nikhil.io

When I was about 13 or so, I was blown away when I learned that ancient Greek and Roman statues used to be painted and were not commissioned to be ghostly-white. An all-time favorite is this Greek sculpture of a Persian archer. Source: “We know Greek statues weren’t white. Now you can see them in…

Well not really. I was immediately reminded of (a) where I grew up and (b) Dune when I saw this photo of a Bedouin mother and her child. “Bedouin Mother”, Ilo Battigelli, 1948 (Source Unknown) Intense and so beautiful. It was composed by this chap called Ilo Battigelli (1922-2009, RIP) who work…

NEW YORK—Claiming he could easily fit into a similar position at most companies, local CEO Mike Waltke told reporters Monday that his skill set was transferable to any job that requires an inept dumbass to receive a big salary. “I have the incompetence necessary to effortlessly transition into a r…

This is insanely adorable. /misc/b/baby-octopus-jellybean.mp4 For more cuteness, you can see a high-res photo of a transparent baby octopus or a baby octopus’ chromatophores 🥰…

If you liked that, you might like this longer documentary called “Being Poirot” by Suchet himself.…

I feel very personally attacked by Mr. Lovenstein. And somehow glad I’m not the only person who, for instance, purchases a glorious WaterRower1 and proceeds to give it a thousand cumulative and approximate ‘pulls’ over three years. 🤦‍♀️ Because he saw it in House of Cards and thought it looked sic…

Via Ellen 💯…

This beauty is by Owen Gent an artist and illustrator from Bristol (Insta). He appears to do a lot of book covers and I just love his work. Here are a few favorites.…

I can stare at photographs of the Nefertiti Bust all day. It’s just so alive. It was carved out of limestone and covered in stucco/plaster. The eyes were made out of quartz and affixed with beeswax. Just so beautiful. Wikipedia has a 3D model you can look at.…

Indecision has been a pretty huge problem in my life and this comment by /u/tomwaste hit home. I’m not sure if people have experienced the same but when I entered my 30s I became convinced I was rapidly running out of time. Rather than using that as motivation I let it paralyze me with indecision b…

This is Zephyr, a “captive-born gray wolf” at the Wolf Conservation Center in NY. Below, you can hear him and his friends orchestrate some of the most beautiful sounds you will hear today. I’ve watched this five times and it was somehow even better with my eyes closed. /misc/w/wolf-howling.mp4 Here’…

My dudes. Cached here via YouTube because it is too precious to be yanked off the internet. Via Rob G. /misc/w/wednesday.mp4 It also occurred to me that the OS in the video would be more usable, more respectful, and less full of spyware than the giant crock of shit that is Windows 11.…

This is from a while ago but I didn’t get the memo. It’s a little crazy: It’s named after Reddit user /u/vaieriepieris, an ESL teacher from Texas, who made it for a map subreddit in 2013. There are more Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and Communists inside the circle than outside it. It “pulls all of…

As far as Indian Gurus go, I find this guy more illumined and full of practical, actionable advice than, say, this guy, less full of shit than this one, and definitely less batshit crazy than this one. /misc/t/true-purpose-of-life.mp4 Via LT 🙏 Update The creator of the video is Masood Boomgaard. He…

I mean just look at it 🥰…

Do not depend on the hope of results. When you are doing the sort of work you have taken on, essentially an apostolic work, you may have to face the fact that your work will be apparently worthless and even achieve no result at all, if not perhaps results opposite to what you expect. As you get us…

Saved me a ton of time with small project I’m working on right now. Looks like it’s written in C.…

A couple from snowy Minnesota decided to take a winter vacation back in the simple Florida resort where they had stayed for a honeymoon twenty-five years before. Because of his wife’s delayed work schedule, the husband went first, and then when he got there he received a message that she would me…

I like nothing more in the world than sitting on my ass doing nothing. And it’s not my fault I have this attitude, because I happen to have an amazingly comfortable ass. It may not look like much, but if you could sit on this baby for two minutes, you’d realize that getting off this ass would be a…

The secret of life is to have a task, something you devote your entire life to, something you bring everything to, every minute of the day for the rest of your life. And the most important thing is, it must be something you cannot possibly do. Henry Moore Via this collection of lovely talks by m…

