An ongoing series

How I, a non-developer, read the tutorial you, a developer, wrote for me, a beginner.

How Marlon Brando changed acting.

Red sprites FTW.

How to fix a typewriter and your life.

An ongoing series

As a Class of 2010 graduate, I can confirm: the best time to be in college was 2006-2010.

Approaching our work as art can change our worlds.

Cards Against Humanity Explains the Joke is an “incredible informational product that is 100% EXEMPT FROM DONALD TRUMP’S STUPID TARIFFS!”

A dad turned his favorite albums into playable trading cards for his kids. (Related from The Onion: Cool Dad Raising Daughter On Media That Will Put Her Entirely Out Of Touch With Her Generation)

An ongoing series

I think I might have found the most Chad thing on the internet: a database of the most obscure words in movies.

This is hardcore but also admirable: “I deleted my second brain.”

Shoutout to these guys who hated Comcast so much they built their own ISP.

Can’t wait for this iceberg-based Arrival sequel.

Happy 30th anniversary to Apollo 13, a celebration of competence.

An ongoing series

Dug this history of album art.

Eminem’s “Lose Yourself” sung by 331 different movies.

TFW you go fishing and find a 152-year-old shipwreck.

An ongoing series

Tia Keobounpheng’s really cool and colorful weavings inspired by geometry and Finnish/Sami heritage.

I want this 1961 National Library Week poster.

Want to de-junkify your Google search results? Just add &udm14 to the URL.

A handy tool to compare the true size of countries.

An ongoing series

This Lonely Island musical medley is a thing of deranged beauty.

Another winner from Beautiful Public Data: Cold War military slides.

Didn’t realize the “junk journaling” I do was a thing.

A gorgeous longread on the “hardest working font in Manhattan.”

An ongoing series

What the next Beatles album could have looked like if they hadn’t broken up.

Title design of Best Picture winners and 20th century sci-fi.

Behind the scenes of Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl.

Behold the sight and sound of a meteorite strike.

These videos of a landscaper mowing overgrown lawns are extremely satisfying. 

Wikenigma is dedicated to documenting fundamental gaps in human knowledge.

Hometown discovery news: indigenous dugout canoes as old as the Egyptian pyramids.

An ongoing series

Uncovering the mystery of the forbidden photos of Nazi-occupied Paris.

The chilling sound of the Aztec death whistle. [Trigger warning: it’s creepy AF!]

One dad’s collection of hundreds of VHS tapes with beautifully hand-drawn labels.

Looney Tunes but just the backgrounds.

A nice interactive history of Notre-Dame cathedral in honor of its post-fire restoration.

French archaeologists discovered a message-in-a-bottle from 1825.

An ongoing series

How the Pulp Fiction poster became a dorm room staple.

The first Zoom meeting happened in 1916.

Humanity’s first interstellar transmission turns 50.

Find the net elevation—i.e. the height difference between their birth and death place—of dead people.

Memento Movi is a cinematic progress bar for your life.

An ongoing series

Reimagined ‘80s logos of popular brands.

Restoring a 1,200-year-old psalter discovered in an Irish bog.

How did you find accurate information before the internet? Librarians, of course.

Where did our 2004 photos go?

An interview with Saturday Night Live’s early ‘90s graphic designer of sketch titles, parodies, and props.

An ongoing series

In praise of reference books.

Your name in LANDSAT.

America must free itself from the tyranny of the penny.

An ongoing series

Sun vs. Moon — fight!

Kind of Bloop is an 8-bit reinterpretation tribute to Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue.

A collection of old Swedish packaging.

Ranking every summer Olympic sport based on how terrible it would be for the average person.

An ongoing series

I’ve read 13 of the New York Times’ 100 Best Books of the 21st Century. How about you?

How does the Library of Congress decide what to keep?

When exactly did Neil Armstrong step on the moon?

Ranking 100 of the greatest READ posters. (A series that is still running and available for purchase, by the way. That Marcel the Shell poster… 🤩)

A version of the old-school MS Paint that works in your browser.

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.

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.

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 of Slang.

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 earth with the Antipodes Map.

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.