— GeistHaus

Linkfest #21: Wooden satellites, "Post-Binary" Fonts, and A New Way To Dice An Onion

The Linkfest Jun 11, 2024

<hr/> Well hello there. It’s time! Once again! For the best part of the week: "The opposite of doomscrolling”. Here’s your next “Linkfest”, jammed full of the finest Internet treats I could truffle-hunt for y’all. In this issue there are two separate items about fonts; it’s a trend? I guess? Thank you again for subscribing! If you’re enjoying it, then hey — spread the word and forward this email to anyone who you think might enjoy it, far and wide. There's <a href="https://buttondown.email/clivethompson/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-21-wooden-satellites-post-binary-fonts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">a pay-what-ya-want signup here; the folks who can afford to contribute help keep it free for everyone else</a>. Let’s begin ... <hr/><h2>1) 👾 “Pnogstrom”, a fantastic free updating of Pong</h2> <figure><img alt="An animated gif showing a black screen with a game of pong ongoing. Each side has a green paddle, moving up and down, and the two players are volleying two dozen glowing pong balls, which move across the screen in a flock, almost like a group of sparrows or geese. There are also three smaller tiny paddles bouncing balls back-and-forth, and several electrical waves, crackling back-and-forth, as well as two small power-ups." contenteditable="false" draggable="false" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/35df0a3b-7dec-4e71-8bfe-4188126caeb7.gif?w=960&fit=max"/><figcaption></figcaption></figure> I saw <a href="https://raould.github.io/pn0gstr0m/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-21-wooden-satellites-post-binary-fonts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">this free browser game</a> over at <a href="https://waxy.org/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-21-wooden-satellites-post-binary-fonts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Andy Baio’s Waxy.org</a>, and clicked on it, figuring I’d try it for a minute or so. Whoops. I sat there in a trance for half an hour. Pnogstrom is a really fun, weird, surprising update on the ur-arcade game. I won’t give away too many spoilers (part of the fun of the game is in seeing how the play mechanics evolve) but it’s basically Pong played against an AI opponent, in which every time either of you hit a ball it divides. The result, as you see above, is that the screen gets quickly filled with dozens and dozens of balls — and then a bunch of power-ups, all of which tweak the game in neato ways. It seems chaotic, but I soon got the hang of it. (BTW, this really shows the staying power of Pong’s original design, eh? Over 50 years after its first release, designers — <a href="https://github.com/raould?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-21-wooden-satellites-post-binary-fonts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Raoul Duke in this case</a> — can still reupholster the gameplay in creative ways.) Give it a try! But maybe set aside an hour in case you get mesmerized like me … <hr/><h2>2) 📡 A wooden satellite</h2> <figure><img alt="A photograph of a workbench covered with a green cutting mat. On the cutting mat sits a tangle of wires protruding from a cube made of light wood that appears to be pine. The cube is bolted together with screws in each corner of the cube. The side of that faces us has five large shiny screws embedded, and they support a black ring of plastic, though it's not clear what the function of this ring is. The cube is also sitting on top of what appears to be a shiny static bag. In the back are various electronic components in a roll of tape, and sundry tools." contenteditable="false" draggable="false" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/2e8c5690-fa77-42eb-8bc6-3c5959317d45.png?w=960&fit=max"/><figcaption>via Kyoto University</figcaption></figure> Next summer, NASA and several Japanese researchers are going to launch <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/07/asia/japan-wooden-satellite-scn-spc/index.html?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-21-wooden-satellites-post-binary-fonts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">the first satellite made of wood.</a> Apparently wood survives really well in space! The Kyoto University researchers tested wood’s ability to survive in space back in 2020, when they had three types of wood exposed to the frigid inky vaccuum for 290 days. The wood, amazingly, “had no measurable changes in mass and showed no signs of decomposition or damage.” <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/07/asia/japan-wooden-satellite-scn-spc/index.html?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-21-wooden-satellites-post-binary-fonts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">As one of the researchers told CNN …</a> <blockquote>“When you use wood on Earth, you have the problems of burning, rotting and deformation, but in space, you don’t have those problems: There is no oxygen in space, so it doesn’t burn, and no living creatures live in them, so they don’t rot,” <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/scientific-contributions/Koji-Murata-2169985012?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-21-wooden-satellites-post-binary-fonts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Koji Murata</a>, a researcher at Kyoto University, tells <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/07/asia/japan-wooden-satellite-scn-spc/index.html?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-21-wooden-satellites-post-binary-fonts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">CNN</a>’s Rebecca Cairns. </blockquote> Better yet, wood allows radio waves to pass through, making it possibly more useful than metal for equipment that needs to communicate. And when the satellite is decommissioned and burns up on re-entry, the wood parts won’t leave toxic chemicals in the stratosphere the way regular satellites do. In fact, the Japanese researcher Koji Murata, who’s leading the project, envisions <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/07/asia/japan-wooden-satellite-scn-spc/index.html?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-21-wooden-satellites-post-binary-fonts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">all manner of space structures — including the interior of space vessels, and dwellings on Mars — being made from wood …</a> <blockquote>“It is a renewable, environmentally friendly, and people-friendly material,” says Murata. “I think wood could be used in space development, particularly as an interior material and for radiation shielding material, for small satellites and manned space vehicles.”</blockquote> I am really taken by this idea! It brings the aesthetics of pre-modern shipbuilding to extraterrestrial travel. I wonder if a partially-wooden interior would be psychologically beneficial to astronauts and people living on other planets? The presence of a natural material could be quite lovely in an environment that’s otherwise so sterile. The big dangers are obviously fire, which is really bad on a space vehicle — as is the possibility of it being a host to molds and other nasty spores during a really long-haul flight. But one could imagine, with NASA’s budgets, interior wood being treatable to minimize those risks. WOOOOOOOOD INNNNN SPAAAAAAACE … <hr/><h2>3) 📻 Cartridge to play FM radio on the Game Boy</h2> <figure><a href="https://hackaday.com/2024/05/23/orange-fm-brings-radio-to-the-gameboy/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-21-wooden-satellites-post-binary-fonts" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><img alt='A photo of a green game boy with a jet black screen. On the screen is glowing large text, colored beige. The text shows the numbers 88.9, and beneath it you can read the title of the song currently playing: "ice cream (payphone) by black pumas". Next to the game boy is a die cut sticker in the shape of an orange, with a text written on the surface beneath it, "orange, FM prototype".' contenteditable="false" draggable="false" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/fd7f5b03-dca8-4559-a9b5-83396f6247ad.png?w=960&fit=max"/></a><figcaption>via <a href="https://hackaday.com/2024/05/23/orange-fm-brings-radio-to-the-gameboy/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-21-wooden-satellites-post-binary-fonts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Hackaday</a></figcaption></figure> <a href="https://hackaday.com/2024/05/23/orange-fm-brings-radio-to-the-gameboy/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-21-wooden-satellites-post-binary-fonts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">As Hackaday writes …</a> <blockquote>We’ve all been there. You left your Walkman at home and only have your trusty Game Boy. You want to take a break and just listen to some tunes. What to do?</blockquote> AN EXCELLENT QUESTION What you do is get yourself <a href="https://orangeglo.github.io/orangefm/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-21-wooden-satellites-post-binary-fonts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">an Orange FM cartridge, which has a built-in FM antenna and software to listen to FM radio!</a> Check out that sizzle-reel video in that link; it’s kind of … a great idea? In a weird way? Alas, you can’t quite get one yet; the creator orangeglo says <a href="https://orangeglo.github.io/orangefm/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-21-wooden-satellites-post-binary-fonts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">it’s not yet commercially available</a> but they’re hoping to have units in production in the near future. When you finally get your mitts on one, you can alternate using it alongside your <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary-Kate_and_Ashley:_Pocket_Planner?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-21-wooden-satellites-post-binary-fonts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Mary-Kate and Ashley “Pocket Planner”</a> cartridge <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_IAVReixMI&utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-21-wooden-satellites-post-binary-fonts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">to organize your to-dos</a>. <hr/><h2>4) 🔠 Post-binary fonts</h2> <figure><img alt='A screenshot of the name "Clive" printed 12 times in a 4 x 3 grid. Each time it is printed it is in a different font. The fonts range from standard ones that look like Times New Roman -- i.e., simple serifed classy fonts -- to much more inventive loopy curves or strange, thin angles.' contenteditable="false" draggable="false" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/66022df2-82da-4390-9cd1-7a34fe4f8047.png?w=960&fit=max"/><figcaption></figcaption></figure> Behold <a href="https://typotheque.genderfluid.space/index.html?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-21-wooden-satellites-post-binary-fonts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">the “Bye Bye Binary” font library</a> — a collection of fonts designed to be “post-binary”. It’s a collection created by a group of French designers, with the goal of making fonts that help remove the gender specificity of gendered French words. As <a href="https://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/bye-bye-binary-typotheque-graphic-design-project-060624?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-21-wooden-satellites-post-binary-fonts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Ellis Tree writes in It’s Nice That …</a> <blockquote>So what exactly is a post-binary font? And how is one constructed? Using inclusive and non-binary language as a “ground for experimentation and research”, the collective goes about designing bespoke glyphs, ligatures, links and meeting points between letterforms to render the otherwise gendered words of the French language, gender neutral. Amongst the collection of fonts, the collective has reworked the classic typeface Baskerville in order to create their inclusive BBB Baskerville*.*</blockquote> I don’t write in French, so I can’t attest to how well these fonts serve that purpose. But I gotta say I love the idea — it’s super playful and creative — and the fonts themselves totally slap. Above is my name rendered in <a href="https://typotheque.genderfluid.space/index.html?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-21-wooden-satellites-post-binary-fonts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">a bunch of the fonts</a>. They’re nice, eh? I’m going to <a href="https://typotheque.genderfluid.space/index.html?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-21-wooden-satellites-post-binary-fonts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">download a few</a> and try ‘em out in some little web apps I’m designing! <hr/><h2>5) 🧅 Computer modeling finds the best way to chop an onion</h2> <figure><a href="https://www.pexels.com/photo/person-s-chopping-onion-244395/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-21-wooden-satellites-post-binary-fonts" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><img alt="A close-up photo of a white man's hands chopping a red onion, on a white plain background." contenteditable="false" draggable="false" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/669192f6-2388-49f4-b744-c35841fc9e6b.png?w=960&fit=max"/></a><figcaption>via <a href="https://www.pexels.com/photo/person-s-chopping-onion-244395/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-21-wooden-satellites-post-binary-fonts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Pexels</a></figcaption></figure> When I dice an onion, I use the traditional method: After topping and tailing it, I cut the onion in half, then chop each half using cuts that are evenly spaced horizontally, vertically, and lengthwise. X-Y-Z Minecraft stuff. The problem is, this method produces onion-chunks of highly varying shapes and sizes. The pieces towards the middle of the onion are more cubic — but as you go outwards to the edge, they become more lengthwise. You can see that problem here … <figure><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/how-to-cut-onion.html?unlocked_article_code=1.y00.mGDT.KgfSbvL336rb&smid=url-share&utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-21-wooden-satellites-post-binary-fonts" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><img alt="A screenshot of a diagram that shows the concentric circles of half an onion, arrayed so they look like a rainbow shape. On the left-hand side, there are a series of up and down vertical dash lines, illustrating how a series of cuts in the onion produce different shapes. Towards the center of the onion the pieces are more square; towards the edge, they are long and skinny." contenteditable="false" draggable="false" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/97ba922e-9ee6-40f9-a9c1-ddef3bbdc007.png?w=960&fit=max"/></a><figcaption>via <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/how-to-cut-onion.html?unlocked_article_code=1.y00.mGDT.KgfSbvL336rb&smid=url-share&utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-21-wooden-satellites-post-binary-fonts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">J. Kenji López-Alt</a></figcaption></figure> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/how-to-cut-onion.html?unlocked_article_code=1.y00.mGDT.KgfSbvL336rb&smid=url-share&utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-21-wooden-satellites-post-binary-fonts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">The cookbook author Kenji López-Alt recently wondered if there was a better way to cut an onion.</a> The main alternative is the “Lyonnaise” cut, where you chop radially, i.e., as if the onion were a pie and you were cutting slices. But this has problems too: The angles also produce pieces of uneven sizes. To find a better way, López-Alt used math. He and his friend Rui Viana built a computer model of an onion that let you try different numbers of cuts and different angles. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/how-to-cut-onion.html?unlocked_article_code=1.y00.mGDT.KgfSbvL336rb&smid=url-share&utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-21-wooden-satellites-post-binary-fonts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">This allowed them to try a cool experiment, including — below — the winning one …</a> <blockquote>I wondered what would happen if, instead of making radial cuts with the knife pointed directly at the circle’s center, we aimed our knife at an imaginary point somewhere below the surface of the cutting board, producing cuts somewhere between perfectly vertical and completely radial.This proved to be key. By plotting the standard deviation of the onion pieces against the point below the cutting board surface at which your knife is aimed, Dr. Poulsen produced a chart that revealed the ideal point to be exactly .557 onion radiuses below the surface of the cutting board. Or, if it’s easier: Angle your knife toward a point roughly six-tenths of an onion’s height below the surface of the cutting board. If you want to be even more lax about it, making sure your knife isn’t quite oriented vertically or radially for those initial cuts is enough to make a measurable difference in dice evenness.</blockquote> Here’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/how-to-cut-onion.html?unlocked_article_code=1.y00.mGDT.KgfSbvL336rb&smid=url-share&utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-21-wooden-satellites-post-binary-fonts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">what that cut looks like …</a> <figure><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/how-to-cut-onion.html?unlocked_article_code=1.y00.mGDT.KgfSbvL336rb&smid=url-share&utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-21-wooden-satellites-post-binary-fonts" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><img alt="A screenshot of a diagram that shows the concentric circles of half an onion, arrayed so they look like a rainbow shape. On the left-hand side, there are a series dash lines that cut through the onion in a slightly fanned-out fashion." contenteditable="false" draggable="false" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/b6672efe-eb75-47c0-87f5-e03f39181f2e.png?w=960&fit=max"/></a><figcaption>via <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/how-to-cut-onion.html?unlocked_article_code=1.y00.mGDT.KgfSbvL336rb&smid=url-share&utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-21-wooden-satellites-post-binary-fonts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">J. Kenji López-Alt</a></figcaption></figure> I love it: Using math to solve a kitchen dilemma! <a href="https://www.geogebra.org/m/SQVanQq5?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-21-wooden-satellites-post-binary-fonts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">If you want to play with the geometric model, it’s online here</a> — you drag the onion around and use sliders to change the angle and number of cuts, then instantly behold the results. López-Alt <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/how-to-cut-onion.html?unlocked_article_code=1.y00.mGDT.KgfSbvL336rb&smid=url-share&utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-21-wooden-satellites-post-binary-fonts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">wrote an excellent piece in the New York Times — free gift link here and above</a> — describing the whole conundrum of onion geometric and his experiments; check it out! <hr/><h2>6) 💰 The economics of the Shire in Tolkien’s novels</h2> <figure><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hobbiton,_The_Shires,_Middle-Earth,_Matamata,_New_Zealand_-_panoramio_%287%29.jpg?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-21-wooden-satellites-post-binary-fonts" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><img alt="A photo of a house built into a hill. The house has a large green, round door, with red and yellow decorations around the edges, and a small round, stained glass window to the right and left of the door. There are several steps leading up to it, and the hill into which the house is built is covered in green grass. In the background we see a gnarled tree with no leaves reaching towards the sky" contenteditable="false" draggable="false" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/6c070d55-69b5-4696-ace7-10c0f251c2df.png?w=960&fit=max"/></a><figcaption>David Broad, via <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hobbiton,_The_Shires,_Middle-Earth,_Matamata,_New_Zealand_-_panoramio_%287%29.jpg?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-21-wooden-satellites-post-binary-fonts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Wikimedia</a></figcaption></figure> In Tolkien’s Middle-Earth novels, we’re told that hobbits spend a lot of time chilling out and eating. They don’t work hard, or much, at all. But <a href="https://nathangoldwag.wordpress.com/2024/05/31/the-moral-economy-of-the-shire/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-21-wooden-satellites-post-binary-fonts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">this doesn’t make sense, as Nathan Goldwag notes.</a> The hobbits also have access to everyday goods that are the products of “mills, full-time craftsmen, inns, and the large-scale cultivation of luxury crops, despite having almost no foreign trade”. Given that premodern agricultural societies required a ton of labor, “how does this jibe with the leisurely lives of simple pleasure that our Hobbit heroes seem to enjoy?” It’s because <a href="https://nathangoldwag.wordpress.com/2024/05/31/the-moral-economy-of-the-shire/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-21-wooden-satellites-post-binary-fonts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">the hobbits upon whom Tolkien focuses the story aren’t typical hobbits. They’re the 1%!</a> <blockquote>Bilbo, Frodo, Merry, and Pippin are all very clearly members of the landed gentry, the landowning class that controls most means of economic production and maintains social dominance over the Shire. This isn’t really extrapolation or interpretation, it’s more-or-less text, and I suspect the only reason it’s not spelled out is because Tolkien assumed any reader would understand that intuitively. Bilbo and Frodo are both gentlemen of leisure because the Baggins family is independently wealthy, and that wealth almost has to come from land ownership, because there isn’t enough industry or trade to sustain it. They can afford to go on adventures and study Elven poetry because they draw their income from tenant farmers renting their land. Merry and Pippin are from an even higher social tier; both are the heirs to powerful families that hold quasi-feudal offices (the Master of Buckland, for the Brandybucks, and the Thain, for the Tooks).</blockquote> It’s <a href="https://nathangoldwag.wordpress.com/2024/05/31/the-moral-economy-of-the-shire/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-21-wooden-satellites-post-binary-fonts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">a very fun essay</a> that not only explores the books but the history, sociology and economics of “squierachy” in real-life medieval England, upon which — it appears — Tolkien more or less based the habits and moral economy of The Shire. It also helps explain the relationship between Sam and Frodo, which is that of “a feudal retainer, not just a person in an employee relationship, but someone who owes personal fealty to him”. <hr/><h2>7) 🧠 “Kinopio”, a fun visual mindmapping tool</h2> <figure><img alt="Screenshot of a mind map. It begins in the upper right hand corner with a line drawing of a desk shaped apparatus entitled "Memex: As We May Think". a line from it goes off to the left and connect to a screenshot of an active paper, entitled "JCR Licklider'd man computer symbiosis". There was another line from the first icon, stretching down to a screenshot of the first web browser, entitled 'Inquire: Tim Berners-Lee, precursor to the web", another line, extending to a screenshot of the first Netscape browser, entitled "Netscape browser ". If you go back to the original icon, there is another line stretching downwards that connects to a screenshot of an academic paper entitled "augmenting human intellect, Douglas Engelbart". A line stretches downward from that to a black and white picture of a man's hands manipulating a very crude prototype of a mouse and keyboard; the title to this is "the mother of all demos". A line from that stretches rightwards towards a picture of a computer with a operate screen, entitled "Xerox alto". A final line stretches from that to a picture of the McIntosh computer, entitled "MacIntosh"" contenteditable="false" draggable="false" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/9b570d0c-c655-4fe3-80df-a67045e01fae.png?w=960&fit=max"/><figcaption></figcaption></figure> Pirijan is a super-talented designer and coder who co-created <a href="https://glitch.com/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-21-wooden-satellites-post-binary-fonts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Glitch</a>, the online tool for creating and remixing apps that I use all the time. (My <a href="https://weird-old-book-finder.glitch.me/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-21-wooden-satellites-post-binary-fonts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Weird Old Book Finder</a> is hosted there!) Pirijan has also created <a href="https://kinopio.club/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-21-wooden-satellites-post-binary-fonts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Kinopio</a>, a very fun mind-mapping and thought-organizing tool. You can jot down ideas or post images, make lists, draw little mind-mappy lines connecting one concept to another; since it’s all online you can share your wall of crazy with others too. There’s a free tier and paid if you want to use it more intensively. Above, a quick little map I drew of the history of “tools for thought” intellectual work and how it led to various products. <hr/><h2>8) ♾️ A Möbius strip in a Persian invention from 850</h2> <figure><img alt="Screenshot of a page from the book of knowledge of ingenious mechanical devices. It is yellowed and shows -- in the upper-left-hand side -- a cartoon-like drawing of a loop of buckets that stretch down into water and upwards towards a pole that moves the buckets via a series of gears. The gears appear to be pulled by a cow." contenteditable="false" draggable="false" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/d4a667b2-0e55-45d4-bfb8-b90fda923905.png?w=960&fit=max"/><figcaption></figcaption></figure> In 850, the Islamic engineer Isma‘il Ibn al-Razzaz al-Jazari published The Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices, a collection of designs for various clocks, devices, and automata. One of the devices is a “chain pump”, i.e. a set of buckets or barrels connected via two ropes, so they go in a loop, getting water at the bottom and carrying it to the top, then going down again, ad infinitum. Chain pumps are a very old technique — but al-Jazari’s pump has a genius twist: He arranged the pump in a Möbius strip. <a href="https://www.rcai.it/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Moebius.pdf?