Unknown artist, circa 1800 The terrifying goddess Kali, wearing a necklace of skulls and holding a severed head in one of her hands, is worshiped here by other gods. From the left, we see Indra, Brahma (the creator), Vishnu (the preserver), and Shiva (the destroyer). Kali is associated with viole…

These articles are from a while ago. I love them a lot. By Michael Deacon. That’s true, mused the accomplished composer of thrillers that combined religion, high culture and conspiracy theories. His books were read by everyone from renowned politician President Obama to renowned musician Britney S…

I just love this. Couldn’t find out who drew it. Via MVB whose grandma is a huge fan and with whom I will watch an episode or two one day 🤗💗🕵️‍♂️…

This is a clip from the very funny Kathleen Madigan’s 2016 standup special Bothering Jesus. I’ve been saying it a lot these days. It’s just tremendously satisfying to say. /misc/m/mermaid-lady.mp3…

Here’s Bryan Cantrill’s classic assessment of Oracle Corporation (taken from this talk.) /misc/b/bryan-cantrill-oracle-1.mp4 On Twitter, a year after that video: If you were an enterprise database customer who hadn’t heard of the Nazis, might it be easiest to explain them with Oracle allegory? @b…

In 1967, the Films Division of India1 asked all kinds of 20-year olds about their dreams and how they felt about the future of a nation that was, itself, 20 years old. Here’s the original video. A lot of the kids who speak English in the video (starting at 5:00) attend the august Indian Institute of…

Artist Unknown…

Dil Se, written and directed by Mani Ratnam, is one of my all-time favorite movies. I still consider its soundtrack to be A R Rahman’s greatest work. It’s just magnificent stuff. When I was 15, I remember seeing the movie’s trailer1 and being awestruck by this haunting background song2 that didn’t m…

Journalist David Walsh recounting a story about his late son John in the context of his work uncovering Lance Armstrong and the USPS Pro Cycling Team’s “most sophisticated, professionalised and successful”1 doping program. One story stood out. One of John’s teachers at [inaudible] National School…

Absolutely beautiful work by Nada Maktari 🔥 Here are a few others for the Dune that didn’t get made.…

At the Brihadisvara Temple in Thanjavur. About as mesmerizing as percussion can get. /misc/t/thanjavur-drumming.mp4 Speaking of mesmerizing, see this performance by the great Zakir Hussain at the Berklee College of Music.…

Renay Mandel Corren passed away at 84 a week ago (RIP 🙏). Her son wrote what is one of the best obituaries I’ve read in a while. A small excerpt: Here’s what Renay was great at: dyeing her red roots, weekly manicures, dirty jokes, pier fishing, rolling joints and buying dirty magazines. She said s…

This (beautifully formatted and well-paced-and-delivered and surprisingly sparsely attended) talk by Gabriel Lebec on the fundamentals of Lambda Calculus is one of my favorite talks ever. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VQ382QG-y4 As Lebec explains, the lovely bird names come from this book called…

For “the greatest movie never made”, although there appear to be a few contenders1 for that title, like Stanley Kubrick’s Napoleon. My absolute favorite is the last one by Hugo Emmanuel Figueroa 🙌 Pe-release flyer (Source) by Matt Chinn. Variation 1 by Stan and Vince. Variation 2 by Stan and V…

Good government never depends upon laws, but upon the personal qualities of those who govern. The machinery of government is always subordinate to the will of those who administer that machinery. The most important element of government, therefore, is the method of choosing leaders. Law And Gover…

The National Rifle Association says that, “Guns don’t kill people, uh, people do.” But I think, I think the gun helps. You know? I think it helps. I just think just standing there going, “Bang!” That’s not going to kill too many people, is it? You’d have to be really dodgy on the heart to have tha…

Because we don’t simply write non-annoying and non-creepy software that respects you and does the thing you want it to do anymore. Gotta deliver Value™ to all key stakeholders. By which we mean ourselves and the Market. Not you. You are nothing more than Data that taps “Purchase” to us.…

Stephen Crowley is a product designer who maintains @ShitUserStory, my favorite new Twitter account1 (via Deepu). He also maintains a Medium blog with gems like these: “Can Squid Game make you a better UX designer?” (cached) “What I’ve learnt about design from parenting a toddler.” (cached) “How I…

