The internet is filled with things. Here are some of them.
2024
Footage from the world in 18962024 Apr 29
This YouTube channel has posted a video taking old Lumiere Brothers footage shot in cities around the world 1896 to 1900 and colorized it, upscaled it, and converted it to 60fps. This seventeen minute trip into the past feels like viewing the world through a time machine, seeing common people doing everyday things in a way not usually available to us beyond a few decades back.
Where do used clothes ultimately end up?2024 Apr 28
When you've worn a clothing a dozen, two dozen, three dozen times and it's starting to get too worn for you to think it's decent, you send it away to a clothing recycler. What they do they do with it? Turns out, a lot of it despite attempts at innovating repurposing ends up dumped in the desert in Chile and set on fire. This lengthy article goes into how and why, and what people are doing about it. You can see this spot for yourself on the Google Maps.
Suburbs2024 Apr 26
Hayden Clay is a photographer and visual artist who creates magical surreal imagery. "Suburbs" is his newest project.
The Man Who Killed Google Search2024 Apr 23
I've spent a lot of time complaining about Google in the past few years, specifically because Google used to be so good and lately it's been so bad and getting worse. And in this blog I've found a kindred spirit. This man hates what Google is becoming, and with a passion.
The Canon Digital Rebel2024 Apr 21
I've linked the Sep 4, 2003 review of the first affordable dSLR – the Canon Digital Rebel. I was fortunate enough to be able to afford one such camera right at the cusp of my entering the workforce a year after it was released, and it is a camera I still have to this day. Of course I do not use it much anymore, but it still works. And to prove such, I went out and shot some photos with it. What's remarkable is how strongly the image quality holds up. The major problem it turns out with using this 20-year-old digital camera is that the interface itself is clumsy. Click on to read more musings attached to the images direct.
1939 General Motors Futurliner2024 Apr 20
In the 1930s GM set out to show Americans what the future looked like, and they did so in a traveling roadshow called Parade of Progress and captained by one of only twelve custom-built art deco megacoaches: The Futurliner. The linked article has a busload of info, and The Drive also has a piece about what they're like behind the wheel.
Table of irregular verbs2024 Apr 13
I love verbs which reach their various tenses through irregular means. They're great.
Massive corruption conviction in Vietnam worth ~9% of GDP2024 Apr 12
Truong My Lan has been convicted of embezzling some impossibly huge percentage of Vietnam's gross domestic product alongside 85 other prominent bankers and government officials. What is clearly internal party politics boiling over as economic news, things are shaking up in the country in a way that's easy for an outsider like myself to miss the nuance of. But as each place on Earth struggles with adapting old strongman practices into modern power structures, it's interesting to see what's the Vietnamese version.
The Past and Future of Flickr2024 Apr 11
Linked is an interview by This Week in Photo's Frederick Van Johnson of SmugMug/Flickr COO Ben MacAskill which is surprisingly frank and transparent, talking about the challenges that Flickr has had in the past, why SmugMug of all company's are their latest (and probably last) acquirer, some of the technical feats the team pulled off in freeing Flickr from Verizon (including datacenter specifics), and a glimpse at the fascinating factoid that SmugMug was the very first Amazon Web Services customer (back before it was even called AWS). I'm not just linking to any random Flickr videos, this one's actually good.
Santa Justa Lift2024 Apr 11
There's a beautiful and fantastical industrial age elevator in Lisbon, Portugal that's still operating, partly as a tourist attraction but also as a real part of the city's public transit network. Imagine if we took such care and interest to pedestrian needs in America.
The world of estranged parents' forums2024 Apr 9
I am blessed to have no estrangements in my family but boy do I love reading about them in other families via the joy that is internet gossip. Used to be just us dorks online back in the old days, but now that literally everyone is online, so with it comes those narcissistic parents who claim they don't understand why their children have stopped speaking to them. And apparently there's forums full of them, reassuring each other that their children are indeed selfish and that surely they themselves are not the problem. The trick is to remember that when they say "I just don't understand" it's codeword for "I refuse to understand" – the rhetorical refuge of assholes.
Compounding our Modifiers2024 Apr 8
Why do we sometimes hyphenate between two otherwise normal words? The hyphen shows up when two words are used together in a single thought to modify the noun which follows them. This well-researched article from the American Copy Editors Society from 2005 dives through the whole story and its sources.
Transitional Landscapes - JM Golding2024 Apr 8
JM Golding is a photographer and artist who works largely with Holga and other toy cameras. Transitional Landscapes is a collection of ethereal landscapes made from multiple overlapping exposures.
Photographer Mike Hawkins2024 Apr 7
Another long-time Flickr contact of mine Mike Hawkins was today featured on the Flickr Blog due to his astounding backyard astrophotography.
Robert Scoble interviews Thomas Hawk in his home2024 Apr 4
Apologies for linking to TwitterX but that's where this interview is posted. It's a half-hour video stream of Robert Scoble chatting with photographer Thomas Hawk about his slide scanning "obsession" where we learn a bit about Hawk's motivations and process and inspirations. I've been tracking Hawk for decades on Flickr (and have met him) but this was still a fascinating behind-the-scenes insight.
Olympus OMPC2024 Apr 3 The perfect camera write-up doesn't exisI have now discovered the perfect camera write-up. I don't own and have never used an Olympus OMPC but now thanks to this article I don't have to. It's everything I ever wanted to know. Every camera write-up should strive for this article's perfect and concise brilliance.
here lies andy; peperony and chease2024 Apr 3
Oregon Trail is basically the most perfect game ever created. It's got a dramatic story (you're striking out west to make your fortune!) thrilling violence (characters break their bones and die of preventable diseases on the regular) and a gritty climax (caulking your wagon and floating it through The Dalles). It also lets you leave tombstones behind for members of your party who die along the trail. As in, permanently leave tombstones, so that any subsequent player of that copy of the game can visit and read that tombstone.
When, years later, someone ripped an Oregon Trail ROM and put it online, it included one such tombstone from a party member who passed early in the game, essentially guaranteeing that every single person who's played Oregon Trail in the last twenty years has encountered it. And what's on that tombstone is the most perfectly 90s thing ever: a horribly-spelled reference to a 1995 TV commercial for Tombstone frozen pizzas.
Here lies andy
peperony and chease
Working with Uwe Boll2024 Apr 3
My guess is that most people have probably forgotten about the world's least competent major film director, Uwe Boll, but for some reason I have not. And so I stumbled across this Something Awful article from 2005 (with writing so smug and hyperbolic you should already be cringing) but what it does purport to shed light upon is what is it like to actually work with Uwe Boll. The author is Blair Erickson (who later went on to make some movies I've never heard of) who says he was asked to submit some scripts to Boll early in the development of Alone in the Dark. What amount of the tale is true versus Something Awful's typical dramatic inflation I of course cannot say but it does shed some interesting if not surprising insights.
Why did chemical company 3M make floppy discs?2024 Apr 3
This IEEE/Tedium article titled "The Rise and Fall of 3M’s Floppy Disk – The high-profile creator of magnetic media gave it up nearly three decades ago" talks about exactly that. The history of magnetic storage is reviewed, including its unexpected serendipity that brought the chemical company famous for its adhesives into prominence as the premiere maker of this once-vital computer peripheral.
Guess my RGB2024 Apr 1
This game generates an RGB color and you must guess it. It is the perfect game.
Cecil George Harris's Will2024 Mar 31
On June 8, 1948, Saskatchewan farmer Cecil George Harris was being crushed to death by his tractor when he used a pocketknife to carved out his will into the paint on the side of the fender, "In case I die in this mess I leave all to the wife." Canadian courts accepted this carving as a perhaps the world's most unusual legal document, and this macabre peculiarity (and the knife) remain on display at the College of Law at the University of Saskatchewan.
How document copying led to flextime and world citizenship2024 Mar 29
Another Computers Are Bad post, this one weaving the thread through the history of the xerographic process, how those xerographs were accounted for, and how that inventor later went on to create the flextime schedule and then renounce his citizenship from Germany and become a "citizen of the world."
Return of Flying Toasters2024 Mar 28
Now your favorite After Dark can live again... in your browser!
AI-guided bombs2024 Mar 27
This article titled "The Pentagon’s Silicon Valley Problem" talks about the relationship between the tech industry and the Department of Defense. Of course this pseudo-AI bullshit is making inroads there because if you ignore the marketing drivel as flavor-of-the-week hogwash it is other people look at you as if you're some kind of luddite, but what I find particularly frightening is the implication that people are trusting these "AI" LLMs with military decisions. Whether true or not... well, you'd hope not.
Slit-Scan Photography2024 Mar 26
The Horizon Perfekt is a 35mm camera which exposes the film through a rotating lens, creating panoramic negatives wider than the lens can expose at any one moment. What if a digital camera could do the same? Enter slit-scan photography – a digital sensor that's thousands of pixels tall but only one pixel wide. Traditionally used in document scanners and industrial tools, what would a field version of a slit-scan camera look like? Photographer and engineer Daniel Lawrence Lu shows us exactly this on his website, but he doesn't go into much detail on how these photos came to be. Luckily for us, Paul Mison back in 2018 interviewed Lu about his innovative techniques, and we can now learn just how challenging it is to photograph using slit-scan.
Ziggurat Vertigo2024 Mar 25
The reality-bending Ziggurat Vertigo level from 1996's Quake lives on as the most memorable environment from the game, and this linked article explains how it achieved this feat, showcasing what the groundbreaking engine was truly capable of and demonstrating how old-fashioned were Quake's competitors.
Barcelona’s famous Sagrada Familia will finally be completed in 20262024 Mar 25
The famously incomplete basilica is scheduled to finally be "finished" (by which they mean, the 18th and final spire completed, ending major construction) in a couple years. Neat! Also the article spuriously refers to the building as a "cathedral" which even this Jew knows is wrong, as "cathedral" doesn't mean "big church", it means "building which hosts a cathedra (throne of a bishop)". It is accurately a "basilica" though, since it has been designated as such by the pope because of its importance.
Abandoned partially-built skyscraper in LA now covered in graffiti2024 Mar 24
The title about sums it up. Oceanwide Plaza is a $1B construction project that stalled in 2019 leaving downtown Los Angeles with a half-built collection of towers. Now graffiti artists have taken over, producing some dramatic images of huge skyscrapers covered in street art.
Like out of a cyberpunk novel.
Apple is facing Monopoly charges because of the iPhone2024 Mar 23
I'm tracking this story because it feels relevant to me even though I neither work in the industry nor have any stake in its outcome. But this article, titled "A few thoughts on the Apple DOJ antitrust case, from someone who isn’t riding his first rodeo" helps explain why – tech anti-trust cases such as this have historically been hugely impactful on technology itself in ways that aren't immediately apparent. And I especially appreciate this line: "So, based on my specific expertise, I can tell you: Be prepared, over the coming months, for some lousy punditry."
