When I tell folks (like during my XOXO talk) that I’m leaving a lot of money on the table by not paywalling my stuff on Substack, this is what I’m talking about: “You probably can’t make more than $1 million a year on Substack. But Matthew Yglesias does.”
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Two college students paired Meta’s Ray Ban smart glasses with facial recognition...
Two college students paired Meta’s Ray Ban smart glasses with facial recognition tech and were able to pull up info on strangers (name, home address, phone number, and family members) in seconds just by looking at them.
What’s the Labor Share of National Income?
While listening to an episode of Scene on Radio’s excellent series on Capitalism, I learned about an economic measure called the labor share of national income. From The Guardian:
This week, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released its latest estimate for the share labor re...
The podcasts generated by Google’s NotebookLM service are “surprisingly effective”. (Whether this...
The podcasts generated by Google’s NotebookLM service are “surprisingly effective”. (Whether this says more about the current state of podcasts or AI is an open question…)
Lighthouse Parents Have More Confident Kids. “Sometimes, the best thing a parent...
Lighthouse Parents Have More Confident Kids. “Sometimes, the best thing a parent can do is nothing at all.” This has largely been my parenting strategy, although it’s sometimes been challenging to stick to.
Great Art Explained: Van Gogh’s Last Painting
It’s been awhile since I’d checked in on one of my favorite YouTube channels, Great Art Explained. In the past year, curator James Payne has done videos on Duchamp, Manet, Magritte, and that one painting by Caspar David Friedrich (you know the one). But this one, on Vincent van Gogh’s final painting, particularly caught my attention:
The mystery of what [his final painting] was and where it was painted would take over a century to solve, and that was only thanks to a worldwide epidemic. What it means is that we now have a deeper insight into what van Gogh’s final last hours were like — before his tragic death.
Tags: art · art history · death · James Payne · video · Vincent van Gogh
Over 33,000 sounds are available for free download from the BBC’s sound...
Over 33,000 sounds are available for free download from the BBC’s sound effects library. “Among the plethora of sounds covered are reindeer grunts, common frog calls and crowds at the 1989 FA Cup Final.”
A Murmuration of Starlings
A flock of starlings is called a murmuration, an apt word because the flocks move like a rumor pulsing through a crowded room. This is a particularly beautiful murmuration observed in Utrecht, The Netherlands.
[This is a vintage post originally from Jan 2015.]
Tags: birds · timeless posts · video
Great interview by Jia Tolentino of Dr. Warren Hern, one of the...
Great interview by Jia Tolentino of Dr. Warren Hern, one of the few doctors who openly perform late abortions in the US. “Abortion is a clear therapeutic treatment of the condition of pregnancy where the woman is not going to have a healthy baby.”
What’s the Fastest Way to Alphabetize Your Bookshelf?
Let’s say you’ve got a bunch of books that need to be sorted alphabetically by author. What’s the fastest way to accomplish this task? Luckily, efficient sorting is a problem that’s been studied extensively in computer science and this TED-Ed video walks us through three possible sorts: bubble sort, insertion sort, and quicksort.
For more on sorting, check out Sorting Algorithms Visualized, sorting techniques visualized through Eastern European folk dancing, and a site where you can compare many different sorting algorithms with each other. (via the kid should see this)
Tags: programming · video
The Absolute Best Butter For Every Occasion, After Taste-Testing, Cooking And Baking...
The Absolute Best Butter For Every Occasion, After Taste-Testing, Cooking And Baking With 32 Kinds. Definitely need to get my hands of some Le Beurre Bordier at some point. But I’m really happy with Ploughgate’s salted butter. 🤤
“The Work of a Madman”
“Barbaric.” A “nightmare of vulgarity.” “Monstrous.” “A violent mess.” “The work of a madman.” Those are just some of the reactions that Henri Matisse’s Dance received after its public debut in 1910. In this video, Evan Puschak shares How Matisse Revolutionized Color In Art with this painting and other Fauvist work.
Tags: art · art school · color · Evan Puschak · Henri Matisse · video
The most common adjectives ending in “-y” used in the NYT Cooking...
The most common adjectives ending in “-y” used in the NYT Cooking section include jammy, silky, buttery, cheesy, and lemony.
Examples of a book cover design trend: multi-panel illustrations or “bento books”....