A most beautiful, graceful, and sublime rendition of one of my all-time favorite songs. /misc/d/dil-se.mp4 Lovely, lovely stuff 🙏❤️ (via Deepu) See also: Worlds Beyond the Stars…

I see I’ve been summoned. Your comments in this thread make it clear that nothing will change your position. It’s a difficult position to combat, because it’s in such a defiance of literally anything written on the topic in at least the last 50 years. You are not operating off the same foundations o…

Old stuff, but always immensely satisfying to read ♥️…

by the wonderful Amii James (Insta)…

I cannot help rewatch this powerful scene from “Margin Call”. A masterclass in acting by the great Jeremy Irons. Every sentence, glance, and gesture projects complete and menacing presence, power, and finality, and is done to absolute perfection 👌 /misc/m/margin-call-sell-it-all.mp4…

I’m not saying there’s going to be a schism or anything, but I’m not not saying that, either. This is just genius. (Cached)…

The Borremose Man died in the 7th century BCE. He was bludgeoned to death from the back of his head and had a rope with a slip knot tied around his neck. It is believed that he was a human sacrifice. He was found in the Borremose peat bog in Himmerland, Denmark in 1946. Shortly after, two other, le…

I will always let my puppy inspect everything for approval (and, usually, immediate loss of interest.)…

/misc/o/octopus-stealth-mode.mp4 This is indescribably badass.…

Lovely Python-esque stuff. /misc/c/cricket-absurd.mp4…

by @sportsracer48 (Patreon) /misc/s/sportsracer48-1.mp4 /misc/s/sportsracer48-2.mp4…

I love these etudes by Professor Yun Shin. I saw them at the Des Moines Art Center a few years ago. All images © the artist…

She addresses graduate/PhD students struggling to complete their theses but there’s quite a bit to learn here. She considers procrastination as a perfectly logical response: why wouldn’t one seek pleasure? It’s something that (a) reveals a lot about what you’re afraid of and (b) is hence a protectio…

I used to have a printout of this at my desk at work because I just loved looking at it so much 🌸♥️ It was pretty popular on the internet a while ago. The little girl’s name is Butedmaa and she was just 5 when this picture was taken in 2003 by photographer Han Chengli, who titled it “Inner Mongoli…

(Source unknown) TIL that (a) tentacles and arms are two different things and (b) there is a lot more diversity to this family1 than I’d imagined! I don’t mean “family” in a taxonomic sense.↩︎…

This beautiful piece was sculpted in Japan around the 13th century and is about three feet tall. The subject is a Zen Buddhist monk Shinchi Kakushin, who lived till the ripe old age of 95. After his death, he was given the title “perfectly awakened national teacher of the Dharma lamp” which is what…

by Ned Gulley at Star Chamber from a long, long while ago.…

If you’ve ever installed a program using “curl XYZ | sh” don’t worry about what’s in the vaccine Daniel Feldman ♥️♥️♥️…

Simply delightful. Here’s an article about him.…

Not sure why this actually got to me.…

By Barry Deutsch, September 2009. Things are much better now.…

In college, I remember being blown away by a huge, physical map of metabolic pathways our Biochemistry professor once brought into class. It looked like this: Here it is online. Kinda like a Google Maps of cellular reactions. It was impressed upon us that the interior of a cell (especially a eukary…

A New Hampshire family says that after a night out to eat at Friendly’s didn’t go so well, a restaurant staffer decided to express their inner feelings through the increasingly preferred medium of the restaurant’s billing system, dropping the phrase “100% sh*t show” at the bottom of the dinner bill.…

/misc/s/shacarri-richardson.mp4 I’m not crying, you’re crying.…

This is just indescribably beautiful. /misc/b/blanket-octopus.mp4…

Two absolutely mesmerizing videos by Universal Everything. I could watch them for hours and might just loop them on the old iPad. This one’s called “Walking City” https://vimeo.com/85596568 Here’s another called “Transfiguration” 🙌 https://vimeo.com/429924982 Here’s a third video (not by Universal…

This is the best ever episode of “Monkey News”. No further discussion.…

/misc/t/tony-benn-speech.mp4 I finish just by saying this: war is an easy thing to talk about; there are not many people - a - of the generation that remember it. The right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup served with distinction in the last war. I never killed anyone but I wore uniform. But…