A Fire Upon The Deep, Annotated2024 Mar 21
In light of yesterday's news, this link is now spreading around the web, and rightfully so. It's a full copy of Vinge's amazing A Fire Upon the Deep, but annotated mostly by Vinge himself during the writing and development process with his commentary upon his own work.
Vernor Vinge (1944-2024)2024 Mar 21
Massively influential SciFi author Vernor Vinge has passed away.
16 Ducks That Think They’re Flamingos2024 Mar 20
You see, they're ducks, and they're standing on one leg -- like a flamingo -- even though they're ducks -- which normally stand on two legs, or swim I guess -- but they're hanging out with flamingos and even surrounded by flamingos who are all standing on one leg like flamingos do and so the ducks are like confused or something and so are also standing on one leg -- which, again, very un-duck-like behavior, right? -- and there's a heckuva lot of them, like it's a trend or something.
Rainbots2024 Mar 14
Luca Carey is an artist and illustrator living in the Bronx who creates the psychedelic imagery seen on Dan Terminus album covers, among other places.
Relics of the Ancients2024 Mar 13
Linked is a website which maps and collects information about the "mysterious" stone structures which line California, the most known of which are the East Bay Walls. They are mysterious in that their builders are unknown and predate any written or oral histories. While entirely less famous than Stonehenge, California it turns out does have its own collection of cairns and other megalithic structure.
Are We Watching The Internet Die?2024 Mar 13
Linked is yet another article which begins by bemoaning the rise of content aggregators and the scam inherent in the operations of a site like reddit. That's not interesting. Yet in the later paragraphs things pick up as the author digs into the ultimate problem with "generative AI" – that we are watching it begin to enter into a feedback loop, training new models on "content" inadvertently created by other models, not on actual human work. This, the author points out, is effectively freezing AI models in time in 2023, the last year before generated content exploded and overwhelmed old-fashioned manual efforts.
Fear not, fellow internet spectator, as the brandensite will remain gloriously AI-free while we eat our popcorn watching web society burn to the ground before datacenter-backed climate change makes fools of us all.
Nancy Ross Gooch2024 Mar 13
Nancy Ross Gooch (1811—1901) was a black American woman, born as a slave, and California Gold Rush pioneer. Freed from slavery when California entered the Union as a Free State in 1850, she and husband Peter made their fortune right at the site where James Marshall discovered gold at Sutter's Mill by working for the miners doing carpentry and domestic chores. They used that money to buy their son, Andrew Monroe, from slavery in Missouri, as well as purchase land until they became major landholders in Coloma. Andrew and his wife Sarah successfully farmed that land, and it was their land which was eventually purchased from Andrew's son, Pearley, by the state government to create the Marshall Gold Discovery State Historic Park.
Mines of Titan2024 Mar 12
When I was a somewhere around ten years old (in 1992) a friend of mine's parents had some PCs set up at their house ostensibly for work – connected to printers that printed onto sheets of ruby – but also with early video games. At my house we had graphical games thanks to Nintendo and a Macintosh SE but nothing like the weird and imaginative DOS-based text-only/text-heavy games such as this one, the one I remember most fondly: Mines of Titan. You can now of course play all these games free in a web browser, although don't make the mistake of thinking that a game being old meaning that it is easy. I recommend using the walkthrough to get you started.
A year of running commentary2024 Mar 12
Just over a year ago I started posting this crap here. Since then I have posted 205 links to whatever was attracting my interest at that time. This has resulted in absolutely nothing. Hip hip hooray!
What's up with mixed quality of HN comments?2024 Mar 11
Sometimes the comments on HackerNews are so insightful, add so much depth to the link. Other times the comments are a dumpster file of juvenile pseudo-intellectualism. What gives? This person has a baseless theory, but in a sea of unknowability the theory's got what counts – that sense of feeling right.
a history of the tty2024 Mar 11
This is the story of how society went from typewriters and telegraphs to computers, and why the term 'tty' (acronym for teletypewriter) continues to persist in computing.
Pagan Yahwism2024 Mar 9
The Torah's full of instructions to the Hebrews to not worship other gods or idols. This leads the modern reader to beg the question – what was going on back then that this was a problem? Here's a 2001 article from the Biblical Archeology Review which surveys what's been dug from the ground from that era, and how widespread idolatry and paganism was, and how deeply it infiltrated the everyday lives of ancient Hebrews.
Spellcraft as a Service2024 Mar 8
"Spellcaster Talia Felix has been providing genuine magick spells since 2009." So you can just go on this website and place an order and magick will be done without you having to lift a finger... what a time to be alive.
Rule of Adjective Order2024 Mar 7
An English grammar rule that's so ingrained it escapes even the notice of school curriculum is the rule of adjective ordering. In the article's words, "multiple adjectives are always ranked accordingly: opinion, size, age, shape, colour, origin, material, purpose. Unlike many laws of grammar or syntax, this one is virtually inviolable, even in informal speech. You simply can’t say My Greek Fat Big Wedding, or leather walking brown boots."
The Oddness of February2024 Mar 5
While we went through our annual wondering why February was so short and I was content to settle for half an answer, Conversable Economist Timothy Taylor was not. Read his blog for the full discussion, but the meat I've neatly copy/pasted here, a quote from a quote, originating (I believe) from Dartmouth professor Paul Calter in 1998, from a Geometry course syllabus: "Odd numbers were considered masculine; even numbers feminine because they are weaker than the odd. When divided they have, unlike the odd, nothing in the center. Further, the odds are the master, because odd + even always give odd. And two evens can never produce an odd, while two odds produce an even. Since the birth of a son was considered more fortunate than birth of a daughter, odd numbers became associated with good luck."
WebTV Shrine2024 Mar 5
Back in the mid-90s, a new gadget came out that let you -- without a computer -- use your TV to browse the world wide web! I never used it, as my household was privileged enough to always have computers around, but I certainly remember it. So here's some nostalgia, someone collecting parts of it and narrating the journey for those who never experienced it in the flesh.
Etymology Online Dictionary in a Red Letter Media video2024 Mar 5
My worlds are colliding... apparently in the original Mr. Plinkett Red Letter Media Star Wars Phantom Menace review that went viral a few years back and sent me on a spiral of watching thousands of hours of their other reviews, one of the "stock" photos they used happens to be a photo of the office of Douglas Harper, the creator of my much-beloved and daily resource Online Etymology Dictionary. This is nuts. Coincidence? Or does RLM also love Etymonline?
Socotra2024 Mar 3
Avid travel blogger WRenee shares her experience going way, way off the beaten track in a solo trip (guided) to the Yemeni island of Socotra. The entire island is a UNESCO World Heritage site and GWB Huntingford – the English anthropologist who studied east African languages and people – called it "the most alien-looking place on Earth."
Somebody Else's Problem Field2024 Mar 1
I love HHG2G and have read the omnibus several times. One of the most memorable things from the books is Adams' version of a cloaking device – rather than making your thing invisible, like in Star Trek, the Somebody Else's Problem Field simply renders the object inside to be beneath notice, nothing for you to concern yourself about, invisible by way of being somebody else's problem to solve. What's so great about this is that, unlike the cloaking device, the SEP field isn't science fiction. It happens all the time, everyday, in the cities we inhabit and the homes we live in.
How the Pentagon Learned to Use Targeted Ads to Find Its Targets2024 Feb 28
The short version of this article is that the government doesn't have to spy on all of us because the advertising companies already are doing that via geolocation data in phone apps, and then they sale said information to anyone, for cheap! But in my experience, I wouldn't even worry about geolocation data, since your phone location can be tracked simply by which WAPs it's near.
Google is now paying failng newspapers to create articles using AI2024 Feb 28
Hello it is me trusted journalist Trueman McHuman here to give you a trustworthy newspaper article that is entirely original and not just a poor attempt at plagiarizing another, better website using automated tools provided by my benevolent business partner Google.com
Why does February have only 28 days?2024 Feb 28
This recent BBC article about the history of our calendar slips into its middle an answer to a question that's long plagued my brain: why is February so short? Why not pluck some of those 31st days off two other months and donate them to February? The article explains: the answer lies in Roman superstition around generally avoiding even numbers and wanting to end their year (in February) on an even number to concentrate all the bad luck onto one spot or something. Roman mysticism always confounds me – every answer just leads to more questions – so simply knowing that this stems from their religious belief is enough of an answer to satisfy me.
Newspapers love to tell us how important they are2024 Feb 28
Here's yet another New York Times article lamenting the death of the newspaper industry and saying it would be simply sad if it weren't for how "important" newspapers are. What a crock of shit. News institutions die for the same reason any institution dies – because they are bad at what they do and its product served better by other means. For journalism, people are more than happy to speak for themselves and thanks to the internet, their voice can reach you directly without the need for middlemen to muddy their words and provide inaccurate analysis. Not that newspapers have never done anything good or useful, but just like how Hollywood loves to tout their few good movies at the Oscars and hope we ignore that most of what they produce is a flaming dumpster of garbage, so goes newspaper articles. Like that lunatic Michael Crichton taught us, feeling nostalgic for dinosaurs is not a good reason to start forcing them back into life.
An Extremely Thorough Guide to ‘Who TF Did I Marry’2024 Feb 28
When I was a kid, my best friend's stories never added up. As I grew up and my penchant for believing fantasy withered, I came to realize that he wasn't living a spectacular life, but was just a pathological liar. That part of my life is now over, and has left me vigilant for bullshit. And so I'm fascinated by others' tales of encounters with these liars, such as this woman in the linked post who apparently married a habitual liar. Why do these liars spin their lies? Is it just wish fulfillment, attempting to be the person they wish they were? No, I believe it's something deeper, some compulsion to manipulate the people around them, to push the limits of their gullibility.
On tradwife influencers2024 Feb 28
I am a man in my 40s who barely has time for my own interests so of course I am late to the tradwife trend. But now that tradwifing is penetrating the defensive walls which shield me from pop culture I can't help but be vaguely horrified. Why exactly am I horrified? For that, I turn to experts such as this blog who've already dedicated the mental cycles to laying out exactly what's going on here and how fucked up it is.
I'm not a fan of performative anything – it's so disingenuous – but performative "wifing" is layers and layers of screwed up.
Dream Club Lab2024 Feb 27
"Dream Club Lab is light, video and robot installation at 72 South 2nd St in San Jose that responds to both the sunlight and projected light at night creating a space for dreams and new visions of a city and space – yet there is no way to get inside. Inhabited by light, dreams and two robots it explores access and disembodiment both in abandoned physical spaces like the Lab and perhaps by metaphor in our everyday lives, where connections primarily exist in the ether."
