call. But at the very least, if you haven't subscribed to him at this point before I hit play, I'm unhappy with you. Let's dive in.

Recently, I thought my most popular project had been hacked. The project was called 1 Million Checkboxes, and if you haven't seen it, it was a website with a million checkboxes on it, which you probably could have guessed. But he summarized it in 11 seconds; it took me like five minutes!

Special brain! Do you know how hard it is to make something that complex and still talk about it in simple terms? Most people, when they build something complex, can't take the complexity out of their head long enough to explain it. They just say all the details and not the thing that it is. So, that's like a silly thing to call out this early, but the fact that his brain works that way—where he can put all this effort into building this complex thing and still give you the simple part—is truly impressive.

=> 00:08:11

Creating something complex is impressive, but the real genius lies in simplifying it for others to understand.

The project had been hacked. The project was called 1 Million Check Boxes, and if you haven't seen it, it was a website with a million check boxes on it, which you probably could have guessed. The creator summarized it in 11 seconds, while it took me like five minutes to grasp. Special brain, right? Do you know how hard it is to make something that complex and still talk about it in simple terms? Most people, when they build something complex, can't take the complexity out of their head long enough to explain it; they just list all the details without conveying the essence of what it is.

It's a bit silly to call this out so early, but the fact that his brain works that way—where he can put in all this effort to build a complex thing and still give you the simple part—is impressive. We spotted founder mode. The trick to the website is that all of those check boxes were globally checking or unchecking a box for everybody else in the world immediately. I built the site in like two days, and I really didn't expect it to be very popular, but I was super, super wrong. Within hours, there were thousands of people on the site; within days, there were half a million people. People checked over 650 million boxes in the two weeks that I kept the site. That's like one-tenth of the global population!

That level of traffic is something most of us will never comprehend, all for a silly experiment like this. That's so cool—genuinely cool. Over those two weeks, it received a ton of media attention. I did interviews with the Washington Post and the New York Times. There’s a Know Your Meme page and a Wikipedia page. It was crazy and so fun, and it was all deserved. This is the first time something like this has happened since infinite craft and the old Reddit r/place thing. It's been so long since we got something like this. My only concern is that he feels like this isn't deserved, which I hardly disagree with because this is incredibly deserved.

Keeping the site online was a big and really interesting challenge. I wrote a long blog about it, which I'm going to link below, but I'm not going to talk about that right now. To tell you this story, I need to give you a little context. I love to build experiences that let people interact with strangers on the Internet; it's one of my favorite things to do. However, one big problem that I think about when I do that is that some people are [__] on the internet. It's kind of funny that I was covering that up. Yeah, I can be a bit of a jerk, but planning around that is hard. I don't know what direction he's going to go here, but it's part of what I would consider the beauty of this project.

It's much harder, just on the surface area, for an [__] to do something malicious with this project than it is with r/place. People were doing nasty things with the graphics there. With this project, the worst you could do is draw an inappropriate shape with the checkboxes, and even then, it's going to be hard to maintain it. As a way of avoiding [__], this concept is actually very clever. Somebody said in chat, actually, Benet F—that way of solving things and coming up with ideas is just unbelievable to me. It's one of those rare times you'll see me genuinely jealous of how someone else's brain works. This type of creativity is so foreign to how my brain computes things; it's [__] cool. I hope that my genuine hype around what he's doing is coming across because this is one of the coolest things I've looked at on stream and in a video for sure.

Those constraints can take lots of different forms. I've built a website that crops video in real-time to only show faces so that people can't show you gross things. Knowing that Omegle just got shut down, that is a hilariously clever way of building an experience. I also created a phone number that only lets you say the words "rock," "paper," or "scissors," so that you can't say gross things. Those constraints tend to work pretty well, and one cool thing about them is that they produce some of my favorite stories based on how people work around, play with, or subvert them. I need one of these—I need a this is foreshadowing tag to put over myself for the rare times I think through my videos.

=> 00:12:03

Constraints can spark creativity; when you limit options, you open the door to unexpected solutions.

In a recent discussion, the speaker reflected on various constraints that can take many forms in online environments. They shared an innovative idea of building a website that crops video in real time to only show faces, preventing users from displaying inappropriate content. This was particularly relevant given that Omegle just got shut down, making the approach a hilariously clever way of creating a safer space. Another example mentioned was a phone number that only allows users to say the words "rock," "paper," or "scissors," effectively preventing any vulgar language.