My favorite visualization of “Clapping Music” by Steve Reich. Here’s a video of him performing it with one other musician. /misc/c/Clapping-Music.mp4…

I love this work by @VisualDon. It sold for ~$45,000 at an NFT auction. Here’s how he made it. /misc/v/visualdon-1.mp4…

“You know I wrote this in… when I was looking at the mirror, right?” /misc/p/prince-cream-live.mp4 “I’m serious.”…

I was rather dismayed to find out that there were no more episodes of “Grill Talk” with the leader of one of the worst companies on the planet1. I wonder if the PR team that thought it was a good idea to show the ‘casual and human’ side of their ethically bankrupt CEO are still with the company. Her…

Neil Panchal on substituting shitty, ineffective, and expensive consumer-grade items with their industrial and military grade equivalents. Emphases mine: The average consumer is an idiot, so the bean counters keep milking them. Let’s stick RGB lights in what used to be the BMW, you know the ultima…

/misc/b/big-happy-guy.mp4 I love Oliver beyond words. Here’s another happy doggy. Update: Here’s another Big Happy Guy /misc/b/big-happy-guy-2.mp4…

This is one of the most seriously badass representations of Shakti I’ve seen in a while. The goddess is shown seated on obsessed boy (Corpse or Preta). The corpse is placed on a pedestal. The deity has a skeletal body, veins can be seen clearly. Its face is ferocious and wrathful; eyes are poppin…

Reddit user and evident Mark Wood fan @kanyay-west put together this list of England’s All-Time Cricketing Best when asked “What’s your country’s all time ODI XI?” I’ve reproduced it here and formatted it for clarity. I laughed a lot to this and am a rather silly person 🙏♥️ Mark Wood Mark Wood Ma…

By Charles Barsotti a sage of a cartoonist, who drew a lot of dog cartoons ♥️ 🐶 over his long life.…

Whenever I get discouraged and want to quit something, I remember the words of my then 3 year-old after she puked carrots all over the living room floor: “I’m gonna need more carrots.” Jessica Valenti Now write down “You’re gonna need more carrots” on a sticky and look at it from time to time ♥️…

With the trailing comma and sorted properties/imports/arguments/whatever. Makes symbols easy to scan from top-to-bottom and looks like this in Python: from constants import ( EXIT_CODE_ARTICLE_ROOT_NOT_FOUND, EXIT_CODE_NOT_A_GIT_REPOSITORY, EXIT_CODE_NOT_AN_ABSOLUTE_PATH, MARKDOWN_EX…

There’s a difference between doing things right and doing the right thing. Doing the right thing is wisdom, and effectiveness. Doing things right is efficiency. The curious thing is the righter you do the wrong thing the wronger you become. If you’re doing the wrong thing and you make a mistake an…

I absolutely love this otherworldly work by Maria Svarbova (Wiki, Web, Insta.) GN thought they looked like stills from a Wes Anderson short film.…

Though capitalism has had a longer lease of life than some of us would’ve predicted or that many of our ancestors of the socialist movement did predict or allow, it still produces the fax machine and the microchip and still able to lower its costs and still able to flatten its distribution curve v…

Somoza called himself “president”. The Sandinistas called him a “dictator”. They called themselves “freedom fighters”. He called them “Commie terrorists”. So they kicked him out then they were in charge. Ronald Reagan called them “Commie oppressors” and he sent in the Contras, whom he called “free…

“I love you, Ted Danson.” /misc/t/top-ten-malkovich.mp4…

Don’t. Just let this kid assure you that everyfing’s gonna be alright. /misc/d/dont-worry.mp4…

I love this more than I can describe.…

Just stop it. /misc/b/bob-newhart-stop-it.mp4 Via Professor Goldsman.…

I love this so much. Just look at this happy fuzzderp 🥰 By /u/noah9389…

This is around Rovaniemi, Finland. By Jani Ylinampa, whose Instagram account is just magical. Here’s another picture. Looks like a highly detailed miniature.…

“Positive Affirmations don’t work when I question them, Jeremy.”…

Some surrealism: Jan Švankmajer - Lunch (Food 1992). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yM3uxZjdfo The shortest film ever nominated for an Academy Award: Fresh Guacamole by PES. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNJdJIwCF_Y Cooking utensil salad by Omozoc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=da7iGPigiz4 And…