Do immigrants commit more crimes than natives?2024 Feb 27
It's a Presidential election year in the US so that of course means we get to revisit, among others, a favorite talking point: filthy immigrants and all the filthy crimes those degenerates commit. But do they actually? The linked article starts with an overview of perception – what the data shows people actually think in various countries – before diving into the answer: it's complicated.
There are many aspects at play, the article points out, such as immigrants coming frequently as young men, a group which demographically is the highest percent criminal. Or the "illegal" immigrants finding their illegal status makes employment harder to find. Or that immigrants tend to be over-represented in their new country's prisons, except in the US where we love to incarcerate our own. Or how countries may shuttle asylum-seekers into less prosperous areas where crime rates are already higher.
But what about American political talking points? The article doesn't say this, but it seems clear to me from it's evidence that immigration doesn't lead to crime, but rather how their new home welcomes them. So, treat immigrants well, and remember that you were once an immigrant, too.
What's the difference between AWD and 4WD?2024 Feb 27
My sporty little crossover has "All Wheel Drive". I used to drive a Jeep Grand Cherokee with "4-Wheel Drive". What's the difference? Well, the linked Edmunds article which was the first search result is long and rambling and repeats itself repeatedly, likely in some attempt to maximize word length like some uninspired high school essay. So allow me to summarize: the difference is whatever the manufacturers make it. HOWEVER, generally speaking, 4WD is an off-roading system that puts the driver in control to allow them to navigate rough conditions, whereas AWD is a traction-control system that lets the car's computer put power to any tire at it's little heart's discretion. If that sounds like two ways of writing the same thing, that's because it kind of is, since as technology improves and cars become increasingly computerized, the technical difference between AWD and 4WD erodes with each iteration.
Birkat Hachama, the Blessing of the Sun2024 Feb 26
Apologies for linking to Wikipedia, but it's the most comprehensive source I've found for this Jewish blessing of The Sun. It is recited only once ever 28 years, when The Sun completes its great cycle. The blessing is interesting for the relative rarity with which its recited, and also for its origins in astrology. Unusual for Jewish observances, its date is not fixed on the lunisolar Hebrew calendar, but rather because it is based on the sun itself, it is much more consistent in its date on the western Calendar – a fact which escaped nobody's notice when Rome switched from Julian to Gregorian calendars in 1582. We are currently in an era of this blessing taking place on April 8, with the next observance in the year 2037. It will shift to April 8 beginning in 2209.
the top of the DNS hierarchy2024 Feb 26
This link is a meandering, plaintext description of the core of the internet's DNS and which nonetheless gives a good summary of the technology and its history. I learned some things, some of which are even about DNS.
Thanks FedEx, This is Why we Keep Getting Phished2024 Feb 23
FedEx is increasingly terrible to work with, but the linked example of abhorrent business practice is a new egregious low. Is FedEx circling the drain?
What is the letter "i" doing in the word "fruit"?2024 Feb 23
My kid is learning to read and write, and the extra letter "i" in the word "fruit" threw her off. I jumped into explain, and then realized I couldn't. The trusty Online Etymology Dictionary tells us fruit comes from the Latin "fructus" by way of Old French, by which point it's already picked up the "i", but goes no further than this. So why did the "i" in "fruit" linger when so many other French-originating words have their spelling drift? Enter this short Stack Exchange thread, where someone throws a bunch of random words with "ui" into a jumbled question (the words "sluice" and "bruise" do contain the digraph "ui", the words "ruin" and "suicide" (like the word "fruition") clearly do not). The solitary answer doesn't address the word "fruit" – but it does contain a key.
The English digraph "ui" originally represented the "long u" – a sound like the "u" in "university" or "rebuke". But because of gradual phonetic changes in the language, the "long u" sound, when coming after certain consonants, gets reduced to sounding nearly identical to "long oo" as in "loop" or "moon". And so, when an English speaker confronts the French-spelled word "fruit" they are not confused as how to pronounce it. If there were ambiguity, the spelling would likely have drifted over time. But it has not, and so English retains the "i" in "fruit".
I am not a language expert; there's a good chance I'm wrong. But maybe I'm not.
Worldcon in the news2024 Feb 17
SciFi con drama is spilling over into world events again, this time with Worldcon and the bizarre way in which the con runs, and therefore nominates books for SciFi's Hugo award. Apparently this last year's Hugo nomination and vote-tallying processes bumped into Chinese state censorship. So that's fun.
Reunited After 33 Years, Cyberaktif Reveal Their “eNdgame”2024 Feb 17
How did Skinny Puppy's cEvin Key and Front Line Assembly's Bill Leeb and Rhys Fulber come together to create the first new Cyberaktif album in over three decades? Bandcamp explains it all.
Every Default macOS Wallpaper2024 Feb 16
This is a collection not so much of the wallpapers – since I don't think most of them are very good at being desktop wallpapers – but of macOS versions, and how it felt to walk by the Apple store and see machines glowing with these big, bright, colorful images on them, welcoming you in like a big invitation to come and touch the shiny thing.
Happy 33rd Birthday, Lemmings!2024 Feb 16
Count me amongst those who fondly remember the hundreds of hours spent playing Lemmings as a kid. This linked article is just nostalgia, collecting art and clips and interviews and trivia. But what's so important about its 33rd birthday? That is left unexplained.
Why Name a Street After Locusts?2024 Feb 14
The linked blog post from 2012 asks the same question that I had – why are so many streets named "Locust"? Locusts, after all, are gross vermin, and streets tend to named after desirable things or presidents or people's names. Frustratingly, though the blog post links to an answer, that answer is now missing due to internet rot. However, this 2006 newspaper article from Centralia (wherever the hell that is) contains what is likely the answer to my question: "Despite the joke that Locust referred to the destructive swarming insect, the street's name is in reference to the tree species, as are most streets in the area." And that not only makes sense, but it's so obvious I'm wondering why I couldn't come up with that answer on my own.
Editing History, Alicia Keys, and the Super Bowl Halftime Show2024 Feb 14
So apparently during the Super Bowl Halftime Show, Alicia Keys flubbed the opening note of her performance. I wouldn't know because everyone I was watching it with wouldn't shut the hell up. But anyway, the official recordings of the Halftime show mysteriously do not have this flubbed note, but instead have Keys singing it correctly. Is this some quick and justified editing, or are we living in a post-truth world? Do we deserve to have the error in the record as if it's a documentary, or do we deserve to have the best possible performance in our entertainment? I don't have the answers to these questions, but people are asking them, and I'm having fun noodling them in my noggin.
Setting up the Fremont Cabal Internet Exchange2024 Feb 12
One of the three Internet Exchange Points at Hurricane Electric's FTM2 datacenter in Fremont, California is FCIX – the completely volunteer-run sponsor-powered internet exchange. It's somewhat fascinating to learn about, if you're interested in internet backbone systems.
Rajneeshee Bioterror Attack2024 Feb 12
In September 1984, there was an outbreak of salmonella food poisoning in The Dalles, Oregon, where at least 751 cases were confirmed. This, in a community numbering only in the 10s of thousands, was massive in scale. The CDC blamed poor food handling practices. It was only a year later, when the FBI was investigating the nearby cult Rajneeshee that they discovered, in a lab on the cult's compound, vials carrying organisms identical to the outbreak strain that authorities understood the salmonella outbreak to in fact be bioterrorism, the first and most successful major such attack in our country's history. That this incident is so little-known baffles me.
Why do high voltage power lines hiss when it's raining?2024 Feb 12
"All uninsulated lines show corona. [Corona discharge] just [is] not a big deal until you're dealing with a pretty high voltage. As the voltage goes from a very big positive to a very big negative, the air around it gets ionized... This is the normal mains hum... Water is much, much heavier than air, and it ionizes just as easily. So on a rainy or humid day, the corona is pulsing with water in it. This gives it momentum, so the heavier water particles travel out farther. But they themselves are ionized, which means they can ionize more air than the line could normally reach on its own, and ionized air is conductive. And there's almost always 3 of these lines pretty close together. The sound you're hearing is a million teeny tiny electrostatic discharges from all the charged up water particles interacting with each other with nearby lines or grounded objects. This is actually the worst time to be anywhere near them; the air is supposed to be their insulator, and at that moment it isn't working as well."
What is archival ink?2024 Feb 8
I don't ever want to link to AI-generated text without knowing that it is AI-generated and labeling it as such, but so often now-a-days informational pages like this one are being created by some hallucinating algorithm. That said, this article explaining what exactly is "archival ink" and what makes it different from regular ink was helpful to me, so I suppose whether or not it was AI-created doesn't matter... unless it's wrong. And I don't know enough about ink to know if it's wrong.
Finance worker pays out $25 million after video call with deepfake ‘chief financial officer’2024 Feb 5
Phishing has reached a whole new level of dumb. "Chan said the worker had grown suspicious after he received a message that was purportedly from the company’s UK-based chief financial officer. Initially, the worker suspected it was a phishing email, as it talked of the need for a secret transaction to be carried out. However, the worker put aside his early doubts after the video call because other people in attendance had looked and sounded just like colleagues he recognized, Chan said."
Ready100! to call it2024 Feb 5
Three years ago, in February 2021, I backed a Kickstarter promising a cyberdeck-style PC featuring a mechanical keyboard, a retro-style case, and a bunch of expansion ports both internal and external. It was called the Ready100! and it had some sleek marketing on the internet cyberdeck communities. Shipping was predicted to begin in April 2021, only two months after the Kickstarter campaign finished. With a turnaround that quick, the project must've been nearly done, right?
Well, here I sit Ready100!-less, three years later, and the last anyone has heard from the project's creator was six months ago, when he posted a series of rambling, hard-to-follow updates about loans and landlords, making reference to past conversations that seem to have happened behind closed doors, or perhaps only in his head. And with radio silence ever since and the subreddit now restricted to "authorized posters" only, I'm now, personally, calling this project "dead." If I ever receive anything from it, even just an explanation of what went wrong, I'll consider it simply a bonus.
Fight the Ship2024 Feb 1
What exactly happened on the Arleigh Burke destroyer USS Fitzgerald when it collided with a cargo vessel on June 17, 2017? This long and detailed ProPublica article pulls together a compelling narrative from numerous interviews and intensive research.
San Jose in 1975 and 20062024 Jan 28
A collection of photos of downtown San Jose streets shot in 1975 by city staff, and updated shot 31 years later in 2006. Even though it's been another 18 years since 2006, the changes since 2006 are minimal. I may find the gumption to go do an update, though.
Corralitos California History2024 Jan 27
This tiny homegrown website has an enormous wealth of information about Corralitos, California, a small town wedged into the northern part of the Monterey Bay between Santa Cruz and Watsonville. Corralitos is unincorporated, rural, and neither heavily populated nor touristed, but here on this internet of ours is evidence that it is loved.
zero2024 Jan 27
What does it really mean to "invent" the number zero? Why is its invention so special – so critical to science? And how rare was its invention? DRH once again has all the answers.
