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Quick Links for May 2018

May 31
Patrick Stewart tells the story of how he realized that he was done playing Professor X and it gets pretty endearing and sweet near the end
Crazy Walls: a collection of screenshots "cataloguing the walls that obsessives in movies and TV shows cover in newspaper clippings, photos, string, maps, post-its, etc."
Alexithymia, a little-known condition where a person lacks emotions. "'I feel something but I'm unable to distinguish in any real way what that feeling is.' The only emotions he is familiar with are fear and anger."
For the last two years, the Deep Space Climate Observatory satellite has been used to observe Earth as an exoplanet to see how such observations line up with reality.
No one answers their phone anymore. For the past 6-8 years at least, there's only one number I pick up for...everything else goes to voicemail.
May 30
Hip Hop Fan Freaks Out When He Hears Rage Against the Machine's Debut Album for the Very First Time
Harvard study: "4,645 people died as a result of Hurricane Maria and its devastation across Puerto Rico last year"
May 29
Whoa, Weezer did a cover of Toto's Africa
As NYC's Citibike turns five, a look back at all the anti-Citibike hysteria that came to nothing
May 28
Holy shit, Spider-Man lives in Paris!
May 25
"Poor people are seen as out of place and in need of supervision." How child welfare connects to the prison system
We're all enamored by wünderkinds, but obsessives with deep subject knowledge and experience accomplish a lot more
There are very few American artists in the twentieth century that are as exciting to me as Rammellzee.
A thoughtful well-researched piece on how George Takei's alleged sexual assault of a man likely didn't occur
GDPR day has arrived. Have you updated your personal terms of service? "You have friends' email addresses and Wi-Fi logins. You're still connected to the Dropbox account for the company you used to work for."
"I firmly believe you can be a critic while being kind and open-hearted." Half my Twitter feed is self-serving jokes masquerading as criticism, and I'm not a fan.
StumbleUpon is shutting down after 16 years and migrating accounts to something called Mix
May 24
An introduction to the life & work of Marie Curie, whose papers are still so radioactive you need to don protective gear to read them
May 23
Actors from The Avengers pictured on set with their stunt doubles
Austin Kleon offers three thoughts from his 10 years of experience as a published author
Interesting look at how The Onion has changed its political coverage due to Trump's built-in absurdity
Animated GIFs showing Route 66 locations then (1930-1970) compared to now
Philip Roth, the Incomparable American Novelist, Has Died at Eighty-Five
Parliament releases their first album in *checks notes* 38 years?!
May 22
A super-rare interview with Elena Ferrante about how she wrote her fantastic Neapolitan novels
MousePoint is a clicker game that doesn't even require clicking and you can win in 5 min (but is still fun)
The Onion dug up an old email they got from Michael Cohen in 2013 regarding a phony piece by Donald Trump called "When You're Feeling Low, Just Remember I'll Be Dead In About 15 Or 20 Years."
Interview magazine, founded by Andy Warhol almost 50 years ago, is shutting down
A lovely story from @matlock about his dad, social mobility, and The Cosmonaut's Glove
May 21
In just over 5 minutes, 12-yo Que Jianyu solved 3 Rubik's Cubes while juggling them. This should be the test for future artificial general intelligence contenders.
Trapped in amber: a 1996 guide to the Internet by the WSJ
Arby's has a free font you can download called Saucy AF because of course it is
Favstar is shutting down because Twitter sucks. Oh sorry, I meant that Favstar is shutting down because Twitter indiscriminately changed their API for the 35th time and they suck.
Physicist Eunice Foote was first to show that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas & that high levels of it in the atmosphere would warm the planet but didn't get the credit because she was a woman
There's an interesting distinction made between being broke and being poor in this thread about grocery shopping while poor
May 18
A very good rule: "Do not link to the line steppers." — @jsmooth995
What's your author horoscope? (Mine = fellow Scorpio Margaret Atwood. My favorite writer, James Baldwin, is a Leo)
How North Korean hackers became the world's greatest bank robbers
Legendary NYC photographer Bill Cunningham is getting a retrospective exhibition at the New-York Historical Society
May 17
How the Cold War helped racial progress in the US because ambassadors from African nations couldn't get served at DC-area restaurants
A peer-reviewed study says that the Bitcoin network will use 0.5% of the world's electric energy by the end of 2018
May 16
The Ultimate Guide to Bizarre Lies Your Mom Told You. Eating bread crusts will make your hair curly?! The only one I ever got was "if you cross your eyes, they'll stay like that".
The easiest way to re-invent yourself is to find something new to learn
Researchers Uncover Two Hidden Pages in Anne Frank's Diary
There's a safe and effective vaccine for Lyme disease. It was pulled from the market because of anti-vaccine hysteria.
TIL that you can't trigger an airport wifi login by going to an https site. Explains all the trouble I've been having w/ this...
May 15
"I Don't Know How to Waste Time on the Internet Anymore". Does anyone remember surfing the web? That's all but impossible now.
Russell Davies: "we need an internet of unmonetisable enthusiasms"
Ally Sheedy on Hollywood sexism and "why it will never change"
May 14
Restaurant recommendations from a friend: "For dinner, there's a super-authentic pho place, but you can only get in with a Vietnamese passport"
Your mid-afternoon pick-me-up: Merle (101) and Stella (95) have been married for almost 79 years
Napflix: videos that will put you right to sleep
This is pretty fun: a WebGL lathe. You push the spacebar to spin the wood and click to carve.
