This is the roundup of the IndieWeb Carnival (June 2026): No way!? that I hosted.
Last month I hosted IndieWeb Carnival for the first time. I asked everyone: has anything in your life ever felt like a movie plot twist, something that made you go “No way!?” but turned out to be completely true?
I got 25 submissions. Reading them taught me a ton of things I’d never have stumbled onto on my own, and made me feel like I’d picked exactly the right theme.
To bribe my procrastinating ADHD brain into actually finishing this roundup, I decided to score each submission by whether “No way!?” popped into my head the moment I finished reading it. I call it the No Way Index. It’s based purely on my own knowledge, interests, and taste, and says nothing about how good the post is. Plenty of posts never made me go “No way!?” and I loved them all the same. Whenever a post made me want to keep exploring, I share what I dug up under “Going deeper.”
I wrote all of these in Chinese first, then used AI to translate and lightly edited the result. Since many of the contributors are gender-diverse and I can’t reliably guess pronouns from names, I use “they” throughout to avoid getting it wrong.
Without further ado, let’s begin!
1. 怎么可能？！ - Pink Way
Pink Way ordered some random mushrooms at a hot pot place in the US, and what showed up was wood ear (木耳). How can wood ear possibly be a mushroom!? In Chinese, wood ear and mushrooms are clearly two different things.
Going deeper: In English, though, fungi just aren’t categorized that finely. Wood ear gets called wood ear mushroom or black fungus mushroom, because there’s no more specific word for it. The next step up is just the very clinical “fungus.” I think this is entirely a quirk of how the word “mushroom” works in English. Mushroom can mean both the fungus in general and the edible button mushroom, which is what causes all the confusion.
No Way Index: 4/5
2. “I want to get rich and buy three trampolines” - Khoa Ly
Khoa Ly asked a classmate what they wanted to do after graduating. The classmate answered, “I want to get rich and buy three trampolines,” with no explanation, leaving Khoa completely unsure how to respond. It really is an answer a normal person would never give. After some prodding, the classmate explained they wanted to bounce around on the trampolines and film videos to send to the friends who didn’t believe they could become an engineer. Khoa’s takeaway: you can look at life in a more fun way.
This reminded me of grad school, where a professor told us to make work that felt “like the author was high on weed.” I figure everyone could prepare a few “high on weed” answers for these common questions too.
No Way Index: 1/5
3. No Way?! - Darren
Darren’s submission explains how caffeine works. It doesn’t actually make you more alert; it just makes you less sleepy. The kicker: if you drink coffee right before a nap, you’ll apparently sleep better!?
Going deeper: Caffeine takes about 20 minutes to kick in, so if you take it right before a nap, by the time you wake up 20 minutes later you get the double boost of nap plus caffeine, and feel refreshed. I don’t drink coffee at all, but this little fact is so cool.
No Way Index: 3/5
4. Having A Green Thumb Is A Skill - The Tinkering Dwarf
The Tinkering Dwarf says they have ADHD too, and among their many interests is growing plants. In their family, only their grandfather used to garden, and everyone assumed a “green thumb” was a talent you’re born with. But once they started researching it themselves, they found that if you just put in the time and trust the process, you can learn things you’d assumed were far too complicated.
I related to this one a lot. It’s mostly that modern society is too restless and too fixated on quick wins. So many things that look hard just need some patience and invested time to eventually bear fruit.
No Way Index: 1/5
5. That time I accessed a11y - Mark Rogers
Mark discovered that a11y (short for accessibility) comes from the fact that there are 11 letters between the “a” and the “y.” The common l10n (localization) and i18n (internationalization) follow the exact same logic. As a developer myself, I see these words all the time, yet I’d never once wondered where they came from.
Going deeper: This way of abbreviating with numbers is apparently called a numeronym, and compressing the middle letters into a count is one type. Other common number-based abbreviations include B2C (business-to-consumer), F2P (free-to-play), Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service), and Cloudflare R2 (Rapid and Reliable).
No Way Index: 5/5
6. The app I wanted to buy just won an Apple Design Award - Alex Hsu
This one happened to me, so I wrote one myself. The app I wanted to acquire, and had actually reached out to, won an Apple Design Award a little over a month later. That’s absurd. How small must those odds be?
