Ahhh, relax with the sights and sounds of the Windows 98...
Ahhh, relax with the sights and sounds of the Windows 98 Disk Defrag Simulator .
Heat waves are disproportionately harming people with...
Heat waves are disproportionately harming people with schizophrenia . “The bodies of people with schizophrenia, especially those on medication, simply regulate temperature very…
Emptying the Tabs…
Ok, we’re gonna go a little old school today. I’m talking the late 1990s and early 2000s, back before permalinks (sorry), RSS, and social media turned blog posts & tweets into…
Dolly Parton and Kermit the Frog Sing Everyday People (1987)
On the fifth episode of her late 80s variety show Dolly, Dolly Parton was joined by Kermit the Frog for a lovely rendition of Sly and the Family Stone’s 1968 hit Everyday People.…
In lieu of flowers, Dolly Parton’s family is asking for...
In lieu of flowers, Dolly Parton’s family is asking for donations to her Imagination Library , which has distributed over 330 million books to kids.
RIP Dolly Parton, a gem and a hero. She died today at...
RIP Dolly Parton, a gem and a hero. She died today at the age of 80 .
“Ultimately there are people who want to live, not...
“Ultimately there are people who want to live, not in a world of reconciliation, but in a world without repercussions .”
More Fucked Today than Yesterday . “I keep wanting...
More Fucked Today than Yesterday . “I keep wanting to write a post showing off my latest graphics along with the latest data and forecasts, because the picture they paint is one…
Flock banned Benn Jordan from their recent convention...
Flock banned Benn Jordan from their recent convention (they even emailed his hotel to cancel his room) but, taking a page from law enforcement & Flock itself, he electronically…
Target’s now-pulled children’s Halloween costume is so...
Target’s now-pulled children’s Halloween costume is so unbelievably racist that it had to, on some level, be purposely done by someone in the decision chain and everyone else was…
Homing pigeons may sense the Earth’s magnetic field...
Homing pigeons may sense the Earth’s magnetic field using superparamagnetic macrophages in their livers . So metal! 🤘
Just quickly reupping this post to remind you things...
Just quickly reupping this post to remind you things might be slower than usual around here for the next few weeks…moving crunch time is here. (I’ll still be posting though…it’s…
Meat proxy (noun) : “A person who forwards...
Meat proxy (noun) : “A person who forwards AI-generated text, code, or other output without reading, understanding, or validating it. The person acts only as a relay between the…
The area known as Tornado Alley continues to shift...
The area known as Tornado Alley continues to shift eastward (from Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas to Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin) due to “a warming climate that helps transport…
NOAA: Contiguous US Breaks Its Record for Hottest Month...
NOAA: Contiguous US Breaks Its Record for Hottest Month Ever . “It’s not good when you’re breaking records from the Dust Bowl…” (This record will be broken several more times in…
“ Sand temperatures above 29°C now produce 95–99%...
“ Sand temperatures above 29°C now produce 95–99% female sea turtles instead of the historical 50–50 ratio, creating a reproductive bottleneck that could collapse populations…
Jodi Ettenberg on living grief and a serendipitous...
Jodi Ettenberg on living grief and a serendipitous discovery . “Living grief lacks the tapestry of rituals, language, and social permissions around grieving that a person is…
“When Jason Ganos was asked to help sell an old box full...
“When Jason Ganos was asked to help sell an old box full of NES cartridges…” How 97 Copies of an Unreleased Version of Super Mario Bros. Duck Hunt Were Discovered in a Wisconsin…
What a great idea for a book: Cookbooking: A Fan’s...
What a great idea for a book: Cookbooking: A Fan’s Guide . “An eclectic, visually stunning pop-history, Cookbooking explores the most influential and beloved cookbooks through…
“ The principal aim of President Trump’s second...
“ The principal aim of President Trump’s second term is revenge ,” says Jamelle Bouie. “Revenge shapes the president’s priorities, drives his actions and structures the decisions…
Analysts Warn U.S. Economy Becoming Overly Dependent On...
Analysts Warn U.S. Economy Becoming Overly Dependent On Anne Hathaway . “We estimate that Anne Hathaway films currently account for a staggering 63% of all U.S. exports.” Zendaya…
“All our neighbors worked for those firms —...