The speaker expressed their appreciation for these constraints, noting that they often lead to some of their favorite stories based on how people work around, play with, or subvert them. They humorously mentioned needing a "this is foreshadowing" tag for themselves during the rare moments they think through their videos.

The speaker then transitioned into discussing their concerns about the 1 million checkboxes feature they were implementing. They were particularly worried about the implications of giving the internet a public canvas where anyone could draw anything. Drawing from their experience as a safety engineer at Twitch, they introduced the concept of the "dick test," which assessed how difficult it would be for the service to delete inappropriate content if it were uploaded. If a new feature failed this test, it simply couldn't be launched.

To address these concerns, the speaker devised a subtle solution by making the number of checkboxes in a row scale to the size of the user's browser. This meant that if someone wrote something rude on their phone, it wouldn't appear on a laptop and vice versa. They found that this approach worked well, as it prevented the site from being bogged down by gross graffiti. Interestingly, many users were unaware of this constraint, which added to its effectiveness.

The speaker pondered how many clever experiences like this might never see the light of day due to safety concerns. They expressed sadness at the thought that the toxicity of the internet has likely stifled many innovative ideas that could have been developed.

Shifting gears, the speaker delved into the technical aspects of managing 1 million checkboxes. They explained that to efficiently store the state of these checkboxes, they represented each checkbox as a bit—either zero or one. This meant they could store the state for a million checkboxes using only 125 kilobytes of data, which is manageable for computers.

After a few days of launching the site, the speaker, feeling exhausted and having just finished rewriting the backend with a friend, decided to dump their database. Upon examining the raw bytes in ASCII encoding, they encountered some unexpected results, including a peculiar entry labeled "catgirls dowin." They noted discrepancies in the data, such as a dash instead of a slash and a capital 'T,' expressing their excitement to further investigate what was happening with this data.

=> 00:15:56

Sometimes the most unexpected discoveries come from moments of panic; what you think is a hack could just be a hidden message waiting to be decoded.

Not very much data that's not the size of a song; computers can totally handle that. So, a couple of days into launching the site, I was exhausted. I had barely slept and had just finished rewriting the back end in Go, with the help of my friend Elliot. For some reason, after that, I chose to dump my database. I looked at the raw bytes in an ASCII encoding; I don't know why I just did it.

This is what I saw: this is the part I was slightly spoiled on. This is when things get mind-blowing. I saw "catgirls dowin" and also noticed that some of these were wrong—like there was a dash instead of a slash, and there was a capital T here. Something's going on here, and I was so excited to see what it was and better understand it. What the [__] is that "catgirls dowin" was sitting there in my database? I panicked and freaked out; I assumed I had been hacked, which I think was a pretty reasonable assumption.

I will say outright, if this happened to me, I would not have been smart enough to figure out what it was for a while, if ever. I started searching through my code, searching through my logs, trying to figure out if somebody logged in, if there was a bug in my code, or if someone was stuffing this URL into my database. Oh my God, this is so embarrassing! This is my most popular project; it is being viewed by thousands of people, and I've been hacked. But I couldn't find anything. Everything seemed okay—nobody had logged in, and there were no bugs in my code.

Then finally, I looked at the checkboxes on the website that corresponded to those URLs. Like that H right there—that's a byte, so that's eight bits, eight checkboxes. For all the checkboxes that corresponded to these URLs, there was a repeating pattern. If I changed something in that pattern—if I checked or unchecked a checkbox—the pattern immediately reappeared. This is how I accidentally made my own Defcon puzzle.

If you haven't watched the videos I did recently about my experience in Defcon and the music box puzzle that I solved, there's a lot of overlap here for a lot of reasons. It's funny to think that I had accidentally built my own version of that puzzle for myself, while other people created it using an interface. It's so cool that when you do something this novel—creating a site with a million checkboxes that anyone can change—you've created a platform for similarly weird creative people to do similarly weird and creative stuff.

What I created isn't just a single web experiment; it was a platform for weirdos like myself to make awesome weird [__]. I love this so much! This is like the best of Catgirl profile picture anime Twitter, but like so much cooler. I hadn't been hacked; somebody was writing me a message in binary.

Now, the way that this works is a little technical, so please bear with me. We can convert the data that we have in our database into letters. We do that by walking through that data eight bits or eight checkboxes at a time and looking at the number that those eight bits (that one byte) represent. It's going to be a number somewhere between 0 and 255, and we can convert that number into a letter. There are a lot of different ways to do this, but one popular way—and the way that I happened to do it—is using ASCII, which represents a mapping from numbers to basically the letters that you see on your keyboard.