Examples of a book cover design trend: multi-panel illustrations or “bento books”. Think the covers for Colson Whitehead’s Harlem Shuffle or The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon.
The humble hyperlink, the backbone of the entire internet, is increasingly endangered....
The humble hyperlink, the backbone of the entire internet, is increasingly endangered. “If you degrade hyperlinks…you degrade this idea of the internet as something that refers you to other things.”
Evidence of ‘Negative Time’ Found in Quantum Physics Experiment. “Another oddball quantum...
Evidence of ‘Negative Time’ Found in Quantum Physics Experiment. “Another oddball quantum outcome: photons, wave-particles of light, can spend a negative amount of time zipping through a cloud of chilled atoms.”
Status Update
Hey everyone. It’s been more than 2 weeks since my bike accident and I’m still not quite back to full speed. I’ve been slowed down by some emotional/psychological/existential stuff and my wrists haven’t fully healed yet, making typing/mousing for long periods challenging. I’...
Thom Yorke is reworking Radiohead’s Hail to the Thief for a production...
Thom Yorke is reworking Radiohead’s Hail to the Thief for a production of Hamlet. “PLEASE NOTE: RADIOHEAD WILL NOT BE PERFORMING IN HAMLET HAIL TO THE THIEF.”
“As of late September 2024, residential households in the U.S. are eligible...
“As of late September 2024, residential households in the U.S. are eligible for another order of 4 free at-home [Covid] tests from USPS.” Order here!
Old photos of basketball games and boxing matches often have a pleasing...
Old photos of basketball games and boxing matches often have a pleasing hazy blue background that modern photos lack. “The blue haze that adds such a wonderful ambience to the arena is caused by cigarette smoke.”
I appreciate this no-nonsense flight safety video from Emirates. All the jokey...
I appreciate this no-nonsense flight safety video from Emirates. All the jokey entertaining ones are corny and have grown tiresome.
In the late 19th century, hotels started building fully outfitted darkrooms for...
Kodak and the Invention of Popular Photography
In 1888, the Eastman Kodak Company rolled out a new camera and a new slogan. “You press the button, we do the rest.” To say this moment revolutionized photography would be an understatement. But this story isn’t just about Kodak. It’s about what happens when a powerful technology, originally only understood by a select few, can suddenly fit in your hand.
And then, fast-forwarding to the 90s and 00s, Kodak gradually, then suddenly, missed a similar shift that further democratized photography: the move to digital.
Tags: Kodak · photography · video
Fun little word game: Alphaguess. “Guess the word of the day. Each...
Fun little word game: Alphaguess. “Guess the word of the day. Each guess reveals where the word sits alphabetically.” (Today’s puzzle took me 16 guesses…is that good?)
The Pudding has collected satellite imagery of all 59,507 outdoor basketball courts...
The Pudding has collected satellite imagery of all 59,507 outdoor basketball courts in the United States.
The Williamsburg Bridge Riders
Adam DiCarlo takes photos of commuters (mostly bikers) as they exit the Williamsburg Bridge bike path on the Manhattan side and posts them to his Instagram account. (via @BAMstutz)
Tags: Adam DiCarlo · cycling · NYC · photography
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Dark Matter Could Be Hiding Out as Atom-Sized Black Holes. “Black holes...
Dark Matter Could Be Hiding Out as Atom-Sized Black Holes. “Black holes the size of an atom that contain the mass of an asteroid may fly through the inner solar system about once a decade”…and we can theoretically detect them through planetary wobble.
The Return of Ta-Nehisi Coates, a lengthy profile of the writer on...
The Return of Ta-Nehisi Coates, a lengthy profile of the writer on the eve of the publication of The Message, his book about “three resonant sites of conflict”, including Palestine.
The Artists’ and Writers’ Cookbook
Published in 1961 with an introduction by Alice B Toklas, The Artists’ and Writers’ Cookbook features recipes and wisdom from dozens of writers and artists, including Harper Lee, Man Ray, Marcel Duchamp, Pearl Buck, Upton Sinclair, John Keats, and Burl Ives. Lee shared her...
Frozen food delivery service Schwan’s will shutter in November. Founded in 1952...
Frozen food delivery service Schwan’s will shutter in November. Founded in 1952 (and now called Yelloh 🙄), the company cited “economic & market headwinds”. When I was a kid in rural WI, a visit from “the Schwan’s man” was an *event*, let me tell you.