This Journalist Recreated Gran Turismo Photos in Real Life and Can’t Tell the Difference2024 Jan 26
This is an interesting take because while the headline claims the article's about photography, it's not. The author gets pensive about the ever-changing city and how different times of day make downtown Los Angeles into a completely different beast. It's a fascinating piece, really.
Minimum speed variable by highway lane?2024 Jan 26
In the early 1960s, Caltrans tested a few stretches of highway flagged with different minimum speeds per lane, with the thought of encouraging slower drivers to move to the right. But turns out that it didn't work – it was too confusing. Unlike today, where everyone simply ignores the speed limit and drives at whatever pace their heart desires.
As Asteroid hit the Earth today2024 Jan 25
It was very small and burned up in the sky near Berlin. This isn't wholly remarkable, except for that teams of international astronomers (powered by NASA and JPL) spotted this asteroid a full 95 minutes prior to it hitting Earth, and were able to track it through multiple sources of observation. This may not seem like much, but it's evidence of a solid step forward in humanity's ability to predict other, larger, potentially life-impacting asteroids.
We Polked You in ’44. We Shall Pierce You in ’52.2024 Jan 21
This listicle collects presidential campaign slogans which – again, who cares? – and where I'm already familiar with all the good ones. Except this one, the best one, how did I not know this? Comparing Franklin Pierce in 1852 against the popular James Polk presidency of 1844, this slogan is amazing. But now with 170+ years of hindsight, while neither is terribly famous, Polk is at least regarded by historians as a good president, where Pierce not so much.
Josh Marcotte Features Lost San Jose at the Triton Museum2024 Jan 18
I've been following Lost San Jose for a long while now, and I'm excited to go check out his work at the Triton. This article in the Metro discusses that exhibit and his photography in total.
The Middle Name of every US President2024 Jan 18
This is some dumb Reader's Digest non-content, but it amused me for a few minutes. The largest number of presidents have no middle names, with the 2nd biggest trend being a middle name that's a relative's surname. At least one president has just a single letter as a middle name (Harry S Truman), possibly two, and a surprising number are known primarily by their middle name and not their first. What does this all mean? Absolutely nothing.
The Carrington Event may have been more localized than we realized2024 Jan 16
As we enter anther solar maximum on the Sun's 11-year cycle, this article may help lessen fears of an apocalyptic Coronal Mass Ejection frying all electronics on Earth (such as the one which fried telegraph wires, witnessed by Richard Carrington back in 1858) and destroying society (and my camera collection) as we know it. Apparently incidents in 2002 and 2005 were also linked to solar activity, and while they did cause issues, they were obviously not the globe-spanning catastrophe that doomsayers have been predicting.
Bay Area paint giant Kelly-Moore shuts down, closes every store2024 Jan 16
After 78 years, this paint company is closing every store. I didn't realize they were a local company, but it's sad whenever any enterprise fails. To be fair, though, Kelly-Moore is failing because they are overwhelmed with asbestos lawsuits, which even though the stopped using in 1981, they say has continued to cost the company to the total of over $600m, with another $170m estimated still due in the future. Interestingly, the California State Rock is serpentine, a recognition it earned due to the asbestos it contains and how valuable it was back before asbestos was a dirty word.
Are Wikipedia editors human?2024 Jan 14
On the Wikipedia page for Lightning, in stating that "cloud-to-ground (CG) lightning is the most studied and best understood of the three types, even though in-cloud (IC) and cloud-to-cloud (CC) are more common types of lightning," some editor offered the technically true explanation that this is "because human beings are terrestrial and most of their possessions are on the Earth where lightning can damage or destroy them."
5050 Travelog2024 Jan 12
One of the authors of this blog – Morten – and I follow each other on Flickr. Is that why his and my gear lists are so similar? Not intentionally. But I frequently find myself reading his gear musings instead of just skimming over them as I so often do others, because I recognize the gear kinship.
First Spectrum of Ball Lightning2024 Jan 12
This article is just shy of ten years old, but it's still new to me. Ball lightning was caught on a fancy physicist's spectrograph! They were recording regular lightning strikes and caught the incredibly-rare ball lightning purely by luck. This doesn't preclude that there's other types of ball lightning out there from different sources, but this ball lightning in particular was made, turns out, from dirt. Why dirt? I'll let the physicists explain: "One popular theory is that ball lightning is caused when lightning striking the ground vaporizes some of the silicate minerals in soil. Carbon in the soil strips the silicates of oxygen through chemical reactions, creating a gas of energetic silicon atoms. These then recombine to form nanoparticles or filaments which, while still floating in air, react with oxygen, releasing heat and emitting the glow."
My Flickr Year 20232024 Jan 10
This is Flickr's attempt to summarize a year with statistics. There's really not much insight, unfortunately. Especially compared to the 2021 original. It is, however, better than last year's which was such a joke I didn't even share it out.
Cassiopeia A: NASA Telescopes Chase Down "Green Monster" in Star's Debris2024 Jan 9
The Webb space telescope continues to be fantastic, this time peering into the structure of supernova remnant Cassiopeia A. Combining Webb's image with that from the X-ray space telescopes Chandra provides even more insight. Insight into exactly what is above my head, but I love following this space science from the comfort of my armchair.
Greg Egan's Home Page2024 Jan 8
Greg Egan is a hard scifi author whose stories I've probably read, but that's not why I'm linking his homepage here. I'm linking his homepage here because of how much it is a testament to the beauty of old web. Of weird web. Of indie web. An example of a website that is fun to explore, not a droll collection of templated tabs.
Door blows out of 737 Max 9 at 10,000ft, just after take-off2024 Jan 7
Ten minute after a 5pm departure from PDX heading to ONT, the door plug at seats 26A and 26B (unoccupied) blew out of the Alaska Airlines 737 Max 9, rapidly depressurizing the cabin. Masks dropped, and At only 10,000 feet up, the plane was able to quickly return to where it left at 5:26pm, and all 171 passengers and 6 crew escaped without serious injuries. The door plus is still missing, and the FAA has responded by grounding all 737 Max 9s until they've completed inspection. Inspection takes 4-8 hours per plane. Southwest and American do not fly the Max 9, but 9% of United's flights today are canceled, and 20% of Alaska's.
Taliban Militants Fed Up With Office Culture, Ready to Quiet Quit2024 Jan 5
This was my favorite headline from 2023. The layers of irony, the absurdity, the relatability. All summed up in the quote in the article from some random internet person: “We couldn’t destroy the Taliban, but office work destroyed the Taliban."
Nestflix2024 Jan 5
"The platform for your favorite nested films and shows."
How We Judge Others Is How We Judge Ourselves2024 Jan 4
I went into this link prepared to be annoyed – the thesis seems tautological and the author a self-help twat. But despite that (and aided by the sleek website design) I read the article and actually gleaned some insight from it, possibly even used it as a moment for self-reflection. No, it doesn't say anything new, but maybe it says old things in a new way using language appropriate for my own generation (the author is two years younger than me, and there's little more aggravating than learning from someone younger than yourself).
Anyway. How do you judge yourself? What is your own innate metric for failure and success?
gothamFlux2024 Jan 3
A photo project by Wilson Hurst.
USS Thompson (DD-305)2024 Jan 3
There's a shipwreck in the South Bay? How have I never known this?
Quoth Jan Lettens writing in 2009: "After her sale, she served as a floating restaurant in lower San Francisco Bay during the depression years of the 1930s. In February 1944, the Navy repurchased the ship and partly sank her in the mud flats of San Francisco Bay, south of the San Mateo Bridge, where Army and Navy aircraft carried out bombing runs with dummy bombs. Portions of the wreck remain above the waterline to this day. She is commonly referred to as the 'South Bay Wreck' and many tide tables reference her as a reference."
2023
Axonometric Realism: “Hortus Conclusus” by Beate Gütschow (2019)2023 Dec 31
The mundane given new perspective by tearing the image apart and putting it back together in a rigid, psychopathic geometry. This may be how the world is rendered in the eyes of crazy people.
Tamienne Monument2023 Dec 31
Down in the southern reaches of San Jose, someone has installed a plaque in the ground, the words "Santa Clara Valley" written out, overlayed with the same but converted into the binary bytes for the ASCII characters. It is not known who created this, but celebrating the mixing of our area's human history with modern tech heritage seems to be the clear interpretation.
Drawings of the Fourth Dimension2023 Dec 30
"American architect Claude Fayette Bragdon (1866-1946) was also an artist, writer and stage designer. ... In A primer of higher space (1913) he attempted to provide a visual representation of the fourth dimension through two-dimensional projective drawings."
UK court rules photos of out-of-copyright artworks are not themselves copyrightable2023 Dec 30
In essence, the judge ruled that because the intent of a photo of an artwork is to, as accurately as possible, show that art digitally, and not to add any creativity of its own, that the photo is not itself copyrightable. This now catches up with the US, where several different rulings over the years have explicitly barred from copyright photos such as these, 3D scans of objects, and databases such as phone directories.
Marginalia Search Engine2023 Dec 29
Crap websites such as this one rarely show up in search engine results, or at least those from major search engines. It's worth considering, "Maybe your site is just unappealing and has bad UX? Have you tried adding adsense, tracking scripts, cookie consent banners, auto playing videos, scrolljacking, newsletter popovers and put the content after a long GPT generated background story at the bottom of the site to make it more appealing to PageRa.. I mean users?" Or maybe we should start searching the web with engines like Marginalia, which focuses on non-commercial content and tries to link you to sites you didn't already know existed?
/now pages2023 Dec 29
I don't have a /now page on this website but this idea is interesting and worth considering – just a simple "here's what I'm doing now" status page available for anyone to see. Maybe one will show up here?
In 2024, please switch to Firefox2023 Dec 29
I've been opening websites entirely using Firefox for years now and while I don't really care what web browser other people are using to do the same, there are people who do care, and care passionately. So, whatevs, on behalf of my fellow Firefox users I'll proselytize the cause.
A Cool Guide for San Jose2023 Dec 29
A local micro-marketing firm has created a bunch of neighborhood guides for San Jose, written by real humans and not LLM garbanzo beans. How cool is that? Is it perfect? No, but it's published, which is more than I can say the time I bought sannozay.com and did nothing with it.
The Witch King and Fear2023 Dec 29
A forum post from 2014 shares an interesting new perspective on what Tolkien meant in some of his key passages by gleaning parallels from Tolkien's biography.
How to shuffle songs?2023 Dec 28
When people want their music player to play them a "random" song, do they really mean random? Turns out, no, they do not. What they actually want is the next song to be different than what is currently playing, whereas pure, mathematical random does in no way guarantee this.
