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Links of the moment
An ongoing series Turn your writing into jazz. “Always go to the footnotes.” A delight listening to The Devil in the White City author Erik Larson on Armchair Expert. Boys get everything, except the thing that’s most worth having. Super Mario Bros., typewriter edition.
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Tools of the moment
An ongoing series Not YouTube watch history. When you turn off the watch history for your YouTube account (manage it here), your homepage becomes gloriously blank rather than cluttered with garbage served up by their algorithm. Not WorkFlowy. One day I decided I was tired of splitting my personal and professional note-taking, task management, and…
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Links of the moment
An ongoing series Long live the home page. The Millennial CAPTCHA is just spot-on. Some pretty great bumper stickers for your phone. A quick and entertaining primer on how not to get screwed buying a used car. The fascinating saga of a forged Apple employee badge on eBay. A camera that turns pictures into AI-generated poetry.
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Links of the moment
An ongoing series Rejoice! For Kristen Wiig’s Aunt Linda returned to SNL. (As did Ryan Gosling for Papyrus 2.) A museum of old coffee makers. The wonderfully arcane world of trademark design codes. What is both an amazing astronomical phenomenon and a righteous band name? The Vela Supernova Remnant. Have fun browsing “five hundred years of the vulgar tongue” in Green’s Dictionary…
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Links of the moment
An ongoing series A lovely ode to the Voyager 1 spacecraft’s long life and imminent death. There’s something deeply touching about 18,000 strangers around the world singing Toto’s “Africa” together. A visual deep-dive on title drops in movies. A look back at photos from 100 years ago. Find the exact opposite place of anywhere on…
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Media of the moment
An ongoing series Dune: Part Two. I couldn’t see Dune on the big screen so I was glad to catch this one. Anytime I can see a big, weird, tactile, religion-infused spectacle like this is a good time for me. Masters of the Air. Produced by the same people behind Band of Brothers and The…
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Links of the moment
An ongoing series NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day feed is a treasure trove of amazing photos. Thanks to science for being able to read ancient papyri. Yay for rewilding old golf courses! All the ways Mount Everest can kill you.
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My sons’ media of the moment
A spinoff of an ongoing series Raffi. His greatest hits have been on heavy rotation as it seems to be the only music that calms down our 8 month old when he’s upset, which is often. Hamster maze videos on YouTube. The 4 year old is delighted by these. Random but could be a lot…
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Links of the moment
An ongoing series The best ingredient in The Bear is tenderness. Photographing the triple-alignment of a cathedral, a mountain, and the moon. How Google “perfected” the web. A photographer photoshopped himself into his own childhood photos.
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Links of the moment
An ongoing series Typewriters in films. A cool localized night sky calendar. A collection of eggnog cartons.
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Links of the moment
An ongoing series Finalists for the 2023 Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards. Government comic books. Words that deserve wider use.
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Podcasts of the moment
It’s been over two years since my last podcast lineup check-in, and as usual some things have changed while some things remain. Changes: Many of the shows in my last update have either stopped publishing or lost my interest, and I’ve stepped away from the political ones. I’m also thrilled I was finally able to…
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Links of the moment
An ongoing series A cool collection of manuals. Hank Williams sings “Straight Outta Compton” with some help from AI. Regular holes vs. black holes. The museum of internet artifacts.
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Media of the moment
An ongoing series The Arcadian Wild. Heard about this folk/bluegrass trio recently and got immediately obsessed with “Big Sky, MT”. Scream. Somehow I’d never seen this, though I was familiar enough with it based on its cultural ubiquity. Kinda wish the conclusion was a little tighter so it could be a perfect 90 minutes, but…
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Links of the moment
An ongoing series A fascinating (to me) longread of a guy investigating a pedestrian bridge. Demo of AI-assisted language translation, including mouth movements. Long live Martin Scorsese. Gorgeous high-res Lidar images of rivers and deltas.
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Critters of the moment
This summer I managed to snap pics of a few cool and colorful critters spotted around our yard and house. And thanks to my phone’s aforementioned Visual Look Up, I actually know what they are. Here’s an ailanthus webworm moth: And a two-striped grasshopper: And a grapevine beetle: And some kind of mantis (species unknown):…
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Links of the moment
An ongoing series Good movies as old books. On the genius editing of Ocean’s Eleven. The many designs of U.S. license plates. Steven Soderbergh’s sweet shirt shop.
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Tools of the moment
An ongoing series Not Spotify. The only reason I used Spotify was to listen to the Armchair Expert podcast, which was part of the unfortunate trend of podcasts going Spotify-exclusive a few years ago. But now it’s back out in the open internet, which means I can finally stop using Spotify! Not Disney+. Last year…