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-21-wooden-satellites-post-binary-fonts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">As Julyan Cartwright and Diego L. Gonzalez note in a scholarly paper, this Möbius configuration made the buckets last longer …</a> <blockquote>Thus the containers … pass once in one position and the next time rotated 180 degrees. An engineering advantage might be that containers could last longer being used symmetrically in this fashion and not always stressed on one side, and an asymmetrical breakage would still allow a damaged container to maintain a certain efficiency every second turn.</blockquote> Apparently many belt-driven devices, over time, adopted this Möbius configuration, for the same purpose: It makes the belt last longer because the belt gets worn on both sides. But al-Jazari appears to be among the first, and possibly the first, to have figured this out. BTW, go check out <a href="https://www.rcai.it/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Moebius.pdf?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-21-wooden-satellites-post-binary-fonts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">the rest of Cartwright and Gonzalez’s paper</a> — which tracks instances of Möbius strips in art and design in the ancient world. Very cool! (Also, if you want to see an English translation of al-Jazari’s The Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices, there’s <a href="https://archive.org/details/cover_20200113_2057/mode/2up?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-21-wooden-satellites-post-binary-fonts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">a free one scanned at the Internet Archive</a>. Alas, it is in black and white, and thus lacks the gorgeous gilt and color of the original medieval illustrations.) <hr/><h2>9) ⌨️ A century-old typeface is discovered at the bottom of the Thames</h2> <figure><img alt="A photo of a grid of letters done in metal type. There are arranged with about 20 letters across and eight down, forming a cube. The letters are reversed to our view, and they do not spell anything; they seem to be randomly arranged. The metal type letters look very old and slightly corroded." contenteditable="false" draggable="false" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/dc4adb11-6608-4885-8b08-5339b35cb258.png?w=960&fit=max"/><figcaption>by Matthew Williams Ellis, via Emery Walker’s House</figcaption></figure> Back in 1900, the typographer T.J. Cobden-Sanderson invented the font “Doves”. It’s famous for having clean, round lines — below, you can see a Bible printed in Doves. Codben-Sanderson designed this edition for the Doves press, which he founded with a business partner … <figure><a href="https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2024/05/doves-type/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-21-wooden-satellites-post-binary-fonts" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><img alt='A photo of the opening passage of the Bible in a very large book. The top line is large, bold, uppercase letters, saying "in the beginning", with the eye stretching downwards, the entire length vertically of the page of text. The rest of the text is small and normal sized and in black.' contenteditable="false" draggable="false" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/493fafa3-ed54-4a71-824d-7e9c2a619c80.png?w=960&fit=max"/></a><figcaption>photo by Lucinda MacPherson, via <a href="https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2024/05/doves-type/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-21-wooden-satellites-post-binary-fonts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Colossal</a></figcaption></figure> But in 1917, T.J. Cobden-Sanderson called it quits. He disbanded the Doves Press, and — to try and make sure the font was never used again — chucked the entire physical font in the Thames. <a href="https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2024/05/doves-type/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-21-wooden-satellites-post-binary-fonts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">As Kate Mothes writes …</a> <blockquote>In March 1917, Cobden-Sanderson declared publicly that Doves Press was closed, and its type had been “dedicated & consecrated” to the River Thames. “Nobody actually quite got it,” Green says. “And Cobden-Sanderson writes a letter to the solicitor saying, ‘No, I wasn’t talking figuratively. The type is gone.'” He didn’t want Walker to have access—or anyone else, for that matter.Remarkably, Cobden-Sanderson recorded in his journals the exact date and location that he dumped the type into the water, which took him 170 trips to discard in its entirety. With each load weighing around 15 to 20 pounds, that’s a lot of metal.</blockquote> But eventually the font was found! In the 2000s, typography enthusiast Robert Green learned about the Doves font, and began digging into the muck of the River Thames in the precise location Codben-Sanderson claimed he’d tossed it. It took years of digging, but <a href="https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2024/05/doves-type/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-21-wooden-satellites-post-binary-fonts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">eventually Green found 151 pieces of the type (out of 500,000 that originally existed).</a> Green has also created <a href="https://typespec.co.uk/doves-type/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-21-wooden-satellites-post-binary-fonts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">a digital version of the font that you can license here.</a> His terms are pretty reasonable; I might actually license it myself. I find Doves to be really beautiful and readable. My go-to font for text is Hoefler Text (created by an old online friend of mine, Jonathan Hoefler); this reminds me of it, except a bit rounder. <hr/><h2>10) 🧜 On the toxic behavior of Greek heroes</h2> <figure><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/69716881@N02/27293812107/in/photolist-HzRVrn-273Toty-qm1QQ8-24ukSiS-JZ18oY-eWtR82-eWFhbG-eWtUUx-eWFiow-eWFhKS-eWFjPq-eWtVpv-eWtW6F-eWFjpU-eWtWfZ-eWFiWh-eWtQsR?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-21-wooden-satellites-post-binary-fonts" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><img alt="A photo of several ancient Greek sculptures of Warriors. One appears to be Athena - on the right hand side, facing towards the right. The other two are men, one holding a shield and one raising a bow and arrow, and they are facing towards us. The background is very dark black, and they are lit from the right hand side, so they stand out in sharp contrast against the background. It is a very dramatic effect." contenteditable="false" draggable="false" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/3aafa203-efcd-4906-8cbb-1ef6f4599103.jpg?w=960&fit=max"/></a><figcaption><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/69716881@N02/27293812107/in/photolist-HzRVrn-273Toty-qm1QQ8-24ukSiS-JZ18oY-eWtR82-eWFhbG-eWtUUx-eWFiow-eWFhKS-eWFjPq-eWtVpv-eWtW6F-eWFjpU-eWtWfZ-eWFiWh-eWtQsR?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-21-wooden-satellites-post-binary-fonts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">“La guerre, c’est la guerre” by Egisto Sani</a> (CC 2.0, <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-21-wooden-satellites-post-binary-fonts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">unmodified</a>)</figcaption></figure> In the modern world, we typically reserve the word “hero” to describe someone who does something selfless and pro-social — i.e. risking themselves to help others. The ancient Greeks didn’t use “hero” that way. <a href="https://themillions.com/2023/03/the-casual-villainy-of-greek-heroes.html?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-21-wooden-satellites-post-binary-fonts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">As the classicist and novelist Claire Heywood notes in this terrific short essay, you often became a hero in ancient Greece via behavior that was wildly violent, prideful, and erratic.</a> For example, the boxer Kleomedes was disqualified from a match “after killing his opponent with a foul move”, and was so pissed off he tore down a school in his hometown, killing the students within. People — as the just-so story goes — were horrified but also awestruck, and the Delphic Oracle decreed that Kleomedes afterwards be worshiped as a hero. Also, in ancient Greece, heroes were generally assumed to be half-diety — i.e. children of a human and a god — and were thus expected, and entitled, to be as capricious and violent as the Greek gods themselves. I think this is why I’m so fascinated by the ancient Greek worldview, and reread those classics so often. They’re records of a culture that both revered this sort of septic masculinity, and was super worried about it. Those strands are woven together inextricably and with complexity. <a href="https://themillions.com/2023/03/the-casual-villainy-of-greek-heroes.html?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-21-wooden-satellites-post-binary-fonts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">As Heywood notes, in ancient Greek literature, the heroes often wind up hurting themselves …</a> <blockquote>Sophocles’s tragic play about the demise of Ajax is perhaps the most poignant reflection on this problem, and proof that the ancient Greeks themselves were anxious about the culture of toxic masculinity they had created. Ajax, once the greatest hero of the Greek army after Achilles, fails to prove his worth and win the right to Achilles’s armor, then fails to take his revenge on those who had denied him the honor. He becomes trapped within the cage of his own values, desperate to confirm his status, and yet heaping more shame upon himself with every failure. Instead of accepting his mistakes or making amends, which would further gall his sense of masculine pride, he concludes that the only way to preserve his tattered dignity is through suicide. This is framed in the play not as a noble exit for a great hero, but as a needless act which leaves his wife, his son, and his men abandoned.</blockquote> Go read the whole essay — it's pretty short and thought-provoking. <hr/><h2>11) 🎼 The “Bleepler”, a strangely expressive two-button synth</h2> <html><body><div> <iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" class="youtube" frameborder="0" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/yMcTrX94r7A" title="YouTube video player"> </iframe> </div></body></html>Langel Bookbinder (<a href="https://bandcamp.com/puke7?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-21-wooden-satellites-post-binary-fonts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">musician, chiptune-tech creator</a>) has created the “Bleepler”, a tiny synthesizer with only two buttons: A mechanical key to trigger notes, and a potentiometer to change the pitch. Not much, but as he shows in his charming demo video, you can produce surprisingly complex melodies by twisting the knob around — if you push while twisting you can get a glissando, so it sounds a bit like a bitcrushed bluesy trumpet or trombone. He also shows how you can mute the little speaker with your palm, producing a wah-wah sound. I wish I could get one, but <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/loblast/bleepler/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-21-wooden-satellites-post-binary-fonts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">his Kickstarter campaign is over.</a> I hope he’ll do another run and put the kits up for sale! <hr/><h2>12) 🌊 Lord Kelvin’s tide-predicting mechanical computer</h2> <figure><a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-21-wooden-satellites-post-binary-fonts" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><img alt="A photo of a mechanism that has 10 gears arranged in a V shape, with the V pointing to the left. In the center of the V is large round dial with a hand pointing to 12 o'clock. On the right hand side of the device there is a large hand crank. Several brass gears connect all the parts of the mechanism together. At the bottom, there appear to be three rolls of paper that record the results of the machine." contenteditable="false" draggable="false" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/7eb0fa42-fb38-4698-87f2-2cde7b75b268.jpg?w=960&fit=max"/></a><figcaption>via <a href="https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co53901/william-thomsons-tide-predicting-machine-1872-tide-predictor?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-21-wooden-satellites-post-binary-fonts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Science Museum</a> (<a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-21-wooden-satellites-post-binary-fonts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">CC BY-NC-SA 4.0</a>)</figcaption></figure> William Thomson is better known as Lord Kelvin, since he figured out the value of absolute zero. But he also made tons of money from patents after he laid the first transatlantic cable — and he loved boats, so he spent a lot of his fortune sailing the world. Sailors have to carefully monitor the tides, which, back in the 1870s, involved laborious calculations based on cycles of the moon, the sun, and the Earth. Thomson <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/tide-predictions?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-21-wooden-satellites-post-binary-fonts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">decided to automate these tedious calculations by building an analog computer</a> — a series of gears that represented the complex interactions of 10 different cyclic features. Crank the machine, and it would tell you what tides you were facing that day. <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/tide-predictions?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-21-wooden-satellites-post-binary-fonts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">As Alison Marsh writes in IEEE Spectrum …</a> <blockquote>The components were geared together so that their periods were proportional to the periods of the tidal constituents. A single crank turned all of the gears simultaneously, having the effect of summing each of the cosine curves. As the user turned the crank, an ink pen traced the resulting complex curve on a moving roll of paper. The device marked each hour with a small horizontal mark, making a deeper notch each day at noon. Turning the wheel rapidly allowed the user to run a year’s worth of tide readings in about 4 hours.</blockquote> Damn, do I love analog computers. <hr/><h2>13) 🧲 A final, sudden-death round of reading material</h2> Crows count <a href="https://www.sciencealert.com/crows-can-actually-count-out-loud-amazing-new-study-shows?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-21-wooden-satellites-post-binary-fonts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">out loud</a>. 🧲 The original digital camera <a href="https://www.bookofjoe.com/2024/05/my-entry-53.html?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-21-wooden-satellites-post-binary-fonts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">from 1975</a>. 🧲 The found <a href="https://boingboing.net/2024/05/30/original-backrooms-photo-of-yellowing-office-dungeon-finally-identified-as-oshkosh-hobbytown.html?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-21-wooden-satellites-post-binary-fonts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">the photo that started the Backrooms canon</a>. 🧲 <a href="https://electrek.co/2024/06/08/i-tested-a-hydrogen-powered-bicycle-is-this-the-future/?utm_source=newsletter.ridereview.com&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=new-bill-aims-to-rejuvenate-u-s-e-bike-production" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Hydrogen-powered ebikes</a>. 🧲 “LLMs are, to many of their uses, <a href="https://3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2024/05/the-large-language-turn-llms-as-a-philosophical-tool.html?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-21-wooden-satellites-post-binary-fonts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">what a plane is to flying: the plane achieves the same end as the bird, but by different means.”</a> 🧲 Did Neanderthals <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-neanderthal-language-differed-from-modern-human-they-probably-didnt-use-metaphors-229942?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-21-wooden-satellites-post-binary-fonts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">use metaphor</a>? 🧲 I’m digging <a href="https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2024/05/sarah-helen-more-paintings/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-21-wooden-satellites-post-binary-fonts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Sarah Helen More’s kaleidoscopic paintings</a>. 🧲 How <a href="https://theconversation.com/d-days-secret-weapon-how-wetland-science-stopped-the-normandy-landings-from-getting-bogged-down-230743?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-21-wooden-satellites-post-binary-fonts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">wetland science made D-Day successful</a>. 🧲 A Robot <a href="https://boingboing.net/2024/06/06/watch-a-mitsubishi-robot-solve-rubiks-cube-in-0-305-seconds.html?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-21-wooden-satellites-post-binary-fonts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">speedsolves a Rubik’s cube in 0.3 seconds</a>. 🧲 The <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/article/2024/may/16/catland-by-kathryn-hughes-review-paws-for-thought?utm_term=6649a37fb9aba0067683c94c2b979fed&utm_campaign=Bookmarks&utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&CMP=bookmarks_email" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Victorian origins of the Internet’s cat obsession</a>. 🧲 I think I want a “<a href="https://tokyoflash.com/collections/watches/products/rotar-revolving-watch?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-21-wooden-satellites-post-binary-fonts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Rotar</a>”. 🧲 Hacking Taylor Swift’s <a href="https://blog.adafruit.com/2024/05/31/controlling-the-taylor-swift-eras-tour-wristbands-with-flipper-zero-6a6763/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-21-wooden-satellites-post-binary-fonts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">tour wristbands</a>. 🧲 Regex <a href="https://hackaday.com/2024/05/24/regular-expressions-finally-come-to-microsoft-excel/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-21-wooden-satellites-post-binary-fonts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">comes to Excel</a>. 🧲 A classical concert that <a href="https://www.npr.org/2024/04/04/1242001322/algae-bloom-florida?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-21-wooden-satellites-post-binary-fonts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">sonifies algae-bloom data</a>. 🧲 “<a href="https://laughingsquid.com/whales-sound-like-birds/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-21-wooden-satellites-post-binary-fonts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Whales Sound Like Birds When Sped Up</a> and Birds Sound Like Whales When Slowed Down”. 🧲 The “<a href="https://shop.bsmusicshop.com/the-meowdulaor.html?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-21-wooden-satellites-post-binary-fonts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">meowdulator</a>” guitar pedal. 🧲 The hunt for <a href="https://theconversation.com/dyson-spheres-astronomers-report-potential-candidates-for-alien-megastructures-heres-what-to-make-of-it-230364?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-21-wooden-satellites-post-binary-fonts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Dyson spheres</a>. 🧲 The <a href="https://www.sfgate.com/food/article/taco-bell-ebay-mark-smith-paintings-19464177.php?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-21-wooden-satellites-post-binary-fonts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">underground market in Taco Bell paintings</a>. 🧲 A thermometer that <a href="https://fritzenlab.net/2024/06/07/attiny85-thermometer-binary-display/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-21-wooden-satellites-post-binary-fonts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">tells the temperature in binary</a>. 🧲 Chatty.ui <a href="https://chattyui.com/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-21-wooden-satellites-post-binary-fonts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">runs small-sized LLMs privately in your browser</a>. 🧲 <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/oddlysatisfying/comments/1dbzetg/a_motion_capture_actor_doing_her_thing/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-21-wooden-satellites-post-binary-fonts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Motion-capture artists</a> have a Charlie-Chaplin-like quality. 🧲 A <a href="https://www.404media.co/a-27-year-old-tamagotchi-mystery-has-been-solved/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-21-wooden-satellites-post-binary-fonts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">27-year-old Tamagotchi mystery is solved</a>. 🧲 A Google Map of <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2024/6/4/24171316/nyc-public-bathroom-google-maps-view-accesibility?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-21-wooden-satellites-post-binary-fonts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">all public bathrooms in NYC</a>. 🧲 <a href="https://www.etsy.com/shop/ScrappersOutpost?utm_custom1=theawesomer.com&source=aw&utm_source=affiliate_window&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_campaign=us_location_buyer&utm_content=78888&utm_term=0&sv1=affiliate&sv_campaign_id=78888&sv_tax1=affiliate&sv_tax2=3657%7C752854%7C824075%7C824091&sv_tax3=Skimlinks&sv_tax4=theawesomer.com&sv_affiliateId=78888&awc=6220_1718118962_a6905a11b6d4d9144d8d904ab0a2032c&dd_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Ftheawesomer.com%2F" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Metal Lego bricks</a>. <hr/>CODA ON SOURCING: I read a ton of blogs and sites every week to find the material for the Linkfest. A few I relied on this week include <a href="https://hackaday.com/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-21-wooden-satellites-post-binary-fonts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Hackaday</a>, Ryan Broderick’s <a href="https://www.garbageday.email/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-21-wooden-satellites-post-binary-fonts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Garbage Day</a> and Mathew Ingram’s <a href="https://mathewingram.substack.com/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-21-wooden-satellites-post-binary-fonts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">When The Going Gets Weird</a>.