I have to say, what are the chances that I would dump my own database and run it through an ASCII transform to discover this? That has to be a relatively low chance. Just the fact that I did and then dug to figure out what was going on—all this happened is so [__] cool. Someone was sitting there checking and unchecking boxes to form numbers that formed letters that spelled out this URL, and they were probably doing this with a bot to make sure that those boxes remained checked and unchecked in exactly the way that they wanted them.

That also reminded me—I got hit up by somebody who helps run this. They specifically wanted me to say more about it and that I should join, and I should. So, I'm going to, and if you guys want to as well. Their goal is to break a thousand people; looks like they did that. Congrats to the boxes that have been checked! I'm in, and if others want to join as well, you have the URL. I have no idea; I do not endorse or condone anything going on here. Just, I respect them for reaching out and saying they want people in it. Join if you like!

=> 00:20:02

Sometimes, the most unexpected connections can lead to mind-blowing discoveries.

I formed letters that spelled out this URL, and they were probably doing this with a bot to make sure that those boxes remained checked and unchecked in exactly the way that they wanted them. This situation reminded me that I got hit up by somebody who helps run this initiative. They specifically wanted me to say that more people should join, and I should encourage others to do so as well. So, I'm going to share this information, and if you guys want to join too, you can. Their goal is to break a thousand people, and it looks like they did that—congrats to them! The boxes have been checked, and I'm in. If others want to join as well, you have the URL. However, I want to clarify that I have no idea what is going on here; I do not endorse or condone anything happening in this space. I just respect them for reaching out and expressing their desire for more people to get involved.

Moving on, I clicked the link from Catgirl dowin omcb, and I wondered if it was phishing. Regardless, I had to know what that domain was about. The link led to a Discord server called "Checking Boxes." Upon joining the Discord, someone was really excited to see me, and we chatted for a moment. Then, they asked me a question that blew my mind: "Have you seen your checkboxes as a thousand by thousand image yet?" I replied no, and they showed me, revealing a lot of interesting content.

Now, I have to go on a tangent because this just made me realize how small the world is. I once did a video on my third channel, Theo Throwaways, which nobody really watches because it's just my throwaway videos. You all might have heard of NOA. NOA is a rogue-lite game with one of the most interesting game engines ever, as everything in the game engine is physically rendered. This means that every pixel can be broken, moved, destroyed, interfaced with, and interacted with. It's one of the craziest game engine projects I've ever seen. The way things work, like how you can break the ground and the particle physics all function, is incredible. The engine is essentially what you're playing; it's not just a game—the engine is the game.

I promise this tangent is worth it. If you remember the old Dust game, like the Java outlet in the browser, it was inspired by that and went a thousand times further. The team has covered many of the cool things they did at different game conferences, discussing and breaking down how this engine works. It's super cool!

Now, to go further with my tangent, the lead developer—though I don't know if he calls himself the lead developer because there's a small team now—Petri is one of my personal biggest inspirations. This is especially true regarding the discussions we had earlier about the old web. I would check his site every day during homeroom in middle school back in 2008, 2009, and 2010. Every single day, the first thing I did when I started my day was check for new cloning games to see if he had released anything new. There were two computers in my homeroom, and I would get there pretty early. A random other person and I would take those two computers and just mess around online, playing games and whatnot.

Every month, he would spend one week building a new game, and some of these were incredible. He had to add a disclosure on top for a reason. This particular game that he released—June 1st, 2007—fundamentally changed my understanding of what a game and a game engine could be. Crayon Physics was a fun little game written in Flash, where you would draw things with crayons to get a ball to the star. It was so cool solving these physics puzzles by drawing random objects and having them interact with each other.

Remember, I was a middle schooler, and all these games were free to download, with a new one every month. It felt like I was getting constant free games that progressively broke my brain in different ways. This experience was truly transformative for me.

=> 00:24:06

A simple game can spark a lifelong passion and reshape an entire industry.

The reason this particular game had such a profound impact on me is that it was released on June 1st, 2007. This game, Crayon Physics, fundamentally changed my understanding of what a game and a game engine could be. It was a fun little game written in Flash, where you would draw things with crayons to get a ball to the star. Solving these physics puzzles by drawing random objects and having them interact with each other was incredibly engaging.

At the time, I was a middle schooler, and these were all games I could download for free, with a new one coming out every month. It felt like I was constantly receiving free games that progressively broke my brain in different ways. Crayon Physics was particularly impactful; I couldn't stop thinking about it and talking about it, which annoyed my friends in middle school. This game did well enough that the developer eventually went all out and created Crayon Physics Deluxe, which was his first full game that wasn't just a single game on PC. He also released it on the iPad, and I got to play it in middle school on what we called Smart Boards—these were really bad touchscreen interfaces with a projector.

