A beautifully shot HD video of machines manufacturing springs and other wire gizmos. I love how all the tools take turns and work together to make the widgets. Imagine the chatter amongst the tools:

“Ok, thanks, my turn.”

“Here, hold this while I turn it. Alright, we’re out.”

“Lemme just bend that a little for you.”

“Outta the way, I just gotta twist this for a sec.”

(via @pieratt, who says to substitute Steve Reich for the provided music)

[This is a vintage post originally from Oct 2016.]

Tags: how to · robots · timeless posts · video

“A trio of photographers in New Zealand have captured images of ‘red sprites’, or red lightning, one of the rarest light phenomena in the world, in which luminous crimson flashes appear in the sky.”

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“Members of the Danish National Chamber Orchestra playing Tango Jalousie while eating the worlds hottest chili peppers” (ghost peppers, Carolina Reapers). This is what elite professionalism looks like.

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I Visited Every Country in the World Without Flying. Here Are Eight Things I Learned. “What you want and what you need are not the same thing.”

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Bionic and the Wires connects sensors to plants and fungi to help them play music.

The attached sensors measure bio-electrical fluctuations in the mushroom. The fluctuations are converted into signals that control the robotic arms. The keyboard is playing a synth in Ableton Live.

What are the chances it’s just saying “uh, can you get these things off of me?” Top YouTube comment tho: “Play that fungi music.” (thx, pascal)

Tags: mushrooms · music · video

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New exhibition at the British Library in London: Secret Maps. “Some of the maps on display reveal hidden landscapes, offering insight into places long forgotten or erased from official histories. Others are purposefully deceptive…”

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Royal Family is a daily game where you have to position six chess pieces on a board so that none of the pieces attack each other and there’s only a single piece in each marked zone.

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TIL: “Key man risk refers to the potential threat a company faces when a crucial employee, often a key executive or expert, is no longer available.” I think KDO has key person risk, although maybe I overestimate my VORP.

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Cole Escola (Oh, Mary!) is writing the screenplay for a Miss Piggy movie. Jennifer Lawrence & Emma Stone are producing. (Crossing my fingers for a Pigs in Space scene…)

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Speaking of Daft Punk, did you know they released some new music recently? Ok well, that’s not quiiiite true, but in late September, Epic launched the Daft Punk Experience in Fortnite and IMO it’s a) extremely cool, nd b) should be considered a part of the group’s official d...

Space Type Generator is “a kinetic type generator” that’s a hell of a lot of fun to mess with.

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Low Skilled Workers Are a Myth. “[Minimum wage jobs] are not low-skill. They simply require different skills, ones that not just anyone possesses.”

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In his most recent video, Evan Puschak takes a close look at Marlon Brando’s face and gestures in a scene from On the Waterfront to explain how Brando changed film forever.

And this is what makes Brando a genius: when his eyes betray his words. His voice says, “What do you really care?” But his eyes say, “Please care. Please show me that you care.”

Welp, time to watch On the Waterfront, I guess.

Tags: Evan Puschak · film school · Marlon Brando · movies · On the Waterfront · video

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OREO! OREOOREO! RE! ORE! OREORE! OREOREOREOREORE!

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Earth’s got a new moon! (Sort of.) “This asteroid is part of an elite cosmic club which acts like moons but aren’t.” If asteroid, why moon acting?

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After completing another long solo walk, Craig Mod wrote about fullness: This is why I always say: Aim for fullness if you want happiness. If the creator itself came down from the sky at the end of a big walking and photographing and writing day and asked: Did ya do all ya...

Lego is considering making this fan-created Daft Punk set into an official set. YES PLEASE.

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Australia has so much solar that it’s offering everyone free electricity. “The program would require electricity retailers to provide free electricity to everyone for at least three hours a day…”

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Apple Macbook Air M4s are on sale again, somehow even cheaper than over the summer. The 13-inch base model is $749 (25% off) while this 15-inch one is $1,149.00 (-18% off). There are other configurations (more/less RAM/HD) too if you click through. Here’s what I wrote a few months ago about the 13-inch base model when it was $50 more:

This is the 13-inch base model and $800 is an absurdly low price for so much computer, especially in the age of the mad king’s tariff scheme.

I have the 15-inch M4 (typing on it now!) and I could not be happier with it. I had a 13-inch M1 Air before that and getting the faster M4 Air with a larger screen has changed where and I how I work, allowing me to be away from my desk a lot more (e.g. at the Tokyo coffee shop I’m sitting in now) but still be productive.

Tags: Apple · computers

Researchers created a roof paint (a “nano-engineered polymer coating”) “that not only reflects up to 97% of the sun’s rays, but also passively collects water”. And kept the interior of the building 6°C (~11°F) cooler.

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Lego will be releasing a fan-created bowl of ramen as an official set.

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New book just out: The Cory Arcangel Hack. “This book explores three dominant arrangements in Arcangel’s work — the flow-break hack, the flow-remix hack, and the flow-parody hack…”

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There are some internet projects for which no one is clamoring, but when completed produce a masterpiece of creativity. This Rollercoaster Tycoon video tying the tracks to Defying Gravity (from Wicked) is one such masterpiece.

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Speaking of new stamps, these Bruce Lee stamps are pretty great too:

Tags: Bruce Lee · stamps · USPS

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The US Postal Service released a sneak peek at some of the stamps they’re going to release in 2026. Among them are these lowrider stamps:

Five models grace the stamps: a blue 1946 Chevrolet Fleetline named Let the Good Times Roll/Soy Como Soy; a blue 1958 Chevrolet Impala named Eight Figures; a red 1963 Impala named El Rey; an orange 1964 Impala named the Golden Rose; and a green 1987 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme named Pocket Change. The Gothic-style typography and the pinstriping on the stamps and pane evoke the detailed decoration that is a hallmark of the most celebrated lowrider cars.

Tags: cars · stamps · USPS

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Thing I was not expecting: a 4-star review of Predator: Badlands from Matt Zoller Seitz; he calls it “an exceptional sci-fi action thriller with memorable characters, beautiful and terrifying animals (and plants), a structurally airtight script…”

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France enshrines need for consent into rape law in wake of Gisèle Pelicot case. The bill states that consent must be “free and informed, specific, prior and revocable”.

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Edith Zimmerman: How I Broke My Drinking Habit. “How do you fill your time after deciding to get sober?” See also an extended convo on the How to Be a Better Human podcast.

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I don’t even know what this is — classical pop? surrealist orchestral? — but it goes hard and is kind of fantastic. Wow. A few comments from YouTube:

This is the most insane lead single from a pop artist I’ve ever come across! I’m absolutely stunned.

The only criticism I’m going to make is that the song should last at least 8 minutes.

I feel this needs to replace whatever was stolen from that museum in France.

Berghain by Rosalía is available to stream or buy on many of the usual platforms.

Tags: Bjork · music · Rosalía · video · Yves Tumor

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Decision Desk HQ calls the NYC mayoral race for Zohran Mamdani. (Eric Adams: 0.3% of the vote. Worst mayor ever.)