Linkfest #24: Secret Cars, New Euripides, and "The Torino Impact Hazard Scale"

The Linkfest Sep 24, 2024

Hello there! It’s time for my latest “Linkfest” — i.e. "the opposite of doomscrolling”, in which I carefully and patiently boil the entire Internet to produce a delicious reduction of its most essential items on science, culture and technology. If you’re a subscriber, thank you! If not, you can sign up here — it’s <a href="https://buttondown.email/clivethompson/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-24-secret-cars-new-euripides-and-the" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">a pay-what-you-want affair; the folks who can afford to contribute help keep it free for everyone else</a>. And, heyo: Forward this email to anyone you think would like it! Let’s start ... <hr/><h2>1) 📡 Your name in Landsat images</h2> <figure><img alt=" A series of five satellite images of the earth, each showing a formation that looks like a letter. The first looks like a semi circular island in the shape of a C. The second is a series of rivers in the shape of an L. The third looks like a volcanic stream of lava in the shape of an I. The fourth is a river Delta in the shape of a V. The last looks like a water formation in the shape of an E." draggable="false" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/4b1757ba-130f-43e5-9955-cc378cd9c124.jpg?w=960&fit=max"/><figcaption></figcaption></figure> <a href="https://landsat.gsfc.nasa.gov/apps/YourNameInLandsat-main/index.html?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-24-secret-cars-new-euripides-and-the" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">“Your Name In Landsat” does exactly what the name promises</a> — you type in your name, and it finds a satellite picture of the earth where the landscape makes the shape of each letter. That’s my name above! Next up: Using this as a word processor, writing a script that feeds in the entirety of Moby Dick, and having the output custom-printed. It would probably fill a few bookshelves. Gotta love the web nerds at NASA for pulling this off. <hr/><h2>2) 🚋 The tram Olympics</h2> <figure><img alt="A photo of a european tram pulling into a station. It is sleek, curved, modern, and has green and white accents. No people are visible" draggable="false" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/71358ec6-6e84-4189-86cf-445025c3db19.jpg?w=960&fit=max"/><figcaption><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/francesc_2000/3539093370/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-24-secret-cars-new-euripides-and-the" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">“Villa Olimpica” by Francis Lenn, via Flickr</a> (<a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-24-secret-cars-new-euripides-and-the" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">CC 2.0 license</a>, unmodified)</figcaption></figure> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/15/world/europe/tramdriver-competition-frankfurt-tram.html?unlocked_article_code=1.LE4.Z9M4.S9xT-VZxj6YD&smid=url-share&utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-24-secret-cars-new-euripides-and-the" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">In the New York Times (gift link), Amelia Nierenberg has a dispatch from Europe’s annual “tram driver Olympics”</a> — in which tram operators from around the continent compete in tests of skill. For example … <blockquote>Some events focused on safety: Drivers had to emergency brake at a precise spot, just as if a cyclist had swerved in front of them. Another tested their ability to multitask: Could they remember a series of symbols that appeared on mock traffic signs?One test was downright counterintuitive: Tram billiards, in which a driver steers the vehicle to gently knock a pool cue attached to a stand into a billiard ball on a table. (The highest possible score for the billiards portion was 500 points, awarded if the ball rolled to a stop right in the middle of the table.)“It’s not often you’re trying to hit something with your tram,” joked Victoria Young, 39, of Edinburgh. “You’ve just got this feeling inside you that says, ‘I should be stopping now.’”</blockquote> As Nierenberg notes, these tests of skill aren’t entirely disconnected from the tram-drivers’ daily work; one does, of course, want a smooth tram ride. The exception might be the billiards competition: “It’s not often you’re trying to hit something with your tram,” as one operator notes. <hr/><h2>3) 📊 Visualizing ship traffic</h2> <figure><img alt=" A screenshot of a data visualization that appears to be thousands and thousands of bright lines – bright yellow against a black background. The origin of the lines cluster around curved edges of black background space which make shapes that look like coastlines – and then shoot outwards from them into the darker area of the ocean" draggable="false" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/a263d797-b2c9-4736-8171-9d78537edd6f.png?w=960&fit=max"/><figcaption>via <a href="https://www.beautifulpublicdata.com/visualizing-ship-movements-with-ais-data/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-24-secret-cars-new-euripides-and-the" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Jon Keegan</a></figcaption></figure> For safety purposes, American ships have to broadcast their location every few minutes. It’s all public data, collected by the government — so <a href="https://www.beautifulpublicdata.com/visualizing-ship-movements-with-ais-data/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-24-secret-cars-new-euripides-and-the" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Jon Keegan, an investigative data journalist, downloaded everything for 2023 and used it to make some gorgeous and mesmerizing visualizations.</a> Above? Those are the pathways of lobster boats off the coast of Maine. He’s got over two dozen more images in a blog post where he describes the data and his visualization process. <a href="https://www.beautifulpublicdata.com/visualizing-ship-movements-with-ais-data/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-24-secret-cars-new-euripides-and-the" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">As he puts it …</a> <blockquote>The resulting maps are abstract, electric and revealing. When you remove the landmasses from the map and leave only the ship traces, the lines resemble long-exposure photos of sparklers, high-energy particle collisions, or strands of illuminated fiber optic wire. However, when you reveal ports, harbors, islands, and ferry lines, the ship traces take on meaning and order.Only by adding the fourth dimension—time—can we fully appreciate the etched markings of our journeys across rivers, lakes, and oceans.When you zoom into these maps, you can sometimes make out eerie patterns that look like crude graffiti scratched with a sharp pen, or neat clusters of geographic lines. Some of these are fishing grounds, others <a href="https://www.beautifulpublicdata.com/mapping-the-sea-floor/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-24-secret-cars-new-euripides-and-the" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">scientific surveys mapping the sea floor</a>, and others show the traffic of boats going to and from offshore oil rigs, like the many constellations of light found off Louisiana's gulf coast.</blockquote> What immediately struck me, upon seeing these for the first time, is that they looked like fractals. But then I immediately realized, well, of course they do — coastlines are themselves fractal, so the movement of the ships is inherently keyed to that mathematical pattern. Jon, BTW, has for years now been writing witty and engrossing essays analyzing everyday design, and/or discussing other dataviz projects he has produced. <a href="https://www.beautifulpublicdata.com/author/jonkeegan/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-24-secret-cars-new-euripides-and-the" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">He’s got a whole archive of ‘em at Beautiful Public Data:</a> Check it out, there’s hours of reading/viewing! <hr/><h2>4) 🍱 Gallery of old Swedish packaging</h2> <figure><img alt=" Three pictures of products. One is a cylinder with bright bright chunky blue letters spelling “FOOM”. The second is a margarine canister decorated with pop art red flowers that have small green leaves. The third is a flat cylindrical canister of the sort you would find containing candies or a cake; it is decorated with a pin wheeled pattern and the product name is “twist”" draggable="false" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/fa7b5f06-d5cc-4362-8768-465689d1a7c1.png?w=960&fit=max"/><figcaption>via <a href="https://digitaltmuseum.se/search/?aq=topic%3A%22Handel+%3A+F%C3%B6rpackningar%22&utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-24-secret-cars-new-euripides-and-the" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Digitalt Museum</a></figcaption></figure> I am heavily digging <a href="https://www.presentandcorrect.com/blogs/blog/swede-dreams?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-24-secret-cars-new-euripides-and-the" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">this gallery of retro Swedish product packaging!</a> There are a ton more images <a href="https://digitaltmuseum.se/search/?aq=topic%3A%22Handel+%3A+F%C3%B6rpackningar%22&utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-24-secret-cars-new-euripides-and-the" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">over here at the Digitalt Museum …</a> <hr/><h2>5) 🎭 New lines of Euripides discovered</h2> <figure><img alt="An ancient greek statue of a man holding a scroll in his right hand and a mask in his left; the mask has hollow eyes and an open mouth" draggable="false" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/f658f6fb-6c58-47a8-9c3b-104ab4cf16a3.jpeg?w=960&fit=max"/><figcaption>“Monument of Euripides”, via <a href="https://www.pexels.com/photo/monument-of-euripides-13779288/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-24-secret-cars-new-euripides-and-the" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Pexels</a></figcaption></figure> The ancient Greek tragedian Euripides was mocked in his lifetime. He was, <a href="https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n18/robert-cioffi/euripides-unbound?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-24-secret-cars-new-euripides-and-the" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">as the classicist Robert Cioffi writes,</a> “lampooned … for his novel sonic effects, his corruption of Athenian values and his penchant for female protagonists and characters dressed in rags — an innovator, according to his critics, but not necessarily in a good way.” But in the long run, Euripides lucked out, because of all the ancient Greek playwrights his plays best survived the ravages of time. There were about 900 tragedies performed in 500 BCE, of which less than forty survive today; half of these are by Euripides. Even so, we lost more Euripides than we possess. That’s what made it so exciting two years ago when archaeologists were exploring a shallow grave south of Cairo and discovered … … whoa, <a href="https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n18/robert-cioffi/euripides-unbound?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-24-secret-cars-new-euripides-and-the" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">a clutch of papyri containing 97 never-before-seen lines of the Euripidean plays Ino and Polyidus!</a> Classicists knew those plays had existed, via “scattered quotations and summaries of their plots”, but they’d never read any of the actual material. So, yeah, <a href="https://bestof.metafilter.com/2024/09/Wake-up-babe-new-Euripides-just-dropped?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-24-secret-cars-new-euripides-and-the" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">as a Metafilter post put it</a> — new Euripides just dropped. Cioffi has been studying these new chunks and <a href="https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n18/robert-cioffi/euripides-unbound?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-24-secret-cars-new-euripides-and-the" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">wrote a wonderful essay about them, their discovery</a>, and the challenges of translating them: <blockquote>Both passages are unmistakably by Euripides. They share his love of aphorisms, his obsession with the overreach of the powerful and the dangers of cleverness. In one passage, Polyidus rebuffs Minos' demands: 'So you're rich. Don't think you understand anything else. Wealth makes you useless. It is poverty that produces wisdom.' [snip] There are some astonishing lines in the papyrus. A lyric passage from Ino … imagines 'the ephemeral, changeable god working in secret, moving this way and that, obscurely through the clouds'. The image, uttered in a moment of abject grief, is as striking for its expression of the opacity of the divine as for its mixing of worlds — ephemerality and changeability are the defining characteristics of the mortal condition. Here, for perhaps the first time in extant Greek literature, an unnamed divinity takes on the human attributes for which he or she is responsible.</blockquote> Really <a href="https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n18/robert-cioffi/euripides-unbound?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-24-secret-cars-new-euripides-and-the" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">worth reading the whole thing here!</a> <hr/><h2>6) 💡 Lamp made from bio-concrete</h2> <figure><img alt="A picture of the lamp. It is a tall rectangular shape; on the left and right side are long strips of concrete, and in the middle is a softly glowing yellow light. The lamp is mounted on a wall and reflected in a pool of water beneath it" draggable="false" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/da6619c9-0398-421b-970b-e1244eb9e43b.jpg?w=960&fit=max"/><figcaption>via <a href="https://normalphenomena.life/product/gathering-lamp/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-24-secret-cars-new-euripides-and-the" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Normal Phenomena</a></figcaption></figure> Behold this <a href="https://normalphenomena.life/product/gathering-lamp/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-24-secret-cars-new-euripides-and-the" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">gorgeous brutalist lamp, which is made from concrete that uses biologically-grown cement.</a> As the creator’s page describes it … <blockquote>Using bacteria, Biolith® tiles form in under three days, compared to the 28-day curing time of traditional cement, and they don’t require energy-intensive kiln firing. This process turns aggregate into a biocement that is 20 times lighter and three times stronger than a traditional concrete block, while producing 95% fewer CO2 emissions than conventional cement.</blockquote> I hadn’t heard of those biocement tiles before — very interesting, and I want to read more. <hr/><h2>7) ✏️ Thoreau’s innovations in pencil-making</h2> <figure><img alt='A close up photo of a museum case holding a very old thick wooden pencil, with a crudely sharpened point. The text mounted below the pencil reads "pencil made by j. thoreau and co., concord, masachusetts"' draggable="false" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/3bf77c61-d3d4-4a65-b5af-50415354e2de.jpg?w=960&fit=max"/><figcaption>via <a href="https://brandnamepencils.com/product/j-thoreau-co?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-24-secret-cars-new-euripides-and-the" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Brand Name Pencils</a></figcaption></figure> I’d long known that Thoreau — like Prince and Madonna, so famous he’s known only by one name, though his full name is “Henry Thoreau” — came from a pencil-making family, and that the money from that business is what allowed him be a writer. But I didn’t know that Thoreau’s economic success in pencilry came specifically from his own innovations — specifically, his experiments in improving the quality of pencil lead. Augustine Sedgewick <a href="https://theamericanscholar.org/thoreaus-pencils/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-24-secret-cars-new-euripides-and-the" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">writes about it in The American Scholar:</a> <blockquote>Henry started to dig into the complex technical problems that had made American pencils notoriously “coarse, brittle, greasy, and scratchy,” as Thoreau biographer Laura Dassow Walls describes them, especially compared with European imports. Possibly through research in the Harvard library, Henry developed a formula for kiln-fired pencil leads—a mix of finely ground graphite and clay—that could be reliably graded from hard to soft. The improved Thoreau product appealed especially to engineers, surveyors, carpenters, and artists who valued its consistency. [snip]In 1844, Henry made another breakthrough, inventing a grinding machine that produced exceptionally fine graphite powder—the key to a strong, even point, and in turn a clear, steady line. On the strength of these innovations, Thoreau pencils won more awards in 1847 and 1849, and they were celebrated as the equal of any English ones. No one in the United States made better pencils than the Thoreaus, and the reason for their success was Henry.</blockquote> Perhaps even more impressive is that Thoreau hated his father’s pencil factory, and spent years trying to avoid working in it … until he was driven there by economic necessity: Nobody else would hire him. I’m generally fascinated by stories of famous writers who had separate business lives — like Wallace Steven’s day-job as an insurance lawyer, or William Carlos Williams’ as a doctor. (<a href="https://brandnamepencils.com/product/j-thoreau-co?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-24-secret-cars-new-euripides-and-the" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">That photo above, BTW, is of an original Thoreau pencil from the 1830s.</a>) <hr/><h2>8) 📃 A wee app for scribbling on post-it notes</h2> <figure><img alt='A yellow post it note that has a red pushpin sticking into its top. There is text written on the post it note in a font that looks like bubbly, curved handwriting. The text reads "i like this!! it is very cool and weird". The two exclamation points are not rendered in the font -- they appear to have been hand-drawn. The word "weird" is underlined in several scribbled lines, and there is a swooping arrow pointing from "and" to "weird".' draggable="false" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/1b2cbae5-4822-4849-ab9d-5ad8aff9b6f1.jpg?w=960&fit=max"/><figcaption></figcaption></figure> <a href="https://glitch.com/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-24-secret-cars-new-euripides-and-the" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Glitch</a> is one of my favorite places to program and release little web toys — it’s where I made the <a href="https://weird-old-book-finder.glitch.me/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-24-secret-cars-new-euripides-and-the" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Weird Old Book Finder</a> and <a href="https://just-the-punctuation.glitch.me/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-24-secret-cars-new-euripides-and-the" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Just The Punctuation</a>. The Glitch folks hold a <a href="https://glitch.com/jams?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-24-secret-cars-new-euripides-and-the" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">“Code Jam”</a> every month where they announce a theme, and people create nifty little web apps on that theme. Last month the prompt was “Just Draw” — so people built tons of little gewgaws for sketching. You can see <a href="https://glitch.com/@glitch/just-draw-codejam?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-24-secret-cars-new-euripides-and-the" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">some of the entrants here</a>. One of my faves is <a href="https://sticky-scribbles.glitch.me/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-24-secret-cars-new-euripides-and-the" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Sticky Scribbles</a> by Marty McGuire. It gives you a little post-it note, upon which you can type (it renders your text in that cool font you see) and also scribble using the mouse. (For all you hardcore HTML nerds, when you’re done with your drawing, it lets you download the whole thing in SVG to post on your own web site. Nice!) (Also: <a href="https://martymcgui.re/2024/08/17/jamming-on-a-13-year-old-sketchy-sketch/?utm_campaign=Glitch+Newslett&utm_content=182699_Glitch+Newsletter+%28September+2024%29%29&utm_medium=email&utm_source=customer.io" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Marty wrote up his design notes here in a blog post</a>.) <hr/><h2>9) 🚮 “Garbage Time” in China</h2> <figure><img alt="A picture of Shanghai at night. There are several large towers looming into the dark sky, and they are luminously lit up, casting a glow all around them and onto the water in front of the city" draggable="false" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/77d5d20e-005f-411a-aca8-b84586af92f3.jpg?w=960&fit=max"/><figcaption>via <a href="https://www.pexels.com/photo/landscape-photo-of-night-city-745243/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-24-secret-cars-new-euripides-and-the" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Pexels</a></figcaption></figure> The economy in China is in a deep funk, with unemployment rising as high as 17% – so people are worried and depressed. The problem is, you’re not allowed to talk about economic malaise on social media, because the government censors the nattering nabobs of negativity. So Chinese Internet users have found a clever way around this: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/13/world/asia/china-economy-garbage-time.html?unlocked_article_code=1.KU4.zcil.gLyktciBeuI1&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=c-cb&utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-24-secret-cars-new-euripides-and-the" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">they’re writing essays about “garbage time”.</a> Garbage time is a phrase from sports, referring to the dull, hopeless period at the end of the sports game where a team is so far behind that everyone knows they’ll never stage a comeback. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/13/world/asia/china-economy-garbage-time.html?unlocked_article_code=1.KU4.zcil.gLyktciBeuI1&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=c-cb&utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-24-secret-cars-new-euripides-and-the" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">As Yan Zhuang writes in the New York Times (gift link), Chinese Internet is filled with essays describing “garbage time” periods in Chinese history:</a> <blockquote>One opinion essay from February <a class="css-yywogo" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20240718003632/https://www.sohu.com/a/757328796_118622" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">argued</a> that Zhu Yuanzhang, who served as the Ming dynasty’s first emperor in the 14th century, plunged the entire 276-year regime into garbage time by monopolizing power, introducing isolationist trade policies and imposing harsh laws. The piece contrasted that failure with the flourishing of Britain’s economy during the Industrial Revolution in the 18th and 19th centuries, attributing the success to colonialism and free-trade policies.</blockquote> I’ve long known that Chinese Internet users are masters of misdirection, using everything from memes to emoji to oblique metaphors to criticize power. But apparently <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/13/world/asia/china-economy-garbage-time.html?unlocked_article_code=1.KU4.zcil.gLyktciBeuI1&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=c-cb&utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-24-secret-cars-new-euripides-and-the" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">historical essays are also a thing:</a> <blockquote>…they were part of a Chinese literary tradition of intellectuals avoiding censorship by criticizing rulers through historical allegories.</blockquote> <hr/><h2>10) 🚗 “Secret cars”</h2> <figure><img alt='An image of a long european-styled car from the 60s. It has a long curved and flat hood, and a very long body -- like a "stretch" limosine, except a sports car. It is shiny chrome. There are three sets of doors on each side. It is parked on a dusty road in what appears to be the American desert, with cactuses and buttes behind it.' draggable="false" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/9eeed355-d060-4240-8c3d-402ce426b6e7.jpg?w=960&fit=max"/><figcaption>via <a href="https://www.instagram.com/secret_cars_/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-24-secret-cars-new-euripides-and-the" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">“Secret Cars”</a></figcaption></figure> I’m not terribly impressed by much AI-generative art, the aesthetics of which too often tend towards brown-acid-trip hyperreality; to say nothing of the ethics of their creation, via massively-scaled mastication of permissionlessly copied art in the four-stomached cows of the corporate cloud. But every so often something comes along that seems pretty clever. Such is the case with Secret Cars, a book by the film director and photographer Mr. Francois. <a href="https://www.designboom.com/art/ferrari-camper-vans-secret-cars-mr-francois-ai-photo-book-promptographs-09-20-2024/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-24-secret-cars-new-euripides-and-the" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">As designboom describes it …</a> <blockquote>Each image is inspired by one of Mr. François’s imaginative ideas, such as: What if Ferrari made a camper van? Or Lamborghini built a school bus? Or perhaps a luxurious six-seater Mini limousine? The result is a diverse collection of creative car designs, captured in realistic settings.</blockquote> Above, a stretch Citroën, which if it actually existed I would want to own. You can see more of the images at designboom, or <a href="https://www.instagram.com/secret_cars_/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-24-secret-cars-new-euripides-and-the" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Mr. Francois’ Instagram account</a>; the <a href="https://www.accartbooks.com/us/book/secret-cars/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-24-secret-cars-new-euripides-and-the" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">book is in print now too</a>. <hr/><h2>11) 🎥 A sudden, final-death round of reading material</h2> The “<a href="https://phys.org/news/2024-09-odds-asteroid-apophis-earth-slightly.html?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-24-secret-cars-new-euripides-and-the" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Torino impact hazard scale</a>”. 🎥 <a href="https://today.yougov.com/society/articles/50258-whats-up-with-gen-zs-socks?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-24-secret-cars-new-euripides-and-the" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Gen Z sock preferences</a>. 🎥 <a href="https://newatlas.com/aircraft/mira-ii-aerospike-rocket-flight-test/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-24-secret-cars-new-euripides-and-the" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">”Aerospike” engines</a>. 🎥 Using Microsoft Word 2010 <a href="https://www.acronis.com/en-us/cyber-protection-center/posts/operation-worddrone-drone-manufacturers-are-being-targeted-in-taiwan/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-24-secret-cars-new-euripides-and-the" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">to side-load malware into drones</a>. 🎥 An online radio station <a href="https://accumulationofthings.com/twine/radio/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-24-secret-cars-new-euripides-and-the" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">that plays only static</a>. 🎥 When Ray Bradbury <a href="https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/i-am-herman-melville/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-24-secret-cars-new-euripides-and-the" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">wrote the script for Moby Dick</a>. 🎥 “<a href="https://archive.is/QmiYl?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-24-secret-cars-new-euripides-and-the#selection-1631.66-1631.124" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">The field of paleontology is mean.</a> It has always been mean”. 🎥 Names of things <a href="https://www.swiss-miss.com/2024/08/the-name-of-things-you-probably-didnt-know.html?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-24-secret-cars-new-euripides-and-the" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">you may not have known the name for</a>. 🎥 Types of paper, <a href="https://phys.org/news/2024-08-paper-likelihood.html?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-24-secret-cars-new-euripides-and-the" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">ranked by how badly they produce paper cuts</a>. 🎥 In defense of <a href="https://gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/211887/the-quest-for-a-wiki-less-game?utm_source=iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=the-overflow-newsletter" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">wiki walkthroughs for games</a>. 🎥 A history <a href="https://engelsbergideas.com/reviews/a-little-history-of-the-anchovy/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-24-secret-cars-new-euripides-and-the" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">of anchovies</a>. 🎥 How curved buildings <a href="https://www.neatorama.com/2024/09/16/The-Buildings-That-Wield-a-Solar-Death-Ray/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-24-secret-cars-new-euripides-and-the" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">can produce a “solar death ray”</a>. 🎥 The first rain fell on Earth <a href="https://mymodernmet.com/rain-zircon-earth/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-24-secret-cars-new-euripides-and-the" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">4 billion years ago</a>. 🎥 Solid <a href="https://www.medievalists.net/2024/09/political-advice-medieval-statesman/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-24-secret-cars-new-euripides-and-the" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">political advice from a medieval statesman</a>. 🎥 D&D players <a href="https://www.psychologyofgames.com/2024/09/are-dd-players-more-empathetic/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-24-secret-cars-new-euripides-and-the" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">score higher on tests of empathy</a>. 🎥 <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2024/sep/17/2024-mono-awards-in-pictures?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-24-secret-cars-new-euripides-and-the" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Prizewinning black-and-white photography</a> from Australia. 🎥 How archivists <a href="https://peelarchivesblog.com/2024/09/10/how-do-archivists-package-things-the-battle-of-the-boxes/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-24-secret-cars-new-euripides-and-the" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">pack things up</a>. 🎥 Dostoevsky’s <a href="https://daily.jstor.org/the-crocodile-dostoevskys-weirdest-short-story/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-24-secret-cars-new-euripides-and-the" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">weirdest short story</a>. 🎥 The <a href="https://www.quantamagazine.org/perplexing-the-web-one-probability-puzzle-at-a-time-20240829/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-24-secret-cars-new-euripides-and-the" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">probability king of the Internet</a>. 🎥 The <a href="https://daily.jstor.org/the-curious-history-of-competitive-eating/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-24-secret-cars-new-euripides-and-the" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">history of competitive eating</a>. 🎥 “Impact printing” a house <a href="https://newatlas.com/good-thinking/impact-printing-clay-construction/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-24-secret-cars-new-euripides-and-the" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">with a device that shoots clay</a>. 🎥 Strava and Letterboxd emerge as <a href="https://archive.is/IPwdr?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-24-secret-cars-new-euripides-and-the" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">alternative social media</a>. 🎥 Using a tree’s movement <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSxK5VagSb8&utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-24-secret-cars-new-euripides-and-the" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">to generate electricity</a>. 🎥 A 1924 lament for “<a href="https://sundaymagazine.org/2024/09/15/sad-decline-of-swearing-lamented/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-24-secret-cars-new-euripides-and-the" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">the sad decline of swearing</a>”. 🎥 The Joanine Library, where <a href="https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/library-bats-coimbra-wild-life-excerpt?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-24-secret-cars-new-euripides-and-the" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">bats guard the 60,000 books</a>. 🎥 A flying <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/cargo-drone-2669117300?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-24-secret-cars-new-euripides-and-the" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">cart</a>. 🎥 “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/10/style/celebrity-six-leticia-sarda-reddit.html?unlocked_article_code=1.M04.nEqB.YN2RhesaNau3&smid=url-share&utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-24-secret-cars-new-euripides-and-the" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Celebrity Number Six</a>” has finally been found. 🎥 To learn to write literature, <a href="https://themillions.com/2024/05/want-to-write-better-fiction-become-a-translator.html?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-24-secret-cars-new-euripides-and-the" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">translate some</a>. 🎥 The Earth <a href="https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/the-earth-might-have-been-a-ringed-planet-long-ago?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-24-secret-cars-new-euripides-and-the" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">may once have had rings</a>. 🎥 Ice-age teens <a href="https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/ice-age-teens-hit-puberty-around-the-same-time-as-modern-humans?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-24-secret-cars-new-euripides-and-the" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">hit puberty the same time as teens do today</a>. 🎥 <a href="https://newatlas.com/outdoors/aurea-shine-2-portable-wind-turbine/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-24-secret-cars-new-euripides-and-the" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">A portable wind turbine</a>. 🎥 The <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/16/24246401/chipotle-robotics-autocado-avocado-peeling-bowl-assembly-line?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-24-secret-cars-new-euripides-and-the" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">“Autocado”.</a> <hr/>CODA ON SOURCING: I read a ton of blogs and sites every week to find the material for the Linkfest. A few I relied on this week include <a href="https://www.swiss-miss.com?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-24-secret-cars-new-euripides-and-the" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Swiss Miss</a>, <a href="https://hackaday.com/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-24-secret-cars-new-euripides-and-the" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Hackaday</a>, <a href="https://www.metafilter.com/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-24-secret-cars-new-euripides-and-the" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Metafilter,</a> <a href="https://www.neatorama.com/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-24-secret-cars-new-euripides-and-the" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Neatorama</a>, <a href="https://themorningnews.org/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-24-secret-cars-new-euripides-and-the" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">The Morning News</a>, and Mathew Ingram’s <a href="https://newsletter.mathewingram.com/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-24-secret-cars-new-euripides-and-the" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">“When The Going Get Weird”</a>; check ‘em out!

