January 31
The Awl bids a final farewell on its last day of publication. Adieu, website.
Indepth Sound Design deconstructs and explains sound effects from movies. I want one of these for Kylo Ren's lightsaber.
January 30
The skincare industry is a racket. Your skin is an amazing organ and spreading fancy acid on your face is not healthy.
You Have to See This Place. "Pick a spot on the globe and I'll send you a print of my nearest photo."
January 29
January 28
January 26
January 25
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has set their Doomsday Clock to 11:58, the closest it's been to midnight (aka nuclear war) since 1953. Spoiler: it's because of our dipshit President.
January 24
Really liked Khoi Vinh's review of The Founder (the McDonald's/Ray Kroc biopic). I was similarly lukewarm on the movie itself, but the business/design aspects were thought-provoking.
Stripe is ending their support for Bitcoin payments. Their rationale seems sensible: rising fees, higher transaction times, unstable exchange rates.
January 23
100 Views of America, a Kickstarter project. "Based on your wishes I will select a photo from the Library of Congress' photo archive personally for you."
January 22
Fifteen Sandra Bullock Movies As Names For Weed Strains, Ranked. "6. Wrestling Ernest Hemingway"
Seedship, a simple text-only game about interstellar exploration & colonization. My best result was "Corrupt Post-Singularity Democracy" (9952 points)
Huh, I didn't know cable channels and streaming services like HBO still cropped widescreen movies. I'm with this guy: the practice sucks.
10 years ago, Flickr launched their Commons project. It remains one of the very best expressions of the spirit of the open web.
January 20
If you live in the US, the documentary I Am Not Your Negro is streaming for free on PBS until Jan 30
January 19
Robberies of gun stores are up 227 percent since 2013. Burglaries are up 71 percent. No one knows why.
January 18
Watch The Cranberries perform an acoustic version of Zombie for MTV Unplugged in 1995. O'Riordan's vocals are *kisses fingers*
The 29 Stages Of A Twitterstorm In 2018. "7. The correction will get 12 retweets."
HuffPost is ending their contributor platform (which allowed anyone to post on the site). I remember listening (very skeptically) as @peretti showed this to me in 2005. He was right, of course.
For the second year in a row, life expectancy in the US dropped. Life expectancy in 25 other developed countries is on average 3+ years longer than in the US. Shameful.
January 17
A group wants to split California in two (roughly along urban/rural lines), forming a 51st US state called New California. Proposed legislative agenda item #1: pick a new name.
January 16
A casual tricks session by Danny MacAskill in Düsseldorf. That last little trick is particularly nifty.
Slate rolled out a complete redesign of their site today, including a new logo. "We wanted to better serve our most loyal users."
A tour of the Skellig Islands off the coast of Ireland, aka Luke Skywalker's home in The Last Jedi. The granite huts were built by a group of Christian monks who lived there 800-1500 years ago.
Cranberries lead singer Dolores O'Riordan has died at the age of 46. One of the most New York things I've ever seen is a horse-drawn carriage booking it up 11th Ave with the driver singing Zombie at the top of his lungs. RIP, Dolores.
January 12
January 11
Sunday Magazine. "Every week, I post the most interesting articles from the New York Times Sunday Magazine from exactly 100 years ago, with a little bit of commentary or context."
SO SO GOOD: I Made the Pizza Cinnamon Rolls from Mario Batali's Sexual Misconduct Apology Letter. "I'm punching down the dough because, according to Twitter, I hate men."
Data from a dating app about what people love and hate. Younger people love Beyonce and "filling up on bread" while older folks love goat cheese and bloody marys.
Fantastic piece by Moira Donegan about the Shitty Media Men spreadsheet she started. "I thought that the focus would be on the behavior described in the document, rather than on the document itself."
January 10
New bill could finally get rid of paperless voting machines. "The bill reads like a computer security expert's wish list."
January 9
January 8
Radiohead is suing Lana Del Rey for copying Creep. Copyright claims on music have gotten out of control, but for LDR to say that her song that sounds remarkably like Creep "wasn't inspired by Creep" seems weird.
Oprah Winfrey is 'actively thinking' about running for president. I'd vote for her in a second.
January 6
Both cold winters and hot summers are terrible...*in cities*. If you don't live somewhere with easy access to appropriate outdoor activities, of course it's gonna suck.
Twitter pretty much says that they won't ban elected officials from their service. Maybe there's a good reason not to ban elected officials from Twitter, but this rationale is awful.
January 5
Some helpful new phone security options. "If the phone is stolen, erase data and play an earsplitting siren until the battery dies or is removed."
January 4
The Mars Generation is giving up to 16 scholarships for kids to attend a week of Space Camp. Application details here.
Why is Twitter still good? Because two NYC museums are trying to best each other with olde tyme NYC snow photos.
The top 50 most popular Wikipedia entries from 2017. Death, Trump, Queen Elizabeth, Bitcoin, Wonder Woman, and The Rock all feature.
Mark Zuckerberg's personal challenge this year is to fix Facebook. "We won't prevent all mistakes or abuse, but we currently make too many errors enforcing our policies and preventing misuse of our tools."
New Jack Swing 101. This Spotify playlist compiled by @anildash and @lin_manuel is gonna be on repeat all day for me.
January 3
Why does the NY Times receive so much criticism these days? Former Times public editor Margaret Sullivan shares her perspective.
January 2
January 1