Daring Fireball
• John Gruber
sixcolors.com/post/2026/04/apple-results-analysis-net-net-over-the-moon/
Using the NY Times Archive API, journalist Ted Alcorn built Below the Fold, a dashboard through which you can explore the last 25 years of Times coverage: 2.2 million articles containing 1.5 billion words. You can slice and dice this data in a bunch of different ways — it’s a fantastic resource.
One of the site’s sections is about obituaries. From that data, Alcorn produced this infographic of whose obits contained the highest word count:
As you can see, it’s a lot of world leaders, religious leaders, politicians, and white men. There only appear to be five women on the list. Notable non-politicians include Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Muhammad Ali, and Charles Schulz.
The whole dashboard is fun/enlightening to explore.
Tags: infoviz · journalism · NY Times · obituaries · Ted Alcorn
Longreads
• Brendan Fitzgerald
"On the imperfection of elegies."
Am…am I “alternatively influential”? Defined roughly as “public thinkers and tastemakers who have real clout in their own demesnes despite only modest internet followings”.
For his latest video essay, Evan Puschak tells us about Un Chien Andalou, the pioneering surrealist short film by Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí. The film is particularly notable for a shocking shot in the opening scene, which, if you’ve seen it, you’ve likely never forgotten. Said Buñuel of the film:
This film has no intention of attracting nor pleasing the spectator; indeed, on the contrary, it attacks him, to the degree that he belongs to a society with which surrealism is at war.
You can watch Un Chien Andalou on YouTube:
One wonders what Buñuel and Dalí would have made of YouTube…
Tags: art · film school · Luis Buñuel · movies · Salvador Dali · Un Chien Andalou · video
Longreads
• Carolyn Wells
"New science is showing that nature’s vital pollinators are smarter than we ever imagined."
I fixed a few bugs on the Rolodex yesterday — some of the feeds weren’t updating and modifying sites wasn’t working properly. (Members get the mini-feedreader view!)
“Since 1900, scientists have observed more than 20 phases of ice, many of them shaped under extreme conditions. The growing list includes hot ice and even ice that conducts electricity.”
On the futility of border walls. “The Ozymandian ruins of many such walls litter our ancient and modern landscapes, because for as long as humanity has built hard borders, people have inevitably found ways to cross, topple or simply bypass them.”
Longreads
• Carolyn Wells
"We quit our bad habits for the sake of our future selves. How naïve of us."
Radiolab
• WNYC Studios
The Secret to Success Is ‘Monotasking’. “We find that in real‑world work, the more switches in attention a person makes, the lower is their end‑of‑day assessed productivity.”
Longreads
• Seyward Darby
"Their family members vanished near Mass. Ave. They won’t stop searching."
Longreads
• Longreads
