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Quick Links for April 2022

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? via @waxy
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."
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).
Interesting thread about content moderation on social networks and why it's not censorship.
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."
Imagining the alternate history where the early dominance of electric vehicles persisted.
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."
An astounding statistic: 1 out of every 125 Americans over 50 years old has died of Covid-19 in the past 2+ years.
The YouTube Effect – Alex Winter (Bill from Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure) has directed a feature-length documentary about the rise of YouTube and the effects it has had on our society.
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. via @jomc
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. via @mossandfog1
Drones Have Transformed Blood Delivery in Rwanda, "The autonomous aircraft have shuttled blood to rural, mountainous areas for years. A new analysis proves they're faster than driving."
The Brooklyn Public Library is offering free electronic library cards to teens around the country in order to ensure access to books that are being banned by fundamentalist authorities in some communities.
Nicolas Cage stars as himself in The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, but the writers had two backups in mind for the fictional Cage in case the real one wasn't interested: Christian Bale or Daniel Day-Lewis.
A rare glider built by aviation pioneer Otto Lilienthal and bought by William Randolph Hearst in 1896 has been restored and will go on display at the National Air and Space Museum this fall. via @pomeranian99
BirdCast's Migration Dashboard allows you to watch bird migration patterns in your area in near real time, "including estimates for the total number of birds migrating as well as their directions, speeds, and altitudes." Wow. via @lauraolin
How to Grow a Perfect Copper Acetate Crystal with Scrap Copper & Vinegar.
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 profile of computer scientist Pattie Maes, whose group at MIT developed several of the ideas behind social networks on the web in the mid 90s, before SixDegrees, Friendster, and Facebook.
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.)
The writer we're familiar with as Louisa May Alcott (Little Women), asserts @peytonology after two years of deep research, was actually a trans man.
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.
How France Hid the Mona Lisa & Other Louvre Masterpieces During World War II.
Kendrick Lamar announces his new album, Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers, will be out on May 13.
"Since I started living in the forest, I've become exhausted. I wake up far too often and struggle to get back to sleep. The hooting owls, the screeching foxes, and particularly the boar make a terrible racket."
Happy blogging anniversary to Andy Baio as @waxy turns 20 years old! Still one of my favorite sites on the web.
The eruption of a Tongan volcano in January created a rare atmospheric shockwave that "traveled around the world several times at the speed of sound".
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?"
Astronomers have observed Neptune's temperature changing rapidly and unexpectedly recently: "a dramatic warming of Neptune's south pole [...] when temperatures rapidly rose 11 °C between 2018 and 2020".
"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.
"Thanks to the mistrust of big tech, the creation of better tools for developers, and the weird and wonderful creativity of ordinary people, we're seeing an incredibly unlikely comeback: the web is thriving again." I want to believe!
On the 40th anniversary of its debut, a deep dive from 1985 into how the Commodore 64 was designed and engineered. via @inevernu
A visualization of what a supermassive black hole would look like in space, "rendered (almost) entirely through physical principles". via @the_prepared
Three reasons to stop grading your students' work (aka "ungrading"): 1) you want to focus on feedback, 2) equity, 3) grading is not teaching.
Yellowstone is Offering a $1,500 Annual Pass That You Won't Be Able to Use for 150 Years.
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."
A live-action adaptation of Spirited Away will be livestreamed on Hulu on July 3 & 4.
Back of Your Hand, a map-based quiz game that tests your knowledge of your local roads.
"Shame is not the reason Black professionals experience discrimination in the labor market. [Justine] Sacco was shamed. Black workers are stigmatized. [...] No one can credibly argue that they involve the same stakes."
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."
The 12 Most Unforgettable Descriptions of Food in Literature, including Proust's madeleine, Calvino's Under the Jaguar Sun, and Harriet the Spy's tomato sandwiches.
Pink Floyd has released their first new song in 28 years to help support Ukraine.
Lauren Groff has "a few tips about how to take care of yourself as a writer". via @luxlotus
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)!
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. via @waxy
The US Senate has confirmed Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court.
Famous Authors On Rollercoasters. Emily Dickinson: "Aah aaaaaaah – ah aah aaah – ah aaaah – / Aah aaah aaah ah aah aaaah –"
Apple has renewed Severance for a second season.
The series finale of people telling Tony Hawk he reminds them of Tony Hawk is pretty good.
Amtrak is livestreaming a section of railroad track that freight companies claim is too busy to run passenger service on to "find out how busy the corridor really is".
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.
An oral history of the Blue Man Group.
This report from @trvrb estimates that 50% of the US population was infected with Omicron, most within a 10 week period. !!!
The list of aesthetics from the Aesthetics Wiki includes unicorncore, midwest emo, pastel punk, brit pop, normcore, hustlewave, cyberpunk,art deco, and laborwave. via @noahkalina
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.
Mad Max: Fury Road and how movie audiences think about digital vs. practical effects.
LeVar Burton, Michael Dorn, Jonathan Frakes, Gates McFadden, Marina Sirtis and Brent Spiner are all joining the cast of Star Trek: Picard for its third and final season.
Archduke Metallica!!
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...
This theoretical physicist started a consultation service via video chat for armchair physicists who want help in developing their "crackpot" theories.
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.
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.
"As Black Jewish Ukrainians, Fo Sho brought a unique perspective to their country's music scene. Now displaced due to war with Russia, they're more determined than ever to share it with the world."
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."
"New vehicles sold in the U.S. will have to average at least 40 miles per gallon of gasoline in 2026, up from about 28 mpg, under new federal rules unveiled Friday."
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.
The XKCD comic yesterday was a 9-hour audio file that contains spoken coding instructions in the LOGO programming language – following them draws a picture. via @waxpancake
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."
100 year-old National Park Service Ranger Betty Reid Soskin retires after remarkable career.
The Macrodata Refinement interface from Lumon Industries. I'm gonna win so many finger puzzles this month! via @waxy
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. via @legalnomads
With this iOS app, you can scan Braille and convert it to text.
Wow, an extensive guide to creating a color palette to use in data visualizations. via @flowingdata
Oregon Trail is Changing So That We Share Less of Your Private Dysentery Information.
March 2022 Archives »