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Movie: Steve Jobs
Set backstage at three iconic product launches and ending in 1998 with the unveiling of the iMac, Steve Jobs takes us behind the scenes of the digital revolution to paint a portrait of the man at its epicenter.
There's a Manual for That
- How to draw Ronald McDonald
- How to be a Playboy bunny
- How to care for your Pet Rock
- How to run the Haunted Mansion
- How to fly to the Moon
- How to commit sabotage
We're Safety Now Haven't We
When you think of real bangers, you wouldn't generally think of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, because, well, they're the ones tasked on keeping you from a... banger. But they just dropped, very carefully, the album-length We're Safety Now Haven't We, a real, uh, banger?
40 Best Stand-Alone TV Episodes (Slate)
Yes, it's another listicle.
That said, I like it for several reasons: it does not ignore pre-2000 shows; it indicates where the episodes can be streamed; and it does, for those series with which I'm familiar, make solid (though, as always, debatable) choices. (As a bonus, Andre Braugher appears twice!)
Comics. Often dirty. Indexed.
A search index for the very-NSFW web comic Oglaf. On Mastodon, Esther talks about how she built it. [previousliest]
Francisco Franco Is Dead. Allahu Akbar.
The origins of Granada's resplendent Mezquita Mayor.
The Mezquita Mayor of the Spanish city of Granada traces its beginnings to a curious meeting on Portobello Road in London, on the very same day in 1975 that Francisco Franco died.
Project 2025
Conservative groups draw up plan to dismantle the US government and replace it with Trump's vision
- "Led by the long-established Heritage Foundation think tank and fueled by former Trump administration officials, the far-reaching effort is essentially a government-in-waiting for the former president's return — or any candidate who aligns with their ideals and can defeat President Joe Biden in 2024." [link-heavy FPP]
"I just published a wildly over-researched article--
--about a question that has been plaguing me for months: Why is this bridge here?"
The deepest of deep dives into the history of a seemingly trivial phenomenon: a footbridge over a suburban freeway south of Minneapolis. At the same time, an amazing piece of citizen research and reporting on a bit of pre-internet local history. (via)
Word --> Ward --> Draw
Wordward Draw
is a browser game in which each word you type must be either an anagram of your previous word or identical to your previous word with just one letter changed. If you can reach certain goal words (which are gradually revealed), you get to see a little picture. That's it! See all the pictures!
Linguistic fun: Similarities between Germanic-derived languages edition
A Universal Germanic Dialogue
(SLYT, make sure sound is on) Is it possible to construct a paragraph in Dutch, German, English, Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish that are all mutually comprehendible? That is my plan.
It happens to all of us unless we go first.
My Parents Are Dead: What Now?
A resource (aimed at Millennials, but useful to people of any age) for those who have no idea what to do when their parents die. From the last days through the funeral to probate and beyond, useful advice and links for folks who are working through one of the awful parts of adult life. US-centric.
Movie: Barbie
Barbie suffers a crisis that leads her to question her world and her existence.
What are some memorable but not catchy melodies in indie and folk rock?
There's a certain kind of melody that gets lodged in my head in a great way, not that it's a hook or an earworm. I primarily listen to indie rock, singer-songwriter or folksy stuff, or contemporary classical. When I find pieces that have this kind of infectious melody, they're wonderful to write to. Usually slow or mid-tempo. Examples within.
Book: The Road by Cormac McCarthy
A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind.
Movie: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem
After years of being sheltered from the human world, the Turtle brothers set out to win the hearts of New Yorkers and be accepted as normal teenagers through heroic acts. Their new friend April O'Neil helps them take on a mysterious crime syndicate, but they soon get in over their heads when an army of mutants is unleashed upon them.
Smart dumb movies
What movies are smart and dumb at the same time?
Futurama: Related to Items You've Viewed
Bender uncovers the mysteries of the vast Momazon corporation.
I'd say he's like a grumpy pop culture protege of James Burke
I'd really only known Rich Hall [Wikipedia] from his appearances on BBC panel shows. It turns out, he has a whole career doing documentaries trying to explain the United States to a UK audience steeped in US mass media. Rich Hall's Red Menace [2019, 1h30m] begins with an atom bomb and follows the Cold War conflict between the US and the USSR as depicted in cinema and contrasting that with actual history. But he's done so many more!