May 11
This is *great*: Will Smith tells the story about how The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air happened
The American Influenza Outbreak of 1918-1919: A Digital Encyclopedia
There's very little advice or collective wisdom about how to properly end a creative project
A simple web toy for playing around with segmented type
"I'm Autistic, And Believe Me, It's A Lot Better Than Measles"
May 10
A playlist of songs that people would like played at their funerals
Sweden admits meatballs are Turkish
Zadie Smith on being a writer: "Resign yourself to the lifelong sadness that comes from never ­being satisfied."
From McSweeney's, A Guide to Midwestern Conversation. "Well it's a little pricey isn't it" —> "Fuck this. I could make this bullshit with my own two hands..."
That annoying Mister Softee jingle that the ice cream trucks play? It has words.
New Jon Hopkins album
A pre-Kindle history of the electronic book, from the Enciclopedia Mecánica invented by a Spanish schoolteacher in 1949 to the Sony Librie
May 9
A short tour of the shop that makes all the signage for the NYC subway system
Incredible multi-colored time lapse photos of the Milky Way captured above the Namib desert
From Curbed, a list of 101 things to love about NYC. I wonder what would have been on a similar list 20 years ago?
The Crazy Story Of A Real Life Treasure Hunt. I'd never heard of this book, or the treasure hunt (and scandal!) associated with it.
A long (and largely unprecedented) interview with Apple's Jony Ive about watches and the Apple Watch in particular
The Best Baker in the World, a children's book adapted from The Godfather (no, really!)
Ooh, the Morning News is doing a non-fiction bookclub as an offshoot of their annual Tournament of Books
Still going strong: The Ononeon collects real news stories that seem like they're from The Onion. Current sample headline: "Oliver North to be NRA's new president"
Audio archaeology: using microphotography to recover the only known voice recording of Alexander Graham Bell from a 1885 wax phonograph record
May 8
Why did New York abruptly stop building subways after the 1940s?
"My name is Wil Wheaton. I live with chronic Depression, and I am not ashamed."
American Innovations, an upcoming podcast hosted by Steven Johnson featuring "the bright ideas and the brilliant men and women whose work has transformed the world over the last century"
"Swinging cradles" for smartphones help people cheat on their steps (which can mean cheaper health insurance in China)
Played a lot of Brain It On! the past few days. It's a physics puzzle game for iOS that's just a wee bit addictive.
Last week, I was honored to be a guest on Brian McCullough's Internet History Podcast. Surprise!...we talked about the olden days.
Apple today is almost a $1 trillion company. But if not for the iMac 20 years ago, the company might have been a historical footnote.
"While he has managed through the years to preserve and categorize most everything related to his Big Mac obsession, he did lose about 7,000 or so Styrofoam cartons that were damaged in a tornado that blew the soffits off his house"
Arrested Development season 5, on Netflix May 29
For my fellow Midwesterners: Ray Szmanda, the "Save Big Money At Menards!" guy & WWII vet, has died aged 91
Tired old ideas with a fresh lick of paint. "Intellectual Dark Web" is too generous a name for this – *vomiting noise* – movement. How about The Regressives?
May 7
Cobra Kai is a new TV series that takes place 30+ years after the events of The Karate Kid starring the original cast. The down-and-out Johnny restarts the Cobra Kai dojo and successful Daniel opposes him.
Old school NYC diner Eisenberg's has been sold to new owners. "Eisenberg's will be running just as is."
Are Kids the Enemy of Writing? "Don't have children, a great writer once told Michael Chabon. Each one represents a novel you'll never publish."
TIL that Sarah Silverman was on an episode of Star Trek: Voyager and almost became a series regular
A new 3-year experiment in which new mothers will receive an "unconditional" basic income will "search for causal links between parental income level and a child's early development"
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is putting $12 million towards the development of a universal flu vaccine
A Kickstarter campaign for I Pity the Dolls, a forthcoming book about the world's largest collection of Mr. T memorabilia (designed by @essl, who owns the 2nd largest collection of Mr. T stuff)
Love this: @mkonnikova has put her poker book on hold & is on leave from the New Yorker because she's making too much money playing poker
Big thanks to @inevernu for editing @kottke last week. He wrote about some of what he covered in the lastest issue of Sentiers, his weekly newsletter.
The Best Podcasts of 2018 (So Far). My fave Slow Burn is on there, and I'm looking forward to trying Caliphate.
Golden Mona Lisa, an infinitely zooming Mona Lisa golden section
May 4
Incredible. "Study reveals how bacteria communicate in groups to avoid antibiotics."
NASA demonstration proves nuclear fission system can provide space exploration power.
May 3
"Lightning Struck Her Home. Then Her Brain Implant Stopped Working."
May 2
Well, well, well. "Cambridge Analytica shuts down all offices amid ongoing Facebook crisis."
Praised be. "Hulu has renewed The Handmaid's Tale for a third season"
May 1
Great job Slack! Always an important topic for companies but especially so in tech. "How Slack Got Ahead in Diversity"
April 2018 Archives »
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