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  Quick Links, Updated Constantly

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The latest links
This piece by @tressiemcphd (feat. @shrinkthinks) about Covid denial, empathy, and grief is really interesting. "I am afraid that the onslaught of Covid denial stories is robbing me of [my humility] by undermining my empathy for others."  nytimes.com
Movie posters generated by an AI program based on brief text descriptions of the films.  noahveltman.com
Before Food Trucks, Americans Ate 'Night Lunch' From Beautiful Wagons. (Working on my night lunch!)  atlasobscura.com
Mirroring most of Europe (where recycling rates are high), Maine has passed a law that makes manufacturers (and not consumers) cover the costs of recycling. Fantastic...companies should be responsible for this.  nytimes.com
1 out of every 500 Americans has died from Covid-19. Greatest country in the world, etc.  theguardian.com
Colson Whitehead's latest book is Harlem Shuffle, a crime novel. Love authors who range widely over format and genre.  bookshop.org
Rolling Stone's list of the best 500 songs of all time, updated for the first time since 2004. Lots to argue about here but also lots to enjoy. #1 is Aretha Franklin's Respect.  rollingstone.com
China Has Fully Vaccinated More Than 1 Billion People, over 70% of its total population.  bloomberg.com
The History of Drag, "a collection of shows and shorts about the history of drag, including a major documentary, a musical history show and audio shorts by drag artists from across the UK".  audiocontentfund.org.uk
September 15
Ikea is launching a US program to buy back used furniture and resell it as part of "the company's ambitious goals to become circular and carbon positive by the end of the decade".  fastcompany.com
A visualization of the 7,102 known languages in the world today.  visualcapitalist.com
Fossil Fuel Capitalism Is Cutting Our Lives Short. "A new study shows that 17 billion life years could be saved if air pollution was reduced to WHO standards."  tribunemag.co.uk
Whoa, Hoefler&Co has been acquired by Monotype.  typography.com
Season 5 of the excellent Scene on Radio podcast is about the climate crisis. "We'll trace the evolution of the colonizing, extractive Western culture that has driven us into the ecological ditch, and we'll look at potential solutions – the repair."  sceneonradio.org
Ah man, Norm MacDonald is dead at the age of 61. I loved him on SNL's Weekend Update.  deadline.com
Gas stations make most of their money on convenience store items, not selling gasoline. (It seems like this would make it easier for them to eventually supplement w/ EV chargers?)  thehustle.co
September 10
Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman have won a $3 million Breakthrough Prize for their research on mRNA technology, which has been used to great effect in Covid-19 vaccines.  breakthroughprize.org
A review of Swedish Chef's new restaurant, Dorg Schnorfblorp Horganblorps. "A swordfish sailed past my head and smacked clumsily against the wall. 'Herdy come da fishy wishy!' Our chef had arrived."  newyorker.com
MoMA’s Online Courses Let You Study Modern & Contemporary Art and Earn a Certificate. Very tempting.  openculture.com
"Turn a Google Sheets spreadsheet into a blog page and RSS feed."  sheet-posting.me
The cars used in the filming of Mad Max: Fury Road (the War Rig, Nux Car, Immortan Joe's Gigahorse) are up for auction.  lloydsonline.com.au · via @aaroncoleman0
As part of a big push to get more Americans vaccinated against the Delta variant, the Biden admin. mandated vaccinations for federal workers & the Labor Dept. will make them mandatory for businesses w/ 100+ employees. More like this, pls.  nytimes.com
September 9
"Minus is a finite social network where you get 100 posts – for life."  minus.social
TIL that Michael K. Williams choreographed the dancing in the music video for Crystal Waters' 100% Pure Love. Love that song.  youtube.com
September 8
Steven Heller & Thilo von Debschitz celebrate the work of a prolific designer that you've probably never heard of: Joseph Caroff. Among other things, he designed the film poster for West Side Story and the James Bond 007 gun logo.  printmag.com
TIL that in 1960 actress Anita Ekberg shot a paparazzi with a bow & arrow (and the guy still got the photo).  twitter.com