“All our neighbors worked for those firms — Facebook, Google and Apple. None of them would let their children interact with any screens . They all knew how addicting they were and…
Long past time to quit X . “Those who continue to...
Long past time to quit X . “Those who continue to post on X — in particular those X users who are not racist psychopaths — are enhancing the site’s usefulness to [Musk] as a…
Anil Dash built a standalone Touch ID sensor to use...
Anil Dash built a standalone Touch ID sensor to use with your Mac if you don’t have a newer Apple keyboard. It’s open-source… the code and instructions are on Github .
When you take screenshots of posts in iOS social apps...
When you take screenshots of posts in iOS social apps like Bluesky or Threads, they use this little trick to replace the “Follow” button with the app’s logo .
Yale study : “A single-payer universal health care...
Yale study : “A single-payer universal health care system could cover every American, save more than 100,000 lives a year, and still cost $1 trillion less than the system it would…
Tressie McMillan Cottom on AOC’s presumed presidential...
Tressie McMillan Cottom on AOC’s presumed presidential run . “But these are different times. Ocasio-Cortez is a different woman, and Americans love to turn to women when the house…
A recently unearthed conversation with Anthony Bourdain...
A recently unearthed conversation with Anthony Bourdain from 2005 . “We discuss Tony’s preferred sucker-punch etiquette, his loyalty to cigarettes & the Chateau Marmont, ayahuasca…
G.P.S. and the Lost Art of Getting Lost . “G.P.S....
G.P.S. and the Lost Art of Getting Lost . “G.P.S. has also led us to outsource existential skills: locating yourself in space, parsing out your surroundings, staying calm when you…
A Collection of Eclipse Glasses (1793-2019)
Oh wow, Williams College’s Hopkins Observatory has a huge collection of eclipse glasses & viewers (and other eclipse ephemera), some of them dating back to 1793. Here are a few of…
“Scientists have found that people are being...
“Scientists have found that people are being exposed to more toxins than previously known, and beyond damaging lungs, wildfire smoke may affect hearts, brains and other organs .”…
Unwinding the Great Tech Power Grab . “If tech seeks to...
Unwinding the Great Tech Power Grab . “If tech seeks to replace democratic governance itself, then the response has to be more democracy, not less.” Lots of related links in this…
Ozu in Color (Every Frame a Painting)
For TCM, Every Frame a Painting’s Taylor Ramos & Tony Zhou tell us how legendary Japanese filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu made the transition to color filmmaking. His first color film was…
Supersonic Trebuchet
Ok so when you woke up this morning, you probably didn’t expect to watch a 20-minute video about a trebuchet — but to be fair, I didn’t either. But Tom Stanton’s build of a fully…
Walking the Length of Manhattan . I did this, solo,...
Walking the Length of Manhattan . I did this, solo, right before I moved out of NYC. Loved it. Will do it again someday.
This is a wild story: The Scientist Who Lived with...
This is a wild story: The Scientist Who Lived with Dozens of Children from the Pacific Islands . “I realized I’m in the middle of a pedophile operation that has been run out of…
A.J. Jacobs recently interviewed “the Papa Bear of...
A.J. Jacobs recently interviewed “the Papa Bear of Puzzling”, Will Shortz and came away with seven lessons he learned from him . “Creativity is usually more about evolution than…
Two new episodes of Ric Burns’ 1999 documentary...
Two new episodes of Ric Burns’ 1999 documentary series New York will soon air on PBS . “Produced by the same team that created the original NEW YORK series, The Future of Cities…
The Moral Unseriousness of Centrist & Conservative Pundits
Jamelle Bouie almost never misses. In this video that’s just shy of 10 minutes long, he chastises American political & cultural pundits for their lack of moral seriousness w/r/t…
Whoa, Columbia House (12 cassettes for 1¢) is finally...
Whoa, Columbia House (12 cassettes for 1¢) is finally going out of business after 71 years and several pivots (records to reel-to-reel to 8-tracks to cassettes to CDs to VHS to…
Craig Mod wrote about his recent adventures using LLMs:...
Craig Mod wrote about his recent adventures using LLMs: A Swarm of Blood Robots . “I now have a comprehensive family tree, naming the very boats my Italian and Polish ancestors…
Why weren’t bicycles invented sooner? “Why...