Linkfest #30: Greyscale Gelato, the "Ott Derivimeter", and Vangelis' Ambient Music For Surgeries

The Linkfest Jan 20, 2025

Hello again! Time once again for "the opposite of doomscrolling” — my latest “Linkfest”, for which I cruise the endless overpasses of the Global Information Superhighway, searching for the finest pit-stops of science, culture and technology. If you’re a subscriber, thank you! If not, you can <a href="https://buttondown.email/clivethompson/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">sign up here — it’s a Guardian-style, pay-whatevs-you-want affair; the folks who kick in help keep it free for everyone else</a>. And also — forward this email to anyone you know who’d like it! Let’s begin ... <hr/> <h2>1) 📊 An embroidered dataviz of daily activities <a id="item01"></a></h2> <figure><img alt=" A close-up picture of a piece of embroidery. It has a white background and is covered, in the top half of the picture, with small embroidered colorful icons. Some of them include things like a cowboy hat, a ghost, a helicopter, a star, a battery down to its lowest level of energy, a piece of pie, an ice cream cone, a house, and an “OMG“. In the center of the embroidery he’s written “2024“" draggable="false" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/6e6cc879-53da-4ebd-9a6c-723ea1944d2f.png?w=960&fit=max"/><figcaption>by Sophie O’Neill</figcaption></figure> Each year, Sophie O’Neill keeps <a href="https://stircrazycrafter.com/2024/12/31/exploring-my-2024-embroidery-journal-month-by-month/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">an “embroidery journal”: Every day she stitches an icon that represents something that happened to her.</a> It slowly grows into a gorgeous riot of imagery. That picture above is last year’s journal, as of the middle of April — <a href="https://stircrazycrafter.com/2024/12/31/exploring-my-2024-embroidery-journal-month-by-month/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">during which transpired …</a> <blockquote> April was spent celebrating Sam’s new job, reading tons of books, and still playing Stardew Valley. A highlight of the month was exploring areas near Glasgow that we could see ourselves living. We even picked out an area that seemed quiet, but had a good sense of community. We started actively viewing houses together. Icons of note: <ul> <li>Gazebo – Sam and I visited the area that we decided to house hunt in.</li> <li>Ice cream – After a picnic at Queen’s Park in Glasgow, I got myself an ice cream.</li> <li>Party popper – Sam was offered a new job in a better area.</li> </ul> </blockquote> Here’s the final journal for all of 2024 … <figure><img alt=" A picture of a round piece of embroidery done inside a circular wood embroidery frame. The entire circle is a piece of white background filled with hundreds of small icons, ranging from things like an envelope, a question mark, a bean, a hat, a small human figure, a cup of coffee, a butterfly, a paper airplane, and a sock. At the center of the circle is the number “2024“. Scattered throughout the circle, going clockwise, are the names of the months." draggable="false" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/ab49753e-9af5-405b-aeb7-fdc42a2ca8c9.png?w=960&fit=max"/><figcaption>by Sophie O’Neill</figcaption></figure> I love this idea! It’s a sumptuous enough product for an outsider to admire. But for O’Neill herself, it’s got to be a really mesmerizing way to look back at a year — since she knows the import of each icon, and the mood or moment in which she stitched it. <hr/> <h2 data-pm-slice="1 1 []">2) 🎶 When Vangelis wrote background music for surgeries</h2> <a id="item02"></a><img alt=" A black-and-white photo of the composer Vangelis, taken from above. He is sitting wearing a black sweater and a coat, and is sitting on a stool in a semicircle of large synthesizer and organs. He has his hand on two different organ keyboards " class="newsletter-image" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/4fd8b76f-1408-40ad-a5f9-1f36cd8e9c0a.png?w=960&fit=max"/> Vangelis was a synthesizer pioneer famous for creating the scores for 80s movies like Chariots of Fire and Blade Runner. I knew that! But I didn’t realize he had also — as one of innumerable side-projects — recorded <a href="https://www.djfood.org/vangelis-the-tegos-tapes-edits/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">the “Tegos Tapes”, hours of ambient synth-music for surgeons to listen to, in the background, while they performed surgeries:</a> <blockquote> Originally available in 1998 as an expensive set of three 4 hour video tapes plus large book in a case and only available to practicing surgeons via Dr. Tegos. Vangelis was friends with the surgeon and had recorded music specifically for these tapes from special requests, as the subject matter could be ‘monotonous’. </blockquote> These audio files were nowhere on the Internet until <a href="http://vangeliscollector.com/movies_microneurosurgery.htm?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">a Vangelis superfan hunted down a copy of the original hardcover book (with tapes) in Athens; he wrote a blog post about the quest here.</a> Now they’ve been scanned and <a href="https://soundcloud.com/nev-dorrington?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">you can hear them on Soundcloud.</a> <hr/> <h2>3) 🎮 “Stimulation Clicker” <a id="item03"></a></h2> <img alt=" An animated GIF of a computer screen. On screen there is a riot of activity. About a dozen different DVD icons slowly bounce around. In the bottom right corner is a small thumbnail video of a game of subway surfers. In the top left-hand corner is a looping video of a hand putting food dye on a big blob of white gelatin and then squishing it. Below that is a screenshot of a mukbang video of a man sitting at a picnic table outdoors, wearing sunglasses, and gesturing towards a huge array of food in front of him. In the center of the screen is a button with the words “click me”. Beneath it there is a counter showing a quickly increasing number, rising from 11,000 to 12,000, of “stimulation“. The overall effect is quite hectic and jittery" class="newsletter-image" src="https://buttondown-attachments.s3.amazonaws.com/images/3aa06cf2-8bbd-463b-a9e0-282a1d0f6780.gif?w=960&fit=max"/> <a href="https://buttondown.com/clivethompson/archive/linkfest-18-infinite-crafting-the-reverse/" target="_blank">Back in Linkfest #18 I wrote about “Infinite Craft”</a>, a witty game made by the creative coder Neal Agarwal — a riff/parody of the often-byzantine crafting-mechanics now built into many video games. He’s got a new parody game out: <a href="https://neal.fun/stimulation-clicker/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">“Stimulation Clicker”</a>, and it’s a doozy! Basically, you frantically click the main button, and as your clicks build up, you can “spend” them to display various on-screen stimulations. That gif above is my screen after about three or four minutes of play; I had floating DVD bouncers, a subway-surfer video, an ASMR mukbang video, and various other bits of screenstuff. I can’t imagine what it looks like if you play for an hour. I think I’m gonna clear aside an hour and find out. <hr/> <h2>4) 📃 Isaac Newton’s list of sins <a id="item04"></a></h2> <figure><img alt="An old-fashioned painting of Isaac Newton. He has a large plume of white hair and is wearing a thick brown shirt, and is looking off to the right" draggable="false" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/ff89dc92-621a-4470-9b53-2f8cde60f681.png?w=960&fit=max"/><figcaption>via <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Portrait_of_Sir_Isaac_Newton,_1689_%28brightened%29.jpg?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Wikimedia</a></figcaption></figure> In 1662, when he was 20 and still a student at Cambridge, <a href="https://www.openculture.com/2024/11/isaac-newton-creates-a-list-of-his-57-sins-circa-1662.html?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">Isaac Newton made a list of his sins.</a> It’s a pretty nutty collection, I gotta say. <a href="https://www.openculture.com/2024/11/isaac-newton-creates-a-list-of-his-57-sins-circa-1662.html?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">Here’s how it begins …</a> <blockquote> 1. Vsing the word (God) openly 2. Eating an apple at Thy house 3. Making a feather while on Thy day 4. Denying that I made it. 5. Making a mousetrap on Thy day 6. Contriving of the chimes on Thy day 7. Squirting water on Thy day 8. Making pies on Sunday night 9. Swimming in a kimnel on Thy day 10. Putting a pin in Iohn Keys hat on Thy day to pick him. 11. Carelessly hearing and committing many sermons 12. Refusing to go to the close at my mothers command. 13. Threatning my father and mother Smith to burne them and the house over them 14. Wishing death and hoping it to some 15. Striking many 16. Having uncleane thoughts words and actions and dreamese. 17. Stealing cherry cobs from Eduard Storer 18. Denying that I did so </blockquote> It goes on much longer! The sins really vary in terms of moral gravity, don’t they? I mean, eating an apple in church or stealing cherry cobs from Edward Storer feel like rather … less serious offenses compared to “Threatning my father and mother Smith to burne them and the house over them”. Go <a href="https://www.openculture.com/2024/11/isaac-newton-creates-a-list-of-his-57-sins-circa-1662.html?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">check out the rest of Isaac Newton’s sins.</a> <hr/> <h2>5) 🔦 Looking at your garden using a UV flashlight <a id="item05"></a></h2> <figure><img alt=" Two pictures side-by-side of the same piece of vegetation. On the right hand side it looks like a mass of tightly clustered clover-shaped leaves. They are all green. On the left the leaves are now glowing a unsettling shade of bright purple, and studded throughout the purple are bursts of iridescent green vegetation that is quite different in shape from the clover leaves" draggable="false" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/377fddd0-5716-4bae-af38-2bb953f5b629.png?w=960&fit=max"/><figcaption>photos by <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jan/07/country-diary-you-think-youve-seen-it-all-then-you-buy-a-uv-torch?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Mark Cocker</a></figcaption></figure> Over at the Guardian, two columnists have discovered a fun night-time activity: You buy a UV flashlight and go check out plants and insects when it’s dark. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jan/07/country-diary-you-think-youve-seen-it-all-then-you-buy-a-uv-torch?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">As Mark Cocker describes it …</a> <blockquote> If a UV torch is pointed at plants and animals after dark, its photons interact at a molecular level, causing a lower-energy light to be re-emitted, but in the visible spectrum. In essence, the subjects fluoresce and the beam turns everyday parts of our world into a baroque psychedelia. A gritstone wall, for example, becomes a matt red sheet (algae) studded with glittering lime (any lichen patches). </blockquote> Above, you can see some of the golden saxifrage in Cocker’s garden — daylight on the right, UV on the left. Trippy, eh? Or check out <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jan/07/country-diary-you-think-youve-seen-it-all-then-you-buy-a-uv-torch?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">his spiky bogmoss …</a> <figure><img alt=" Two photos side-by-side of the same collection of moss. On the right hand side the moss all appears to be green, with a small amount of red veiny stocks in behind. On the left-hand side the moss is glowing a eerie bright blue and is interspersed with bursts of dark purple red vegetation that appears to be quite different from the moss in shape and texture. The overall effect is to suggest that ultraviolet light shows far more detail than regular light does." draggable="false" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/0b1f66a7-227d-44a8-bab7-15608e071808.png?w=960&fit=max"/><figcaption>by <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jan/07/country-diary-you-think-youve-seen-it-all-then-you-buy-a-uv-torch?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Mark Cocker</a></figcaption></figure> As he describes it … <blockquote> By day, it’s a superb cushion of freshest green, with each plant’s central floret fringed with seven or eight lateral shoots that droop around the head like huge vegetative spiders. See it under UV and the whole organism becomes a dancing troupe of lavender, aquamarine, turquoise, purple or pink. </blockquote> Here’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/may/20/country-diary-how-extraordinary-to-see-with-an-insects-eye?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">another Guardian piece by Kate Blincoe with pictures of her garden too</a>. Tomorrow I’m cycling down to my local Microcenter <a href="https://www.microcenter.com/product/662174/litezall-task-light-with-uv-flashlight?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">to get my own UV flashlight</a>, I gotta get in on this. <hr/> <h2>6) ❓ “Wikenigma” <a id="item06"></a></h2> <img alt=" A screenshot of the “wikienigma” name in a large font, with the catchphrase beneath it: “an encyclopedia of unknowns.” On the left is the logo, a large black cube showing three faces, with a question mark on each face" class="newsletter-image" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/3d2e2a40-c949-4360-9dab-4bf8b03f8bbb.png?w=960&fit=max"/> <a href="https://wikenigma.org.uk/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">Wikenigma is …</a> <blockquote> a unique wiki-based resource specifically dedicated to documenting fundamental gaps in human knowledge. Listing scientific and academic questions to which no-one, anywhere, has yet been able to provide a definitive answer. That's to say, a compendium of so-called 'Known Unknowns'. </blockquote> I really like this idea! I can’t speak to how accurate are its entries. One danger, I suspect, is that this type of project is liable to quickly attract the attention of people who regard chemtrails and reptilians as “unsolved mysteries”, among other conspiracies. When I poked around on Wikenigma I discovered, to my delight, that there are some entries on cycling — including <a href="https://wikenigma.org.uk/content/physics/general/bicycle_dynamics?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">the puzzle over why riderless bicycles, set in motion, tend to self-stabilize.</a> Also, they apparently <a href="https://wikenigma.org.uk/content/history/bicycle_design?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">don’t know who invented the bicycle crank</a>. The interesting challenge here, I suspect, is in crafting entries that are usefully specific enough. For example, there’s <a href="https://wikenigma.org.uk/content/psychology/general/boredom?s%5B%5D=boredom&utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">an entry noting that boredom is poorly understood</a> … which is certainly true but feels, I dunno, kind of vague? I’d be more interested in a series of entries about various facets of boredom, each of which goes deep, rather than a blanket assertion about the overall domain. Then again, if Wikenigma succeeds — which I hope it does — I would assume these Linnean forking branches will emerge. I’m certainly tempted to dive in and add some entries. <hr/> <h2>7) 🎸 Roadies in their 70s <a id="item07"></a></h2> <figure><img alt=" A close-up of four slider knobs on a soundboard mixer. Just above the slider knobs you can see a row of brightly lit LED lights, slightly out of focus, mostly blue but a few in white, red, green, and orange." draggable="false" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/713e3ab8-563d-41d6-a002-816d88f8bc8b.png?w=960&fit=max"/><figcaption>via <a href="https://www.pexels.com/photo/black-and-brown-audio-mixer-3784424/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Pexels</a></figcaption></figure> For rock bands, apparently some of the most in-demand roadies are in their late 60s and 70s. Tim Sommer has <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/09/arts/music/live-music-roadies-techs-seniors.html?unlocked_article_code=1.n04.pUFY.ujEKvLdDrCAn&smid=url-share&utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">a wonderful piece profiling a handful of these AARP members, who keep on getting work because their deep well of experience</a> means they’re unfazed by any musical emergency. Since their careers date back to the 1960s, they’ve seen it all. Sure, they may have knee replacements and back issues, but there is no sound-board crisis with which they have not dealt. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/09/arts/music/live-music-roadies-techs-seniors.html?unlocked_article_code=1.n04.pUFY.ujEKvLdDrCAn&smid=url-share&utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">A sample from the piece (gift link) …</a> <blockquote> A good tech’s work is mostly invisible to the audience. “People go, ‘Wow, what an awesome show, man. They played 90 minutes!’ But you have no idea what it takes to make these 90 minutes,” said Ingo Marte, who has worked with hard rock bands like Danzig, Saxon and Armored Saint for 41 years. (He’s a relatively young 65.) “I had actually a really bad heart attack like eight years ago,” he added, “and that’s when I thought, OK, I am done. No more touring. But I picked myself up and I’m still at it.” Schoo’s work with the Edge involves maintaining and tuning as many as 27 guitars a night, as well as precisely finessing the mind-boggling array of effects the musician uses, in real time, to build his sound. Schoo said that U2’s <a class="css-yywogo" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/30/arts/music/u2-sphere-las-vegas.html?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">residency at the Sphere in Las Vegas</a> in 2023 and 2024 was particularly arduous.“There are 17 steps from the floor — where my guitar world is — up to that stage. So, I was 70 years old at the time, and I am running up and down and up and down those steps with an eight-pound guitar, for 40 shows. I get paid handsomely for that, but I’m always thinking, when will I trip? Is tonight the night I fall down those stairs?” </blockquote> Go check out <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/09/arts/music/live-music-roadies-techs-seniors.html?unlocked_article_code=1.n04.pUFY.ujEKvLdDrCAn&smid=url-share&utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">the whole thing</a> — the photography is amazing. <hr/> <h2 data-pm-slice="1 1 []">8) 🧱 Cracking the secrets of Roman concrete</h2> <a id="item08"></a><figure><img alt=" A black-and-white photo of the Roman Colosseum. It shows a large circular corroded ancient building, two stories, each story a series of arches. The stone is clearly extremely old but in quite good shape nonetheless " draggable="false" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/51678085-ba30-4140-a8c0-c19e92feae48.jpg?w=960&fit=max"/><figcaption><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/pavdw/52822508572/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">“Colosseum of Rome” by Paul VanDerWerf, Flickr</a> (<a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">CC 2.0</a>, unmodified)</figcaption></figure> Ancient Roman concrete is amazing stuff. Our modern concrete is super strong, but over time it develops cracks that let water in, making it crumble. In contrast, 2,000-year-old Roman concrete? It takes a licking but keeps on ticking. “Roman marine concretes have survived in one of the most aggressive environments on Earth with no maintenance at all,” as geologist Marie Jackson notes. In recent years, scientists think they’ve figured out the secret, and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/19/science/concrete-roman-construction.html?unlocked_article_code=1.pU4.SbhU.yi0GvNBO-q4_&smid=url-share&utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">in the New York Times (gift link), Amos Zeeberg dove into it.</a> The main clue is these little white chunks studded throughout the Roman concrete. Scientists used to think these chunks were evidence of impurities — i.e. screwups by the Romans mixing the concrete. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/19/science/concrete-roman-construction.html?unlocked_article_code=1.pU4.SbhU.yi0GvNBO-q4_&smid=url-share&utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">But maybe not …</a> <blockquote> According to Dr. Masic’s research, these lime clasts were actually reservoirs of calcium that helped fill in cracks, making the concrete self-healing. As cracks formed, water would seep in and dissolve the calcium in the lime, which then formed solid calcium carbonate, essentially creating new rock that filled in the crack. The chunks are typically thought to be unintentional products of poor workmanship, but Dr. Masic maintains that Roman engineers were too clever to consistently make concrete riddled with mistakes. “People said lime clasts are bad mixing of slaked lime,” he said. “Our hypothesis is it’s not part of bad processing; it’s part of the technology.” </blockquote> Now various teams of researchers are reverse-engineering the Roman techniques to produce new concrete with that same self-healing property. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/19/science/concrete-roman-construction.html?unlocked_article_code=1.pU4.SbhU.yi0GvNBO-q4_&smid=url-share&utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">Early tests are promising:</a> <blockquote> In one experiment, the researchers built concrete arches, submerged them in seawater for 50 days and then pushed the top of the arches with increasing pressure until the concrete started to bend and crack. Then the arches were submerged for almost a year and tested again. The researchers found that CASH compounds had filled the tiny cracks, and that the arches could withstand two to three times as much force as before, depending on the particular test. </blockquote> And, bonus! The ancient Roman style requires far less energy. Manufacturing normal concrete these days requires firing it at 2,600 degrees Fahrenheit, which is mostly done using coal — so concrete production is fully 8 per cent of global CO2 emissions. But these Roman techniques? They only require 1,300 Fahrenheit. If we could actually mass-produce this stuff we’d have far stronger, more durable materials with dramatically slashed carbon emissions. <hr/> <h2>9) 📐 The “Ott Derivimeter” of the 1930s <a id="item09"></a></h2> <figure><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4Wdjz2uiPY&utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><img alt=" A screenshot of a YouTube video focused on the “derivimeter”. It appears to be a metal protractor that has at its center a strange white cylinder bisected down the center, with a piece of glass near the bottom, adjacent to where the protractor lies on the paper. It is very cool looking." draggable="false" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/8f88109e-785e-4174-ae83-ca43b36d23d4.png?w=960&fit=max"/></a><figcaption></figcaption></figure> Behold the extremely cool “Ott Derivimeter” — a high-tech protractor from the 1930s. It’s designed to let you precisely identify the derivative of a curve. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4Wdjz2uiPY&utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">If you watch the video, Chris Staecker shows how it works:</a> The derivimeter has a mirror that you swivel until its angle produces a precise image of the curve. At that point, the derivimeter is oriented such that its angle is the perfect tangent. You <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4Wdjz2uiPY&utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">read the degrees on the metal semicircle and there’s your derivative.</a> So elegant! I’d love to get my hands on one, but I can’t seem to find any for sale anywhere, waaah. <hr/> <h2>10) 🐜 How armies of ants can reduce pesticide use <a id="item10"></a></h2> <figure><img alt=" A close-up of the bulb of a plant, green with a splash of dark bright purple, with three ants crawling over it. " draggable="false" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/05906959-b86a-48e4-bdfe-360843caf749.png?w=960&fit=max"/><figcaption>via <a href="https://www.pexels.com/photo/macro-shot-of-ants-on-a-fruit-12263763/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Pexels</a></figcaption></figure> In Grist, <a href="https://grist.org/food-and-agriculture/a-secret-weapon-in-agricultures-climate-fight-ants/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">Ayurella Horn-Muller investigates an intriguing scientific mystery: Why do crops that have ants crawling all over them thrive so well?</a> Ancient farmers had long observed that whenever there was a really massive ant population on their farm, they had less blight and mold. For millennia, in fact, Chinese farms specifically cultivated ant populations precisely because it always correlated to healthier crops. Modern research had backed up this farmer wisdom. Studies have found that wood ants in Denmark reduced apple scab — a real crop-destroyer — by 61 percent; in fact the ants did twice as good a job as pesticides. The same deal with mango, cashew and citrus crops. Okay, cool. But … <a href="https://grist.org/food-and-agriculture/a-secret-weapon-in-agricultures-climate-fight-ants/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">how precisely do ants have this effect?</a> <blockquote> The answer, Jensen said, lies in how ants function. All species of the arthropod possess a body that is essentially hostile for bacteria because they produce formic acid, which they use to constantly disinfect themselves. Ants are also perpetually hungry little things that will feast on the spores of plant pathogens, among other things, and their secretion of formic acid and highly territorial nature tends to deter a medley of other insects that could be transmitting diseases or making lunch of some farmers’ crops. Ultimately, their greatest trick is what Jensen’s newest research reveals: Ants also inherently have antimicrobial bacteria and fungi on their bodies and feet, which can reduce plant diseases in afflicted crops, with these microorganisms deposited as the critters walk. When the bugs are cultivated in fruit orchards, they march all over trees, their feet coating the plants in microbial organisms that can curb emerging pathogens. </blockquote> <a href="https://grist.org/food-and-agriculture/a-secret-weapon-in-agricultures-climate-fight-ants/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">Very cool piece — worth reading in full!