It’s important to state though, particularly since our current economic structure has pushed that “there is no such thing as society”. That might sound insane, but it is not hyperbolic. In 1987, Margaret Thatcher, Prime Minister of the UK, said that “There is no such thing as society. There is [a] l…

Was discussing water quality in Des Moines with DL. Told her that our city couldn’t hold a candle to Ames, that their water was the “cleanest around.” Wanted to prove this but couldn’t find the 2014 viral hit “Hooray for Ames” video anywhere on the internet. GN, blessed datahoarder that he is, lucki…

/misc/w/whats-wrong-with-you.mp4…

It is remarkable that mind enters into our awareness of nature on two separate levels. At the highest level, the level of human consciousness, our minds are somehow directly aware of the complicated flow of electrical and chemical patterns in our brains. At the lowest level, the level of single at…

A devoted dog has spent days waiting outside a hospital in Turkey where her sick owner was being treated. The pet, Boncuk, which means bead, followed the ambulance that transported her owner, Cemal Senturk, to hospital in the Black Sea city of Trabzon on 14 January. She then made daily visits to…

♥️♥️♥️ Via @uiowa…

Here’s to a Malarkey-Free America 🇺🇸🍦😎 Things won’t magically start getting better. He isn’t perfect. But he certainly is a decent human being, if only because he isn’t malevolent narcissism incarnate. And unless your career depends on democratic dysfunction and systemic ineptitude, cruelty, and…

Wait, is Bernie is wearing the same jacket from his meme at the inauguration? @thealanjohnson The pose. The mittens. The social distance. @vulture Bernie dressed like the inauguration is on his to do list today but ain’t his whole day. @MsReeezy And about those mittens: Bernie’s…

That didn’t happen. And if it did It wasn’t that bad. And if it was That’s not a big deal. And if it is That’s not my fault. And if it was I didn’t mean it. And if I did You deserved it. Unknown…

ROSS: “And Sasha you’ve got… is it two girls and a boy?” COHEN: “Too early to say, really.” The Jonathan Ross Show…

Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a great ocean of anguish, reachin…

Via CO. Succinct and appropriate for a gamut of events. /misc/w/what-do-we-learn.mp4…

I made a bet at work that involved me eating my Crocs (if I lost, of course), prompting my co-worker to send me this story about Eric Taylor, a “former Magic: The Gathering player and highly regarded Magic columnist, especially during the earlier days of the game” (MTG Wiki), who made a similarly ha…

once you reach a certain age if you pull an all-nighter, you die @FeelingEuphoric…

From this book that features 14 animals. Which are definitely not octopuses.…

Lord of our lives and sovereign of our beloved nation, we deplore the desecration of the United States Capitol building, the shedding of innocent blood, the loss of life, and the quagmire of dysfunction that threaten our democracy. These tragedies have reminded us that words matter and that the po…

It’s run by the fine folk at Loganberry Books, costs a nominal $4 per submission, and has a very admirable 50%+ success rate. Here’s my submission 🤞 Via CK ♥️…

Absolutely lovely stuff by Doug John Miller. Ordered it in puzzle-form (which comes with a giant poster.) This is a pretty high-res image. Tap to explore!…

Ronald Ray Cobb was “an American-Australian cartoonist, artist, and film designer” who passed away in September last year. He worked on movies like “Back to the Future”, “Jodorowsky’s Dune”, and “Alien”. An ornithopter! But it’s perhaps his cartoons that are more enduring and eeriely relevant afte…

This is such a wonderful idea. Stand opposite the glass and you’d know what Kruševac Fortress in Serbia looked like in its heyday: Franklin Court in Pennsylvania is another example of how one could illustrate architectural history. Franklin Court was the site of the handsome brick home of Benjami…

Fat claim, but I cannot imagine anything more badass than this. /misc/p/perfect-timing.mp4 Here’s the full video. The presenter’s James Burke. From the YouTube comments: I remember seeing an interview with him and the person asking him the question asked him “How was that shot perfectly timed?” He…

Here’s the full graphic. Watch anything by PBS SpaceTime on the subject 💯…

by @buttpoems…

This is indescribably beautiful. Source: tirthayatra.org by @renji_snapshot. Here’s more information and history.…