Your Website Search Hurts My Feelings2023 Dec 27
Respect to those out there who document the awful state of most websites. This garbage needs to be called out.
Black Triangles2023 Dec 26
What is a project milestone which appears insignificant to the outside world but which insiders understand to be the most important achievement in the entire cycle? That, per this author, is a 'black triangle,' named after the time their video game development team cheered a simple black triangle being rendered to screen. It wasn't the triangle they were cheering, exactly, but rather that the 3d engine was, for the first time, drawing that triangle.
It's a different situation, but I feel there are parallels with the IT world, how some infrastructure is flashy and draws attention, whereas others are just as essential but entirely without sex appeal. I remember, when working at a school, arriving in the building one day to find that a donor had sponsored the naming of the classroom robot charging station, a nothingburger shelf with a power strip and some robots on it. This, while meanwhile I was in the midst of upgrading the school clock-PA system without the funding of donors, budget eked from wherever I could scrape it, despite this being a system which saw far more day-to-day improvement in school operation than the ephemeral collection of robots. But such stories likely abound in every profession.
Slanic Prahova Salt Mine in Romania2023 Dec 25
I visited the famous Wieliczka Salt Mine outside Krakow, Poland way back in 2011, and thought that was the pinnacle of salt mine tourism. But I recently stumbled across the existence of this possibly equally-impressive salt mine in Romania, one of a series open to tourists in the region. It'd be cool to visit one day.
The most expensive building in the world is the Great Mosque in Mecca2023 Dec 19
According to Wikipedia, anyway. Interestingly, the Great Mosque of Mecca isn't just the most expensive building, but more expensive than the next four buildings combined, all of which are nuclear power stations. The top ten are in fact all nuclear power stations or buildings in Mecca. The eleventh is an underground military airport, like something out of a comic book. And then the list becomes the expected arenas and hotels and corporate headquarters garbage.
Measuring the effect of Anti-Israel propaganda on the youth2023 Dec 18
This linked PDF of a Harvard Caps Harris Poll from last week shows opinions on a smattering of political and recent events. The last section, "Current Events" digs heavily into the American Public's reactions to the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. To my relief, the majority opinions are sane in every question. However, looking at age-bracket breakdown charts, 18-24 year olds frequently fall into a stance against the majority, holding counter-factual or antisemitism-based points of view that would have been unthinkable when I was last a member of that demographic twenty years ago. I don't know what to do about this, but to me it's telling of the extent and effectiveness of the antisemitic and antizionist propaganda efforts active in social media.
Every new Kindle is worst than the previous2023 Dec 14
In 2020 I ranted about how each new Kindle I got was worse than the one before it, each "improved" version I'd gotten improved only in superficial ways but became worse at performing it's primary task. And now, looking back 3.5 years later, without doing so consciously I've held true to what I predicted, having replaced my Kindle not with the latest version but with an iPad.
Anyway. Preserved here in time is my original rant.
YouTube doesn't want to take down scam ads2023 Dec 12 Caveat emptor in full effect when watching ads on YouTube, since apparently even deep fake videos of celebrities promoting scam investments do not violate YouTube's policies. As the comments point out, YouTube makes money off these ads, so they could use that money to police them, but they choose not to.
The Music Stats Project2023 Dec 11
Sometime in 2007 I finally acted on a thought that'd been bouncing through my brain: "iTunes logs playcounts for tracks, but wouldn't it be great if it did the same for albums and artists, too?" I wrote a script which read an iTunes export file and generated those album and artist playcounts. Since then, I've been periodically exporting my iTunes library to update those counts whilst incrementally improving that script. The biggest step up was in 2018, when I added to the script the ability to compare a recent export against an older one. This created a view into 'recent playcount', thus answering questions such as "What's popular now?" and "What's fallen from favor?" And yet... is it even more insightful if the script, rather than just compare two points in time, compiled all of the static export files into a continuous moving picture of my iTunes library? Or would that be a bunch of work for what is essentially highly-personal trivia? Baby, it's both!
Introducing, sixteen years in the making, the (almost complete) new version of my interactive iTunes library!
Agents of the Superspectral Order2023 Dec 6
Likely the weirdest blog I follow is the one behind this linked post, written by the mysterious "Schwab" who weaves a thread through everything, treating reports of the paranormal not as gibberish, but as symptoms the cause of which humanity still does not understand. This post, unlike most, is unlocked and free to all visitors.
Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer's speech on American antisemitism2023 Dec 6
Quoting wholly from the linked post: '“The most extreme rhetoric against Israel has emboldened antisemites who are attacking Jewish people simply because they are Jewish.” These attacks, Schumer said, conjure up the history of millennia in which Jews were slaughtered. “When Jewish people hear chants like ‘From the river to the sea,’ a founding slogan of Hamas, a terrorist group that is not shy about their goal to eradicate the Jewish people, in Israel and around the globe, we are alarmed.”'
Why did France change its regions?2023 Dec 1
Back in 2016 France did something remarkable: it re-drew historic sub-national boundaries, reconfiguring France from 22 regions down to 13. That's unthinkable in the USA. So how and why did France do this?
The Mutating Virus: Understanding Antisemitism2023 Nov 30
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks' speech about the mutation of antisemitism into antizionism feels horrifically prescient, given what's going on right now.
From the video's official description: "'The hate that begins with Jews never ends with Jews.' On 27th September 2016, Rabbi Sacks delivered a keynote address entitled 'The Mutating Virus: Understanding Antisemitism' in the European Parliament. The speech opened a conference on the future of Jewish communities in Europe hosted by Martin Schulz, President of the European Parliament. To read a transcript of the speech, please click here."
‘Antizionism’ is the most lethal form of antisemitism out there2023 Nov 30
I've been quiet about the October 7 terrorist attacks by Hamas and their aftermath, but not because I haven't been paying attention. Rather, I've been horrified by the progressive worlds' reaction, abandoning its principals of self-determination for all people, and descending into blatant antisemitism. This article sums up rather succinctly the thin facade that is the vogue euphemism 'antizionism,' highlighting the reality that "No other form of antisemitism—the most obvious example being the Jew-hatred espoused by white supremacists and other far-right groups—is this accessible."
Total Telephone line length by country2023 Nov 24
The top 10 countries on this chart parallel some sort of metric crossing industrialization, population, and modernization but won't likely glean much more than an arched eyebrow from someone familiar with these places. More curiously is the bottom of the list, where Guinea – that country in West Africa with 13.5 million people living in it – appears to be the only country on the planet with no telephone lines.
w32tm time resync doesn't always instantly resync2023 Nov 20
In the "so nobody else struggles for an hour with this same stupid problem" department, I share this link to serverfault which explains that sometimes, in an Active Directory domain situation, w32time /rescync doesn't instantly resync time and that's by design. Not that it's noted by the application in anywhere obvious. As the Q&A explains: "If the local clock time of the client is less than three minutes ahead of the time on the server, W32Time will quarter or halve the clock frequency for long enough to bring the clocks into sync. If the client is less that 15 seconds ahead, it will halve the frequency; otherwise, it will quarter the frequency. The amount of time the clock spends running at an unusual frequency depends on the size of the offset that is being corrected." There's no official explanation as to why it does this, but the best guess is that this is to avoid disrupting software which expect time to flow in a linear manner and not jump around erratically.
c:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\quotes2023 Nov 14
There exists on some versions of WIndows a file at this location with a collection of quotes, one from A. A. Milne, seven from George Bernard Shaw, and four from Charles Dickens. Why? Not many on the internet know, and some suspect it to be the evidence of malware. But this ancient forum post from 2002 contains the key: "Windows NT (and its derivates) have a service called Simple TCP/IP services that starts by default. When it's active, if you telnet to port 17 on your computer you'll get a quote. I have quotes by George Bernard Shaw, Charles Dickens, etc." This no longer works, Telnet being long-disabled on Windows, but the quotes file persists at least on my computer.
China's fishing fleet may be front for international spying operation2023 Nov 13
"China's fishing fleet has long been accused of doing more than just catch fish. New evidence has emerged that China’s state-owned fishing fleet may be a front for covert intelligence operations in the disputed waters of the South China Sea."
The B Lane Swimmer2023 Nov 8
In storytelling, a hero's motivation is frequently easy to understand. Who amongst us cannot identify with someone trying to do the right thing? Villains, however, are much more difficult to understand, and therefore more difficult to write well. Children's authors and lazy writers make it deceptively simple – this villain does bad things because they are "evil," as if there are people out there who survey the options before themselves and automatically default to the most wrong. Life, I'd argue, is not that straightforward. So, why then are some people assholes? I don't mean the big evil people – the fascist autocrats and serial killers and psychopaths – I mean the smaller villains, the everyday villains who key your car at the library, who say rude things at the family dinner table, who steal your bike from in front of the store?
This linked blogged post is about the mildest of all villains: those who push their teammates down, who ignore calls from help among their own colleagues. It offers some insightful ruminations on the motivations behind these people, suggesting why they may act the way they do.
This country existed for only seven hours2023 Nov 7
I don't know if this is the shortest-existing country of all time, and maybe calling this a "country" is a stretch, but the Republic of Benin (not the other Benin, which wasn't called "Benin" until later) was organized and existed in the midst of the Nigerian Civil War right as the Nigerian army was marching its direction.
Notes on Ghana2023 Nov 7
This is a long but fascinating exploration into Ghana's recent history and politics written in an easy-to-follow narrative style, including some of the author's personal insights based on their recent visit. They also have other "Notes on" articles for other countries which I recommend as well.
When Blindness Hits A Hundred Bucks A Share, Then Who Will Be Laughing, I Ask You, “Doctor”2023 Nov 6
"You remember the Bored Apes. Maybe. These were the dumb ugly worthless JPEGs of, like, dressed-up cartoon apes that various suckers and dolts were buying—or, like, investing in?—very loudly a couple of years ago. This was in 2021, back when NFTs (non-fungible tokens) were only a laughingstock among people capable of critical thinking."
Why are cities so full of potholes?2023 Nov 6
City roads are often frustratingly rough to drive on. Why? This random comment on reddit actually has a good and thorough answer to this question, listing out the difficulties in getting the right materials in, the heavy amount of patching required, the high workload the streets are placed under, and constraints on the installation timelines that prevent proper settling.
The numbers 1-10 in 4500 different languages2023 Oct 30
"How many languages aren't here? Well, there's almost 5000 living languages listed in Ruhlen's volume; I have numbers for about 83% of them, so there's at least a thousand more. (If the math doesn't seem to work out, note that I have plenty of dialects and conlangs not included in Ruhlen's list.) There are about 200 languages with more than a million speakers, all of which are in the list. "
On the importance of staring directly into the sun2023 Oct 29
What discovery about the universe remains unmade yet will be seen as exceedingly obvious in retrospect? It is difficult to overcome our own biases which make us blind to what we take for granted.