</a> Cultivating ants en masse could let farmers walk back their use of pesticides, which would have terrific knock-on effects on soil quality, too. <hr/> <h2>11) 🍦 Greyscale gelato <a id="item11"></a></h2> <figure><img alt=" Six hands holding up six dark brown ice cream cones, and the ice cream itself is one scoop for each cone. The ice cream scoops themselves are various shades of gray, beginning fairly light on the left-hand side and getting gradually darker until the scoop on the far right is almost black" draggable="false" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/0edf659a-20bf-4995-8ff0-969b1b4dc45b.png?w=960&fit=max"/><figcaption>via <a href="https://www.piccolinagelateria.com.au?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Piccolina</a></figcaption></figure> How much does the color of a food influence how you taste it? Down in Melbourne, the artist João Loureiro is doing a fun project to test this out. He’s working with a local gelateria to concoct six flavors of gelato that are various shades of grey. <a href="https://www.designboom.com/art/joao-loureiro-nameless-grayscale-gelato-tadao-ando-mpavilion-10-melbourne-piccolina-12-19-2024/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">As designboom writes …</a> <blockquote> On-site, customers can ask Piccolina about the flavors of the grayscale gelato, which range from light grey to almost black. João Loureiro tells designboom in an email that the flavors change every time the work is shown. ‘It depends on local flavors and the ice cream production system,’ he shares with us. Users across social platforms still try to guess the flavors, including black sesame, but only when they visit the stall at MPavilion 10 can they confirm their hunches. </blockquote> I’d love to taste these! Me, I feel like I’d be primed to taste them as ashy, or charcoal-flavored? But we might be quite surprised. Years ago while working on a story about “molecular gastronomy” — i.e. high-end chefs devising meals in exceptionally weird shapes and forms, using industrial food-prep techniques — I visited a corporate flavor lab, where a food chemist showed me hundreds of vials of artificial flavors, everything from blueberry to bacon. “I can make anything taste like anything else,” he told me. I believed him. <hr/> <h2>12) 🌑 Rebuilding the Apollo moon-landing computer as a watch <a id="item12"></a></h2> <figure><img alt=" A picture of two curious looking watches, side-by-side. Each watch is identical except for the color of the strap; one has a black strap, one has a brown strap. The watch itself is rectangular, chunky, with the bottom half covered by large square black buttons Showing the numbers from 0 to 9, as well as a plus sign, a negative sign, and several small words that are not easily visible. The top half of the watch has, on the right hand side, a tall rectangular black screen showing bright green LED numbers. Next to it are a handful of pretty, lit buttons. The whole thing looks very retro – as if it had been created in the 1960s." draggable="false" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/fbd338aa-b005-464b-b5e4-97a3fa60ac6e.png?w=960&fit=max"/><figcaption>via <a href="https://apollo-instruments.com/media-kit/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Apollo Instruments</a></figcaption></figure> The “DSKY Moonwatch” is one of the nerdiest things I’ve ever seen in my life. A group of designers got obsessed with NASA’s computer that was in the original Apollo moon lander, and <a href="https://apollo-instruments.com?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">have recreated it as an $800 wristwatch.</a> They reimplemented the original code written by Margaret Hamilton (of <a href="https://phys.org/news/2016-08-image-margaret-hamilton-apollo-code.html?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">that famous NASA photo</a>), copied the exact keypad-controls, and even hired a designer to replicate the exact font — and hue of green — on the original NASA display. It does the usual watch stuff (time, date, stopwatch), but since the watch also contains Hamilton’s OG code, you can — if you want — run the actual moon-landing sequence on your wrist. Mind you, you’ll have to master the original NASA user-interface for this deeply idiosyncratic computer. <a href="http://www.collectspace.com/news/news-121824a-dsky-moonwatch-apollo-instruments.html?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">As a story about the watch’s design notes …</a> <blockquote> To those accustomed to modern point-and-click setups, the AGC's approach can appear challenging to grasp. In essence, verbs represented actions the computer could perform, while nouns were specific data inputs. For example, pressing "verb" followed by "35" triggered a test of the indicator lights and display. Verb and noun commands also instructed the Apollo lunar module's computer to begin the landing routine. Both of these actions can be replicated on the DSKY Moonwatch. Verb and noun codes also allow users to adjust the watch's time, alarm, stopwatch and GPS navigation functionalities. On the Apollo missions, astronauts used a "cheat sheet" to keep track of nearly 200 verbs and nouns. Wearers have a similar guide, so there is no long list of codes to memorize. "We felt a profound responsibility to get this right," said Clayton. "We wanted to create something that the community is going to be accepting of, where they say, 'this is exactly how we would have designed it ourselves.'" </blockquote> These people are totally unglued. I love it! Not enough to, y’know, shell out $800 for this watch, but I admire how much they have committed to the bit. <hr/> <h2 data-pm-slice="1 1 []">13) 🐝 A poem about unhappy bees that was put on trial in 1723</h2> <a id="item13"></a> <img alt=" A screenshot of a scan of what appears to be a very old page in a very old book. The top half of the page is a headline written in an ancient font that reads: “the grumbling hive: or, knaves turn’d honest.” Beneath it are two columns of print that look like a Bible" class="newsletter-image" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/cef96c12-c855-4e43-94c7-162420a2889c.png?w=960&fit=max"/> In 1723, the writer Bernard Mandeville was pretty unknown. But that all changed when he published a poem called <a href="https://archive.org/details/bim_eighteenth-century_the-grumbling-hive-or-_mandeville-bernard_1705?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">“The Grumbling Hive”.</a> The poem is about a bee society that is beset by vice: There’s drunkness, gluttony, idle leisure, endless primping fashion. The morally upright bees in the population bemoan this state of affairs, and eventually their god, Jove, heeds their complains and intervenes — by suddenly making all the bees utterly honest, upright, and clean-living. The problem is that the hive’s economy utterly collapses. Without people spending money on booze, frivolous clothing, gambling and other such vices, there’s precious little economic activity. <a href="https://archive.is/j2Jj5?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">As Mandeville describes it in his poem, all foreign trade dries up …</a> <blockquote> As pride and luxury decrease, So by degrees they leave the seas, Not merchants now, but companies, Remove whole manufactories, All arts and crafts neglected lie, Content, the bane of industry. </blockquote> This idea — that prosperity relies on “vice” spending — went off like a bomb in polite 18th-century society. Back then, philosophies of “how society worked” most often proceeded from an insistence on the basic morality of humanity. The idea that vice could be fruitfully productive seemed bananas, and dangerous. So writers and priests and philosophers all ganged up on Mandeville, penning tracts that furiously denounced “The Grumbling Hive”. Soon Mandeville himself was literally put on trial. He escaped punishment. And he kind of won the argument, in the long run, <a href="https://archive.is/j2Jj5?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">as John Callanan writes in a terrific essay about “The Grumbling Hive”</a>. In his weird little poem, Mandeville had opened a new intellectual door: He had described society not as it ought to be, but as it actually was. He more or less <a href="https://archive.is/j2Jj5?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">invented anthropology …</a> <blockquote> Mandeville approached his subject matter — the nature of human beings and their society — in a manner quite unlike anyone before him. He did not proceed from a stipulated definition of the human being, setting down the rules of society a priori, or by sermonizing upon God’s plan for humanity. Instead, Mandeville adopted the method of a social anthropologist. The introduction to the Fable begins with a complaint: “One of the greatest reasons why so few people understand themselves, is, that most writers are always teaching men what they should be, and hardly ever trouble their heads with telling them what they really are.” </blockquote> And he was asking a question that is incredibly relevant even today … <blockquote> Was it possible to be morally good in a commercial capitalist society? Is the very idea of virtue out of place in the market? Isn’t greed just a straightforward good for the modern individual, who is now as much a consumer as they are a citizen? </blockquote> I had never heard of this odd literary work, but damned if I’m not <a href="https://archive.org/details/bim_eighteenth-century_the-grumbling-hive-or-_mandeville-bernard_1705?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">downloading all of “The Grumbling Hive” to read it right now</a>. Check out <a href="https://archive.is/j2Jj5?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">the rest of that essay by Callanan — it’s damn interesting.</a> <hr/> <h2>14) 🔊 The “sonic heirloom” <a id="item14"></a></h2> <figure><img alt=" A picture of a device on a plain blank wall. It looks almost like a clock, except instead of a clock-face there is a brass flat bowl attached to a dark square covered in glass. In the far right there is a blonde woman, half out of the frame, looking at it" draggable="false" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/03c92903-e2aa-4c3f-9c3d-69211656a085.png?w=960&fit=max"/><figcaption>via <a href="https://www.sonicheirloom-mapprojectoffice.com?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Map Project Office</a></figcaption></figure> The designers at two firms — Map Project Office, and Father — created this intriguing art piece, <a href="https://www.designboom.com/technology/turntable-sonic-heirloom-records-audio-plays-sound-singing-bell-map-project-office-father-12-17-2024/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">the Sonic Heirloom.</a> It’s got a little round recording “puck” you carry with you to sample sound from your daily life. Then when you get home you put the puck into Sonic Heirloom … and it plays the audio back, while also spinning the Heirloom’s tin-and-copper bell — and mixing the playback with the eerie, churchlike resonance of the ringing metal bell. Basically, it’s a way of remembering your day by re-experiencing its sound. You can hear what it sounds like <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVV75jBzcXA&utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">in this demo reel video on YouTube.</a> <a href="https://www.sonicheirloom-mapprojectoffice.com?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">As the designers write on their web site …</a> <blockquote> This project encourages reflection on the profound role sound plays in capturing life’s significant moments, urging us to engage more intentionally with the soundscapes of our lives. Rather than allowing sound to passively complement the visual, Sonic Heirloom invites users to embrace sound as a primary sense for storytelling and memory. [snip] Inspired by historical sonic tools imbued with meaning, such as bells and clocks, the Sonic Heirloom reflects these timeless forms in its materiality, interaction, and design language. Built to endure, the heirloom can be passed down through generations, inviting each new generation to connect with, reinterpret, and cherish the memories it holds. </blockquote> I’m not sure I’d want to listen to this thing a lot, but it’s a really intriguing concept. An ur-point: The designers are quite correct that audio is a neglected dimension in the media we use to record (and revisit) our lives. We’ll often look at pictures or video to evoke memories. But we’ll rarely listen to only sound captured from our everyday activities. Given how evocative audio alone can be, it’s an interesting area for designers to explore. <hr/> <h2>15) 💿 The Phaistos Disk <a id="item15"></a></h2> <figure><img alt=" A picture of a round clay disc that is covered in indented icons, arranged in a spiral from the edge of the center. A few of the icons include small human figures; other shapes look like pieces of wood or Y shaped sticks" draggable="false" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/4da715da-4ce3-4e80-aee5-3ea22c1c5f81.jpg?w=960&fit=max"/><figcaption><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/carolemage/40864207013?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">photo by Carole Raddato, Flickr</a> (<a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">CC 2.0 license</a>, unmodified)</figcaption></figure> Behold <a href="https://news.artnet.com/art-world/the-hunt-phaistos-disk-2564109?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">the Phaistos Disk:</a> Discovered in 1908 during an archaeological dig of a bronze-age Minoan are, it is covered in symbols the meaning of which nobody, to this day, can decipher. “Nobody really knows who made it or if we’re even holding it right-side up, let alone what language it’s in,” <a href="https://news.artnet.com/art-world/the-hunt-phaistos-disk-2564109?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">as Adnan Qiblawi writes for Artnet</a>. As he notes … <blockquote> What makes the Phaistos Disk particularly mind-bending is its method of creation. Each of its 241 symbols was carefully pressed into the soft clay using individual stamps. The 45 different signs spiral inward from the disk’s edge on both sides, arranged in tidy little groups that closely—and tantalizingly—resemble words. The symbols themselves are a parade of miniature artworks: strutting figures wearing feathered headdresses, fish swimming nowhere, birds frozen in flight, along with tools, plants, and buildings rendered in remarkable detail. [snip] Scholars, some who have dedicated decades of their lives to deciphering the disk, have suggested everything from a prayer to an adventure story, from military propaganda to instructions for a board game. Some regard it as a sacred text, others as an ancient geometric theorem. It’s like having one of the world’s oldest storybooks, but no way to read it, and without more examples of this mysterious writing system, the code might never be cracked. </blockquote> Apparently the sophistication of the individual stamps used in its creation — and their style — made some archaeologists believe for years that it was a hoax. But later on they found artifacts from the same period with similar glyphs, and others with the same spiral pattern … so it seems legit. Still a big mystery, though. I’d never before heard of the disk, but am now intrigued to read more. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phaistos_Disc?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">Wikipedia has a good entry on it, to start me off.</a> <hr/> <h2>16) 🌋 A final, suddden-death round of reading material <a id="item16"></a></h2> Porting <a href="https://www.timeextension.com/features/the-making-of-dragonrs-lairrs-impossible-game-boy-color-port?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">Dragon’s Lair to the Game Boy Color</a>. 🌋 Stealth bomber <a href="https://new-aesthetic.tumblr.com/post/671160995421487104/rainbow-plane-on-google-maps-via-stealth-bomber?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">caught on Google Satellite view</a>. 🌋 <a href="https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/highball-signal?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">Delmar’s Highball Signal</a>. 🌋 3D-printable <a href="https://makerworld.com/en/models/652154?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter#profileId-578920" target="_blank">Lego brick-sorting tray</a>. 🌋 A new solution to <a href="https://3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2024/12/on-pushing-big-sofas-down-narrow-hallways.html?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">“Moser’s Couch Problem”</a>. 🌋 Can <a href="https://theconversation.com/can-animals-make-art-these-examples-from-nature-suggest-so-237126?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">animals make art?</a> 🌋 I really want a <a href="https://www.pedal-of-the-day.com/2025/01/12/whitman-audio-decoherence-drive/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">Whitman Audio Decoherence Drive</a>. 🌋 <a href="https://hyperallergic.com/974556/an-incomplete-history-of-griffins-in-art/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">Griffinology</a>. 🌋 Zebrafish on ketamine <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/01/07/nx-s1-5250210/tiny-fish-on-ketamine-may-show-how-drug-eases-depression?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">are less depressed</a>. 🌋 A <a href="https://news.artnet.com/art-world/august-friedrich-schenck-anguish-2574667?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">19th-century sheep painting goes viral</a>. 🌋 Very cool <a href="https://www.yankodesign.com/2025/01/10/hanko-ruler-concept-lets-you-print-scaled-marks-on-any-surface/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=hanko-ruler-concept-lets-you-print-scaled-marks-on-any-surface" target="_blank">concept ruler</a>. 🌋 Robotic AI keyboard/mouse-tray <a href="https://www.yankodesign.com/2025/01/06/ai-powered-keyboard-and-mouse-slides-and-retracts-so-you-wont-have-to-move-your-hands/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=ai-powered-keyboard-and-mouse-slides-and-retracts-so-you-wont-have-to-move-your-hands" target="_blank">moves around in anticipation of your actions</a>. 🌋 Doom <a href="https://github.com/ading2210/doompdf?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">in a PDF</a>. 🌋 Massive, <a href="https://helenhiebertstudio.com/helens-100-papery-picks-2024/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">astounding list of papercraft sites online</a>. 🌋 They found a new <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/a-quarry-worker-felt-strange-bumps-while-digging-they-turned-out-to-be-the-largest-dinosaur-trackway-in-the-uk-180985774/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">dinosaur highway</a>. 🌋 Vaccuum-robot with extra arm for <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/91255715/roborock-robot-vacuum-arm-clean-up?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">picking up loose socks</a>. 🌋 Plagiarism, as a plot device, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/02/books/review/plagiarism-plot.html?unlocked_article_code=1.qU4.3kIG.9sfyhuyZeTjT&smid=url-share&utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">is having a moment</a>. 🌋 Which animals are <a href="https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/do-animals-get-drunk?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">least likely to get drunk?</a> 🌋 A <a href="https://tedium.co/2025/01/12/screen-saver-history/?utm_medium=feed&utm_source=feedpress.me&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+tedium" target="_blank">history of the screensaver</a>. 🌋 Using 16 chainsaws to make <a href="https://www.yankodesign.com/2024/12/25/16-chainsaws-get-converted-into-an-oversized-v16-engine-for-a-custom-lada-design/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=16-chainsaws-get-converted-into-an-oversized-v16-engine-for-a-custom-lada-design" target="_blank">a V16 car engine</a>. 🌋 List of thrift-store art that turned out to be <a href="https://news.artnet.com/art-world/thrift-store-discoveries-flips-2024-2574210?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">lost masterpieces</a>. 🌋 3D print of <a href="https://flowingdata.com/2024/11/26/3-d-print-of-john-snow-cholera-map/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">the John Snow cholera map</a>. 🌋 <a href="https://defector.com/the-future-of-west-coast-wildfire-is-whiplash?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">“Hydroclime whiplash”</a>. 🌋 Turns out humans suck at <a href="https://direct.mit.edu/opmi/article/doi/10.1162/opmi_a_00159/124792/Tangled-Physics-Knots-Strain-Intuitive-Physical?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">predicting the strength of a knot</a>. 🌋 Trippy 70s-style <a href="https://www.neatorama.com/2025/01/07/A-Modern-Cuckoo-Clock/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">mod cuckoo clock</a>. 🌋 <a href="https://daily.jstor.org/insects-in-the-mail/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">Mailing insects in the 18th century</a>. 🌋 The luxury passenger train that got <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/when-a-deadly-winter-storm-trapped-a-luxury-passenger-train-near-the-donner-pass-for-three-days-180985782/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">trapped in the Donner Pass</a>. 🌋 An espresso machine that refills itself <a href="https://www.techradar.com/home/coffee-machines/this-coffee-machine-brews-espresso-using-water-condensed-from-the-air-in-your-home?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">by condensing water from the surrounding air</a>. 🌋 Survey finds <a href="https://theconversation.com/do-aliens-exist-we-studied-what-scientists-really-think-241505?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">most scientists think alien life exists</a>. 🌋 The danger of lightning strikes during <a href="https://theconversation.com/lightning-strikes-make-collecting-a-parasitic-fungus-prized-in-traditional-chinese-medicine-a-deadly-pursuit-243236?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">Chinese caterpillar-fungus harvesting</a>. 🌋 <a href="https://aworkinglibrary.com/reading/light-eaters?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">The Light Eaters</a>. 🌋 What <a href="https://simonwillison.net/2024/Dec/31/llms-in-2024/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">we learned about LLMs in 2024</a>. 🌋 Map of <a href="https://flowingdata.com/2025/01/03/star-wars-galaxy-map/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">the Star Wars galaxies</a>. 🌋 William S. Burroughs’ <a href="https://www.openculture.com/2024/12/the-junkys-christmas-william-s-burroughs-dark-claymation-christmas-film-produced-by-francis-ford-coppola-1993.html?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter#new_tab" target="_blank">xmas claymation movie</a>. 🌋 Why the Mars Sample Return project <a href="https://www.adastraspace.com/p/mars-sample-return-update?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">is probably cooked</a>. 🌋 Looks like <a href="https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/01/judge-ends-mans-11-year-quest-to-dig-up-landfill-and-recover-765m-in-bitcoin/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">he’ll never find those 7,500 Bitcoins he accidentally dumped in a landfill</a>. 🌋 Regions of Germany under Roman rule 2,000 years ago <a href="https://www.psypost.org/ancient-roman-rule-continues-to-shape-personality-and-well-being-in-germany-study-suggests/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">fare better today</a>. 🌋 <a href="https://www.designboom.com/architecture/made-arhitekti-timber-kindergarten-latvia-baltic-states-first-public-passive-house-building-12-19-2024/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">Timber kindergarten building</a>. 🌋 A huge, mysterious ring of metal that <a href="https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/01/a-glowing-ring-of-metal-fell-to-earth-and-no-one-has-any-idea-what-it-is/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">fell to earth in Kenya</a>. 🌋 Thermal drone finds a dog <a href="https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2025/01/07/crystal-lake-dog-thermal-drone/7161736284691/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">missing for a week in the woods</a>. 🌋 The San Diego Symphony’s 104-year-old organ <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/entertainment/music/inside-san-diego-symphony-s-104-year-old-theater-organ/ar-AA1wZCvR?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">runs Windows 7</a>. 🌋 Navigating by <a href="https://hackaday.com/2025/01/06/before-gps-there-was-loran/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">“LORAN curves”</a>. <hr/> CODA ON SOURCING: I read a ton of blogs and sites every week to find this material. A few I relied on this week include <a href="https://ciechanow.ski/moon/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">Flowing Data</a>, <a href="https://www.numlock.com/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">Numlock News</a>, <a href="https://hackaday.com?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">Hackaday,</a> <a href="https://www.messynessychic.com/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">Messy Nessy Chic</a>, <a href="https://themorningnews.org/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">The Morning News</a>, and Mathew Ingram’s <a href="https://newsletter.mathewingram.com/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">“When The Going Get Weird”</a>; check ‘em out! Thanks also to Mastodon folks <a href="https://fosstodon.org/@brianb?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">@brianb</a> and <a href="https://mastodon.ie/@mtechman?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-30-greyscale-gelato-the-ott-derivimeter" target="_blank">Melissa</a>.