Playing it on an actual whiteboard was the coolest experience. It's hard to articulate how much this game impacted me and how it made me think about what software was capable of. I probably wouldn't be a developer if it weren't for the profound impact this particular game and developer had on me as a kid.

Earlier, when I was discussing the old web, this is what I was thinking of the entire time—the era of the web where random innovations like this would just happen. It spawned a whole subset of Flash games, leading to the creation of many other notable games like World of Goo and Scribblenauts. These games bridged the gap between indie and unique concept games on real consoles. The amount of doors this opened for so many people is hard to put into words.

For me personally, this game and its developer, Petri, absolutely changed my life, and I cannot express enough gratitude for it. As silly as it may seem, even the little NOA logo drawn in their thousand-by-thousand grid confirms my belief that this is a resurgence of the web I grew up on. It embodies the magic of people doing unique, cool things and respecting others who do the same, learning from it and iterating on it.

This crazy Discord of cat girls who created the text and graphics for the thousand-by-thousand image could only do that because of the platform Nolan created with the million checkbox's website. All these elements feed into one another, showcasing what made the old web beautiful: people coming up with crazy ideas, which others would then iterate on, evolving and developing into all sorts of different things, creating whole new ecosystems in the process.

Petri's work is one of the meaningful entry points to the indie resurgence we see today. We might never have witnessed indie games being as successful as they are now if it weren't for Petri's genuine excitement to come up with new game ideas and showcase them on his little blog that not enough people checked. That seed was planted in a way that I’m not sure we would have ended up here without it.

Of course, there’s a Butterfly Effect at play; anything different in the past could have changed our current trajectory, but I genuinely believe that these types of experiments might not be happening today if it weren't for the incredible innovation and impact that Petri had on these developers. I would guarantee that at least a handful of the people in that Discord knew who Petri was and shared a similar background to mine, growing up on the same ideas. I really hope that in the future, there are enough initiatives like this to inspire the next generation of developers, especially the unconventional ones, to keep being weird.

Apparently, they're saying hi in the Discord, and I wonder what else they are doing.

=> 00:28:28

Innovation thrives on the weird and unexpected; it's the spark that ignites creativity and brings communities together.

It's interesting to reflect on how we ended up here. Obviously, there's some Butterfly Effect at play; anything different in the past could have changed where we are now. However, I'm genuinely not sure if these types of experiments would be happening today if it weren't for the incredible Innovation and impact that Petri had on developers. I would guarantee that at least a handful of the people in that Discord knew who Petri was and were similar to me, having grown up on the same platform.

I really hope that in the future, there are enough initiatives like this so that the next generation of developers, especially the quirky ones, can be inspired to keep being weird. Apparently, they're saying hi in the Discord right now. Oh God, what else are you guys doing? Petri, I don't know if y'all are listening right now, but Petri was one of the kings of the weird web, and that's the energy that this whole project has channeled. He is a legend of the old weird web, and even if it's a little sad that they don't know who Petri is, it's really cool that they unknowingly channeled the same energy and helped this magical moment from the old web come back again. It's so exciting to see this all come around full circle.

I genuinely feel like this is the same vibe—the feeling I experienced waking up every day, going to school just to hop on the computer and check if there was a new Clooney games post. That feeling and excitement is what this project embodies. And yes, I just love what's going on here! We've got "BG do crime," which I love, but also, there's the binary message that we found above. There's a Base64 version of the same message linking to the same Discord. Base64 is what I used for transport, and I like that they included a Base64 option there too, just in case. Finally, we have a QR code with full error correction, also linking to the Discord.

The Discord was full of very sharp teens, and they were writing this message in secret with tens of thousands of people on the website to gather other very sharp teens. It totally worked, and that's so impressive! I was a somewhat above-average teen compared to the people I was around, and that's how I found things like Clooney games. This is the same feeling; this is the old web—the thing that got me excited about the internet when I was a kid and got me into software development. It's so cool that there's now a new era of kids who found each other early on.

It's weird having all of these random things and tangents I came up with early on come together like this. Just like how I could find Neil and be friends, coming up with crazy ideas together, these kids could use his site as a platform to find each other. It's so cool! There were 15 people when I joined, and by the time I left, there were over 60 people in the Discord. I tried to make it hard for them to draw, but they said a thousand times a thousand is a million—no problem! They found a way and started drawing some very cool things. They even put a Windows blue screen of death on the site, which is hilarious!