No Way Index: 5/5
7. Wait, you lost a nuclear warhead?! - Ville Saalo
Ville’s post covers the various times nuclear weapons have gone missing over the years. The most striking part is that once or twice, a warhead nearly detonated. Terrifying. It makes me wonder whether people looking back from the future will feel the same way about how carelessly we’re handling AI, the modern equivalent of nukes.
No Way Index: 3/5
8. Clouds - James
James took a different angle and described a day when the clouds were so beautiful that they gasped “no way” and felt glad to be alive. And because clouds are always shifting, it got them reflecting on how they themselves have changed.
This one reminded me of some very cool clouds I’ve seen. After reading it, I made a point of looking out my window at the clouds. Unfortunately it was a clear, sunny day, the sky a solid blue. But cloudless is a state too, and still beautiful. So often we forget to look up at the sky, and forget to notice how we’re changing.
No Way Index: 1/5
9. Everything in git? No way! - Legoraft
Legoraft shares their first experience learning git. You can put literally everything into version control!? No way!?
This reminded me of when I first learned git and thought it was incredible. Or the first time I used ChatGPT two or three years ago. So much technology feels ordinary to us now, but if someone from the past traveled here, would they think we’re all wizards already casting spells?
No Way Index: 1/5
10. Where is My Mind - Andrei
While browsing Reddit, Andrei read that some people have no inner monologue. No way!? I had my own “No way!?” about it too. Like Andrei, as someone whose brain starts talking the moment I wake up and is constantly, loudly chattering, I’d assumed everyone was like that.
Going deeper: Research suggests around 90% of people have an inner monologue. But a small share don’t (Anendophasia, the absence of inner speech). Some people also have no mental imagery (Aphantasia, mind blindness) or can’t imagine sounds and music (Anauralia). When someone with an inner monologue wants pizza, they’ll tell themselves, “I want pizza, but I think I had pizza yesterday, so I should get a salad.” Someone without one just pictures the pizza in their head, or feels an urge for it.
No Way Index: 5/5
11. Chris Ramsey, Taskmaster and No way!? - Juhis
Juhis shares that the moment they saw the “No Way” theme, they kept thinking of how Chris Ramsey lets out an over-the-top “no way” every time he’s handed a task on Taskmaster. After watching it, my head was full of Chris Ramsey’s “no way” too.
No Way Index: 2/5
12. No Screens Way - April
April shares that they managed to go 33 hours without a screen (I need to learn this!), and discovered that there are places on Earth with no sun for half the year. No way!? I feel like I must have heard this before, but I’d never actually looked into it.
Going deeper: Because it’s near the North Pole, Norway’s Svalbard has two extreme seasons. First is polar night: the North Pole faces completely away from the sun, so from late October to mid-February, Svalbard goes through 24-hour darkness with no sun at all. Second is polar day: the pole faces the sun the whole time, so from late April to late August, it’s daylight around the clock. How cool is that. For some reason it made me think of the Salar de Uyuni salt flats in Bolivia, probably because they’re both natural wonders. And 24-hour daylight surely counts as a sight worth seeing!
No Way Index: 5/5
13. Someone Forgot to Talk to the Moss - Lyteforce Writes
Lyteforce shares a bit of knowledge their dad told them as a kid: moss only grows on the north side of trees, because the sun never reaches that side, so you can always find your way home just by looking at the moss. They believed it for the longest time. And it wasn’t just their dad; their Cub Scout leader said the same thing. Then their father-in-law told them it’s just a myth: moss grows wherever it’s damp. No way!?
Going deeper: If you’re in the Northern Hemisphere, the sun only hits the north side of a tree on summer mornings, so that side does tend to grow more moss. But in the Southern Hemisphere, the north side gets sun all the time, so the whole rule falls apart.
No Way Index: 3/5
14. The War We Can’t See - Noahie
Noahie shares a past experience: on the recommendation of someone who’s a big advocate for psychedelic mushrooms, they took a large dose of psychedelics and sat in a dark room for six hours. They basically entered a strange state of “egolessness,” which led them to reflect on why we need to be alive at all. A later trip led them to the realization that being alive is a war of self-redemption.
I’ve only tried psychedelic truffles once, in Amsterdam, and the experience is still unforgettable. Even though Noahie ends with a warning that trying psychedelics cost them a great deal, reading their detailed account made me really want to find a chance to (legally, safely) experience a different kind of trip again.