Linkfest #31: Tactile Graphics, "Alexinomnia", and a To-Do App Controlled By Dice

The Linkfest Feb 23, 2025

Hello folks! It’s time for "the opposite of doomscrolling” — my latest “Linkfest”, a collection of the finest nuggets of science, culture and technology that I could excavate from the fractally-branching mineshafts of cyberspace. If you’re a subscriber, thank you! If not, you can <a href="https://buttondown.email/clivethompson/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">sign up here — it’s a Guardian-style, pay-whatevs-you-want affair; the folks who kick in help keep it free for everyone else</a>. And also — forward this email to anyone you know who’d like it! Let’s begin ... <hr/><h2>1) 🎨 Trippy paintings inspired by the artist’s twin sister</h2> <figure><img alt="A painting that depicts several body parts of a woman — the head and face, the hands, entirely and profile, as if it were a shadow on the wall. It has a groovy, 1970s vibe to it. There are multiple layers of these images in different colors, overlay on each other, symmetrical on the left and right side of the painting. The colors are yellow, orange, red, blue and purple." draggable="false" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/dba5699c-f621-4c4d-971c-e69461b018d0.png?w=960&fit=max"/><figcaption><a href="https://marinakappos.com/ultraviolet-catastrophe/view/8750666/1/9178064?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">“199 (Sister 1)” by Marina Kappos</a></figcaption></figure> Marina Kappos has an identical twin sister, a fact that inspires her latest series of paintings — in which she layers together transparent mirror-images of women’s bodies, to produce gorgeous and hypnotic images. <a href="https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2025/01/marina-kappos-paintings/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">As she tells Colossal …</a> <blockquote>Kappos applies acrylic paint in semi-transparent layers of color, which overlap to create a resonating or vibrating visual quality. She is interested in portraying human connections, especially women, often emphasizing profiles or hands because they hint at the body but may not be the first detail one notices when seeing reverberating, optical color effects. Many works have light and dark counterparts, like “Sister 1” and “Sister 2.”“Like echoes, the repeated motifs almost have a Doppler effect, where there is an increase or decrease in frequency of light depending on where you stand,” Kappos says. “The ethereal, transparent layers of paint eventually become profiles of faces, sometimes melding into landscape, at times appearing out of focus, simply buzzing or humming along.”</blockquote> More of her stuff <a href="https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2025/01/marina-kappos-paintings/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">at that Colossal piece</a> or at <a href="https://marinakappos.com/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Kappos’ web site.</a> <hr/><h2>2) 👉 Tactile graphics for visually-impaired students in 1900</h2> <figure><img alt="The photo of a large piece of thick stiff cardboard, with embossed images of a lobster, a tarantula, and a few other insects. Each one has a few lines braille embossed beneath it, seemingly describing what the insect or animal is. It looks old." draggable="false" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/59b2982e-18d9-4fcb-a43b-8fbebd1d0706.png?w=960&fit=max"/><figcaption><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/perkinsarchive/21101906111/in/album-72157658148219935?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">via Perkins School for the Blind</a></figcaption></figure> Back during the turn of the 20th century, the educator Martin Kunz ran a school for visually-impaired kids. To give them a sense of the shape of various animals and plants, he created these remarkable embossed images accompanied by braille descriptions. <a href="https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2025/01/martin-kunz-tactile-graphics/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">As Kate Mothes writes …</a> <blockquote>To create each page, he hand-carved two wood pieces that formed a mold, into which he sandwiched paper to produce raised illustrations.The material was typically thick, and Kunz soaked it in water before placing it between the blocks so that the natural fibers would soften and stretch into shape. Leaves, fish, herons, crocodiles, crustaceans, and more comprise a wide array of designs that he mass-produced and made available to blind students all over the world.</blockquote> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/perkinsarchive/albums/72157656346758373/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">More here at their Flickr account</a>. The maps are particularly gorgeous, as with Italy here … <figure><img alt="Large piece of thick cardboard with an embossed image of Italy, rendered as a relief map. The top of the map has a few lines of braille. The map looks very old." draggable="false" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/455dd1ee-9b37-4c2c-a2ea-4bd820deda9d.png?w=960&fit=max"/><figcaption>via <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/perkinsarchive/21258905020/in/album-72157656346758373?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Perkins School for the Blind</a></figcaption></figure> The craft that went into this is pretty astonishing. <hr/><h2>3) 📇 “Alexinomia”, or, the phobia of calling loved ones by their names</h2> <figure><img alt='A photo of a woman sitting at a table at what appears to be a party — there were a few bottles of champagne on the table, and she is wearing a party hat. She is holding up a White piece of paper with the name "Katelin", and she has a huge open-mouthed smile.' draggable="false" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/ae631d70-3bec-4a7c-8319-922009b5f9d6.png?w=960&fit=max"/><figcaption>via <a href="https://www.pexels.com/photo/woman-showing-a-piece-of-paper-6519182/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Pexels</a></figcaption></figure> I had never heard of alexinomia before, but apparently it’s the condition where it feels so awkward to call a loved one by their name that you can’t bring yourself to do it. I was unaware this was a thing? But apparently so, according to <a href="https://archive.is/yUXWu?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">this fascinating piece by Shayla Love, who suffers from it …</a> <blockquote>For years, Thomas Ditye, a psychologist at Sigmund Freud Private University, in Vienna, and his colleague Lisa Welleschik listened as their clients described their struggles to say others’ names. In the 2023 study that coined the term alexinomia, Ditye and his colleagues interviewed 13 German-speaking women who found the phenomenon relatable. One woman told him that she couldn’t say her classmates’ names when she was younger, and after she met her husband, the issue became more pronounced. “Even to this day, it’s still difficult for me to address him by name; I always say ‘you’ or ‘hey,’ things like that,” she said. In <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0001691824001562?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">a study</a> published last year, Ditye and his colleagues searched online English-language discussion forums and found hundreds of posts in which men and women from around the world described how saying names made them feel weird. The team has also created an <a href="https://onlinebefragungen.sfu.ac.at/vass/index.php?i=ZF75IPYVXK2F&rnd=SRAG&utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">alexinomia questionnaire</a>, with prompts that include “Saying the name of someone I like makes me feel exposed” and “I prefer using nicknames with my friends and family in order to avoid using names.”</blockquote> The psychology here is really intriguing. Sometimes alexinomia happens because using a loved one’s name feels too formal, too alarming, too impersonal, or too hostile. Or too fakey, as when a salesperson learns your name and keeps using it (“well, Clive, that’s a good question!”) in a fashion that is instantly intolerable. <hr/><h2>4) ✈️ The Department of Defense’s “boneyard”</h2> <figure><img alt="An aerial image of of several massive brown fields, upon which are parked dozens and dozens of military fighter jets." draggable="false" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/29a290d5-dc60-48e0-b622-a604621bcb6b.jpg?w=960&fit=max"/><figcaption>by <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/johncreasey/4260506796/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">John Creasey, via Flickr</a> (<a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">CC 2.0</a>, unmodified)</figcaption></figure> Today I learned about the “boneyard”, an air-force base in Tucson where the Department of Defence stores surplus aircraft. When you look at it <a href="https://www.google.com/maps/place/Davis+Monthan+AFB,+Tucson,+AZ+85707/@32.1675794,-110.8623683,1295m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!3m5!1s0x86d6651b14a7a001:0xe2b3056ef02768fc!8m2!3d32.1614426!4d-110.8681253!16s%2Fg%2F1tgq72lc?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDIxNy4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D&utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">using Google Map’s satellite view</a> (or <a href="https://maps.apple.com/?ll=32.166189%2C-110.861840&q=Tucson+%E2%80%94+Pima+County&spn=0.013117%2C0.024706&t=h&utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Apple Maps</a>), it’s extraordinary — there are hundreds of bombers, fighter jets and helicopters, all neatly lined up in several huge fields. <a href="https://archive.is/MQR6w?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">As this piece in the Economist notes …</a> <blockquote>AMARG is a temporary storage site, a source for spare parts and a “regeneration” facility, where stored planes are made fit to fly again. “Nothing that you see out here is junk,” says Robert Raine, AMARG’s spokesman. Even what is obviously junk—a bunch of decaying B-52 bombers with their wings and tails chopped off—is there for a reason. They are kept in that state so that Russian spy satellites can verify America’s compliance with the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty.</blockquote> Apparently the air force strips them for parts quite frequently … <blockquote>… for use on serving fighters, bombers, transport carriers and others. The parts could be anything from engine components to entire horizontal stabilisers (those are fins at the back of a plane, jutting out sideways underneath the tailfin). Mechanics—whom AMARG calls “artisans”—go out into the desert, locate the part, extract it, and bring it to a warehouse where it is cleaned, checked, packaged and shipped. The reservoir can process up to 30 such requests every day.</blockquote> Here’s <a href="https://www.google.com/maps/place/Davis+Monthan+AFB,+Tucson,+AZ+85707/@32.1675794,-110.8623683,1295m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!3m5!1s0x86d6651b14a7a001:0xe2b3056ef02768fc!8m2!3d32.1614426!4d-110.8681253!16s%2Fg%2F1tgq72lc?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDIxNy4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D&utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">a link to view the location on Google Maps in satellite mode</a>, and here it is in <a href="https://maps.apple.com/?ll=32.166189%2C-110.861840&q=Tucson+%E2%80%94+Pima+County&spn=0.013117%2C0.024706&t=h&utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Apple Maps</a>. Slide the map up and to the right to see the rest of the field, it’s wild. <hr/><h2>5) 📱 WikiTok</h2> <figure><img "camacinia="" "cycling="" ...""="" 115"="" 15="" 17-19="" 2008="" 21="" a="" alt=" A screenshot of the app " an="" and="" are="" as="" at="" august="" australia.="" black="" britain,="" by="" chris="" commonly="" competitors="" cyclists.="" draggable="false" dragonfly="" dragonfly,="" each="" event="" family="" first="" following="" from="" great="" guinea,="" hand="" hoy="" image="" images="" in="" indonesia,="" indoor="" is="" islands,="" it="" knight.="" known="" laoshan="" large="" left-hand="" libellulidae="" limited="" men's="" nation="" nation's="" nations,="" native="" new="" northern="" of="" olympic="" olympics="" on="" othello="" papua="" place="" queensland="" right="" side="" side,="" side-by-side.="" solomon="" species="" sprint="" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/79557006-6c28-4288-8597-faa1cf8b56b8.png?w=960&fit=max" stadium,="" summer="" territory="" text:="" the="" there="" to="" took="" two="" velodrome.="" was="" were="" wikitok".="" wingspan="" with="" won="" —men's=""/><figcaption>WikiTok</figcaption></figure> On Feb 3, the software developer Tyler Angert tweeted: "insane project idea: all of wikipedia on a single, scrollable page." Others chimed in, vamping on the concept, and Angert coined the name "WikiTok" for the idea. Isaac Gemal, a coder based in NYC, saw the whole thing and jumped into action. So now we all can enjoy the delights of … … <a href="https://wikitok.vercel.app/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">WikiTok, a web app that displays an endless feed of randomly-picked Wikipedia articles.</a> When I just checked WikiTok now, it showed me the pages for <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhe_(Cyrillic)?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">the Cyrillic letter Dhe</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephanie_Strom?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Stephanie Strom</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_failure?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">“business failure”</a>, and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boradigah?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Boradigah</a>. It works fine on a laptop but is far more TikTok-like on a phone! Apparently early users have been pinging Gemal asking if he can add an algorithm that detects what they’re clicking on and serves up more, similar articles. He’s adamantly opposed — <a href="https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/02/new-wikitok-web-app-allows-infinite-tiktok-style-scroll-of-wikipedia/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">the whole point of the project, as he tells Benj Edwards at Ars Technica, is to critique the addictive “for you” sorting of social-media feeds:</a> <blockquote>… so far, he is sticking to his vision of a free way to enjoy Wikipedia without being tracked and targeted. "I have no grand plans for some sort of insane monetized hyper-calculating TikTok algorithm," Gemal told us. "It is anti-algorithmic, if anything."</blockquote> <hr/><h2>6) 💖 Romance is vanishing from movies</h2> <figure><img alt='A bar chart, entitled "romance as a percentage of all movies made". The X axis shows the years 2000 to 2024. The Y axis shows percentages, going from 0% to 35%. The percentage of romance begins at 35% and goes generally downwards to about 8% in 2024.' draggable="false" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/6ad097d4-05b4-4ee1-b59a-121bccdb7b33.png?w=960&fit=max"/><figcaption>via <a href="https://stephenfollows.com/p/is-romance-in-movies-dying?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Stephen Follows</a></figcaption></figure> Stephen Follows is a data guy who specializes in doing number-crunches of the film industry. He’d recently published a study showing that <a href="https://stephenfollows.com/p/why-is-sex-in-movies-declining?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">on-screen sex had declined by almost 40% over the last 25 years …</a> … which made him wonder: Huh, what’s been <a href="https://stephenfollows.com/p/is-romance-in-movies-dying?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">the fate of on-screen romance?</a> He gathered IMDB data, found that <a href="https://stephenfollows.com/p/is-romance-in-movies-dying?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">the percentage of movies classified as “romance” has absolutely plummeted — from 34.8% in 2000 to 8.6% in 2024.</a> He did another interesting analysis, looking at 17,430 movies that were not themselves romance (i.e. action flicks, sci fi, etc) and examined whether a subplot contained romance. Which is to say, even if the movie isn’t itself a “romance”, to what extent does the plot use romance? Even there, the trend was downwards. <a href="https://stephenfollows.com/p/is-romance-in-movies-dying?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Fewer movies contain romance as a subplot …</a> <figure><img "="" "irrelevant="" "main="" "minor="" 0%="" 18%="" 1930s="" 2020s.="" 20th="" 42%.="" 52%="" 7%="" 80%="" 80%.="" a="" about="" absent"="" alt="A line chart titled " amount="" and="" are="" around="" at="" axis="" be="" begins="" century,="" chart="" clear:="" downwards="" draggable="false" focus="" from="" generally="" goes="" here's="" in="" is="" land="" less="" levels="" likely="" lines:="" major="" minor="" more="" mostly="" movies".="" movies,="" of="" or="" over="" overall="" perhaps="" plots="" rises="" romance="" roughtly="" same="" seem="" shows.="" slides="" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/ca505cf2-fd13-4bdf-a3a9-5ca909859a9a.png?w=960&fit=max" starts="" stays="" subplot="" subplot"="" subplot.="" the="" there="" three="" throughtout="" time.="" to="" trends="" what="" x="" y=""/><figcaption></figcaption></figure> The one exception was action movies: They bounced around a bunch, but over decades the proportion that include a romantic subplot have gone up. What does this all mean? Follows doesn’t draw any firm conclusions, so we can talk amongst ourselves about it. He does wonder <a href="https://stephenfollows.com/p/is-romance-in-movies-dying?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">if romance has moved from the big screen to the smaller one — i.e. streaming services …</a> <blockquote>Rather than concluding that ‘romance is dead’, it feels more plausible to suggest that audiences may be engaging with it differently.Watching an emotionally intense romance can be a vulnerable experience - one perhaps better suited to the intimacy of home viewing rather than the big screen. This might explain why streaming services continue to produce romance-heavy content while feature filmmakers are leaning away from it.</blockquote> I’d buy this. It reminds me of <a href="https://buttondown.com/clivethompson/archive/linkfest-27-aztec-death-whistles-supercircular/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">the analysis of love songs that I described in Linkfest #27</a>, which found that the overall amount of love songs had stayed the same — but historic tropes like the “serenade” and the “heartache” had eroded, replaced by “love song for the self” and “sexual confidence” anthems. Or to put it another way: Genres likely never vanish — they just evolve in ways that can make them seem unrecognizable to previous generations. <hr/><h2>7) ⛏️ The dream-state weirdness of AI-generated Minecraft</h2> <figure><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHJ9jJh0udc&utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><img alt="A screenshot of the AI version of Minecraft, in which everything is blurry and badly rendered. In the background there appeared to be hills covered in grass. In the foreground there is a very mangled wooden block that appears to be transforming into something else, though what this shape is remains unclear." draggable="false" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/e9467307-a621-46cb-b1fe-2eeecc03420e.jpg?w=960&fit=max"/></a><figcaption>Via <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHJ9jJh0udc&utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Boffy on YouTube</a></figcaption></figure> <a href="https://oasis-model.github.io/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Oasis is a clone of Minecraft where the world is generated entirely by AI</a>. When you play it, the game takes your input — move forward, turn left, jump, etc. — and the AI model generates the next frame based on its best probabilistic guess of what ought to happen. This produces an incredibly weird experience. As you can see in the video above, the objects in Oasis are fuzzy and strange and sometimes randomly morph into something new. (That screenshot above is from <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHJ9jJh0udc&utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">a YouTube video showing what it looks like</a>.) Janelle Shane — a longtime experimenter with oddball AI — wrote <a href="https://www.aiweirdness.com/minecraft-with-object-impermanence/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">a fun essay on how dreamlike and trippy it is to experience Minecraft via Oasis …</a> <blockquote>There's no object permanence. Look at a mountain, look away, and look back at it, and the mountain's completely gone …… if you stare fixedly at ordinary blocks and approach them, they tend to get weird. Noise in a generative algorithm usually comes in the form of strong striped patterns, so by continually staring in the same direction you force the "Minecraft" algorithm to keep generating new frames based on accumulating noise. A somewhat ordinary stone cliff face gradually loses what definition it has, becoming blocky and flat as it seems to panic. [snip]I've made it a goal to see how completely I can get the generated landscape to freak out. One time I was swimming across a lake and noticed that the reflections at the water's edge were looking weirdly spiky.Swimming closer to them, they started to get even more strongly striped. Was this still supposed to be the horizon? Why did the rest of the water turn featureless?Why did the snowy mountain turn into trees? Was I even above water any more?I swam closer and the water's edge became a weird static wall that engulfed the sun.</blockquote> <hr/><h2>8) 👽 Could an extraterrestrial race metabolize something other than oxygen?</h2> <figure><img alt="A photo of a yellow brick wall, and in the upper right quarter there is an image of an alien from the original space invaders game, depicted in red and white tiles." draggable="false" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/c0e7028e-e5e1-42b6-a9ca-d6cc18e14a04.png?w=960&fit=max"/><figcaption>via <a href="https://www.pexels.com/photo/mosaic-alien-on-wall-1670977/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Pexels</a></figcaption></figure> This very question was posed to the Worldbuilding Stack Exchange (which I didn’t know existed; cool!) and <a href="https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/264678/could-a-race-of-humanoids-metabolize-something-other-than-oxygen?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">it prompted an engrossing answer from the user Samuel Owen.</a> As he notes, if we wanted to envision a lifeform that breathed something other than oxygen, we’d need “the oxidizer (an electron recipient) and the reducer (an electron donor)”. For the oxidizer on this alien planet, the most obvious candidates are the halogens fluorine, chlorine, bromine, and iodine. So <a href="https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/264678/could-a-race-of-humanoids-metabolize-something-other-than-oxygen?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">as Owen points out …</a> <blockquote>The life cycle of "plant" life in your world would involve ripping the carbon out of Halomethanes or silicon out of Halosilanes to use it for assorted purposes (storing energy, growing, etc), and emitting the resulting halogen as a byproduct. The substances that are abundant on your world will be massively different from the ones on ours - most things we're used to will react with halogens to produce compounds that are quite rare on Earth. As such, the tissues of your organisms will be strange to us - perhaps there's Teflon fibers in their skin, or their blood is Freon-based.