I'm sure the QR code still links to catg girls. win. Let me confirm that—no, that one's the actual Windows error one. They actually put the receiving blue screen, like the full official blue screen page from Microsoft—the actual same one! That's almost funny; it’s even funnier that they managed to do that. The bottom QR code does link to their Discord, but the fact that this one is the actual QR code you get when you blue screen on Windows is hilarious.

There are also sexy Jake Gyllenhaal GIFs on the site at the end. I have to give credit to Lily in chat; she made it, and it’s hilarious that she created something that's 100% accurate. This whole project is so good! They moved all my rate limits for an hour as a treat, and they executed a real-time Rick Roll across the entire site. It was sick!

I found this so moving, especially in relation to the fact that he removed the rate limit to let these kids do their thing. He was excited to see what they would do because the whole reason he had these limitations was out of concern that people would abuse it. However, the people who abused it built their own culture around it in a really cool and clever way. Once he removed those barriers, all of a sudden, it opened up a world of creativity for them.

=> 00:32:29

Creativity thrives when we break free from limitations; it's in those moments of freedom that true innovation happens.

I want to start by acknowledging Lily in chat, who is the one who made this project. Thank you, you did an incredible job! It's hilarious that you created something that is 100% accurate. This whole thing is so good. I moved all my rate limits for an hour as a treat, and they executed a real-time Rick Roll across the entire site. It was sick; it was so cool!

I found this experience so moving, especially in relation to the fact that he removed the rate limits to let these kids do their thing. He was excited to see what they would do. The whole reason he had these limitations was out of concern that people would abuse it. However, those who abused it, due to those rate limits and all of the protections in place, built their own culture around it in a really cool and clever way. Once he removed those barriers, they could do anything, and that was so cool.

To go back to the Petri Puro thing, he was very limited by what you could do with Flash, the browser engines, and the constraints of a 7-day window. Once one thing went better than he expected, he could remove all of those limitations and go all in on it. That idea of excitement coming from the box you're in, and opportunity arising when you finally break out of it, is so real. This show exemplifies that; that's where real creativity happens. It's always been a meme that creativity flourishes under limitations, and it's absolutely true. These people were incredibly creative within their constraints, having built a mental model and framework for applying that creativity. As soon as he removed even just one of those limitations, they were able to go insanely far with it.

As a kid, I spent a lot of time doing dumb stuff on the computer. I didn't get into too much trouble; for example, I repeatedly crashed my high school mail server. There's no way I would be doing what I do now without the encouragement of people back then. Providing a playground like this, getting to see what they were doing, and offering some encouragement—saying, "Hey, this is amazing"—was so special for me. The people in that Discord are extraordinarily talented, so creative, and so cool. I cannot wait to see what they go on to make.

Ending videos is hard; you just have to come up with a boilerplate and reuse it or just not. I will say, this has been insanely well-paced, almost to the point where I feel bad pausing because this is a phenomenal video. This whole thing is so impressive that I just need to shut up and let him talk. That's my story. I've never made a video before, and I'm trying to decide whether this is something I want to do. So, if you like the video, please like it and let me know. Just say less, do this more—this is so cool!

I'll let you finish, but please, please make more videos and create more cool things. This whole project is dope, and just having a human to relate to through it helps. The article and the tweets were cool, but the project was even cooler. Seeing the genuine human emotions behind it is the coolest. If you've got feedback for me, I would actually love to hear that too, but it's the internet, so please be nice about it.

If you want to keep up with my work, I make YouTube shorts about the games that I create, so you can subscribe to me here. I also have a mailing list that I'll link below, so you can follow me that way if that's what you prefer. I've got a website where I write detailed technical blogs about what I create, and I'll link that too. Regardless of what I end up doing, thank you so much for watching. This was such a special thing to experience, and I'm really excited to share it with the internet. I will keep making games no matter what; the internet can still be fun.

I was doing a good job holding it together, but that last line really got to me. I'm so goddamn lucky, and it's people like Nolan and Petri, along with that stupid disc of crazy cat girls, that put me in this position and allow me to do what I do. It's silly to get emotional over a million checkboxes, but I am. The internet being fun is why I'm here. This is so cool; it makes me feel like a kid again in the best sense. Thank you, Nolan, and thank you to everyone who got us here. I have nothing else to say—keep making fun stuff, y'all. Peace, nerds!

One billion... oh God, oh God, zoom out. Never change! I really need y'all to never change. That's a goddamn special project, and I really hope there are more like this.