I love, love, love this work by Elke König.…

Here are her website and Wikipedia page.…

I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time – when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one r…

Bas Uterwijk’s AI portraits1 look just like photo shots, but are largely generated by an algorithm. He uploads drawings and paintings, often images of people who lived before the invention of photography. With the help of a neural network he creates realistic interpretations that appear as if they…

Serigraph for sale at the Davidson Galleries (it’s $550.)…

Corpsing is British theatrical slang for unintentionally laughing during a non-humorous performance or when a role in a humorous performance is intended to be played “straight”. In North American TV and film, this is considered a variation of breaking character or simply “breaking”. Wikipedia He…

Here’s some more of his art and his Facebook page. Not sure if these are licensed, but you can buy some prints off Indian Amazon.…

Saith The Lord to Socialist Democrats: ha, nice try. healthcare is about consumer choice. get a job and enroll in a market-based plan. no peter i won’t help you that will only create dependency pick yourself up by your own sandal straps it’s called personal responsibility. i would love to give you…

“Am I truly controlling anything?” (cached)…

😭 Clever girl 🐘 ♥️…

I must have watched this 14,221 times. A parody of this (real) miniseries. There’s a Part III too.…

Had to cache it because this is just lovely stuff. Pretty sure I had a mini-blackout when I read the Trainspotting part 💯…

/misc/o/octopus-jar.mp4 ♥️🐙♥️…

Bilal Göregen (YouTube, Instagram) is the Turkish street musician in my favorite video of 2020. /misc/g/greatest-video-ever.mp4 He sounds like a very positive, gracious, and sweet human being on this KnowYourMeme interview1 which features this delightful nugget (emphasis mine): Q: How has the respo…

You could almost just narrate the body changes and narrate the dream. So here she’s asleep. She sees a crab and her color starts to change a little bit then she turns all dark. Octopuses will do that when they leave the bottom. This is a camouflage like she’s just subdued a crab and now she’s going…

(Source Unknown)…

Mentioned this to NB. Saving here for later. /misc/f/fred-rogers-acceptance-speech-frisson.mp4 On this event: Yes, at seventy years old and 143 pounds, Mister Rogers still fights, and indeed, early this year, when television handed him its highest honor, he responded by telling television—gently,…

Just pure joy. /misc/b/bobby-mcferrin-pentatonic.mp4 Source (without annotation). See also: “Ave Maria”.…

👏 👏 👏 (cached)…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJiMpiMa7ug “Nidhi: In thirty-five years of being in this industry, I’ve never seen a dish look like that… taste so good. It’s delicious.”…

Myrna Tellingheusen is my new favorite person on the internet ♥️…

On the developer side, what I hope people are doing is trying to make, not just good code, but these days we’ve been very good about having explanations for the code. So commit messages to me are almost as important as the code change itself. Sometimes the code change is so obvious that no message…

by the incomparable Herb Ritts. Not the same Dracula, but seeing these made me think of one of my favorite things: “Horrible Tragedy” by Philip Glass and the Kronos Quartet for the 1931 movie.…

On tech culture’s obsession with quantifying and optimizing every single moment of one’s existence1: I hate this framing. It is pressuring, dehumanizing as it contextualizes human endeavor in transactional terms, usually in a market. I know this goes against the ethos of high-tech, but humans don’t…

I have found a new thing I’m going to turn into scrambled eggs repeatedly until I get it right. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uXi8BE7Wo0 See also: more omelettes.…

When I see a carefree runner in I-did-not-need-to-see-that shorts in windy, 5-degree weather. By @artbyjuliet.…

This is the "the oldest surviving complete musical composition, including musical notation, from anywhere in the world" and dates from “either from the 1st or the 2nd century AD.” It was found engraved on a tombstone and was “dedicated by Seikilos to Euterpe, who was possibly his wife.” (W…

Started with this blog post about why one would need a monad (from a typing standpoint.) Then watched “What the 𝒇 is a Monad” which made a lot of things clear. Then watched this excellent, excellent talk on Lambda Calculus (with JS and Haskell code!) by Gabriel Lebec. Finished with a quick practica…

