“Birds in the United States are not only declining, but they are declining faster, especially in areas with intensive agriculture, according to new research.”

A playable CSS-only Super Mario Bros game. Wow.

A generator for VHS slipcovers, cassette tape inserts, CD labels & inserts. You can paste in Spotify URLs, search for movies, etc. Really cool and fun.

The chess program available on Delta Air Lines’ seatback screens is an ELO monster that can beat almost all opponents on easy mode. This guy used a series of increasingly powerful bots to see just how good the Delta chess bot is. Can it beat a grandmaster-level bot? (via clive thompson)

Tags: chess · Delta · games · video

What does it feel like to be struck by lightning? “Some have to relearn simple things, things they’ve done their whole life — how to read, how to sing, how to ride a bike.”

Trailer for Spider-Man: Brand New Day. I like that Tom Holland. I’m into it.

The Fascinating Engineering of the Titanic: How the Great Ocean Liner Was Built. “Issues of the journal The Engineer published between 1909 and 1911 contain detailed photographs of the construction of both the Titanic and Olympic…”

Cesar Chavez, a Civil Rights Icon, Is Accused of Abusing Girls for Years. “Ms. Murguia and another woman, Debra Rojas, say that Mr. Chavez sexually abused them for years when they were girls, from around 1972 to 1977.”

This is a mindblowing time capsule of ordinary life: video of a group of friends taking the NYC subway to Coney Island in 1987. Because it was before mobile phones, they had to arrange to meet one of the group members in the first car of the train along the way. The film ...

Jamelle Bouie says the SAVE Act will take us back to Jim Crow South: “a one-party state, backed by the threat of violence, where the law ensures that most people cannot hope for meaningful political representation.”

“This is an interactive story about In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) told from two perspectives: Parent and Child. Select one to continue.”

The Mysterious Redditor Who’s Changing the Way We Do Laundry. “Most of the world uses powdered laundry detergent, which allows for more enzyme flexibility; Americans generally prefer liquid, which doesn’t always contain these precious enzymes.”

Am I a sucker for these kinds of ultra-detailed images by Richard Nadler because I am a fan of Richard Scarry books and Wes Anderson movies or am I a fan of Scarry & Anderson because I’m a sucker for these kinds of ultra-detailed images? (Or is it because I’m aphantasic and require external imagery for this level of detail?) See also Mark Alan Stamaty’s NYC Illustrations and Infinite Illustrations. Tags: Richard Nadler

Twin adventurers are cleverly testing modern vs. historic gear. “If they went on an expedition, and Ross wore modern kit while Hugo wore historic replicas, any difference in performance…could be attributed solely to the gear, not genetics.”

The teaser trailer for Dune: Part Three. I am nonplussed by this trailer, both in the traditional and modern senses.

Extreme Macro Photos of Insect Wings. Hundreds of images are stacked to create a deep depth of field that’s impossible to do optically, ensuring everything is in focus.

I love this planet & stars chart from XKCD because it’s technically correct but also completely useless.

Tags: astronomy · infoviz · science · xkcd

Nobody Gets Promoted for Simplicity. “You can’t write a compelling narrative about the thing you didn’t build. Nobody gets promoted for the complexity they avoided.”

Battery prices continue to fall. “Lithium-ion battery prices don’t get constantly discussed the way crude is, but these declines add up to a decisive shift that will determine the energy landscape of the next decade.”

“The US is hurtling towards autocracy at a faster rate than Hungary and Turkey”. The Varieties of Democracy Institute: “Our data on the USA goes back to 1789. What we’re seeing now is the most severe magnitude of democratic backsliding ever…”

Gorgeous: rural Kyoto in the heavy snow.

Gullible, Cynical America. “They’ll insist that you can’t trust scientists, because they’re part of the conspiracy. The podcaster selling you his special creatine gummies, though? He seems trustworthy.”

“In today’s new Gilded Age, the 900-plus billionaires in the US have far too much influence over our elections, our economy, our government policies and our news media, and it’s urgent for Americans to create a movement to curb their power…”

The Holocaust History Podcast: “In this episode, I talk with Andrea Pitzer about the long, global history of the concentration camp and its evolution over time. We talk about what the definition is, what qualifies something as a concentration camp…”

The Louvre has the Mona Lisa. Here’s what other institutions consider their Mona Lisas. For instance: the National Portrait Gallery in London has a portrait of William Shakespeare and MoMA has the Gold Marilyn Monroe.

The 20 Best Food Scenes in Movies. Ratatouille, Big Night, When Harry Met Sally, Tampopo, etc. What’s missing?

Would you like to watch a puppet DJ a chill set of French house music in cool workplace meeting space? Trick question because of course you would. This went right into my Underscore collection. (via undermanager)

Tags: music · video

“Pay enough, and you can jump to the front of the queue for almost anything.” Concierge Nation: Welcome to White-Glove America. “Exclusivity — even if it comes at the cost of social cohesion — is the business model.”

Maybe it’s because I’m a little bit allergic to hype, but I just now got around to reading this review of the Macbook Neo by Sam Henri Gold that absolutely everyone has been recommending and, well, this might be the best product review ever written? The consensus is reason...

The Trump regime is deliberately destroying the scientific community in the US. “This is not efficiency. This is not streamlining. This is the systematic elimination of scientific stewardship at the world’s largest biomedical research funder.”