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A suspiciously criminal portfolio website (blueshirt.com)
442 points by gaws on March 11, 2023 | hide | past | favorite | 126 comments



Pretty neat.

If you leave the site open and run the following code snippet, you'll be able to heat your house with your laptop.

  window.onscroll = function(ev)
  {
    if ((window.innerHeight + window.scrollY) >= document.body.offsetHeight) {
      window.scrollTo(0,0);
    };
  };
  
  function pageScroll()
  {
   window.scrollBy(0,1);
   scrolldelay = setTimeout(pageScroll,10);
  }


yeah, my cpu usage rose to above 80% without any running any additional code, though I couldn't say if it's a bitcoin miner as I am code-illiterate, for the most part.


It seems like it just scrolls through the page on a loop.


yes, I think the cause for the high cpu usage is a large, possibly uncompressed image file that takes a bit of processing to display in the browser, although other methods could be used to limit the processing or make the computation more efficient.


I had the same car model for a couple of years, in red. Mine did have reverse, but the engine used to heat the same as your script and then generated a dense cloud of white smoke.

This is the coolest thing I've seen this week.


Interesting. I browsed the website (as much as I could), then I looked at the comments, and I still cannot honestly figure out (a) why this was posted, (b) why is it suspicious, (c) did the OP think this was cool? (d) did they think it was horrible? (e) what the website is actually about.


It’s not actually suspicious or criminal, it’s a portfolio site done in the style of a suspect map in a criminal investigation (or at least, a cinematic portrayal of a crime investigation. The reality is probably more electronic, but that doesn't make for great TV or portfolio sites)


> The reality is probably more electronic

I've done investigations with law enforcement before, and you're right, it is more electronic, but basically it's the same as what you see in the movies just on a screen (so it's searchable). But the software basically has you build clusters of people with evidentiary links.

But it was developed to mimic the old bulletin boards, which looked like what you see in the movies. And also the software is really expensive, so "hobbyist" investigators still do use the bulletin boards and yarn, because the electronic version is too pricy.


Does this software category have a name? Or do you have the names of specific software that is popular, but expensive? I am curious how it looks and works


A very famous and widespread piece of software for law enforcement cases is called I2 Analyst's Notebook, which lets you create/edit/search/visualize case notebooks [1]. Thomson Reuters has Case Notebook, which is more for lawyers [2].

[1] https://docs.i2group.com/anb/9.4.1/analysts_notebook_welcome... [2] https://www.thomsonreuters.ca/en/case-notebook.html


I'm not sure on the category, maybe law enforcement case management? I can't remember the name of the software I used (it was 20 years ago) but here is an example of one:

https://www.kaseware.com/government/law-enforcement/


Maltego is kind of like this.


I suspect comment is tongue-in-cheek. It adopts the same tone as the website.


It's a quirky twist on a portfolio site, that's it. The implementation is novel and interesting. People liked it, and upvoted it. I think that's all there is to it.


> It's a quirky twist on a portfolio site, that's it.

Nailed it.


Assuming you're asking unironically:

* This site shows serious web design chops; this is not something you can easily create on a Friday afternoon by combining standard frameworks and stackoverflow answers.

* This site shows an unusual way to basically show one's resume, a way that definitely stands out for its creativity and amount of work involved.

* This site imitates / parodies the common trope of criminal drama movies, and does so not only in a technically compelling way, but also, to my mind, hilariously.


The site is completely unusable on my iphone. It’s the equivalent of submitting a leetcode interview question in brainfuck - sure, it’s difficult, but it also shows terrible judgement.


Weird, I just scrolled through the whole thing on my phone just fine


Same. iPhone 12 Pro ran it just fine.


Just barely works on my iPhone 14 pro max in Orion, but it mostly works in Safari

I think it's a cool idea, but the way it works is offensively obnoxious to me as a software engineer. It hijacks the scroll functionality and very choppily pans around in random directions unrelated to what I wanted

That said, I'm not the target audience, haha. I think most people with hiring power would be really impressed with the clever idea and decent execution


Thanks! The strange thing for me is that I did not like it at all (navigating it on my phone was quite unintuitive), and so I could not really understand whether it was an ironic post or if people actually liked it. And the comments seemed very cryptic and just made it worse.


missed the point. It's the dude's website. Very well done too. Gave me the "conspiracy is afoot" feels. Sometime's you need a distraction from all the sky-falling news or the "we just achieved the impossible but no one can reproduce it" news.


