The goal of the project is to spiritually revie, the wild west of the old internet that has slowly eroded over the last two decades. My guess is that short urls on tinurl (5 character ones) typically link to old stuff. Whack some urls, and post anything interesting you find on twitter, make sure to cc me @yvanscher!
some examples of urls i whacked:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/health/story/0,3605,1402821,00.html - tinyurl.com/5X2Vf (article from 2005 guardian questioning the efficacy of chiropractic schools)
https://www.ebay.com/itm/6956409732?ViewItem=&item=6956409732&category=2228 - tinyurl.com/7565P (dead ebay listing for item in category 2228, anyone know what that might be?)
http://www.pcinpact.com/forum/sujet_61408_0.htm#entry1134730 - tinyurl.com/812Bg (404 page using the travolta meme)
http://heritage.stsci.edu/2006/14/big.html - tinyurl.com/LUq50 (gallery from the hubble telescope heritage site)
https://www.xenolegacy.com/gallery/displayimage.php?album=random&cat=13&pos=-1152 - tinyurl.com/7Gx5X (presumably someone's old cat photos on a dead server)
https://www.realitykings.com/ - tinyurl.com/7xF6F (this is pornography, NSFW)
http://www.txlink.net/ - tinyurl.com/8kE96 (mystery login page for something...texas related?)
https://com.com - tinyurl.com/ToScJ (a mysterious consumer oriented search engine with a rainbow banner)
https://fashiontribes.typepad.com/main/affordable_fashion/index.html -tinyurl.com/Rn0z0 (someone's old fashion blog with some other links)
https://www.stereogum.com/archives/001184.html - tinyurl.com/3S422 (stereogum music blog)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man-in-the-middle_attack - tinyurl.com/FcO32 (oh alice and bob...)
http://www.wealthgold9999.com/ - tinyurl.com/850210 (old weird urls for someone's defunct gold schemes)
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=7399004&MyToken=e24733b0-c0b3-478c-9fdf-e1ffbcbe1b28 - tinyurl.com/1b9L7 (an old myspace profile, that's now gone, i wonder who friendid 7399004 was...)
https://adland.tv/ooh/xbox-360-advert-has-easter-egg - tinyurl.com/1C710Z (old adland blog from 2005)
https://www.antinews.gr/?p=6975 - tinyurl.com/13Ll8 (page 6975 of greek language news)
https://www.nikkansports.com/baseball/mlb/f-bb-tp2-20080116-307987.html - tinyurl.com/2Lk10B (weird japanese websites)
https://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/charity-quests/gwenie-s-questie/t.6430524/ - tinyurl.com/41j5q (gaya online forums)
https://www.holdempoker.com/ - tinyurl.com/G9w50 (defunct poker website)
https://www.ultimatemetal.com/forum/threads/best-metal-cds-of-2005-so-far.191229/ - tinyurl.com/4e634 (ultimate metal forum)
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v147/djslybri/Kerrytubbies.jpg - tinyurl.com/4457s (some absolute degenerate's tellytubby photo album)
https://www.mapquest.com/directions/list/1/us/va/sterling/20166-6503/21345-ridgetop-cir-39.031255,-77.411565/to/us/md/bethesda/20817-1802/6410-rockledge-dr-39.023917,-77.132661 - tinyurl.com/71f70 (someone's old mapquest outside dc)
https://www.sqlteam.com/articles/server-side-cursors-and-ado-cursor-types - tinyurl.com/dnicR (old article from sqlteam.com)
https://www.boscovs.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductForm?storeId=10001&langId=-1&departmentId=34166&productId=411389 - tinyurl.com/6cTB8 (weird deparment stores you never heard of)
https://groups.google.com/g/microsoft.public.vb.general.discussion/c/tLkNzCz6J8M/m/pwY9A7SPaMEJ?pli=1 - tinyurl.com/XLmbj (google forums about VB6)
https://www.pchome.com.tw/ - tinyurl.com/362m0 (some taiwanese website?)
https://venturebeat.com/2006/10/16/sequoia-reportedly-invests-in-sf-blog-for-women-sugar-publishing/ - tinyurl.com/S05HQ (venture beat article)
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2006/jun/12/guantanamo.comment - tinyurl.com/iw2dQ (guardian article about guantanamo bay)
http://www.ultima.com.tw/library/Loadpage.asp?title=Welcome%20to%20Ultima%20Web%20Site--DVD%20Recorder%20Series&url=http://localhost&page=/artec_e/peripherial.asp%3Fpage%3D/product/recorder/recorder-e.htm%26ln%3Den - tinyurl.com/3ImA3 (weird chinese text for some taiwanese equipment website)
https://www.google.com/search?q=%22.pub+file%22&sourceid=mozilla-search&start=0&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official - tinyurl.com/9M158 (google search for .pub file)
http://wie-ist-mein-arsch.com - tinyurl.com/7X47d (i don't know, you tell me how it is...)
https://groups.google.com/g/alt.os.linux.suse/c/BAszvvHvQ8o?hl=en#dfe624877a2c80b8 - tinyurl.com/s2G6Q (more google forums)
https://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/health/2004-12-15-low-carb_x.htm - tinyurl.com/5972A (usa today articles about low carb)
https://www.avnet.com/wps/portal/us/ - tinyurl.com/95Xe3 (a supply chain automation company)
http://www.triumphpc.com/mersey-beat/archives/images/paul-mccartney-hamburg.jpg - tinyurl.com/8Na5H (picture of paul mccartney)
http://websvc.bdsrealtime.com/NBDS.Consumer.Tempo/nowplaying.aspx?uid=ServiceCKLG&stnid=4774 - tinyurl.com/qisK0 (a weird site called bdsrealtime, this part shows a song which is "now playing," rest of site seems gone)
https://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/25/technology/amazon-rumor-ruffles-dvd-rivals.html - tinyurl.com/5TRKY (2004 nyt article about amazon entering the dvd rental space)
https://apps.cer-rec.gc.ca/REGDOCS - tinyurl.com/1yH33 (database for canadian energy regulator)
https://dragcave.net/view/cLGH - tinyurl.com/Dl10au (an online game called dragon cave where you can collect and hatch dragons, this dragon is called "Sheban 3G Roberto")
Surely you can find a bit of the old wild internet here.
notes:
i register the urls that get whacked and may analyze the data at some point if it's interesting.