No Way Index: 3/5
15. A decade of Lily - Alex Sirac
Alex shares the story of them and an online friend, Lily. In 2015, short on money but needing to get to another city, Alex asked on Twitter if anyone could put them up for the night. Lily was the stranger who offered a place. The two had little in common, yet they stayed up talking all night. After that day, they fell out of touch. Then five years later, during the pandemic, Alex ended up in the same online Chinese class as Lily! Another two years passed, and when Alex posted about a fire that had broken out right next to their house, Lily replied. Lily had been living nearby the whole time! This time they met up for a meal and had a wonderful chat, before once again going their separate ways.
This reads like my favorite kind of understated romance movie. The title, “A decade of Lily,” even made me think of “500 Days of Summer.” Except real life isn’t a movie: it can be wonderful without any romance at all. The fact that you could just find a stranger online to stay with back in 2015 is so cool. And how much serendipity does it take for two people to keep crossing paths like that, again and again? Amazing. I hope Alex really does make the first move again like they said, and I wonder what will come of it this time.
No Way Index: 5/5
16. Nepovezani jeziki - Sara Jakša
Sara wrote, in Slovenian, about some of the problems with translating between languages. For instance, they never realized that Thessaloniki (English) and Solun (Slovenian) are just different-language names for the same city. And when someone recommended they read “The Courage to Be Disliked,” they realized they’d already read it without knowing it. In Slovenian, the book had been given a title meaning “What Others Think of You Is None of Your Business.”
I related to this one so much. I run into the same thing constantly between Chinese and Japanese. I even shared with Sara a post I’d written before, How Taiwan and China rename English movies (and why it’s a mess). And getting a submission from the founder of IndieWeb Carnival felt like an honor!
Going deeper: Thessaloniki is a city in Greece. Historically, Slavic peoples found “Thessaloniki” too long and complicated to pronounce, so they simplified and transliterated it into “Solun,” which can also cause confusion. It reminds me: if an American saw the Chinese name for San Francisco for the first time, 舊金山 (literally “Old Gold Mountain”), they probably wouldn’t connect the two either. You just have to memorize it. Shouldn’t it be a phonetic transliteration like 聖佛朗西斯科 (Sheng Fo-lang-xi-si-ke)?
No Way Index: 3/5
17. A forum in 2025? No way!? - RNOTTÉ
RNOTTÉ shares their surprise at discovering a forum in 2025. In a year when social media dominates everything, there are still active forums? No way!? It was the first time they realized the Indie Web existed, giving them a pocket of personality-filled sanctuary in a commercialized wasteland.
It reminded me of my own surprise and delight when I first found the Indie Web. Reading this made me appreciate all over again how rare it is for a bunch of us to write blog posts together like this. By the way, RNOTTÉ’s site is the most characterful Bear blog I’ve ever seen.
No Way Index: 1/5
18. Is this for real?! - Ruben Verweij
In this post, Ruben complains about the recent heat in the Netherlands, which hit a whopping 33°C! And it might climb to 37°C after that! No way!? It’s breaking records every single day. Ruben urges everyone to finally take global warming seriously.
I’ve always thought global warming is like a frog in slowly heating water: by the time we notice, we might already be cooked. Here in Kuala Lumpur it’s 33°C every day, but since every home has big fans and air conditioning, we’re all used to it. The Netherlands doesn’t get hot often, so homes there usually have no AC. This European heat wave was genuinely severe, causing over 2,000 deaths in France alone. I hope it raises more alarm.
No Way Index: 2/5
19. Lufthansa Asked for My Credit Card - Yash Garg
Yash Garg shares the shock of being asked for their credit card number directly over the phone by an airline for the first time. Can you really share credit card information like that? Raised with an Indian money education, they’d always assumed this stuff was like a password you never hand out.
I remember having this exact moment. Whenever I handed my credit card to a server at a restaurant to pay, I’d feel a little uneasy: what if they secretly photographed it? But it’s second nature now. In the US you usually also need the ZIP code to match; in Taiwan and Malaysia there’s a verification code sent to your phone. Still, you should dutifully check your statement each month, and contact the bank right away if a fraudulent charge actually shows up.
No Way Index: 1/5
20. Do babies dream of baby sheep? - Daniel
Daniel clearly remembers a lot from their infancy, ages one to three. So when they learned that other people can’t do this, they were stunned. It turns out most people don’t form stable memories until after age five.