Its a fn absolutely awesome resume.

Why don't more people 'hack' their own 'news' in such a fashion.

This is great.


Because it's unusable. And it's awesome only because pretty few people hack their own portfolio into an unusable format. If more people did it, even if the format was different for each (which is hard to imagine), the cool factor would be overshadowed by the frustration and impatience these elicit.

Now since very few people do it (or at least it's definitely new for me), it does look cool. But I'm also happy that I didn't have to read through the whole thing and I could stop after a few minutes of scrolling.


I'd hire them over you.


My first thought is that someone had created a HN-specific bot network to upvote it. It was annoying useless site without content and couldn't understand how it got to the first page.


> without content

Huh? Maybe you think it's annoying, but it's nothing but content.


If you’re not interested in the content, then there is basically no content.


I often open the fridge to find it packed with vegetables, fruits, eggs and other healthy ingredients. I then close the fridge, about 2 minutes later, still empty-handed and still hungry, saying aloud to myself and to whoever will hear…

      ”There’s no food!”
So, I completely understand.


Maybe if you're not concerned about what words mean.


Is this an example of solipsism in the wild? How remarkable


I upvoted it because I found it interesting because it was quirky and put together in an unusual way.


It's a novel portfolio site in the style of a crime drama bulletin board. The one thing I don't understand after visiting the site is what Eminem has to do with any of it.


Thanks to everyone who clarified it to me; it was not an ironic question, but I still think that the matter is a bit more ambiguous than simply "everyone liked it".

That said, I will just leave this here: http://bettermotherfuckingwebsite.com/


For every web-related HN post there’s always that one person who keeps reminding how it was all better 15 years ago and how you actually dont need any colours on web since they are so irritating.

Tired of hearing this pointless rant every time. Especially since this portfolio is something fresh and not just a cookie cutter WP theme with annoying animations. Web itself can be art or culture or whatever, if it takes 10 seconds to realize how to use it on your phone then big fucking deal. CURL is handy for reading web content I’ve heard, keeps you safe from unpleasant surprises


> For every web-related HN post there’s always that one person who keeps reminding how it was all better 15 years ago and how you actually dont need any colours on web since they are so irritating.

You are a) massively over-interpreting the comment you are replying to, and b) taking it way too personally.


Well that was the gist of the comment, right? You can say it subtly but the point and innuendo remains the same.

I’m not personally offended but admittedly tired of reading this same stuff every week. Maybe I should read less comments, though, as HN is starting to feel like a groundhog week. Luckily not on the same level as Reddit yet.


On the contrary, OPs site is much more the type of thing people were experimenting with early on, about 25 years before today's sameness.

I wonder what percentage of today's HN readership built a site along these lines using image maps:

https://www.w3schools.com/htmL/html_images_imagemap.asp


>Black on white? How often do you see that kind of contrast in real life? Tone it down a bit, asshole.

What a stupid point. Make your shit less readable because appeal to nature. Even dumber than the usual reason, "I think it looks cool".


(a) It's just fun.¹

1. Everyone else


An impressive work of art to capture the attention of an entire network of leads who can afford to pay and certainly have machines strong enough to run this creative advertisement.

I would assume this is product-market fit or at least a good ROI for the work put into this.


Hard to navigate on Safari/iOS, but love the concept.

Kind of similar to Prezi presentations.

The strings connecting the different concepts make it very intuitive to explore. Reminds me a bit of the old site maps that a lot of sites used to have (although most of them were pretty useless).


I found it easier to navigate on iOS Safari than desktop (swiping down is easier than scrolling for this kind of design, I find), but tapping the portfolio items doesn't work, which is a big issue.


scroll on desktop with the arrow keys and get the same experience as mobile.


The real question is who is going to be the first person to post about scroll bar hijacking in this thread? ;-)


It's not scrolljacking - as I understand the term. It's a very tall body (50,000px) with a sticky full-viewport canvas element which must be animating (mainly Three.js) in line with the the progression of an intersectionObserver attached to the container/body as the user scrolls. This is an example of 'scrollytelling'? A word I learned about a few weeks back and is currently my #1 favourite ugliest neologism in the English language.

It's a clever and intriguing site - which I would expect from someone who works as a graphics editor for the NYT. And yet ... it also disappoints. Disable Javascript and reload the page and nothing happens. Attempt to tab through the site - even to the text and image links - and ... nothing happens. I understand the difficulties around making sites like this (more) accessible but major news outlets like the NYT (and, indeed, the company I work for) should be making much more of an effort on this.

