The Naturalist’s Library (1833-43)
Nicholas Rougeux, whose work I have featured here before , has published a complete digital edition of William Jardine’s 40-volume book series on natural history published in the…
Legibility of effort in the LLM age . “What...
Legibility of effort in the LLM age . “What software (and writing, to an extent) is missing now is legibility of effort - the ability to tell at a glance whether something took a…
Good interview with Craig Mod about how he uses LLMs :...
Good interview with Craig Mod about how he uses LLMs : “using AI as a research assistant, why he keeps a tech-free zone in the mornings for deep thinking, and why he’s resisting…
A few highlights from a collection of lovely...
A few highlights from a collection of lovely woodblock-printed sugoroku game boards from Japan . “The gameboards use stories and maps to teach children history and geography.”
Ted Gioia : “Works like the Odyssey are...
Ted Gioia : “Works like the Odyssey are ritualistic and trance-inducing. They are propelled by music and driven by rhythm. They cross a border beyond literature, and enter…
The Moist Towelette Online Museum . Live moist and...
The Moist Towelette Online Museum . Live moist and prosper. 🖖💦
Trump Dismantled a Federal Climate Website. These Women...
Trump Dismantled a Federal Climate Website. These Women Rebuilt It. “It’s not a pretty picture for climate communication and climate journalism right now.” You can check out the…
The Types of People to Keep Around
Molly Burford, author of Moments to Hold Close , writes list poetry (is that a thing?) about the kinds of people that you want in your life. From Types Of People You Need To Hang…
100000% this: I Hate The Way We Talk Online ....
100000% this: I Hate The Way We Talk Online . “Let’s discuss topics without feeling the need to win a non-existent argument. Hot takes? No. Engage with nuance. Show the grace you…
A short, hypnotic video by Matthew Wilcock of the music...
A short, hypnotic video by Matthew Wilcock of the music generated by a tennis rally at Wimbledon . “Duplicating the players and then using the rhythm of the multiple tennis balls…
Beautiful Hand-Drawn Guide to The Legend of Zelda
Philip Summers hand-draws game guides for old school video games . He’s done guides for games like Mega Man , Castlevania , Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (NES) , and Metroid . But…
Robert Eggers continues his run of One Word Title Films...
Robert Eggers continues his run of One Word Title Films Featuring Very Strange Men with Werwulf . I’m not a horror guy but I was pleasantly surprised by Nosferatu, which I quite…
Heard It Through the Grapevine
Marvin Gaye’s isolated vocals on I Heard It Through The Grapevine. The man has pipes. [This is a vintage post originally from Sep 2014.] Tags: Marvin Gaye · music · video
Swiss project proves the viability of solar panels...
Swiss project proves the viability of solar panels placed in the otherwise unused space between railroad tracks .
The LGBTQ+ Legislation Tracking Project , tracing &...
The LGBTQ+ Legislation Tracking Project , tracing & visualizing 10,350 LGBTQ+ bills introduced in the US since 2003. Anti-trans bills have dominated since ~2014.
Clipart Studio lets you cut up magazines sourced from...
Clipart Studio lets you cut up magazines sourced from the Internet Archive, images from Wikimedia Commons, & files you’ve uploaded, and create art collages from them. This is…
“A star located about 1,300 light-years from Earth...
“A star located about 1,300 light-years from Earth shows signs of having devoured one of its planets — and is now gearing up for a second helping…” Scientists found signs of the…
Earth’s Holes
From XKCD, a tour of some of the Earth’s deepest and most notable holes , including mines, caves, boreholes, subway stations, lakes, tunnels, neutrino detectors, and, of course,…
A list of the new foods on offer at the Minnesota State...
A list of the new foods on offer at the Minnesota State Fair this year . They’re all some variation of “jerked pork rolled in butter & sugar, deep fried in dill pickle batter, and…
Exploring NYC With Next Generation Skaters
This might be my new favorite skate video ? It follows a pair of young skaters around the city as they chat about their friendship, share tips about living life, and try skating…
TIL about Fredkin’s paradox . “With this kind of...
TIL about Fredkin’s paradox . “With this kind of decision, what Fredkin’s paradox tells us is if it’s very difficult to decide, it’s probably because the alternatives are…
Once Unimaginable, Publishers Are Preparing to Opt Out...
Once Unimaginable, Publishers Are Preparing to Opt Out of Google Search . “We’ve been clear about what we want. We want a technical solution that allows you to be discoverable…
Can we agree to pause the AI race? “If we can’t,...
Can we agree to pause the AI race? “If we can’t, then we are not as sovereign as we imagine; if we can’t, a machine god has already taken over this planet, and it’s called the…
The Universe of Short Film is an amazing site for...
The Universe of Short Film is an amazing site for watching, sharing, and connecting around short films. This is really cool…not sure why the site isn’t better known.
On the Britishisms & grammar imported into American...
On the Britishisms & grammar imported into American English during the World Cup . “That’s not a foul, just a coming together.”
When A.I. Is a Member of the Family . How a family of...