By counting excess deaths since January 2020, the Economist estimates that more than 15 million people have died of Covid-19 worldwide, more than 3 times the official death toll of ~4.6 million.  twitter.com
A collection of free, open source health icons. There's over 1000 of them, including ones for devices, body parts, medical conditions, and vehicles.  healthicons.org
Radiohead is rereleasing Kid A and Amnesiac this fall, along with a third companion album called Kid Amnesiae with unreleased tracks recorded around the same time.  pitchfork.com
School dress codes are sexist, racist, and classist. "They put the onus on girls to not be distracting or not call attention to themselves instead of putting the onus on all students to respect everyone's body."  nytimes.com
For a second year, MIT's biology department is offering their class on "COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2 and the Pandemic" featuring guests lecturers like Dr. Fauci and CDC director Rochelle Walensky. All the classes are free to stream and archived on YouTube.  biology.mit.edu
Nantucket Doesn't Belong to the Preppies. "Nantucket was once a place of working-class ingenuity and Black daring."  theatlantic.com
I've recently been dipping into @simplebits' Twenty Bits I Learned About Making Fonts book, a collection of thoughts from a veteran designer who recently started designing typefaces.  simplebits.com
September 7
Seinfeld theme in the style of Miles Davis' Kind of Blue. Evil & genius.  youtube.com · via @waxpancake
A collection of quotations & thoughts on the harmful nature of fame, or as E.B. White called it, "the indignity of being observed".  austinkleon.com
Hidden structures in hairballs, and how to see them. I feel like I spent a lot of daydreaming time as a kid looking at groups of things trying to figure out if they were grouped or not.  reticular.hypotheses.org
From the New Yorker archive, a 2000 piece by Anthony Bourdain about 24 hours in the life of his restaurant, Les Halles. "For the weekenders, a saddle of wild hare stuffed with foie gras is not a good special."  newyorker.com
Female Hummingbirds Avoid Harassment by Looking Like Males. "Scientists found these [blue plumed] male look-alikes avoid harassment directed toward green females."  nytimes.com
NASA's Perseverance rover has collected a rock sample from the surface of Mars that will be retrieved by a future mission and returned to Earth for analysis.  mars.nasa.gov
Sally Rooney's Beautiful World, Where Are You is out today! But boo, I don't have time to get started on it until later in the week.  bookshop.org
Why are hyperlinks blue? "WHO decided to make them blue? WHEN was this decision made, and HOW has this decision made such a lasting impact?"  blog.mozilla.org
September 6
Oh shit, Michael K. Williams has died at the age of 54. He was fantastic in The Wire, Boardwalk Empire, and many other things.  variety.com
September 3
Oh My Fucking God, Get the Fucking Vaccine Already, You Fucking Fucks. "You want a two-month-old to wind up on a fucking ventilator instead of you, a fucking adult, getting a fucking sore arm for a day? What are you, a pitcher for the Yankees?"  mcsweeneys.net
September 2
Vaccination reduces risk of long Covid, even when people are infected, U.K. study indicates.  statnews.com
August 25
Tim Carmody on what Amazon is allowed and not allowed to do with their Lord of the Rings prequel series. "Amazon's series will have to be consistent with the Tolkien canon, while...drawing on the vaguest, least detailed portion of it".  amazonchronicles.substack.com
Teen saves bumblebee, who becomes her friend. "She's so fluffy and I love our friendship."  cornwalllive.com · via @themorningnews
My COVID Parenting Has Reached Peak Inconsistency. "Honestly, I have no idea what I'm OK letting my kids do anymore." Same same. And it's not just Covid precautions – it's devices, bedtimes, food, sports practices, schoolwork...  slate.com
A short chronology of the early days of the telescope. (Spoiler alert: Galileo didn't invent the telescope and wasn't even the first to use it for astronomical purposes.)  thonyc.wordpress.com
Love seeing this sort of accuracy in headlines: "South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem Joins Fellow Republicans in Quest to Kill Her Constituents".  vanityfair.com
Textile Artists File Their Nails in Tiny Grooves for Traditional Japanese Weaving Technique. Functional body mods.  thisiscolossal.com
August 2021 »  •  July 2021 »  •  June 2021 »
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