Some of my personal investigations on making canvas things more accessible:

- Scrollytelling demo (very basic) https://scrawl-v8.rikweb.org.uk/demo/modules-006.html

- Before/after picture slider infographic https://scrawl-v8.rikweb.org.uk/demo/snippets-005.html


That was the first time on a website that this behaviour genuinely confused me.

I'd assumed that I'd be able to move around the pinboard by touching and dragging, like a map, and it took a while to click that only scroll-like dragging was getting anything to move at all.


i think you answered that yourself as the answer is... you


You got me!


To contra the top comment, I found this cute. He also has quite the credentials.


How do people build things like this? Is there a package that helps at all, or is it really just fighting with CSS for a few months to get it how you want it?


This is with threeJS


Is the latter how we get the former?


WebGL


Great, now my fan is running.


Precisely why I bookmarked under “brr” — things I open when I’m too lazy to get a blanket.

All jokes aside, this is very cool.


What else is in that folder?



Runs smooth and silent on a macbook air


Macbook air has no fan


Yes, it was a plug for these impressive little beasts that make no sound.


smooth and silent on the mac mini too


Intel ones do, I am pretty sure.


Runs fairly well on my M1 iPad


ah froze my computer while i wasn't looking


I really like the photos. I'm not into sports at all, but his photos do a really great job of telling the story of a single moment in time. The good composition plus the exact right timing makes for great photos.


This seems like a really well made experience, however perhaps a little bit less so as a usable source of information: both my desktop and laptop have trouble showing it with a smooth framerate, which makes even navigation difficult (on Firefox, if that's relevant), especially on mobile where the site feels like it's running 2-3x slower than it should. That said, watering it down and simplifying it would probably detract from the experience.

I wonder what the intersection would look like between awesome and memorable sites that are good for exploration and showcasing one's creativity, like this https://bruno-simon.com/ and boring and forgettable sites that are good for getting information out of in a familiar UX, like this https://stallman.org/

Maybe a toggle between "wow me but melt my CPU" and "bore me, but let me copy some paragraphs and bullet points for my notes about you", much like how we can have toggles for color schemes? Otherwise I have this silly image of an HR person engaging with this interactive experience when all they want to accomplish is fill out a few fields about you in the HR system hah. Of course, a PDF resume should cover most of those details, so it's not like there's anything wrong with being a bit fun on the web, either!


I'm not going to load JS for what is billed as "a suspiciously criminal portfolio website".


It's unplayable in my mobile. Too slow.


Works fine on my Fairphone 4, and they are definitely only midrange...


Cool but frustrating when you want to get a different direction than the scroll is leading you.

I wonder if you could re-hijack the scroll and scroll the page to locked-in points so someone can follow different red strings. Might be nauseating though if there is no transition.


I have NoScript on, so it was blank when I opened it. Reading the first couple comments, I thought it was going to be mining Monero or something. Nope! Just a portfolio site that's horrible on mobile devices. Noted.


The website ran fine on my S22. It wasn't perfect 60fps, but it did the job.


My LG V35 was very upset.


This is pretty slick. Although somehow there is no interactivity on Safari/iOS except the pan and zoom? „Next photo“ for instance in the photo binder doesn’t do anything.


“Why is he writing so much Java?”

I lol’d


Blueshirt[0] is the Irish equivalent of the Italian Blackshirt or the German Brownshirt. Except that they were much less serious or influential, and also are the ancestor of the current (centre-right) ruling party. All that to say it's not a great name, depending on your cultural context.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blueshirts


There are 8 billion people in the world naming things all the time. Naming conflicts are essentially inevitable if we treat everything as belonging to the same global namespace.


This is a pretty shallow take. The significance of two things sharing a name isn't that it happens at all, it's the expected cross-contamination between the two concepts in the subjective experience of the reader. "Michael" is a perfectly good first name, but if your last name is "Bolton" then maybe you should think about other names for your child. Then again if you live in a culture where most people haven't much awareness of American music from the 80s then it won't matter.

For clarity, I don't give a fig what this guy called his website, but I think it's interesting that it happens to collide with a term well known in a small part of the world. You might care that some people have a negative association with it, but there are plenty of reasons not to too. It's just a fun coincidence imho.


Agreed. It's inevitable that groups are going to want to bond around some artifact such as clothing, a tattoo, or other mutilation ritual.


This is really a cool concept and great execution. And also I completely couldn't be assed to read this person's actual portfolio through this UI.

