The Collective #897

Here’s a fresh digest of our latest Collective news!

We’ve gathered some of the most interesting links and resources from the past week to inspire and inform you. We hope you discover something new and exciting!

Happy exploring! 💙

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🌊 Waterball

Experience real-time fluid simulation on a sphere with WebGPU—interactive, high-performance, and smooth even on older devices. Try it in your browser!

^webgpu

🧑‍💻 Hedy

Hedy is a gradual, multilingual, and classroom-friendly textual programming language that helps beginners transition from block-based coding to Python by introducing concepts step by step in their native language.

^{programming-language}

💻 Why I still like Sublime Text in 2025

This article by James Doyle explores why Sublime Text remains a relevant and powerful code editor in 2025, highlighting its speed, flexibility, LSP support, and more.

^{article / code-editors}

📚 YC Graveyard

A collection of 821 inactive Y Combinator startups from 39 batches across 50 industries, showcasing companies that launched but ultimately ceased operations.

^{tech-industry}

🔄 How and Why I Moved My Blog from WordPress to Astro and Markdown

Marcin Kwiatkowski shares his journey migrating his blog from WordPress to Astro and Markdown, highlighting the benefits of performance, cost, and simplicity.

^{article / astro / markdown / wordpress}

🛣️ Slow Roads 2.0

The latest update brings procedurally-generated scenic roads for endless driving zen, built with Three.js to run directly in your browser, no installs or ads.

^{interactive-games / three-js / webgl}

🏝️ Beach Point

Idol has launched a new website for Beach Point Capital Management, enhancing their online presence. The project was a collaboration with Jesper Landberg, Bryan James, and Gil Huybrecht.

^finance

⚙️ CSS nesting: use with caution

Andy Bell shares a cautious approach to native CSS nesting, warning against its potential for confusion, especially for junior developers, and advocating for simplicity.

^css

🔐 What’s OAuth2 Anyway?

A deep dive into OAuth2, explaining its security model, authorization flows, and real-world use cases, with insights on best practices and emerging standards.

^{authentication / security}

💥 Particular Drift

A WebGL/JavaScript tool that turns images into dynamic particle animations, using edge detection and Perlin noise-based flow fields. Find the code here.

^{glsl / particles / tool / webgl}

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🎨 How to Set WebGL Shader Colors with CSS and JavaScript

This article guides readers through using CSS and JavaScript to dynamically control WebGL shader colors, ensuring real-time design updates like dark mode.

^{css / glsl / javascript / tutorial / webgl}

🛍️ WOOZ Experience

Joël Mik has created an interactive 3D website for a Dutch sustainable clothing brand, blending R3F and Shopify API for an immersive shopping experience.

^{3d / e-commerce / three-js}

🌐 Tencent Hunyuan3D

An advanced 3D asset generation model offering high-resolution, textured 3D assets with diffusion-based models for shape and texture creation.

^{3d / ai / tool / webgl}

💨 Dissolve Effect

Jatin Chopra showcases a dissolve effect created with shader and particles.

^{animation / glsl / particles / three-js / webgl}

📱 Display of an inline 3D model

Check out this interactive explainer for @Apple's HTMLModelElement proposal, aiming to display 3D models inline with privacy-preserving features. More details here: HTMLModelElement Proposal

^{3d / browser}

📸 Cam Hicks

New dev build for Cam Hicks by Paulo Ferreira Jorge and Neutral Studio! Showcasing storytelling through photography, moving images, creative direction, and consulting.

^{art-direction / photography / portfolio}

🗃️ Xorma

A synchronous, reactive, in-memory database built on MobX, ideal for complex frontends like video editors, design tools, and games, with features for reactivity, relationships, undo/redo, and persistence. GitHub repo.

^database

💬 AI is Creating a Generation of Illiterate Programmers

AI is making developers more dependent, eroding skills like debugging and comprehension. The author shares personal insights and suggests "No-AI Days" to regain mastery.

^{ai / article}

🔧 Pure CSS Mixin for Displaying Values of Custom Properties

Roman Komarov introduces a native CSS mixin for previewing custom property values, simplifying debugging and enhancing CSS workflows by displaying calculated values via pseudo-elements.

^{article / css}

🔍 Container Queries Unleashed

Josh Comeau explores the power of container queries in CSS, offering a new way to create responsive layouts that adjust based on container size, not just viewport.

^{article / css}