Don't mess with a genius2023 Oct 29
That time Isaac Newton had someone hanged, drawn, and quartered.
Beyond introvert vs. extrovert2023 Oct 29
I've always been annoyed at how simplistic is the pop-psychology deconstruction that categorizes people as being either an "introvert" or an "extrovert." This reduction lacks so much nuance that it robs the original concept of its use. In the linked blog post, Vipul Shekhawat feels similarly, but then goes to the next step and works up an attempt at replacing the entire model with something that more closely matches the world he sees. His ideas resonate, and although it seems there's some gaps (such as, he never addresses performing or public speaking), there's insight in his words. An excerpt:
"Interaction profiles are just like flavor preferences. Every preference is valid, even if someone else's taste might seem horrendous to you! And if you took someone who loves salty food and fed them only salt, they would eventually reach a point where they've just had too much. Interaction preferences are like that: even if you love solitude, there is such a thing as too much solitude. Nobody wants just one thing or the other; you need balance."
Ukraine Interactive Map2023 Oct 27
What's going on in the Ukraine-Russia conflict? Here's a map showing exactly that answer. Also has tabs for some other ongoing conflicts.
The Negative Impact of Content Dispersion2023 Oct 27
I'm a long-time fan of Jakob Nielsen's thoughts on usability and computers, and here's a new article from his group on the web trend of 'content dispersion,' or making websites with low information density. That is obviously not the ethos I used when designing this personal website, instead opting for the complete opposite. But it's fascinating to read some of the implications of pages designed at either end of the spectrum, spelling out the psychological consequences of there being more or less information on screen at any one time.
Mojibake2023 Oct 26
Apparently messed up character encoding is so prominent in Japan that there's a word for it. What a world we've made.
Chesterton's Fence2023 Oct 25
In sysadmin work and IT in general, I find myself reference the concept of Chesterton's Fence on a near-daily basis. Yet, many people are unfamiliar with the name, even though the concept rings instantly true. This short blog post talks about the origin of the term and also some of the implications of the dilemma.
Negev Wheel2023 Oct 22
"Spanning twenty feet in diameter, Negev Wheel is an immense, slowly spinning disk filled with sand from the Negev Desert in Israel; the piece presents an ever-changing, mesmerizing image of tumbling change. The sand from that region is made of a mixture of sands from a great many geographic sources, representing complexity within unity and constant evolution within permanence. Completed in 2016."
Jack Takahashi2023 Oct 20
Leica-using photographer with some fantastic photos, and lens reviews of his gear.
What's a Synth Pad?2023 Oct 19
This article (despite it ending with a sales pitch for their product) is an eye-opening view into what a synthesizer can do for a piece of music, why it's used, and what it replaces compared to classical compositions. And, icing on the cake, the example it shows just happens to be the live Spiritualized recording from 1998 that I just had to purchase on physical CD to get my own copy of, as no digital downloads of it are available.
Is this the most powerful word in the English language?2023 Oct 16
Similar to the previous, this BBC article jumps into the word "the" and how critical it is to our language, but how it's precise definition is less a critical aspect of the word than it's grammatical function.
How India changed the English language2023 Oct 16
I consider myself an armchair enthusiast of etymology – always looking words up to see where they came from. But this article from the BBC, put out in 2015 to promote the new edition of a 1886 book Hobson-Jobson: The Definitive Glossary of British India (a "classic work of Victorian scholarship" according to Oxford University Press, the publisher), delves into many word histories that spring from parts the world I'd never suspected.
The Law of One2023 Oct 16
Did professor Don Elkins have a series of 106 taped conversations between himself and "a sixth-density social memory complex that formed on Venus about 2.6 billion years ago" named Ra, channeled through the person of Carla Rueckert? These people seem to think so. Strange, though, that Uriel in her many extra-terrestrial communications never spoke to (or of) Ra.
Devo covering Neil Young's "Ohio"2023 Oct 15
Here's a 2002 cover of Devo playing the song "Ohio," written by Neil Young about the Kent State shootings. But why would this goofy band play such a serious song? Quoth songfacts: "Mark Mothersbaugh and Jerry Casale were on campus, and after the shootings, they developed the band Devo based on the concept of 'De-Evolution,' meaning the human race was regressing. Said Casale, 'It refocused me entirely. I don't think I would have done Devo without it. It was the deciding factor that made me live and breathe this idea and make it happen.'"
Nikon Df Long Term Review2023 Oct 14
In anticipation of the upcoming Nikon Zf (a retro-styled advanced camera that's going to start arriving in photographers' hands next week) let's take a stroll through some long-term reviews of Nikon's attempt a decade ago, the Df. A year ago I had my hands on the Df, but it was bulky and awkward and I did not care for it. Others, however, like it much more.
Postal Service + Death Cab covering "Enjoy the Silence"2023 Oct 14
On Monday this last week I caught the Death Cab for Cutie / Postal Service 20th anniversaries of both Transatlanticism and Give Up Tour when they came through the Greek Theater in Berkeley. It was a sold out show where the two bands (both fronted by Ben Gibbard) played the entirety of the two albums. They then capped off the evening with this, a full-ensemble cover performance of Depeche Mode's "Enjoy the Silence." Perfection. Recording by yours truly, via my iPhone. I guess that makes this a bootleg recording?
"MSG in Chinese food isn't unhealthy -- you're just racist"2023 Oct 14
The "whyusemsg.com" website is now defunct, but this article remains a reminder that the malignment of MSG is America and the west stemmed not from science, but from racism against Asians and Chinese in particular, viewing Chinese restaurants as dirty places that were unconcerned for the cleanliness of their food. Quoth the article: "'Calling it Chinese restaurant syndrome is really ignorant,' said restaurateur Eddie Huang ... he pointed out that MSG is not only delicious – but found in practically all processed foods, from ranch dressing to Doritos." Moral of the story: stop shunning MSG.
The Apple "screenshot" sound is a Canon AE-12023 Oct 14
"Apple's camera click sound ... comes from Reekes' old 1970s Canon AE-1 that he purchased in high school. He recorded his camera and then slowed down the shutter speed in order to build the custom sound. ... He said he has attempted to use it as a pickup line in a bar as well. 'Hey, I made that sound!' But Reekes said it mostly just results in a strange look."
Synthpop Fanatic2023 Oct 12
This is an online "modern synthpop" music magazine after my own heart.
From "Anti-Semite and Jew" by Jean-Paul Sartre (1946)2023 Oct 10
"Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past."
I Married a Jew2023 Oct 10
An anonymous Atlantic article from January 1939 sheds some interesting perspective on the changing attitudes towards Judaism and interfaith marriage in America. Unfortunately it seems like the article is now behind a paywall (it wasn't originally), so if the main link doesn't work, try this one.
1581 affair ended by death, diplomacy2023 Oct 5
Mathurin Romegas was a nobleman and Knight Hospitaller of the Order of Saint John of Malta and a wildly successful sailor in the struggle against the Corsairs and Ottomans, personally enraging Suleiman the Magnificent with his exploits. But his late career and death is wrapped in Papal intrigue and politics. When he died in Rome at around 55 years of age, what really killed him?
Uriel and the Interplanetary Confederation2023 Sep 28
We're all looking for answers about to the big questions of the cosmos. (Well, most of us.) Why are we here? Is there life out there? What does it mean? Good news, these people have answers!
Berkeley's famed communal hot tub2023 Sep 22
I've lived in the (South) Bay Area my whole life and I've never even heard hint of such a thing existing. But it sounds fascinating, a lingering hold-out from hippie culture.
Bir Tawil2023 Sep 18
Apart from Antarctica, every piece of land on the planet is part of a country, right? Well, every piece of land, except this one. Due to a border dispute between Egypt and Sudan stemming from their joint history with English colonialism, there is an 800-square-mile quadrilateral of uninhabited, hot, dry desert which is claimed by no country.
Antarctic sea-ice at 'mind-blowing' low alarms experts2023 Sep 17
"The sea-ice surrounding Antarctica is well below any previous recorded winter level, satellite data shows, a worrying new benchmark for a region that once seemed resistant to global warming."
"Ambient," a novel by Jack Womack2023 Sep 15
Somewhere around eighteen years old I was for the first time mindblown by the expansive and horrific beauty of William Gibson's Sprawl Trilogy (Neuromancer, Count Zero, Mona Lisa Overdrive). I found the narrative confusing but the imagery sublime. Now, at forty, I understood more but feared the impact would be lesser. Fortunately, my fears were wrong; the books hold up – they continue to be just as amazing as they ever were. As a bonus, these new editions contain a more-recent note from Gibson himself. For some reason, he spends most of the note lamenting the total absence of cell phones from the world he created. Take it from me, Gibson: their absence wasn't felt.
Also, one of the three books contains another foreword, or afterword, or note or something by author Jack Womack, where Womack concedes what an honor it is for a schmuck like him to even be mentioned in the same sentence as Gibson, and how some generous critic back in the 80s put Gibson's debut, Neuromancer, on the same list as his own debut, Ambient. I forget the rest of what Womack wrote (I could go back and re-read it, or... :man_shrugging:), and I've never heard of his book (nor, based on its lack of popularity online, have many people in the last thirty years), but this was enough of an endorsement for me to jump right into Ambient.
And wow, was Ambient a big fat fist in the face. Nothing like Gibson's Sprawl books – except maybe in their cynical deconstruction of the society and time which spawned them. Ambient is not an easy book to read. It's very slow to start, it's dense with two entirely different homebrewed lingoes, its internal consistency is questionable, and it's so casually brutally vulgarly violent. And yet... it's depictions of a New York City ruled by the nonchalantly cruel moguls of anarcho-capitalism are so vivid, so visceral, it's an image I will long remember. Do I endorse the book? (Does anyone care if I endorse the book?) Sure, go out and read it. Get yourself teethkicked.
Ambient's scant reviews are mixed and full of comparisons not to Neuromancer, but to Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange, a story with which I am familiar only via Kubrick's film. I do love me some Kubrick (my bedroom is decorated with – amongst other items, I'm not a psychopath – a framed theatrical poster for Dr. Strangelove) but most mentions of Clockwork are accompanied by tired explanations of how the movie and novel are different things, and their creators different people. And so now I begin flipping the pages of yet another violent, lingo-heavy romp through dystopia.
2023 Annular Eclipse2023 Sep 14
Darkness will come o'er the land! The moon will blot out the sun! Check your maps! Mark your calendars! October 14, 2023. It's happening!
Eating the Rich Sounds Pretty Good to Most of Us Right Now2023 Sep 13
"There are no repercussions. There is no justice. Meritocracy is a lie the wealthy tell themselves to project morality onto a system that exists solely to preserve their unearned status ... Regular people are not only indifferent to bad things happening to rich people, they make no effort to hide that it delights them."