The Coin Toss World Cup
"Come one! Come all! And welcome to the ultimate test of skill... That's right, live from the Independent Monetary Kingdom of Coinland, it's time once again for The Coin Toss World Cup! 8 billion players from all around the world! One solitary winner! Who will it be? Who knows! But it could be you! And it has to be someone!" The Coin Toss World Cup is an exciting game of skill and talent in which YOU could become the number one "heads-or-tailser" in the world! All you have to do is choose (and not lose)!
Rhinos named Clara
My 5-year-old wants to know if there are any living rhinos named Clara.
97 keys, one octave
Bösendorfer’s legendary Model 290 Imperial concert grand piano has 97 keys that cover a full eight octaves. Sauter’s Microtone upright piano also has 97 keys, but they only cover a single octave. It’s one of 15 “metamorphoser” piano designs patented by microtonal music pioneer Julián Carillo; the prototypes, built by Sauter, were introduced at the Brussels World Fair in 1958. This Microtone piano is tuned “with only 1/16 step between the keys so that on this instrument what appears to be a fifth actually sounds 1/16-step less than a half-step,” i.e. 96 steps per octave; the other designs had 36, 48, 60 or some other number of steps per octave. See and hear the Microtone in action in this performance of Bruce Mather’s Étude pour piano en seizième de ton (2001).
Large Language Models: a useful summary
Weird World of LLMs
is a concise, true, and very funny rundown of the actual technology behind the latest Internet Gold Rush. (from Simon Willison)
Name every city
City Quiz is a fun little webgame where you literally just name every city.
It breaks down by the whole planet, or just one continent, or just one country, and scores you based on number of cities or percentage of the population.
The Greatest Animated Series in the Surreal Sci-Fi Toilet Horror Genre
Skibidi Toilet [SLYT] is a series of so far 55 minute-long animated episodes featuring an invasion of roving heads-in-toilets taking over the world as they sing remixes of "Brr Skibidi Dop Dop Dop Dop Yes Yes Yes Yes" by Turkish music group Biser King. (CW: Mild jump scares)
Wander - A browser extension that helps you revisit your bookmarks
You bookmark interesting pages to check out later. But the more you bookmark, the harder it gets to find and revisit them -- if you even remember to do it. Wander surprises you with a random page that you bookmarked once upon a time. Get back to the places you love, not just the places that hook you.
Happy Dogust!
Happy Dogust to shelter dogs of indeterminate birthday everywhere!
FTFA:
Dogust, which takes place Aug. 1 each year, is a nationwide celebration for dogs whose birthdays are unknown. It’s been a holiday since 2008, when staff at the North Shore Animal League America of New York set out to ensure even dogs without official birthdays still get their own special day. “[It’s] the official birthday for all rescued puppies and dogs to celebrate their importance in our lives,” says Joanne Yohannan, North Shore Animal League America’s senior vice president of operations.
Zenith’s original ‘clicker’ remote were a mechanical marvel
The Zenith Space Command
, one of the first wireless television remotes ever to exist, is a monument to a time before we took the remote for granted. It also just so happened to contain one of the most influential and intriguing buttons in history.
Movie: Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One
Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his IMF team embark on their most dangerous mission yet: To track down a terrifying new weapon that threatens all of humanity before it falls into the wrong hands. With control of the future and the fate of the world at stake, and dark forces from Ethan's past closing in, a deadly race around the globe begins. Confronted by a mysterious, all-powerful enemy, Ethan is forced to consider that nothing can matter more than his mission--not even the lives of those he cares about most.
Have you ever wanted to walk up to the clouds?