Dependencies (coupling) is an important concern to address, but it’s only 1 of 4 criteria that I consider and it’s not the most important one. I try to optimize my code around reducing state, coupling, complexity and code, in that order. I’m willing to add increased coupling if it makes my code mo…

I am so proud to be an Iowan. Iowa is fucking awesome, and here is why: In 1838, before we were even a state, our Supreme Court upheld the law that in Iowa escaped slaves couldn’t be forced to return to a slave state. The same year it became law an unmarried women could own property. In most of…

by Lawson Wood (more work here.) I first saw this when I was about 10 and tried my first jigsaw puzzle with my little sister. We were quite mesmerized by the painting. We found the puzzle too difficult and lost the pieces. 26 years later, I found a complete puzzle on eBay and can’t wait to put it t…

2019 in review, by way of Mr. Lovenstein’s comics. And why not just twist the knife?…

I thought using loops was cheating, so I programmed my own using samples. I then thought using samples was cheating, so I recorded real drums. I then thought that programming it was cheating, so I learned to play drums for real. I then thought using bought drums was cheating, so I learned to make m…

I’ll consider myself dead on the inside until I’m this ecstatic after sipping mushroom soup. /misc/h/happy_baby_human.mp4…

So, here you are too foreign for home too foreign for here. Never enough for both. – Ijeoma Umebinyuo, Questions for Ada and Home is not where you are born; home is where all your attempts to escape cease. – Naguib Mahfouz…

One of my favorite things in the world. Located southwest of Orion in the southern-hemisphere constellation Fornax, the rectangular image is 2.4 arcminutes to an edge, or 3.4 arcminutes diagonally. This is approximately one tenth of the angular diameter of a full moon viewed from Earth (which is le…

I absolutely love Dustin Curtis’ splendid explanation of “AppleTV” branding that’s making making the rounds on HN. For posterity, I stole this handy color-coded transcription off Michael Tsai’s blog. See also: The intractably stupid AppleTV Remote.…

I could just stare at his work all day. This one’s called “The River of Life” and this one “Deep Forest”…

Linus Torvalds on git I’d also like to point out that unlike every single horror I’ve ever witnessed when looking closer at SCM products, git actually has a simple design, with stable and reasonably well-documented data structures. In fact, I’m a huge proponent of designing your code around the dat…

This is just wonderful stuff. More on his website and on Instagram. /misc/g/gavin_shapiro/1.mp4 /misc/g/gavin_shapiro/2.mp4…

When I was little — and by the way, I was little once — my father told me a story about an 18th century watchmaker. And what this guy had done: he used to produce these fabulously beautiful watches. And one day, one of his customers came into his workshop and asked him to clean the watch that he’d…

Behold Ray Cicin’s yuge version of Ernst Haeckel’s octopus illustration drawn with discarded ballpoint pens. Prints are available.…

Was watching an episode or two of Joy of Painting with my sister when we wondered what happened to all the finished paintings on his show. Now we know. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDs3o1uLEdU…

Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a great ocean of anguish, reaching…

I cannot get over how maddeningly cute this is. Reddit user pendragwen’s comment makes it even better: Awww! But look at how they test out their chromatophores first thing after hatching! It’s speculated that color-changing is how they communicate and show emotion. Almost like a little joyful stret…

Michael Leggett, lead designer of Gmail from 2008-2012 “It’s like Lucky Charms got spewed all over the screen,” he says to me, as he scrolls through his inbox. It’s true. Folders, contacts, Google apps like Docs and Drive–and at least half a dozen notifications–all clutter Gmail at any given moment…

Dom Ricciobene makes stunning 3D topographic maps, and very satisfying time-lapses, with a CNC machine. Like this one (don’t want to embed Instagram.) Here’s one of Westeros 💯…

Bill Hader is made to faceshift when doing his impression of Arnold Schwarzenegger. It’s weird and brilliant and I love it. Here’s another where he does Al Pacino. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPhUhypV27w TIL about the term “deepfakes”.…

Absolutely amazing stop motion by Daniel Cloud Campos & Co. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUCTnmWT5Lk Here’s the making of. They did it over 17 days. I wonder when they got any sleep. At one point he says “we got 2 seconds after 4 hours.” ~3 minutes of video = 360 hours, or 15 days 😬 And it r…