Windows' Shortcut to Linkedin2023 Sep 12
Here's a feature of Windows that nobody wants. Holding down CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+WIN and tapping "L" opens up your default browser to the site https://www.linkedin.com/?trk=Officekey – a residual old workaround for some keyboards being sold with an "Office" key which secretly just held down every other modifier.
Where'd you go, Space Cowboy?2023 Sep 9
Way back in the 2000s there was this French musician, Nicolas Dresti, who released music as Space Cowboy. He released a a bunch of singles and a few albums -- all cool dance music -- and even worked as a regular DJ for Lady Gaga. But then, he disappeared. Nothing has been heard from him at all in over a decade. Where did he go? What happened? His music is crazy catchy, and his ability to craft a dance song is enviable. But he's vanished!
Omniglot2023 Sep 1
This "encyclopedia of writing systems and languages" contains a wealth of fascinating information and details not available even on Wikipedia. Why do Basque writers make the top strokes of the character "A" longer than others? Why does Fraktur exist? What even is an alphabet? This site has it all!
The Mystery of the Bloomfield Bridge2023 Aug 30
In case yesterday's confounding dive into local trivia merely whetted your appetite for following bunny trails to their conclusion, I present to you the "mystery" of why this pedestrian footbridge in suburban Minneapolis was built. A long and exhaustive read, but one which is ultimately fruitful.
Cultural History: Portola Redwoods2023 Aug 29
One final posting in this run, this one from the official State Parks website on the history of Portola Redwoods. There's nothing new here about Iverson or Page, but it does confirm many of the same details as the other links.
The Long and Winding Road2023 Aug 29
This 1998 article in Palo Alto Weekly (a small local newspaper) celebrating Page Mill Road contains another snippet, adding some more color to this story I'm stumbling my way into. The article is short, but it teaches us that "Page Mill is one of the oldest thoroughfares in the area. It was carved out in the early 1860s as a route for lumber harvested in the nearby hills. The main user at the time was William Page, a New York-born businessman who owned timberland in the Pescadero area and a large mill near California Avenue, in what was then the settlement of Mayfield. As late as 1918, people remember Page's horse-drawn wagon lumbering over the hills along Page Mill, bells attached to animals' harnesses to warn travelers of their approach along the steep and narrow road."
William Page - Lumberman2023 Aug 29
Here's an 1882 biography of William Page (the namesake of Page Mill Road), written when he was still living and working in the community. In it we learn that "In 1854
he [...] retraced his footsteps to San Mateo county, and opened a
store at Searsville, which he conducted for thirteen years. In 1878 he came
to Mayfield where he has since resided, being now engaged in the lumber
business. He has an interest in a large tract of timber land in the
southern portion of San Mateo county, also a half interest in a steam
sawmill, with a capacity of fifteen thousand feet in the twelve hours."
Christian Iverson and William Page2023 Aug 29
Buried in this article about a 2012 effort to save some big old redwoods is this fascinating nugget of local history expanding on the story of Christian Iverson, snippets that aren't sourced but which I can find scant other account of online. The juicy bits are about halfway through the article, but I'll copy/paste them here for posterity:
"Iverson split redwood shakes and shingles for a living and, in the 1880s, served as a bodyguard for the wife of Capt. Harry Love, a California ranger who supposedly captured and beheaded the famous outlaw Joaquin Murrieta. One day Love flew into a jealous rage and opened fire on his wife and her protector, only to be shot to death by Iverson.
In 1889, Iverson sold his property to William Page, who had built the first of two sawmills along Peters Creek, which was named after another early immigrant named Jean Peter, who ran a dairy and grew hay and grain.
Page, who also operated a general store and served on the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors, used the lumber to make shingles. He later built a logging road that became known as Page Mill Road. The road, which still exists, was used to transport lumber to Palo Alto."
Christian Iverson, California Pioneer2023 Aug 29
Here's a fascinating little bit of early Europeans in California history, something I've never come across before. It regards a Danish settler who maybe rode for the Pony Express, lived in a cabin in the Santa Cruz mountains, and slept with the sheriff of Santa Clara's wife. What do you get for living like this? They named a trail after him in Portola Redwoods State Park.
Electronic Beowulf2023 Aug 27
Courtesy of University of Kentucky, you can apparently access online for free full digitized copies of what extant copies of the Beowulf story remain, alongside transcripts and translations. Beautiful.
Nick Cave on ChatGPT making things faster and easier2023 Aug 11
Rather than approaching ChatGPT with arguments stemming from technology, or philosophy of intelligence, or creative theft and appropriation, the esteemed artist Nick Cave steps in with thoughts about what these tools mean to the creator themself. What does it mean to the artist when artistic endeavor becomes easy?
Installing Windows to con2023 Aug 10
Did you know you can install Windows into a folder other than C:/Windows/? Did you know that the keyword "/CON/" is reserved from use in Windows folder names for backwards compatibility with DOS? Did you know you can install Windows in C:/CON/ anyway? So here's a video of the worst way to install Windows...
BassoonTracker2023 Aug 10
Create open-source Amiga-esque music right in your web browser. Or just listen to the music that others have created, which is what I did, as song-writing is very difficult and I have no ear for it.
Soundblaster Audigy on Linux2023 Aug 9
Thanks to the anonymous reviewer commenting back in the web's middle ages of 2008, I was able to figure out why even though my Linux Mint system clearly detected and installed my new SoundBlaster Audigy SB1550 internal card, there was no audio coming out. To anyone facing a similar situation, here's the meat of the puzzle, blatantly copy/pasted from the referenced link:
"So, for those using the ANALOG output, open a terminal window and type 'alsamixer'. Use the right arrow to move all the way to the 'Audigy Analog/Digital Output Jack' (keep an eye on the Item value in the top left of the window). Now, hit the 'M' key to toggle the value between On and Off. This switches the digital output on and off. Since I was using the Analog output, I needed to have this OFF so I could listen to stuff. Worked like a charm!"
Google Web Fonts Typographic Project2023 Aug 6
Not sure how I've neglected to link this website before – it is one of my favorite sources of inspiration when making web pages or other things. I fumble my way through design only emulating palely those who do great work.
Decrease Virtualbox .vdi size by compressing it2023 Aug 5
Straightforward instructions on how to shrink a .vdi file (virtual disk image, used in a Oracle VirtualBox among others) was confusingly hard to find, with many over-complicated red herrings along the way. Here is a short microblog with the only necessary steps.
Unfuckable Hate Nerds2023 Aug 4
Maybe what incels need isn't derision, but compassion?
Santa Claus Bank Robbery2023 Jul 30
The synopsis of this 1930s shootout between cops and robbers includes too many fanciful details for me to quite believe all of it as it's been recorded on Wikipedia, but it does make for a fantastic story, one I could easily visualize being turned into a movie film.
Kevin Mitnick dead at 592023 Jul 21
I supposed that every profession has its celebrities. The thing with my profession of IT, though, is that our celebrities tend to often be as infamous as famous. Kevin Mitnick is a prime example – hacking his way into telecom systems and then subsequently pinned by government prosecutors as a scapegoat for society's growing fear of life dominated by poorly-secured corporate and government systems. Fortunately, his reputation remained intact and his life recovered. Unfortunately, he just died of Pancreatic cancer at the far-too-young age of 59. This piece in Time offers a very fair depiction of his life.
87% Missing: the Disappearance of Classic Video Games2023 Jul 10
Unlike movies, books, audio recordings, and pretty much everything else, video games once they pass from publication are no longer easy to experience. This places the vast majority video games ever made out of reach of almost everyone. As video games are undeniably a part of our culture, this blindness to the past damages us and should be corrected.
Admiral Cloudberg2023 Jul 4
I was lucky enough to have somehow stumbled across Admiral Cloudberg's fascinating and detailed write-ups of aviation disasters back in her early days. I drifted away at some point, but recently saw a new post linked on Hacker News, and much to my delight was pleased to see that not only is she still going, but her posts are stronger than ever. Congratulations!
Turning my Passion/Hobby into a Business Made Me Hate It2023 Jul 4
I have made a career out of my fascination with the pragmatic side of technology's utility and capabilities. I have deliberately not made a career out of photography, or anything else I love. I feel like I'm doing ok. But I abhor hustle culture nonetheless.
The Ellison Dispute2023 Jul 1
Did James Cameron rip off a Harlan Ellison story when he made Terminator? So claimed Ellison back in 1984 when the movie came out. And considering that Ellison didn't just get paid, but also got his name added to the credits, it'd seem that the lawyers agreed with him. But did Cameron really rip off Ellison? Or did the famously litigious Ellison just outmaneuver a young, naive, newly successful filmmaker?
The Secret History And Strange Future Of Charisma2023 Jun 29
Grifters, conmen, and cult leaders are fascinating in how they are able to bring people into their orbit and convince them to do things against their own best interests. This long article talks about the nearly-undefinable term "charisma" and how it is, and has been, understood throughout time.
How to Run an Event That Doesn't Suck2023 Jun 26
A quick, off-the-cuff rundown of how to run a short, useful event/panel/conference/whatever, written by someone with a bevy of very pertinent, very specific advice.
This desolate English path has killed more than 100 people2023 Jun 26
The Broomway is a public path in England that's over 600 years old and lies 440 yards off-shore. Accessible only during low tides, a travel writer visits The Broomway in this article and talks about the reality of transiting a byway that may very well sweep you out to sea.
Blond vs. Blonde: What's The Difference?2023 Jun 22
Is English a gendered language? It certainly used to be, but maybe there's more vestigial bits of unnecessary gender left buried in our language than at first appears. This article from 2019 discusses one of the more subtle instances, and the trends leaving these differences to the past.
Building Your Color Palette2023 Jun 21
I appreciate this article's refreshing take on building a color palette for a project, putting to words the vague sense of dissatisfaction I have when using one of those automatic palette generator tools. While I lacked the design sensibilities to put to words the issue, here it is spelled out plain as day, and even with a solution proffered!
web pages of tilde town2023 Jun 16
Here lies hundreds of small personal webpages made by the users of this ssh terminal-based online community. This gives me strong 'old web' vibes and I love it.
Mulafossur by Zeb Andrews2023 Jun 15
The Faroe Islands fascinate me with their beauty and isolation, but they remain someplace I have not yet had time to visit. In the meantime, photographer Zeb Andrews brings them to us in all their stunning magnificence in this photo set on Flickr, complete with full descriptions of what it's like to actually be there, on the Faroes.
Bash.org Quote Database2023 Jun 14
Back in IRC's heyday, when someone did a funny, the thing to do was to copy/paste the conversation log onto bash.org, where people would vote for the funniest exchanges. And not only is bash.org still there, unchanged from way back when, but so are the top-voted quotes. Read them to revisit the late-90s and all of it's hilarious misogynist racist homophobic banter.