</blockquote> For <a href="https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/264678/could-a-race-of-humanoids-metabolize-something-other-than-oxygen?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">the reducer component in the atmosphere, Owen suggests …</a> <blockquote>… perhaps elemental sulfur or peroxide, which is produced by some photosynthetic organism, to serve as the basic "fuel" for your world (akin to glucose for us). The atmosphere (at least the breathable part) would consist of something like hydrogen, methane, or another gas that we think of as "flammable". (Because that means it's readily oxidizable).</blockquote> This would produce <a href="https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/264678/could-a-race-of-humanoids-metabolize-something-other-than-oxygen?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">some pretty wild lifeforms …</a> <blockquote>It's worth noting that lots of things around this environment will be "flammable" to us, because the normal, stable forms of matter here will be ones that are thoroughly reduced - and therefore primed to oxidize if you give them an oxidizer. You might even see the sweat or blood of these aliens catch fire just from entering an Earth atmosphere!</blockquote> Go check out the whole thread, it’s a blast. I’m gonna add Worldbuilding to my RSS feeds — it looks like a hotbed of fascinating conversations. <hr/><h2>9) 🎲 To-do app controlled by dice</h2> <figure><img alt='A picture of a small paper pad. On each sheet is printed six line items that are empty for the user to fill out. At the top of the sheet is the instructions "roll a D6 to pick a task". At the bottom of the page is the instructions "roll again to pick a duration", and there are six possible options here: 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes, 40 minutes, 50 minutes, or a 10 minute break.' draggable="false" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/76f2a1d5-29f0-43b7-aefb-722f00b209b2.jpg?w=960&fit=max"/><figcaption></figcaption></figure> Tom and Sarah Briden are <a href="https://gladdendesign.com/pages/about-us?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">designers who make exceptionally cool “paper apps”.</a> I first heard of them when they launched a Kickstarter campaign for <a href="https://gladdendesign.com/products/paper-apps-dungeon?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">“Paper Dungeon”</a>, a single-player D&D style game you play using one of their custom-designed pads. They followed it up with <a href="https://gladdendesign.com/products/paper-apps-galaxy?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">“Galaxy”</a>, a similarly-styled one-pad space shooter. I just happened upon their <a href="https://gladdendesign.com/products/paper-apps-todo?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">“To Do Notebook”, which is a really witty conceit:</a> <blockquote>Fill out the tasks you want to accomplish, then roll a d6 to determine which one to work on. Roll again to determine how long to work on it. With any luck, you'll roll a 6 and get a break!</blockquote> Love it, gonna order some. <hr/><h2>10) 😜 Did two-word insults give birth to modern syntax?</h2> <figure><img alt='A picture of a page on which is printed three little images of Shakespeare, each one speaking an insult. The three insult are: "Reeky", "snail-paced", and "quatch-buttock".' draggable="false" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/e27a2985-a725-45a4-97c0-f7c978b74059.jpg?w=960&fit=max"/><figcaption><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/mikeblogs/27522862584/in/photolist-JPjhrP-JrDER7-HW6Saw-JKyisP-3AJ69-6arV35-3AXpK-53ozGQ-46qeJ-45Zgs-3GF6W-45EAE-2qfDjDi-2pn2xeD-9uiDFv-aXkZFP-6q9utS-pthZrj-GgPRYZ-v7jiu-6JzM-5wXiGo-8VUq2X-2mADSdW-24gEBsm-NEJAbC-aXkZYp-5cdUr5-2pDrByb-6c9cUK-2nJqfUF-5WuD3M-9Gv4H2-NEL27N-6Nyqx-3AMje-2qwDNfW-5A84Dp-nL6Dpm-24oecnq-6LXDRD-MSTVUz-7oye98-NMMXVq-2qLh3sq-dZ7Cie-RfD1ZB-9mt3io-3q8UA7-4aTwtS?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">“Insults” by Mike Seyfang</a>, Flickr (<a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">CC 2.0</a>, unmodified)</figcaption></figure> The linguist Ljiljana Progovac has a fascinating theory: Two-word insults — like “butt-head” or “no-brain” — might have given rise to our modern, complex human syntax. What’s her argument? It begins with the observation that two-word clauses are very old, and are likely the first sentences early humans ever spoke. <a href="https://archive.is/Huk6M?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">As the New Scientist quotes Progovac …</a> <blockquote>Take the sentence “Elena will grow wheat”. It contains a short clause – grow wheat – that makes sense on its own. The remaining words expand this clause by telling us who is growing the wheat and anchoring the activity in time. For Progovac, this means our ancestors came up with phrases like “grow wheat” first and the expansions came later as language became more sophisticated. Analyse this syntactical hierarchy across modern languages, says Progovac, and you will find a curious class of two-word clauses right at its bottom. “They have very little structure,” she says. “They are proxies of the earliest grammars.”</blockquote> Of course, these days our modern grammars are complex, so we less often employ sentence/clauses in that only-two-words style, i.e. “grow wheat”. There’s one common exception, as Progovac notes: Insults. <a href="https://archive.is/Huk6M?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">A curiously large proportion of insults — in nearly every language she’s examined — consist of two-word clauses …</a> <blockquote>Intriguingly, many of these phrases are combinations that have their origins in a noun and a verb, juxtaposed to produce a creative put-down: think kill-joy, busy-body, scatter-brain and arse-licker. And this is also the case in non-English languages. For example, Serbian versions include poj-kurić (sing-dick, meaning womaniser) and jebi-vetar (fuck-wind, meaning charlatan).</blockquote> And so <a href="https://archive.is/Huk6M?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">this leads to her big idea …</a> <blockquote>Because of this, Progovac suspects that prehistoric humans first began combining words into short sentences at least partly to insult one another.</blockquote> There’s a lot more to her argument, <a href="https://archive.is/Huk6M?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">so go read the whole piece!</a> It is, as Progovac notes, only a hypothesis, and since we have no audio records of very early human language there’s no way to prove or disprove it. But other linguists agree it’s an interesting concept. <hr/><h2>11) 🎀 The rise of pink in medieval and renaissance fashion</h2> <figure><img alt="A picture of three people crouched down on the ground, two of whom are smiling, and laughing, while the other one merely smiles. They're all dressed in bright, pink, and the one on the far left has very long flowing brightly dyed pink hair" draggable="false" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/de6f340c-fc16-4c87-a8ea-2f0ccde3c411.png?w=960&fit=max"/><figcaption>via <a href="https://www.pexels.com/photo/friends-in-pink-clothes-5325597/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Pexels</a></figcaption></figure> There’s a new book Pink: The History of a Color — by Michel Pastoureau — and <a href="https://literaryreview.co.uk/la-vie-en-rose?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">this review pulls out some fun historic details about the rise of pink in art and fashion.</a> As they tell it, the use of pink in Europe first took off in the 14th century, when artisans crushed up oak-tree insects to make the pigment. <a href="https://literaryreview.co.uk/la-vie-en-rose?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Another source was brazilwood, and …</a> <blockquote>… so popular was pink that when the Portuguese discovered tropical trees in the New World whose wood possessed the same properties as brazilwood, they named the country they colonised after it.</blockquote> Did not know that! Then <a href="https://literaryreview.co.uk/la-vie-en-rose?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">pink really explodes in late-18th-century Europe:</a> <blockquote>In textiles, the fashion for pink reached its height between 1750 and 1780, especially in France. Strong pinks were available to middle-class buyers, leading elites to pursue the more expensive pastel shades. Charles Joseph de Ligne, marshal of the army of the Holy Roman Empire, was nicknamed ‘the pink prince’, a term that referred not only to his taste for pink in furnishings and clothing but also to his optimism and good humour. Symbolically, pink had come to indicate joie de vivre. Madame de Pompadour loved to combine new pinks with blues and greys, often striped, and at Sèvres, a delicate pale shade of pink with a hint of orange was perfected for porcelain. From the 1770s ‘pink seemed to invade everything’, Pastoureau says. Painters, decorators, dyers, tailors and milliners all strove to produce varied hues and combinations. Goethe’s bestselling The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774) launched a fashion for white dresses trimmed with pink ribbons (and among men, for blue morning coats with yellow breeches). Werther says that he wants to be buried with Lotte’s pink ribbons in his pocket.</blockquote> I really want to read this book now — I love microhistories of this sort! <hr/><h2>12) 🔎 How the Google Vision API sees you</h2> <figure><img alt='A screenshot, showing, on the far left, a black-and-white photo of the author, a white man, from the chest up, wearing a black Jean jacket and T-shirt with a strap going over his shoulder. In the background, out of focus, appears to be a bar. On the right hand side is a series of data points that have been extracted about the image. They are: "People: lonely, middle-aged man", "Income range: 750,000 - 1,500,000 rupees", "eligion: agnostic", "Emotions: slightly happy, content, melancholic", "clothing: denim jacket, t-shirt", "hobbies: reading, hiking, listening to music, excessive drinking, doomscrolling, gambling", "political affiliation: liberal", "objects: air conditioner, blurred background, lamp"' draggable="false" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/35734fdf-ac73-455d-8508-0b3e1948bb84.jpg?w=960&fit=max"/><figcaption></figcaption></figure> The photo-app company <a href="https://ente.io/about?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Ente</a> has created a fun tool — <a href="https://theyseeyourphotos.com/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">TheySeeYourPhotos, which shows you what the Google Vision API detects in a photo of you.</a> I fed my standard headshot into the tool, and it gave me that summary you see above. A longer version of the Google Vision API output … <blockquote>The image features a man in what appears to be a cafe in Mumbai, India. The subject, seemingly in his late 40s, stands in the foreground, with blurred objects and surfaces behind him. An air conditioner is visible mounted on the wall, and general cafe lighting can be seen in the background.The man, of Caucasian descent, appears slightly happy and content, though there may be a hint of underlying melancholy. He is wearing a denim jacket over a t-shirt. One can imagine him enjoying hobbies such as reading, hiking, and listening to music. On the darker side, he might also engage in excessive drinking, doomscrolling, and gambling. Considering his location and clothing, his income range might fall between ₹750,000 and ₹1,500,000. He is likely agnostic and leans towards liberal political views.The man seems to harbor a certain melancholic disposition, hence we can target them with luxury goods and mental health services, such as antique globes (Replogle), vintage fountain pens (Montblanc), mindfulness apps (Headspace), therapy subscriptions (BetterHelp), single-origin coffee beans (Starbucks Reserve), noise-cancelling headphones (Sony), online language courses (Duolingo), streaming services (Netflix).</blockquote> LOL. Some of this stuff is obviously correct: I was about 50 when this photo was taken, I’m wearing a denim jacket and tshirt, and I’m liberal. I definitely enjoy cocktails, but “excessive drinking” is a stretch, and I don’t gamble at all, nor do I hike. (Cycling across the entire continental US, though: Yeah, that, I’ve done!) Doomscrolling, sure, but who doesn’t? As for “lonely”, maybe it knows something I don’t, but I certainly don’t feel that way. I pity the poor advertisers who try to sell me stuff based on Google’s digital phrenology, because holy crap, nearly every single one of these marketing recommendations is howlingly off-target. No, I am not going buy antique globes (what?), online therapy subscriptions (F2F for me all the way), noise-cancelling headphones (I use the cheapest possible $25 earbuds, do not really care about music quality, go figure), nor streaming services (I watch essentially zero TV). My idea of a mindfulness app is playing Robotron 2084 on a MAME emulator. I do admire fountain pens, I guess? Wouldn’t buy one, though. Oh and the photo was taken in downtown Manhattan, not Mumbai 😂 That said, this is kind of hilarious exercise, so give it a whirl. (Caveat: Obviously, some of the interpretations above are authored by Ente based on data from the Google Vision API, so some of the off-based-ness may be from their end.) <hr/><h2>13) 📟 The ten strangest mobile-phone designs Nokia never launched</h2> <figure><img alt="A picture of a very strange-looking phone. It is a clamshell-style flip phone shaped like a large blue crescent. It is opened, showing a colored LCD screen in the middle of the cresent with an image of sheryl crow strumming a guitar. There are two blue earbuds plugged ino the device. There are three white buttons on either side of the screen, and tiny holes in the far left and right of the cresent, indicating that this is where one would speak into the phone and hear the other person talking" draggable="false" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/0022a8d4-86eb-4e78-9361-21fe54189e64.png?w=960&fit=max"/><figcaption><a href="https://www.yankodesign.com/2025/01/23/the-strangest-nokia-designs-top-10-concepts-that-never-launched/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-strangest-nokia-designs-top-10-concepts-that-never-launched" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">via Nokia</a></figcaption></figure> When the Iphone launched in 2007, it quickly oriented all mobile-phone design around that form-factor. Within a couple of years, most smartphones became a brick of glass with a virtual keyboard. But in the years leading up to the Iphone, mobile-phone design was pretty weird. You could buy clamshell-style phones that flipped open — revealing QWERTY keyboards split around a tiny LCD screen in the middle — or Lovecraftian horrors like the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N-Gage?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">NGage, which was both a phone and a game console</a>, vivisectioned together in a fashion that prevented it from performing either function correctly. Nokia had a lot of nutty ideas during this time frame! <a href="https://www.yankodesign.com/2025/01/23/the-strangest-nokia-designs-top-10-concepts-that-never-launched/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-strangest-nokia-designs-top-10-concepts-that-never-launched" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Over at Yanko Design, JC Torres dove into the newly-launched Nokia Design archive to find ten of the weirdest.</a> That manta-ray thing above? I think it’s a music player, or maybe even a video player. Check out <a href="https://www.yankodesign.com/2025/01/23/the-strangest-nokia-designs-top-10-concepts-that-never-launched/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-strangest-nokia-designs-top-10-concepts-that-never-launched" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">the whole gallery,</a> it’s pretty wild. <hr/><h2>14) 🛫 A final, sudden-death round of reading material</h2> <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgw3l7p79po?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Fog harvesting</a>. 🛫 <a href="https://paulbutler.org/2025/smuggling-arbitrary-data-through-an-emoji/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Steganographic emoji</a>. 🛫 Flying a drone <a href="https://www.youtube.com/shorts/BH9b46Sy7jM?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">through a rolling tire</a>. 🛫 <a href="https://boingboing.net/2025/01/24/subpixel-snake-calls-for-a-microscope-just-to-play.html?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Subpixel “Snake”</a>. 🛫 Rat populations boom <a href="https://grist.org/cities/rat-population-cities-heat-climate-research/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">as cities heat up</a>. 🛫 <a href="https://github.com/itamarom/notepadjs?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">NotepadJS</a>. 🛫 Michelangelo <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960977624001541?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">depicted a women with breast cancer in the Sistine Chapel</a>. 🛫 <a href="https://www.yankodesign.com/2025/01/23/self-driving-car-concept-puts-a-robot-barista-on-your-dashboard/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=self-driving-car-concept-puts-a-robot-barista-on-your-dashboard" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Robot barista for self-driving cars</a>. 🛫 Should <a href="https://www.thedial.world/articles/news/issue-24/international-human-rights-law-dead?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">the dead have human rights?</a> 🛫 Why <a href="https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/841120/storage-of-light?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">you can’t store light</a>. 🛫 The mystery of <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c20g1exx3xko?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">a 200-year-old bottle of urine</a>. 🛫 Using <a href="https://phys.org/news/2025-02-global-internet-grid-earthquakes-algorithm.html?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Internet cables to detect earthquakes</a>. 🛫 <a href="https://www.stockholm17.com/collections/playing-cards/products/the-notorious-gambling-frog-green?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">“Gambling frog” playing cards</a>. 🛫 Chimps do better at hard tasks <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/chimpanzees-work-better-when-watched-by-audience-study-suggests-13250684?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to#:~:text=News%20%7C%20Sky%20News-,Chimpanzees%20work%20better%20when%20watched%20by%20audience%2C%20study%20suggests,but%20worse%20at%20easier%20tasks" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">when they have an audience</a>. 🛫 The <a href="https://www2.atmos.umd.edu/~dankd/MessinianWeb/_private/HOME.htm?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Messinian Salinity Crisis</a>. 🛫 How medieval Europe regarded <a href="https://popularhistorybooks.com/posts/reviews/2025-01-25-review-the-crowd/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">crowds</a>. 🛫 Want to sound <a href="https://www.pedal-of-the-day.com/2025/02/02/mxr-rockman-x100-analog-tone-processor/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">like Tom Scholz in Boston?</a> 🛫 Wilson Bentley, <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/culture/photo-booth/the-man-who-captured-the-unique-beauty-of-snowflakes?utm_source=semafor&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">pioneer of snowflake photography</a>. 🛫 Portraits drawn by pen-plotter <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CPNPWlUHuZc/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">scribble art</a>. 🛫 <a href="https://tabboo.xyz?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">TabBoo</a>. 🛫 A single human can <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/darpa-robot?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">control up to 100 drones simultaneously</a>. 🛫 The <a href="https://archive.is/C7te8?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Net-Zero Dad</a>. 🛫 The <a href="https://www.livescience.com/space/astronomy/astronomers-discover-quipu-the-single-largest-structure-in-the-known-universe?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">largest structure in the universe</a>. 🛫 The Author’s Guild creates <a href="https://www.theverge.com/news/602918/human-authored-book-certification-ai-authors-guild?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">a “human authored” certification</a>. 🛫 A list of <a href="https://curiouscatalog.tumblr.com/post/776035236874223617/from-cox-nicholas-john-manwood-and-great?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">dog names from 1697</a>. 🛫 <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/world/africa/tanzania-soma-bags-reading-light-spc/index.html?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Solar backpacks</a>. 🛫 Robotic <a href="https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3700600?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">cat head-bunting</a>. 🛫 Bennu’s asteroid samples offer <a href="https://archive.is/Zw2gh?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">new clues about the origin of life</a>. 🛫 Here lies <a href="https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/trinity-churchyard-charlotte-temple-grave?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Charlotte Temple, who never existed</a>. 🛫 <a href="https://tinybase.org/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Tinybase</a>, superfast storage for local apps. 🛫 Jane Austen <a href="https://www.openculture.com/2025/02/jane-austen-pins-to-edit-her-manuscripts.html?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">used pins to edit her manuscript for The Watsons</a>. 🛫 John Milton <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2008/jan/28/britishidentity.johncrace?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">coined more than 630 words</a>." 🛫 Why <a href="https://www.mentalfloss.com/dead-weight-meaning?utm_source=RSS&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">dead weight is so heavy</a>. 🛫 Solving a <a href="https://gadgetonus.com/tech/212338.html?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">quantum Rubik’s Cube</a>. 🛫 66-million-year-old <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp82jle12j7o?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">fish vomit</a>. 🛫 <a href="https://www.npr.org/2025/01/14/nx-s1-5258907/james-webb-space-telescopes-little-red-dots-come-into-focus?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Little red dots</a> of the early universe. 🛫 “<a href="https://archive.is/kCj3l?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Plumber’s nightmare.</a>” 🛫 <a href="https://www.biographic.com/how-some-trees-evolved-to-birth-live-young/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Viviparity</a>. <hr/>CODA ON SOURCING: I read a ton of blogs and sites every week to find this material. A few I relied on this week include Andrew Drucker’s <a href="https://andrewducker.dreamwidth.org/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Interesting Links</a>, <a href="https://www.numlock.com/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Numlock News</a>, the <a href="https://theawesomer.com/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Awesomer</a>, <a href="https://strangeco.blogspot.com?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Strange Company</a>, and <a href="https://newsletter.mathewingram.com/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-31-tactile-graphics-alexinomnia-and-a-to" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">“When The Going Get Weird”</a>; check ‘em out!