Whenever you’re called on to make up your mind,    and you’re hampered by not having any, the best way to solve the dilemma, you’ll find,    is simply by spinning a penny. No—not so that chance shall decide the affair    while you’re passively standing there moping; but the moment the penny i…

For My Mother by May Sarton Once more I summon you Out of the past With poignant love, You who nourished the poet And the lover. I see your gray eyes Looking out to sea In those Rockport summers, Keeping a distance Within the closeness Which was never intrusive Opening out Into the world. And what…

Vicki Boykis’ excellent article on every aspect of ‘Data Science’ I can think of: a little history, employment prospects, skills, education, and continuous learning. It would appear that more than half the job, at least, is wrangling (replicating, cleaning, imputing, transferring, understanding, aug…

Tyler Vigen maintains around 30,000 examples of “spurious correlations” (also available in book form). For instance: You can also “discover” your own. Like this one…

Ramin Nazer on some models he entertains of what happens to us after we die. A few of my favorites…

Best thing I’ve seen this year. About as spiritual as it gets. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uD4izuDMUQA After an unimaginable length of time, even the black holes will have evaporated and the universe will be nothing but a sea of photons, gradually tending towards the same temperature, as the ex…

A delightful, 20-minute video from the Hamilton Watch Company1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rL0_vOw6eCc and a tl;dw version of the above Bought one after looking to get the “Murph Watch” in Interstellar. That article notes that they only made 10 for the movie (and gave one away.) Well, they’re of…

A few favorites from a selection of Kenny Shopsin’s infinite wisdom. He ran this diner (which doesn’t really sound like one…) On ambition It’s just an initiation into the idea until the abilities to appreciate life forthe moments in a row starts to make you a deeper and more fulfilled person, and t…

All Yesterdays is an exploration of things we know we will never know about “dinosaurs and prehistoric animals” . Jonathan Wojcik at bogleech.com has an excellent review of the book. Of particular interest: We know little-to-nothing about the creatures’ anatomies and morphologies because of missing…

makes absolutely mesmerizing cyberpunky, vaporwavey 3D art.…

The Des Moines Register on how to send them email in (I’m guessing) the late 80s/early 90s. An article on how Baud Rate isn’t the same as Bit Rate Baud rate refers to the number of signal or symbol changes that occur per second. A symbol is one of several voltage, frequency, or phase changes. NRZ…

By John Atkinson…

Set to “Destino” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mV40xyl9bRA 💗💗💗…

This is absolutely beautiful. I’m happy there’s a way to generate music that sounds like one of my favorite tracks. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QspuCt1FM9M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYvHwyjUGFg…

'Posting’ in the pen world refers to what you do with your pen cap while you write [. . .] when you put the cap on the back of the pen while you write, regardless of whether it pushes on or screws on with threads. and [. . .] what do you do with the cap? Do you put it on the desk? Hold it in your…

An interactive model of the office from The Office 😍…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOXULpUpR08 Heard this and was made aware of this timeless album for the first time at a very strange party at Iowa State. RIP Sam Zaman.…

by Dani Donovan…

Inter UI looks beautiful, comes in all sorts of weights, has thousands of glyphs, and is free 💗 (via Arun Venkatesan’s blog.) Source…

Via co-worker DH. Dara Ó Briain on how Racism is better than Astrology: Racism is one of the worst social evils they can imagine. “How dare you do that?” they say. "How dare you ascribe to me personality traits? You don’t even know me, but you tell me that you know me, and you know these thing…

Ross Pomeroy for RealClearScience, “What’s the Most Efficient Language?” [. . .] travel the world and record at least a dozen speakers of every language reading those passages aloud at their normal cadence. Count the overall number of syllables used for each passage and measure the time it took sub…

Roel Nieskens “leveraged the synergy of ligatures” to create a free typeface called Sans Bullshit Sans. It turns this The value proposition of our agile mindset and scrum methodology is to enable the emergence of disruptive, convergent, crowdsourced platforms that allow our clients to lean in and e…

As if I needed another reason to fall in love with Tilda Swinton Swinton penned a phony IMDb biography to keep the secret, and wore fake genitalia, created by makeup artist Mark Coulier, while in character. (“She did have us make a penis and balls,” Coulier told the paper. “She had this nice, weigh…