ASCII by Jason Scott2023 Jun 14
Since the ancient days of the web, Jason Scott's blog is always fascinating. And it looks like he's in no danger of slowing down. I could link you to a specific post, but I don't need to – they're all good.
Roll or Don't2023 Jun 8
Another simple browser-based game, this one a game of chance and chicken based on rolling dice. Can you find a strategy for success?
Sedecordle2023 Jun 5
Wordle, but with 16 simultaneous words and 21 tries. Not as hard as it at first seems, once you get the hang of it. I like to start with the words "IMAGE" and "PROUD", although any two five-letter words with completely different letters are a strong start.
Bubble Science 101 Bubble Solution Recipe2023 Jun 3
Making bubbles from soapy water not cutting it? Come the bubble scientists and their recipe for the best bubble solution you will ever try.
Battleships2023 Jun 1
This is a fun "mindless" puzzle game you can play right in your browser, a interesting diversion during what the author claims to be podcasts, but which we really know to be conference calls.
Lorem Ipsum2023 Jun 1
One of my most visited websites since... forever. I may be an absolute amateur when it comes to graphic design and website layout, but by golly if I'm not going to use some authentic lorem ipsum in my mockups to astound (and sometimes confuse) my audience.
Infinite Games2023 May 31
What's yet another article about 'living your life for the journey and not the destination' doing linked here? Well, this one I found particularly insightful and direct, and resonated with me as both maybe something I'm hopefully already doing, or at least an aspiration of a way to be. Even if I shudder to learn that the author is some 25yo influencer.
The Opposite of Faith2023 May 28
Sometimes the most troubling portions of the scripture are the most revealing to analyze. In this post on the Reform Judaism Torah study blog, the author gives an particularly insightful analysis of the 'problematic' practice of sotah – a trial by ordeal for a woman suspected of infidelity.
MyHouse.WAD - Inside Doom's Most Terrifying Mod2023 May 20
Every once in a while, video games are able to transcend into something far more than their reputation would ever predict. This video documents one such case, found in especially unlikely place – a mod for a 30-year-old first person shooter, Doom.
From A-List Celebrity to Degenerate YouTube Streamer2023 May 16
I'm not usually one for keeping to celebrity gossip, but Andy Dick's (rightful) fall from grace has been so brutal, it's to the point where you actually might feel a glimmer of pity for him. He has live-streamed not just his own surrender to addiction and abandonment by his one-time friends, but also his kidnapping, repeatedly being assaulted and assaulting others, exploitation, and absolute failure. This is a 45 minute summary of the low-lights.
Embrace the Failure2023 May 15
"Fear of failure, in its myriad forms, leads to a repetition of what you (and others) know you are good at, in order to avoid failure. Professional success reinforces the tendency to do what you are good at and not to risk failure, and gradually anything that may have been interesting in the initial work, idea or dream has been squeezed out."
Israel 75 eCards2023 May 14
"On May 14, 1948 in the late afternoon the new Jewish state was proclaimed in Tel Aviv. A few hours later the British Mandate ended at midnight and just eleven minutes later the new State of Israel was formally recognized by the United States – at 6:11 pm in Washington, DC."
Banco de Gaia: Farewell Ferengistan2023 May 6
This is a Banco de Gaia album review of their 2006 release written at that time, and it's harsh. But it approaches BdG's catalog from the point-of-view of a fan since their first release. I was not, I only came to appreciate BdG later on, well past the peak of the band's fame, and so while I don't disagree with the review, my take-away is different. Yet, I find this review fascinating, because it talks about a musician's inevitable fade from relevancy on each of their successive, post-peak releases, which is a phenomenon I've been pondering a lot lately as all my favorite bands from my youth age in their own way.
Credenda2023 May 6
This tab has been open on my phone for months and I no longer remember how I got here or why it's open. But I find the text interesting and the site worthy of not losing track of.
eboy2023 May 6
A fantastic and growing collection of isometric pixel art.
East Bay Hill People2023 May 4
The site description says it best: "Explore the East Bay Hills of the San Francisco Bay Area and discover a world inhabited by our local Native Americans for over 10,000 years. Many sites are virtually untouched since missionization, manslaughter and European diseases drove these people from their ancestral homelands just over 200 years ago. Respect their history."
Fairyism2023 May 4
A photography portfolio. "There is no theme, there are no rules, there is just light, shadow and color."
EYECANDY2023 May 2
In their words "The visual technique library for visual technique lovers. Enjoy. Learn. Don't gatekeep." But that's just an excuse, it's worth it for the eyecandy alone.
DrawBeats2023 Apr 30
A fully web-based beat synthesizer that's so easy even I can use it!
Eleventy-one2023 Apr 26
Was Bilbo Baggins just being clever when he so described his 111th birthday as his "eleventy-first"? JRR Tolkien was too much an etymologist for me to believe there was nothing more there, and turns out my suspicion is correct.
Japan has millions of empty houses2023 Apr 26
This is going around the wire services lately, but underneath the journalistic crap is a fascinating insight into Japanese culture and how it intersects with Western. "Many Japanese don’t like used homes," it says!
The Developing World Thinks Hitler Is Underrated2023 Apr 22
Hitler and his Nazis are universally known as evil, right? Maybe not: "Across much of the globe, though, openly expressed admiration for the Hitler legacy can be seen as just one more indication of the tenuousness of these social and political values in our modern world." I'm seeing echoes here in the evolving way Americans regard Christopher Columbus.
Time and the Laundering of History2023 Apr 22
Why do we villainize Hitler while we lionize Julius Caesar? This article delves into the tricky topic of how popular history's perceptions of conquerors of past can grow divorced from their true carnage.
Moneylike2023 Apr 20
Another Cory Doctorow article, this one on the origins of money and why cryptocurrency isn't actually money. Maybe a touch too reductionist, but on the flip side, it's easy to understand.
The 'Enshittification' of TikTok2023 Apr 20
Linked to in the previous article is this fun piece by Cory Doctorow, who I'm not sure if I love or find really annoying, but I at least read what he writes. It's another interesting article about the decline of yet another social media.
Social media is doomed to die2023 Apr 20
Maybe one day I'll formalize my reasons for pulling away from social media – it was less a philosophical decision and more gut instinct – but in the meantime, I love reading articles from other people lamenting how terrible the entire landscape has grown. Even though I never even considered using SnapChat, here's a fun piece about its slow decline, and how the ecosystem drives these services all the same downward direction.
A Call to Rebellion2023 Apr 17
This article is subtitled "A New Way of Thinking About Depression, Anxiety & Burnout" and it offers some ideas I haven't heard before. I don't know that I'd recommend taking the ideas all that seriously, but they were an interesting thought experiment to me.
Laying Out a Print Book With CSS2023 Mar 21
A delightful romp through CSS and it's magical world of being mis-applied but emerging triumphant.
Steaming a Good Ham2023 Mar 20
In which we learn how one can truly translate text into Shakespearean English.
Anti Anti Social Social Club2023 Mar 16
I'm wary of over-self-reflective navel-gazing, but this essay resonates with me when it decries being 'anti-social' as an identity. The author writes, "It used to be kind of edgy or rebellious to claim antisociality, but ... we're sinking into our comfort zones and padding the walls." And I completely agree.
Bay Area Support for Israel Isn't Unconditional2023 Mar 15
This article documents the Bay Area Jewish response to Israel's proposed judicial reforms – laws that would allow Knesset to override the Supreme Court's decisions. I am tracking this story closely, the latest sign of a growing divide between American Judaism and Israeli politics. What do we do with a Jewish state which doesn't uphold our Jewish values?
City Symphony No. 1 - Los Angeles2023 Mar 13
Filmed over the course of a year on rare stormy nights in the LA basin, CITY SYMPHONY NO. 1 - LOS ANGELES combines stunning 6K slow motion imagery with a dense soundscape of rain, police scanners and secretly recorded Angeleno conversations to create a hypnotic new vision of one of the world's most famous cities. Directed, photographed and scored by Mina Rhodes.
The Hollywood Personal Egg Service That Wasn't2023 Mar 11
I fell for this 'Personal Egg Service' hoax hook, line, and sinker back when it first went around the internet. It's a mark of shame that only now, eight years later, am I realizing I was taken. I'm usually so much the skeptic! Or so I envisioned myself. Maybe I'm more gullible than I realized. Either way, the mental image of a 'scrambled egg' faucet has been firmly lodged in my head ever since, and the real story is a fascinating follow-up to a fascinating hoax.
Aliens: How Burke takes his coffee2023 Mar 11
I'm always a fan of appreciating the details in a movie I love. But as a quick analysis of how cleverly Burke's subtle villainy was crafted, this is a fun journey back into the universe of the xenomorphs.
Introduction to Microphones2023 Mar 11
This website is a full catalog of broadcast and production microphones, with detailed explanations of their histories and workings. Check out the Neumann U87 to see the classic model that NPR prefers when creating their crisp, clean sound.
How Best to Use Stable Diffusion2023 Mar 9
I'm both horrified and fascinated by these "AI" things polluting our world this past year. On the one hand, they represent idea theft on a level never before dealt with by our society, transcending previous norms and expectations around borrowing ideas from other artists. But on the other hand, they give someone like me, a person with little to show for a lifetime's effort of attempting to draw, the ability to make generate new, bespoke illustrations. So love them or hate them, it's worthwhile to learn them, to better understand what these pseudo-AIs can and cannot do.
I don't want to log in to your website2023 Mar 7
The Verge has published yet another quick hit piece chronically new and exciting ways in which the web is getting worse to use. The whole venture is maybe a touch ironic, considering the source.
Midjourney: Ancient Egypt with Cyberpunk2023 Mar 7
Love it or hate it, Midjourney and similar neural network have been churning out some amazing images. This gallery of photo-realistic illustrations shows off the generative capabilities to an extreme I've never before seen.
Gradient Colors Collection Palette2023 Mar 7
A nifty collection of pre-made HTML/CSS color gradients, for adding that little splash of brightness to your design.
LED Matrix NHL Scoreboard2023 Mar 7
How to create a bright and colorful scoreboard with a Raspberry Pi. It only took him five years.
Barely Maps2023 Mar 7
For the unusual map connoisseur in us all.
Emoji Kitchen2023 Mar 7
Combining two emoji into a new hybrid is more fun than it has any right to be.
This YouTube channel has posted a video taking old Lumiere Brothers footage shot in cities around the world 1896 to 1900 and colorized it, upscaled it, and converted it to 60fps. This seventeen minute trip into the past feels like viewing the world through a time machine, seeing common people doing everyday things in a way not usually available to us beyond a few decades back.