April 29
Kung Fu Hustle 2? Yes!
The Pudding needs your help to replicate a study about how we perceive randomness. Does a person's ability to be random peak around 25 years old and decline after 60?
The deadly accordion wars of Lesotho. "In 2004, after one Famo musician allegedly shot another, a cycle of revenge developed, fuelled by poisonous lyrics in songs."
April 28
Hailey Bieber had a stroke last month; in this video she explains what happened. Know your stroke symptoms, folks: F.A.S.T. (face drooping, arm weakness, speech difficulty, time to call 911).
April 27
The results of a new study suggest "that virtual interaction comes with a cognitive cost for creative idea generation". In-person is better for the production of creative ideas.
Always worth reading an interview with Werner Herzog. Of a Buster Keaton moment in a film, he says: "I rejoice for having seen that. It's one of the all-time best moments in a movie ever."
A map of "New Prussia" on the cover of Life magazine, Feb 1916. "It was part of the effort of American internationalists to overcome isolationist sentiment insisting on continued neutrality in the ongoing European War."
Robin Sloan on Twitter/Musk. "His substantial success launching reusable spaceships does nothing to prepare him for the challenge of building social spaces. The latter calls on every liberal art at once, while the former is just rocket science."
April 26
April 25
Elon Musk is buying Twitter. I hope I'm wrong, but *sigh*
Our Friend the Computer is a new podcast "exploring alternative computing histories". The first season focuses on pre-internet networks like Minitel, Project Cybersyn, and OGAS.
Photos and words in the NY Times about Japan's Kii Peninsula by @craigmod. "Walk the peninsula, pay attention, and you'll find yourself floating between worlds."
The axe that Jack Nicholson used in The Shining is up for auction. Current top bid is $60,000.
April 22
April 21
Inside these LA dispensaries, Black women are redesigning what cannabis culture looks like. "Gorilla Rx founder Kika Keith wanted her dispensary to feel like a grocery store, but also a little like a roller skating rink."
Big feature from the NY Times with how various artists work and what advice they might have for other artists, feat. Yo-Yo Ma, Saweetie, Tony Kushner, Jacqueline Woodson, Eileen Myles, Annette Bening, and many others.
The KLF is on YouTube. Here's Justified & Ancient feat. Tammy Wynette.
A Stanford Psychologist Says He's Cracked the Code of One-Hit Wonders. "Mass audiences are drawn to what's familiar, but they become loyal to what's consistently distinct."
A simulation of trying to read online in 2022. The only thing they missed was the refreshing interstitial ad that repeatedly makes you lose your place in the text. (@kottke proudly does none of this.)
April 19
Where did the blues originate? Mississippi? Africa? Texas? New Orleans? @tedgioia surveys the claims.
After a federal judge ruled against mandatory mask protections for travelers yesterday, several airlines and transit systems have made wearing masks optional. I don't really even know what to say about this. A huge societal failure.
April 18
April 15
Happy blogging anniversary to Andy Baio as @waxy turns 20 years old! Still one of my favorite sites on the web.
April 14
What 'Severance' Gets Right About Infantilizing Office Perks. "Who wants to give up the two hours a day they gain by not commuting for a coffee mug?"
"Free-speech absolutist" Elon Musk offers to buy Twitter for $41 billion in hostile takeover bid. This would make the service worse in so many ways.
April 13
April 12
Profiles of combat volunteers signing up to fight in Ukraine. "I'm a young man going through a divorce, and I was, like, 'Well, I have no sense of purpose anymore.' I had left the army, I am losing my family. So I saw this war on TikTok."
April 11
A long profile of MacKenzie Scott by the NY Times. In just under three years, she's given away $12 billion of her fortune.
Etsy sellers are on strike this week. "On April 11th, thousands of Etsy shops have committed to going into vacation mode, suspending sales for a little over a week in protest of recent changes on the platform."
Brendan Koerner on a podcast that ripped off an article he wrote for The Atlantic and didn't attribute or do any original reporting. "This is the obvious source material, which took me 9 years to report and write."
April 8
Scientists at Fermilab report that the mass of the W boson is 0.1% heavier than the Standard Model predicts. This discrepancy could "bring about the first major rewriting of the laws of quantum physics in half a century".
Life expectancy in the US fell for a second consecutive year in 2021 (due to Covid) – it's now just 76.6 years. "It just continues to boggle my mind how poorly we've come through this pandemic."
Just sent out the latest issue of the @kottke newsletter. It's a good one (I hope)!
April 7
Home Sweet Homepage. A lovely comic about publishing online for the first time. My first homepage was also coded offline and shuttled to a network-connected computer on a floppy disk.
Famous Authors On Rollercoasters. Emily Dickinson: "Aah aaaaaaah – ah aah aaah – ah aaaah – / Aah aaah aaah ah aah aaaah –"
April 6
In fighting the climate crisis, the scale of cities is an advantage. "The growing concentration of people and activities is an opportunity to increase resource efficiency and to decarbonize at scale."
As VP of Comms For the Newsletter Company, It's Really Important That I Make Sure Everyone Associates Our Brand With Being a Huge Unaccountable Dipshit. This is pitch perfect.
I didn't know that airliners have been using sustainable fuels (made from waste like used cooking oils) in passenger flights for years. These fuels are refined and burn just like regular jet fuel.
April 5
A few things to know before stealing this Porsche 914. "But first, you'll need to press the gas pedal to the floor exactly four times. Not three. Not five. Four."
Saturn's rings are disappearing. We only have another 300 million years to enjoy them.
The Pontiac Aztek came with a cooler that GM said could hold twelve 12oz cans. That's true, but only if you can figure out the very specific way of packing them in there.
After his girlfriend was killed by one, Stéphane Bourgoin made a career out of his obsession with serial killers. But then, some fans on the internet started digging into his story...
Unsurprised on many levels that Trump's Truth Social isn't working. The big reason: there are no libs to own. It's like a movie without an antagonist.
April 4
Nirvana wanted to work with producer Steve Albini on their third album (In Utero) and he sent them this great letter in response. "I would like to be paid like a plumber: I do the job and you pay me what it's worth." (He got the job.)
In a study, a group of Fox News viewers were paid to switch to CNN for a month. Lo and behold, some of the conservative brainwashing effects disappeared. "We hope you think of partisan media a bit differently – and more like state media."
Randall Munroe is coming out with a sequel to What If?, his book of "serious scientific answers to absurd hypothetical questions". Preorder now, release date is early September.
This Is What It's Like to Witness a Nuclear Explosion. "Sixty-three years later, what I saw remains etched in my mind, which is why I'm so alarmed that the use of nuclear weapons can be discussed so cavalierly in 2022."
The first lunar soil sample ever collected (and the only Apollo sample that can be legally sold) is up for auction later this month. Estimate is $800K-1.2M. If I had the money, I would buy this for any price.
April 2
April 1
Interesting essay on The Gilded Age. "Every period drama is ultimately a confection. Because to tell the truth how it really was, how it truly was, would be too much. Implicating."
The Macrodata Refinement interface from Lumon Industries. I'm gonna win so many finger puzzles this month!
I'd missed that the Webb Telescope snapped this photo of a star taken as part of its alignment process. It's not a scientific image, but it does include galaxies in the background that we'd previously been unable to capture.