Only Up! [Game Trailer]
If you’re a gamer in any capacity, your cup likely runneth over with great games to play right now. There are hits like Diablo 4, Final Fantasy 16, and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, to name a few. But many people, from big influencers to humble players, are choosing to spend their time on an unlikely candidate: Only Up! Only Up! is similar to Getting Over It With Bennett Foddy, a surreal platformer that put the player in the role of a shirtless man crouched in a cauldron, using his mighty sledgehammer to climb a magnificent and surreal peak. Only Up!, which was developed by SC-KR games, is a 3D platformer with a similar premise. The player has to climb past giant disembodied feet, Shiba Inu balloons, and massive networks of oil tankers and scaffolding. The game took off in China and was eventually streamed by Ludwig Ahgren, which led to it exploding in popularity on Twitch and TikTok. [via: Polygon]
Big Ben word game
Big Ben word game
[via mefi projects] "A unique puzzle for each second of the day, with lots of nice touches: the background fades between day and night based on London time, there's a satisfying bonnggg sound that shakes the game when you find a long word, fireworks if you clear the grid, etc. It also features a large dictionary and generously makes sure you don't get a Q without a U next to it."
Big numbers
The human body has around 30 trillion cells. The vigintillion is a cardinal number represented in the US by 1 followed by 63 zeros, and in the UK by 1 followed by 120 zeros. Before this post, there were 325 (5x5x13) posts which contained 'potato' and 2522 (2x13x97) wich contained 'cat'. A bajillion is a huge number. Rayo's number was claimed to be the largest named number. If you could stack $44 billion in $100 bills, it'd be 30 miles high. Some populations are huge, but others less so. The Eddington number, the number of protons in the observable universe, is currently estimated to be 10 to the power of 80. Even 200,000 is a big number.
The Last of Us: Long Long Time
Joel and Ellie head to a sanctuary of sorts that Joel knows of. It's an abandoned small town that's manned by Frank and Bill, two lovers who've been leading a quiet life after the world fell apart. Through flashbacks we learn how they met and how their relationship grew over the years after the pandemic.
The Status Quo-alition
In his most recent 'collection' military historian Bret Devereaux describes
the Status Quo Coalition. Summed up in a tweet, he thinks
the current international system is less 'American hegemony' and more a coalition of status quo powers, of which the USA is the 'team captain.'
Claw & Order, Jersey Shore edition
In New Jersey, cheating at boardwalk games is considered especially heinous. On the Jersey Shore, the dedicated detectives who investigate this malicious mischief are members of an elite squad known as the Legalized Games of Chance Control Commission. These are their stories. (archive.today link)
The Final Vestige of Something Irreplaceable and Delicate
To those who know what Oakland A’s baseball used to be, what Fisher had turned the team into was nothing short of tragic. A’s teams in the past had brought to Oakland pride and repute, as they had seemed to represent, in their character and color, their misfit swagger and underdog grit, something both essential and specific about the East Bay’s sense of self. In this way, certain of those teams had evinced something distinct about the constructive potential of pro sports writ large: how beloved local teams can bring a people together and lift a city up. Fisher’s A’s evince something very different: pro sports’ concurrent capacity for diminishment and plunder, disillusionment and grift. from The Long, Sad Story of the Stealing of the Oakland A’s [The Ringer; ungated]
Jormus! I hate that guy
"Egregore," by merritt k, is a short story about what happens when you make up a guy to get mad at and the guy gets mad at you back.
Listen here, you delusional orange twat-waffle
Some Sunday Silliness™:
Infinite, interactive Trump vs. Biden "debate" on Twitch, powered by ✨A.I.✨
(tw: bad language. also: Trump)
It's dangerous to go alone! Take this.
At the bottom of an ancient crater, in a city with buildings made of diamond, German archæologists have discovered a 3000 year old sword so perfectly preserved it 'almost shines.'
Help this fan process her team's move
This long-time, dedicated A's fan has Feelings. I'm looking for two types of resources to help me deal: First, nuanced, in-depth writing (or video or podcast?) that explores and explains how this move to Las Vegas finally became a reality. Second, personal experiences of fans whose team moved away, or who moved away from their team.
Pupsi Blue
The complete 1973-1976 original run of Wacky Packages [WIKI]: all sixteen series, including hard-to-find cards, with each card cross-indexed and contextualized, with occasional links to rough drafts. Sometimes Topps spoofed themselves. Sometimes they didn't make much sense. A lot of times, they're racist. • The gum is the final frontier of the serious collector.