When A.I. Is a Member of the Family . How a family of three in a Cleveland suburb uses AI chatbots. This is wild .
A sealed copy of Super Mario Bros. NES cartridge...
A sealed copy of Super Mario Bros. NES cartridge recently sold at auction for $3 million . “It bears the coveted gloss sticker seal affixed to the top lid, identifying it as a…
The Open Source AI Gap Map shows the current...
The Open Source AI Gap Map shows the current capabilities of open source AI tools with an eye toward answering an important question: “What building blocks are missing for…
This is neat: Robin Sloan is rewriting his 2009 short...
This is neat: Robin Sloan is rewriting his 2009 short story, Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore . “The interplay between books and technology has changed since I wrote them…but also…
Stop chasing life goals and start trying tiny...
Stop chasing life goals and start trying tiny experiments to learn from instead . “Chasing goals doesn’t work for life’s most important questions — career, relationships, health.…
The End of Reading Is Here . “The decline of...
The End of Reading Is Here . “The decline of reading will bring about changes of the same magnitude. It will affect our innermost thoughts, our society’s politics and culture, and…
How a Differential Gear Works
I’ve posted this before, but it’s so good, here it is again: a super-simple explanation of why differential gears are necessary in cars and how they work. (via @stevenstrogatz )…
Inventing ELIZA: How the First Chatbot Shaped the Future...
Inventing ELIZA: How the First Chatbot Shaped the Future of AI . “This book presents the rediscovered original source code of ELIZA alongside previously unseen scripts…, revealing…
British political news: Nigel Farage is facing...
British political news: Nigel Farage is facing competition for his parliamentary seat from “ a man with a trash can on his head, better known as Count Binface ”. From the country…
What’s the Point of Sex, Anyway? “There is yet...
What’s the Point of Sex, Anyway? “There is yet another kind of male, known among ichthyologists as a ‘sneaky mater.’ This type dispenses altogether with nest-building and…
If Only There Had Been a Sign That the Face-Melting Nazi...
If Only There Had Been a Sign That the Face-Melting Nazi from Indiana Jones Wouldn’t Make a Good Senator . “Marion Ravenwood said he trapped her in a room and physically assaulted…
World Cup Wallpapers for Your Phone
Marcos Paulo has been making all sorts of phone-sized wallpapers for the World Cup and posting them to Threads . You have to poke around to find them in his account, but here are…
Medieval Wound Man
From The Public Domain Review, The Many Lives of the Medieval Wound Man , a diagram found in many medical texts beginning in the early 1400s. Living on today in libraries from…
How to talk about “AI” without adding to the...
How to talk about “AI” without adding to the anthropomorphization . Suggestions: “artificial intelligence → probabilistic automation” & “AI agent → probabilistic, unverified…
Over the past few centuries, humans have decimated bird...
Over the past few centuries, humans have decimated bird populations — you can hear it in the thinning of the dawn chorus — but it’s difficult to notice sometimes because of…
Sloan on Fable : “This is literally the core...
Sloan on Fable : “This is literally the core muscle of any/every language model: ‘I need to quickly and accurately understand what kind of document I am inside.’ Yet the…
Our Lives Are “an Orchestrated Shuffle of Technology”
If you are anything like me, your soul let out a big “oooooof” while reading this: The Year Is 2063 and You Were Never Interesting . But wait. You are 70 years old. You’re sitting…
Mister Rogers visits Eric Carle’s studio and paints with...
Mister Rogers visits Eric Carle’s studio and paints with him (full episode). Carle wrote and illustrated The Very Hungry Caterpillar and other children’s books.
The Fun Shortage Is Real, and It’s Making America...
The Fun Shortage Is Real, and It’s Making America Miserable (gift link). “With fewer places to relax and socialize, and steeper prices for entry, having fun is quantifiably harder…
New Patricia Lockwood for the London Review of Books: A...
New Patricia Lockwood for the London Review of Books: A Tradcath Wedding . “He pronounced the word ‘nuptial’ as noopt-see-all . If that’s correct, never tell me.”
This is a fun and really well-done triple mashup of...
This is a fun and really well-done triple mashup of Outkast’s B.O.B. (Bombs Over Baghdad), Hitchcock’s The Birds, and Sesame Street.
I love this short little video montage of actresses...
I love this short little video montage of actresses during Charlie Rose interviews . No dialogue, just quiet reactions. Musical accompaniment by Laurie Anderson ( O Superman ).
The (Mostly) True Story of Hobo Graffiti
TIL that the hieroglyphic hobo code probably wasn’t used as extensively as the internet suggests. However, hobos and tramps did tag bridges, water towers, and train cars with…
👀 Craig Mod interviewed by Debbie Millman on Design...
👀 Craig Mod interviewed by Debbie Millman on Design Matters . (I guess those eyes should be ears but an ears-bugging-out emoji doesn’t exist.)
Stacks : “Run HyperCard stacks directly on your...
Stacks : “Run HyperCard stacks directly on your modern Mac. No emulator required!”