Art and usability are often in conflict. And it's hard to determine what matters more here. Experiments like these may go viral. But may also cause the "right" people to miss the message because they can't follow the red thread. Literally.


One can only dream of having a portfolio like this.


Does it not at all work in Firefox in macOS? Or is it just me?

It at least moved in firefox on my iPhone. But in firefox on my mac it doesn't move at all.


Works perfectly for me in Firefox + macOS on my 2018 MBP.


"blueshirt is the stomping ground for Jeremy White, who is currently a graphics editor for The New York Times and an adjunct professor at Columbia University. He is a designer, animator, coder, cartographer, photographer and data visualization enthusiast. Here you'll find a few recent examples of his work and some other insanely fun facts about him."


It reads like a hit piece on him like he is involved in something shady.


I didn't like how the text wrote itself out one letter at a time. If it was a real "crazy wall", it would be static. Maybe the animation timing was messed up because my computer is slow, but it felt like I spent forever waiting for the text to write and only a little bit actually looking at the content.


I tried to see how expensive this site is in terms of carbon footprint. The website timed out citing that the webpage is really slow. As much as I like the concept, it feels just unnecessarily heavy although I do not know enough about making it lightweight while keeping the concept intact.


Creative idea! Maybe you’re Pepe Silvia.


The comic genius behind that (which, for anyone who doesn't know is from Always Sunny in Philadelphia) is that Charlie, being illiterate, reads "Pennsylvania" as "Pepe Sylvia".


I never understood this theory. Mac’s next line after Charlie’s rant confirms that Pepe Silvia is real.

“Not only do all of these people exist, but they've been asking for their mail on a daily basis. It's all they're talking about up there.”


That has been confirmed by writers via twitter to be incidental, not purposeful.


There is no Pepe!


I don't get it.


Its a portfolio/resume in the style of a classic "criminology board" reminiscent of older procedural detective dramas - the kind before computers were widespread, where evidence would be mapped out and charted in person.


If I could actually follow the edges myself, rather than getting put on a rail, this would be awesome. As it is, it has the scrolling-but-not-actually that I hate about some modern websites. Such as some data presentations at NYT and other papers.


I really like this. Does anyone else know of other extremely unique portfolio sites?


Awwwards [0] has many creative portfolio sites, some of might conform a bit more to expectations of the modern web, but some are still fun to explore.

[0] https://www.awwwards.com/websites/portfolio/


What is wrong with eating only Burritos? The $4.15 Guac is the real travesty there.


It's airport food


Is there precedence for criminal prosecution of hijacking the scroll function?


My 1st gen Surface Go (dual core Pentium 4G RAM) running Windows 11 and Firefox took it like a champ. Didn't even notice it was resource intensive until I read the rest of the comments :O


That's because the commenters here never heard of uBlock Origin. My firefox with NoScript and uBlock Origin didn't even broke a sweat. Though I did had to enable in NoScript the domain. Also it runs http only (so no secure connection either).


It's pretty laggy on Chrome/Windows, but I love this kind of "organic" design. Makes me want to shake off the rust of my little frontend work and build something cool.


It's laggy on Safari on Mac too. It's moving at like 15 FPS, so it's pretty choppy.


Not laggy on Firefox/Linux.


Fun buy the site is very very slow on my M1 Macbook Air.


Amazing, we need more cool stuff like this out there.


I wish the "here" links had some sort of status text or hover text, why would I just blindly click links?


My ryzen 5900x spikes to 70% usage from this site - usually only goes that high when doing machine learning.


Would be better if you could pan around the board. Having only linear scrolling kinda defeats the concept.


Neat concept, but slow interactions and difficult to navigate.

Also the hit area at the end for the email - pretty tiny.


The real suspicion is finding an airport meal for less that $25


Too bad it isn’t responsive for mobile devices.


It is. Works really well on my phone


I’m on an iPhone 12 and it doesn’t work well for me. It is slow and unresponsive, most of the screen is hidden (not intentionally I think because the parts that are showing have words cut off and don’t make any sense), etc.


That's pretty fun, very different.


Jeremy, I think this is neat.


No https, very suspicious!


feels like 2003 again


Well, it certainly doesn't conform to accessibility regulations.


Adding a hidden html with all the plain text that can be read by a screen reader would be easy or a (switch to boring html version button)


i loved it. !!! I think being developer is this.


the scrolling is giving me motion sickness


Interesting!


Did bots upvote this?




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