Why weren’t bicycles invented sooner? “Why was no one…even considering the question of human-powered vehicles until the 1400s? Why weren’t there bicycle mechanics in the 1300s,…
Open Thread for August 2026
We haven’t done an open thread for awhile, so… What have you been working on? How are you feeling? What’s on your mind these days? What’s the best thing you’ve seen this week?…
I’m Done Using AI . “It made me lazy. It made me...
I’m Done Using AI . “It made me lazy. It made me stop caring. It made me a worse programmer. It made me depressed. Because I stopped doing the hard work, I stopped learning, I…
Temperature Zero for Culture: Why Everything Is Starting...
Temperature Zero for Culture: Why Everything Is Starting to Look the Same . “A recommender that’s a mediocre predictor of what you’d love in a rich, diverse world becomes an…
In Bourgogne, they’ve been recording grape date harvests...
In Bourgogne, they’ve been recording grape date harvests since 1354. This year’s harvest set a record for earliest start: Aug 8. “From 1354 to 1987 the average start was 28…
Stories that the authors of the Bible borrowed from...
Stories that the authors of the Bible borrowed from other cultures and religions , including the flood myth, the Garden of Eden, etc. I learned about these in a religion &…
Post-pandemic vaccination rates of US kindergarteners...
Post-pandemic vaccination rates of US kindergarteners continue to fall and “nonmedical exemptions” based on “personal or religious beliefs” jumped 0.8% in just 1 year.
“Draw any shape and hear it as a drum.”...
“Draw any shape and hear it as a drum.” Eigendrum : a drum simulator where you can change the shape of the drum to see how it affects the sound it makes.
Some of the most storied problems in mathematics, those...
Some of the most storied problems in mathematics, those posed by Paul Erdős, are being solved by LLMs .
Why Are Rivers So Mathematical? “Any stream, from the...
Why Are Rivers So Mathematical? “Any stream, from the littlest brook to the mightiest river, has a length that’s proportional to its drainage area raised to the power of 0.6.”
The Art of the Copyist
Lovely short video about artist Jas Knight , who is a participant in the Met Museum’s Copyist Program : The Copyist Program offers time and space for artists to develop their own…
Weird Al Yankovic’s Tiny Desk Concert
Holy moly, NPR’s Tiny Desk has been going for a long time. Weird Al Yankovic first stopped by the desk in 2010 , so early that they didn’t even have it on YouTube until more…
How to make a good Star Wars movie for once ....
How to make a good Star Wars movie for once . “Stop making stuff that’s so self referential and start focusing on projects that once again are bringing things from the outside and…
We live in a world of ordinary abundance & luxuries...
We live in a world of ordinary abundance & luxuries only dreamed of in centuries past: music on demand, photographs, books, eyeglasses, refrigeration, vaccination, bicycles, and…
Here’s how Rocky’s musical language from the Project...
Here’s how Rocky’s musical language from the Project Hail Mary movie was created . The filmmakers didn’t “want it to feel like a human language because he’s supposed to be really…
Ring of Fire in the Sky
Portuguese photographer Rui Santos captured this shot of the recent solar eclipse. Stunning. Here’s what makes this shot look a little different from other eclipse photos; from…
Death Cab for Cutie’s Tiny Desk Concert
Death Cab for Cutie rolled into the NPR offices for a Tiny Desk Concert , which featured two new songs from their current album and some oldies: Title and Registration and Soul…
Opinion columnist Karen Attiah won her arbitration...
Opinion columnist Karen Attiah won her arbitration against the Washington Post . They are ordered to reinstate her and pay full back pay. The Post fired her almost a year ago for…
Trailer for VisionQuest , the third leg of the...
Trailer for VisionQuest , the third leg of the Wanda/Vision/Agatha trilogy. Huh. “Ultron! Human avatars only!”
And also a trailer for season 2 of Star Wars: Ahsoka ....
And also a trailer for season 2 of Star Wars: Ahsoka . Huh. Lots of Anakin, but where are the space whales?
“ At least 1-in-4 of all the people who have played...
“ At least 1-in-4 of all the people who have played in the NFL might expect to end up with chronic traumatic encephalopathy [CTE] , according to a study of hundreds of cases over…
Voting is now open for the 2026 Tiny Awards , featuring...
Voting is now open for the 2026 Tiny Awards , featuring 10 sites that celebrate “the best of the small, poetic, creative, handmade web”. You have until Sept 25 to vote.