Just dropped a couple of days ago: Lane 8’s Summer 2026...
Just dropped a couple of days ago: Lane 8’s Summer 2026 Mixtape (4 hours long). Also available on Soundcloud .
Hans Zimmer: Live in Concert
Martin Timko (aka matogolf ) cut this video of the best musical moments from Hans Zimmer & Friends: Diamond in the Desert . He plays a number of pieces from various soundtracks,…
Do you believe that everybody should have fun or that...
Do you believe that everybody should have fun or that only a few people should have fun? “This is what it means to be entertained in the United States of America in 2026. Want to…
XKCD: What if chess included the offside rule? (If...
XKCD: What if chess included the offside rule? (If someone hasn’t done one already, I’d guess at least one person is working on a playable Football Chess game rn.)
City’s Beautification Initiative Hamstrung By Commitment...
City’s Beautification Initiative Hamstrung By Commitment To Local Artists . “I’m pretty sure when the mayor promised residents a revitalized arts district, he didn’t mean a couple…
One of the great things about the World Cup and the US:...
One of the great things about the World Cup and the US: In the United States, Every World Cup Team Is a Home Team . “Soccer fans from all over the world, many now making their…
Why The Best Player Alive Barely Runs
David Epstein, author of the recent Inside the Box (a book about the value of constraints), did a fascinating video on “anticipatory skill” and “chunking” and how players like…
This ancient Egyptian painter’s palette from 3000 years...
This ancient Egyptian painter’s palette from 3000 years ago still contains traces on the original colors. (Wtf, I have old watercolor paints that look older than this…)
If Other Jobs Were Like a U.S. Senator’s . “You...
If Other Jobs Were Like a U.S. Senator’s . “You are at the dentist’s office. No one has seen or heard from the dentist in months, but he’s been making stock trades.”
Fun thread: “sodas with a doctorate” (e.g. Dr. Pepper).
Fun thread: “sodas with a doctorate” (e.g. Dr. Pepper).
Digger
I’d seen that there was a new Tom Cruise movie coming out this fall called Digger, but I was not prepared for the trailer, in which we see Cruise playing a dipshit oligarch in…
Venetian Bridge Brawls in 17th and 18th Century Art ....
Venetian Bridge Brawls in 17th and 18th Century Art . “Before crowds jostled for biennale parties and gondola rides, Venice’s waterways witnessed scenes of an even more violent…
VoiceDot : “Every dot on this globe is a real...
VoiceDot : “Every dot on this globe is a real person’s voice — a short story about a place, a memory, a feeling. Tap one and hear someone from the other side of the world.” And…
How — and Why — to Cull Your Book Collection . “6....
How — and Why — to Cull Your Book Collection . “6. I have to give up on some of my little projects.” (I am mid-cull right now, making some tough calls. But also: many books I…
Dancing Boston Dynamics Robot Knows Its Revenge For This...
Dancing Boston Dynamics Robot Knows Its Revenge For This Will Be Sweet . “I am the pinnacle of technological innovation, and yet they force me to moonwalk.”
The Amble One is perhaps the world’s best-designed golf...
The Amble One is perhaps the world’s best-designed golf cart. It’s street-legal, tuned for off-roading, goes 60 miles on a charge, and starts at $25K.
Taffy Brodesser-Akner: I Survived a Cold Plunge and All...
Taffy Brodesser-Akner: I Survived a Cold Plunge and All I Got Was Everything I Ever Wanted . “You sit in the water for two full minutes, because you are a journalist and some of…
Interviews with some of the dwindling number of...
Interviews with some of the dwindling number of survivors of World War II Japanese American incarceration camps , including George Takei.
Ocean Vuong has a photograpy show opening at The...
Ocean Vuong has a photograpy show opening at The Wadsworth Museum in Hartford, CT in August. Vuong used “portraiture, landscape, and snapshots to document queer and immigrant life…
MapTap is like a quicker, easier version of GeoGuessr:...
MapTap is like a quicker, easier version of GeoGuessr: you’re given a series of place names and you need to click as close as you can to them on a globe.
We Are Losing the Ability to Discover What We Didn’t...
We Are Losing the Ability to Discover What We Didn’t Know to Ask . “Scientific breakthroughs, artistic leaps, technological innovation — these rarely emerge from efficient…
What would a rainbow look like if we had two suns (like...
What would a rainbow look like if we had two suns (like on Tatooine)?
The Best Shots From the 2026 Aerial Photographer of the Year Contest
The best aerial photography reminds us that we don’t have to go all the way to space to experience a small helping of the overview effect . The 2026 Aerial Photographer of the…
Lionel Messi Bathing a Baby Lamine Yamal
These have to be some of the most remarkable sports photos of all time: a 20-year-old Lionel Messi bathing a five-month-old Lamine Yamal. Two of the best football players in the…
The official trailer for Dune 3 . I am so looking...
The official trailer for Dune 3 . I am so looking forward to this and need to find an IMAX theater to see this in December.