November 30
A short documentary of two rival alt-right groups beefing at a Denny's. This is surreal but also completely predictable.
November 29
The first magazine profile of Adam Sandler since 1996. "Being rich, he told me later, can buy you a chef or a personal trainer, but it cannot buy the self-control to not pound a whole thing of ice cream on the weekend."
Go champ Lee Se-dol retires because AI is unbeatable. "I've realized that I'm not at the top even if I become the number one through frantic efforts."
November 27
Ed Yong wrote about the slow heart rate of deep-diving blue whales (2 beats per minute). The piece is designed so that when you're reading it, each paragraph takes one whale heart beat to read. "(Ba-bum.)"
Ten Years Ago, I Called Out David Letterman. This Month, We Sat Down to Talk. "It's not often that you speak truth to power and power responds, 'Oops, sorry.'"
33 Ways to Remember the 2010s. Unsurprising but still incredible how the internet enabled and infused everything on this list.
A ranking of movie journalists, from Nightcrawler's Louis Bloom to Anchorman's Ron Burgundy to Woodward & Bernstein in All the President's Men. No Phil Connors from Groundhog Day tho?
The top 100 films directed by women. The Piano is #1; Lost in Translation, The Hurt Locker, and Lady Bird all make the top 25. I have not seen enough of these...
November 26
The rights to the .org registry are being sold to a private equity firm and price caps have been removed. I don't know how concerned I should be about this...
NYC bans foie gras starting in 2022. Meanwhile, the US production of most chicken, eggs, and pork is much more cruel & unethical and happens on a much larger scale.
November 25
Nick Paumgarten writes about his year of concussions playing "beer league" hockey. "The thud was thicker than I'd expected. It felt as if my head had been slammed in a car door."
November 22
How to Move Abroad. "You've always dreamed about working by the beach, but how do you make that a reality?"
The world record for the fastest Formula 1 pitstop is now 1.82 seconds. The footage is incredible...all four tires changed in under 2 sec.
Tesla introduces the Cybertruck. I cannot improve on what @mathowie said about it: "What the truck was he thinking?"
November 21
There's always something interesting in Spencer Wright's The Prepared newsletter. This week's was particularly good.
People share answers to common questions they get related to their professions. "Literally, all I do as a volcanologist: Yellowstone is not going to erupt & kill us all any minute."
Manufacturers say you should destroy used child car seats because they could be unsafe. But there's no data to back up the claim that car seats expire or grow less safe over time.
On healthy self-doubt and blowhard syndrome. "We're great the way we are, level-headed self-assessments and all. Stop rewarding them for being jackasses."
Border Tuner is a interactive public art installation where people shine powerful lights across the US/Mexico border. If lights are shined at each other, a communications channel opens between the two.
November 20
142 new geoglyphs have been discovered in Peru with the help of AI technology. The glyphs are ~2000 years old and some are up to 300 feet across.
Oxford Dictionaries has named its word of the year for 2019: "climate emergency". The shortlisted words all relate to climate change in some way: "flight shame", "plant-based", "ecocide", etc.
FYI, The Irishman is opening wider this weekend. For some reason, listings aren't available everywhere yet, so check the official site for showtimes.
November 19
This is an interesting article about boring machines. Tunnel boring machines.
Predictions about the year 2029 using headlines from 2019. "President Xi Will Be Our Stalin", "Racism Will Thrive, But No One Will Say the Word", "Child Separation Will Never Be Forgotten".
Well, everyone knows that Midtown Manhattan sucks. What this blog post presupposes is... maybe it doesn't? (I have always liked Midtown for reasons that are unknown even to myself.)
Illustrated chronicle of a night spent in a NYC bodega. "1:46am: I just got off a bat mitzvah... I motivate people to dance. There's a lot of new dance moves I learn on TikTok. I learned the Woah and the Milly Rock."
November 18
November 17
November 15
The Hayabusa2 spacecraft is headed back to Earth after collecting chunks of an asteroid. "The main spacecraft will sail on past us, but not before ejecting a capsule where the samples are safely stored."
Research from the Salk Institute suggests that intermittent fasting works. "Restricting one's calorie intake to an 8- to 10-hour window could confer a host of health benefits, including weight loss."
"Every shot in [Pixar's] Piper is composed of millions of grains of sand, each one of them around 5000 polygons." What? WHAT?!
November 14
Taffy Brodesser-Akner's profile of Tom Hanks in the NY Times is a delight. "It doesn't matter why you do nice things; all that matters is that you do them."
"How did you decide where to live?" asks @lauraolin. Interesting responses.
Bond film anagrams. "English Tutor Hoedown" from "The World Is Not Enough" made me LOL.
Leaked emails sent by WH advisor Stephen Miller in 2015/16 included praise for "xenophobic conspiracy theories and eugenics-era immigration laws that Adolf Hitler lauded in 'Mein Kampf.'" What an awful human being.
November 13
A Curator Boyfriend Is The Hottest Accessory For 2020. Do web curators count? *bats eyelashes*
The U.S. Detained a Record 69,550 Migrant Children This Year. "The nearly 70,000 children who spent time in detention in the U.S. is more than anywhere else in the world."
Birds can get drunk from berries and tree fruit that ferment after the first frost, causing unsafe flight. The solution: a bird drunk tank.
November 12
Mike Bostock wrote a tutorial on how to make animated bar chart races, including code you can fork and drop your data into. What a resource!
James Dean will star in a Vietnam-era war movie called Finding Jack. "Dean's performance will be constructed via 'full body' CGI using actual footage and photos. Another actor will voice him."
Han Solo with a hat is just a generic cowboy. "Sometimes good design is the act of not putting a hat on someone."
November 11
Brent Simmons celebrates 20 years of blogging. "The best time to start a blog is 20 years ago. The second-best time is today."
The Colossal is one of my favorite websites and they recently introduced a membership program. If you're a Colossal reader, join me in supporting their efforts!
Climate scientists badly underestimated how quickly the effects of climate change would arrive. Here's how they got it wrong. "Many worst-case scenarios from that time are now realities."
Steve Wozniak & David Heinemeier Hansson allege that Goldman Sachs' Apple Card algorithm discriminates against women applicants. "We love our technology but we are no longer in control."
November 9
November 8
November 7
Communities facing relocation as they struggle with melting ground and a rising sea. "Pelly Island, a remote island about 100 kilometres west of Tuktoyaktuk, recede as much as 30-40 metres a year."
You've got to admire the dedication. A very, very detailed look at all the changes and additions to the emojis in iOS 13.2, including falafel, maté, and a gender-neutral zombie.
November 6
Paging all modern oligarchs, and French ministries and museums. "The 'Château du Bouilh' was tailor made for the last King of France, and has been left virtually untouched since the country's Revolution." It's now for sale.
November 5
Incredible research by professor Suzanne Simard. "Never underestimate the intelligence of trees. Plants communicate, nurture their seedlings, and get stressed."
The pronghorn is the second-fastest animal for top speed but first for longer distances. Interestingly, it doesn't have natural predators anymore and doesn't need that speed. It's also where we learn that there was a now extinct American Cheetah!!
November 4
November 1