So cool. Daniel’s vivid descriptions of these memories really convinced me they genuinely remember. I feel like I can only recall a few things from ages four or five, and a lot of it comes from what my parents told me, which makes me suspect those are manufactured memories.
No Way Index: 4/5
21. Philosophy When Things Fall Apart - StonePick
In this post, StonePick argues that philosophy begins precisely when the framework we normally use to understand the world breaks down (when the world falls apart). I love the example: normally when we use a hammer, we don’t study its material, its structure, or the physics of leverage. We just pick it up and use it. Only when the hammer breaks and stops feeling “handy” do we suddenly start really looking at it.
This actually fits my theme perfectly. Because the moment you’re startled into “No way!?” is exactly when a world you took for granted suddenly stops being obvious. As I read these posts, so many of them raised questions for me, and then made me want to keep digging and gain some wisdom.
No Way Index: 2/5
22. Farming is Why Humanity is Fucked - Brennan Kenneth Brown
Brennan shares an idea they learned in college from the writer Daniel Quinn: that the agricultural revolution is the real root of humanity’s downfall. We usually think food production is a response to population growth. But Quinn argues that the expansion of food production is itself the cause of population growth. The surplus food from the agricultural revolution keeps driving the population up, leading to more disease, class division, war, and destruction of the planet’s ecosystems.
It’s a fascinating idea, one I’d never heard before. But it’s a bit oversimplified. Human population isn’t limited by food alone; it’s also shaped by culture, education, women’s reproductive choices, housing costs, and more. Asia’s falling birth rates are a perfect counterexample: even with plenty of food, people just don’t want to have kids.
No Way Index: 3/5
23. Space, the ultimate “No way!” - Fran
Every time Fran learns anything about the universe, they get a “No way!?” feeling. For instance, you only need to be 100 km up to count as being in space (the Kármán line). Or how the sun is 400 times bigger than the moon, but also happens to be 400 times farther away, so the two look the same size in our sky.
Fran writes so clearly and accessibly that I memorized these fun space facts instantly. Turns out 100 km up already counts as space, which doesn’t even seem that far!
Going deeper: Earth’s highest point, Mount Everest, is about 8.8 km up. A typical commercial flight cruises at around 35,000 feet, which is roughly 10 km, so it’s still 90 km short of the Kármán line.
No Way Index: 4/5
24. Your Eyes Do Not Work The Way They Appear To - Ishan Sharma
Ishan shares a fact about saccades: our eyes don’t scan the world smoothly and continuously like a camera. Instead, they constantly dart from one point to another. The thing is, if you actually saw the full image during those rapid eye movements, the world would be a constant blur, so your brain processes it for you to make it seem natural. We think our visual experience is continuous, but it’s actually processed and reconstructed by the brain.
My brain didn’t seem all that interested in this fact, probably because there are just too many amazing things about the brain and our organs! But the setup of the 2006 novel “Blindsight” that Ishan mentions at the end is fascinating: aliens can detect human saccades and move specifically during the “gaps” of our rapid eye movements, making them effectively invisible to us. Ishan only learned about saccades through this book too.
No Way Index: 3/5
25. Big, left and right - Neil
Neil shares that learning the roots of certain words gives them a “No way!?” feeling. For example, left and right are just directions to them, but in French, “left” (gauche) is pejorative, connoting clumsy, evil, and improper, while “right” (adroit) is complimentary, connoting correct, skillful, and proper. As a left-hander, they think this just isn’t right (not right!).
I really like this one. In Chinese there’s the phrase 旁門左道 (literally “side door, left path,” meaning heterodox methods), yet some ancient dynasties also held that “the left is the seat of honor.” I’m told I was left-handed as a kid, but my mom later switched me to being right-handed. When my own kids were little and didn’t have a strong preference yet, we’d tell them to hold their spoons with their right hand too. As right-handers ourselves, we figured being right-handed is just more convenient, and easier for teaching a lot of things (like sports) down the road. But recently I was chatting with a German dad, and they said they never interfere with which hand their kid uses. They see it as a major decision that affects brain development, and one that’s the child’s own to make. I found that really interesting.
No Way Index: 3/5
That’s the roundup of all 25 submissions. Thank you all for taking part. See you next time!