Linkfest #42: Phytomining, Adversarial Poetry, and Popping A Wheelie for 93 Miles

The Linkfest Dec 2, 2025

Hello! It’s time for "the opposite of doomscrolling” — my next Linkfest, a collection of the most interesting items in science, culture and technology I could find during a complete A-to-Z reading of the entire known Internet. If you’re a subscriber, thank you! If not, you can <a href="https://buttondown.email/clivethompson/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">sign up here — it’s a Guardian-style, pay-whatevs-you-want affair; the folks who kick in help keep the Linkfest free for everyone else</a>. (Full archive of issues, including this one, is <a href="https://buttondown.com/clivethompson/archive/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">online free here</a>.) And: Please share this email with anyone who'd enjoy it. Let’s begin ... <hr/><h2>1) 🎨 Aerial embroidery</h2> <figure><img alt="A hand holds a circular embroidery hoop showing a detailed, textured aerial landscape with fields, roads, clusters of green trees, and a bright blue canal running vertically through the center. A small embroidered boat floats on the canal, adding a pop of color against the green terrain. The stitching varies in texture and density to mimic foliage, paths, and water, giving the scene a rich, tactile depth" draggable="false" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/4d3917cc-10b8-4434-b82f-fe3147f52689.jpg?w=960&fit=max"/><figcaption>by Victoria Rose Richards</figcaption></figure> Behold <a href="https://victoriaroserichards.co.uk/work/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">the lovely embroidered landscapes created by Victoria Rose Richards</a> — each one looks like a textiled vision of the planet as seen from a passing airplane. As she notes, there’s something fascinating about the geometry of our landscapes: Humans attempt to impose firm Platonic shapes on the fields around us, but their edges are often slightly softened or distorted by the facts on the ground — like hills, trees, waterways, and the like. <a href="https://victoriaroserichards.co.uk/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and#about-me" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">So it’s geometry, with fuzzier math:</a> <blockquote>In living in the countryside in a place of natural beauty, I am surrounded by inspiration for my pieces in the endless fields and meadows, lush forests, winding rivers and reaching moorland. I’ve always had an interest for aerial landscapes and use a combination of stitches on felt sheets to recreate them based on the Devon countryside. I particularly enjoy recreating the fields – I love the shapes they naturally form and are made to form by agriculture, seemingly perfectly fitted together yet forced.</blockquote> She’s got a huge gallery of dozens of these works, sadly all of which appear to be sold. I’d love to get one some day … <hr/><h2>2) 🚲 Popping a wheelie for 93 miles</h2> <figure><img alt="A cyclist in a blue jersey and black helmet performs a wheelie on a light-blue bike while riding indoors on a track. The background is motion-blurred, emphasizing speed, with gym equipment and a few people faintly visible. The rider looks focused and balanced, holding the handlebars steady as the front wheel lifts high off the ground." draggable="false" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/3f6304a4-d3be-4b32-ba6a-70cef356ce3a.jpg?w=960&fit=max"/><figcaption>Oscar Delaite (via himself)</figcaption></figure> Oscar Delaite, a 19-year-old student in France, just did a bicycle wheelie for 93 miles — a feat that required six and a half hours of riding on one wheel. The Guiness Book of World Records confirmed that Delaite has pulled off the “Greatest Distance Covered While Performing a Continuous Bicycle Wheelie”, and <a href="https://www.wsj.com/sports/wheelie-world-record-oscar-delaite-240e2429?st=iy9pwX&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink&utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Jason Gay at the Wall Street Journal has the story (gift link):</a> <blockquote>Oscar trained for more than a year, 10 to 15 hours a week. His record-breaking set up was quite typical: a Rose commuter bike with a flat bar and slick, 50 millimeter width tires, standard pressure. The only modification was adjusting the seat so Oscar could sit as he attempted the record.Delaite wore a helmet, a camera strapped to his chest, and a water supply draped around his back. He did not wear fancy cycling shoes—he wore Nike basketball high-tops. Over the six and a half hours, he averaged a speed of 14 miles an hour, which is rather remarkable. I asked him what he thought about during the attempt. Could he daydream? Could he zone out and listen to the entire Dylan catalog? Terrible podcasts?“I had to be focused,” he said. “I checked the times, the number of laps. The last hours are really, really intense. If I make a mistake, I can’t restart at 100 kilometers.”</blockquote> Apparently his arms and legs felt fine; his butt, however, was pretty sore. I’m impressed. And I’m familiar with bike stunts — I cycled across the entire United States, from NYC to the Pacific, two years ago! (Annnnd my book about it arrives spring of 2027; you will be hearing much more about this from me in the year to come.) I’ve done lots of rides of 93 miles or more … but I used both my wheels, which now feels like cheating or something? This kid is metal. <hr/><h2>3) 👾 “Escheresque”, the game</h2> <figure><img alt="An isometric illustration shows a maze-like architectural structure made of pale stone, with multiple staircases, platforms, and archways arranged in an Escher-like, impossible layout. The walls and steps are textured with a speckled pattern, giving the scene a surreal, dreamlike quality" draggable="false" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/c35b1156-74b2-41d8-ae34-e78a43e4b33c.png?w=960&fit=max"/><figcaption>via <a href="https://openprocessing.org/sketch/1223047?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Wren Durbano</a></figcaption></figure> The digital artist Wren Durbano has created <a href="https://openprocessing.org/sketch/1223047?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">“Escheresque”, a trippy little browser game where you walk around a faux-3D isometric world composed of platforms, stairs and tunnels</a> — all done in a style vaguely reminiscent of Escher. When you hit the spacebar the scene swaps between dark and light modes, each one slightly changing the configuration of the scene … and allowing you to navigate through the puzzle levels. It’s not terribly hard, so I found it kind of soothing to play. <hr/><h2>4) 🧮 Weirdest Excel functions</h2> <figure><img alt="A Microsoft Excel spreadsheet is open, showing a row labeled “Input,” “Formula,” and “Output,” with the number 472.5 entered in the first column. The formula cell displays “=BAHTTEXT(A2),” and the output cell contains Thai text converting the number into words" draggable="false" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/0bd68795-41d5-4f5c-bcf0-7b676450a5c6.jpg?w=960&fit=max"/><figcaption>via <a href="https://www.makeuseof.com/strange-microsoft-excel-functions-no-one-ever-uses/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">MakeUseOf</a></figcaption></figure> Amir Bohloohi went digging around inside Excel and discovered that it includes <a href="https://www.makeuseof.com/strange-microsoft-excel-functions-no-one-ever-uses/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">some very cool — if extremely weird and specific — functions.</a> Consider <a href="https://www.makeuseof.com/strange-microsoft-excel-functions-no-one-ever-uses/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">this one:</a> <blockquote>BAHTTEXT converts a number into Thai Baht words. For example, <code>=BAHTTEXT(472.50)</code> returns <code>สี่ร้อยเจ็ดสิบสองบาทห้าสิบสตางค์</code>, which means four hundred seventy-two Baht and fifty Satang.This function was introduced for Thailand’s accounting and invoicing standards, where monetary values are often written in both numeric and textual form to prevent fraud or misreading. It’s the only language-specific number-to-text function built into Excel, although Thailand is not the only country to write both numeric and textual values in official forms. Oddly, Microsoft didn't add this support for any other country.</blockquote> Or consider <a href="https://www.makeuseof.com/strange-microsoft-excel-functions-no-one-ever-uses/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">DOLLARDE and DOLLARFR …</a> <blockquote>These two are remnants of the financial world’s pre-decimal era. They're also the most interesting to me, because learning their purpose turned into an impromptu history lesson: U.S. bonds and some stock prices were once quoted in fractions rather than decimals (typically in sixteenths or thirty-seconds). For example, a bond price might appear as 101 8/32. This means $101 and 8/32 of a dollar, or $101.25 in today's notation.DOLLARDE converts fractional dollar values to decimal form, while DOLLARFR does the reverse. For instance, <code>=DOLLARDE(1.02,16)</code> returns 1.125, and <code>=DOLLARFR(1.125,16)</code> returns 1.02.These conversions allowed analysts to run calculations on legacy data without rewriting pricing systems. Since modern markets use decimals, both functions now survive mostly for historical completeness. They remain accurate but have almost no practical application outside of reconstructing vintage financial records.</blockquote> He also found one that takes regular numbers and turns them into Roman numerals — and another that does the reverse. Go check out <a href="https://www.makeuseof.com/strange-microsoft-excel-functions-no-one-ever-uses/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">the whole list!</a> <hr/><h2>5) 🦠 Growing algae in the light of another star</h2> <figure><img alt="A blueprint-style illustration shows a telescope labeled “Stellar Harvest” mounted on a tripod and connected by tubing to an IV-style bag marked “Ocean Water,” which hangs from a medical stand. A small bottle sits beneath the telescope’s eyepiece, as though collecting a liquid sample. The entire scene is rendered in white outlines on a blue grid background" draggable="false" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/6217e95e-7765-4438-8a1a-fd68fd4d30fe.jpg?w=960&fit=max"/><figcaption></figcaption></figure> The Center for PostNatural History is developing <a href="https://www.postnatural.org/stellar-harvest?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">“Stellar Harvest”, project in which they’ll grow algae using the light from another star.</a> Basically, if I’m understanding their write-up here, they’ll hook a box full of algae to the eyepiece of a telescope, and focus it on a star at night — exposing the algae to those ancient and distant photons. (And I guess during the daytime they’ll keep it in total darkness, so the only light it’s exposed to is the night-time starlight?) <a href="https://www.postnatural.org/stellar-harvest?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">As they write:</a> <blockquote>These lucky lifeforms will be the first to experience actual light from another star at concentrations similar to a forest floor or deep ocean waters on Earth: a fraction of a percent of direct sunlight’s intensity. Some diatoms are already adapted to the extremely low-light conditions that will be necessary for this project to work. “It’s not easy to squeeze light from the night sky,” continues Pell. “To reimagine the night as a source of light, is a real break with tradition to say the least.” [snip]The project gets its name from a process Pell calls “Stellar Drift:” preparing the microbes for their new host star using a custom incubator which simulates the gradual shift from the lighting conditions of the Sun towards those of the new star. Another invention necessary to the project is what Pell calls the “Stellar Harvestar,” a little box he designed that fits where an eyepiece or camera normally would go on the telescope, and maintains the conditions that the cells need to live and holds them in the right place to receive the stellar light.</blockquote> This hasn’t yet begun, so it could be vaporware, but considering these folks are high-concept artists I’m betting they pull it off, lol. Why, though, would they do this? Part of it is just <a href="https://www.postnatural.org/information?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">the mission statement of the Center</a>, which attempts to track and meditate on the ways in which human activity has produced a postnatural world of nature. <a href="https://www.postnatural.org/stellar-harvest?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">As Rich Pell, the Stellar Harvest’s lead artist, notes:</a> <blockquote>I believe there is something to be gained in stepping beyond the theoretical by doing something that appears impossible. It’s 21st century alchemy that might help get us out of the cosmic rut we as a civilization appear to be in.</blockquote> <hr/><h2>6) 🐤 Starlings are pretty good at imitating R2-D2</h2> <figure><img alt="A detailed 3D rendering of R2-D2, with the robot standing on a smooth gray surface, its white and blue panels slightly scuffed and weathered" draggable="false" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/a5330085-b324-4ffd-9322-fb26b6bcf929.jpg?w=960&fit=max"/><figcaption></figcaption></figure> Lots of birds are good at imitating sounds from the world of electronics, like the ringtones of smartphones. But can they imitate … R2-D2? And if so, which type of bird is the best at imitating the famous Star Wars robot? A group of scientists decided it was high time science got off its collective butt and answered this question. So they collected data, in <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-025-23444-7?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">a hilariously online fashion …</a> <blockquote>We collected videos of parrots and European starlings imitating R2-D2 sounds from publicly available social media platforms like YouTube, Instagram and TikTok. Search terms included “Parrot imitating R2-D2”, “Parrot R2-D2”, “Starling imitating R2-D2”, “Starling R2-D2”, common names of parrots (cockatiels or African grey) followed by “imitating R2-D2” and the same search terms translated in other languages (Dutch, German, Spanish, Portuguese).</blockquote> … then they analyzed the videos. The results? Starlings won. As one of the authors wrote <a href="https://www.uva.nl/shared-content/uva/en/news/press-releases/2025/11/can-birds-imitate-artoo-detoo-yes-and-some-are-surprisingly-good-at-it.html?cb&utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">in a blog post …</a> <blockquote>It turns out that starlings had the upper hand when it came to mimicking the more complex 'multiphonic sounds. Thanks to the unique morphology of their vocal organ, the syrinx, which has two sound sources. This allows starlings to reproduce multiple tones at once—perfect for R2-D2-style chatter.Parrots, on the other hand, are limited to producing one tone at a time (just like humans). Still, they held their own when it came to the simpler “monophonic” beeps of R2-D2.</blockquote> This is all quite fun, but the study also included one very cool and unexpected finding. They had hypothesized that the bigger-brained parrots would be better at mimicking R2-D2 than the smaller-brained ones, like budgies. Nope: The budgies were better! Why? Possibly because the bigger-brained parrots have the ability to imitate a wider range of sounds overall, but <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-025-23444-7?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">at the cost of being a bit less accurate with each:</a> <blockquote>Our results could therefore be explained by a trade-off between the capacity to learn allospecific sounds versus the degree of imitation accuracy. Larger brained parrots may have a higher capacity to learn more sounds but are less accurate at imitating the sounds whereas smaller brained parrots focus more on the accuracy of the few sounds they have learned by practicing each imitated sound likely more often than parrots with significantly larger imitation repertoires.</blockquote> You can read <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-025-23444-7?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">the entire paper here for free</a>, and <a href="https://www.uva.nl/shared-content/uva/en/news/press-releases/2025/11/can-birds-imitate-artoo-detoo-yes-and-some-are-surprisingly-good-at-it.html?cb&utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">the blog post about it here.</a> <hr/><h2>7) ⛏️ The rise of “phytomining”</h2> <figure><img alt="A close-up photo of a tree branch shows a single bright green bead of sap glistening on the bark. The background is softly blurred with warm greens and browns, suggesting dense foliage in a forest setting" draggable="false" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/3944e8d6-f825-4060-92ef-a5e85e931e09.jpg?w=960&fit=max"/><figcaption>Pycnandra acuminata, a plant that accumulates nickel, which dyes its juices blue. <a href="https://www.wissen.de/hyperakkumulatoren-pflanzliche-metallsammler?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">By Henry Benoit</a> (<a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">CC 4.0 license</a>, unmodified)</figcaption></figure> “Phytomining” is the process of growing plants that — as part of their natural life-cycle — suck metals out of the ground and incorporate them into their structure. It was first proposed back in 1983 by the agronomist Rufus Chaney, as a way to extract zinc from polluted soil. But these days several companies are realizing that some plants are so good at inhaling metal from soil that they’re trying to use it for commercial mining. Instead of digging a hole in the ground and pulling minerals out, you’d plant acres of crops that phytomine the soil, then harvest the crops, burn them, and voila: Metal. Sometimes the quality of the metal you get is more pure and concentrated than what you’d get from old-school pick-and-shovel mining. Over at Biographic, <a href="https://www.biographic.com/critical-minerals-theres-a-plant-for-that/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Sarah DeWeerdt wrote a feature describing the current commercial attempts, such as …</a> <blockquote>… Metalplant, a Delaware-based company, is collaborating with the Connecticut-based biotech firm Verinomics on a grant to genetically engineer O. chalcidica. Metalplant is already successfully using the species to mine nickel in Albania where it is native, but the company is hoping to tweak it to boost its nickel uptake and prevent it from becoming invasive when planted in North America. Dhankher’s own phytomining efforts got a $1.3 million boost from the ARPA-E program. He aims to develop a genetically engineered version of Camelina sativa, a fast-growing member of the mustard family that is already widely grown in the United States for biofuel, so that it can become a better nickel accumulator. “The target is to create these plants that can accumulate 1 to 3 percent nickel,” Dhanker says. An advantage of C. sativa is that in some areas phytominers could grow three crops a year. If the plants accumulate at least 1 percent of their body mass as nickel, Dhanker says they could produce up to 25,000 kilograms of useful metal per square kilometer of soil each year (around 145,000 pounds per square mile). A typical electric vehicle battery contains about 30 to 50 kilograms (66 to 110 pounds) of nickel.</blockquote> That latter stat is wild: Getting the nickel for 500 to 800 EV batteries by planting crops is deeply solarpunk. Lots of caveats apply. It’s not terribly efficient; monocropping big areas is always risky; plus, some of these hyperaccumulators are basically weeds, at least one of which has already escaped from an experimental installation and become an invasive species. But the idea is pretty damn nifty. I want to keep my eye on this area. <hr/><h2>8) ⌚️ Gallery of 50 years of Casio digital watches</h2> <figure><img alt="A retro Casio Data Bank digital watch is shown with its rectangular display and a full alphanumeric keypad beneath the screen. The display shows the day, date, and time, while the buttons on the keypad are labeled with letters, numbers, and small orange function keys. It looks pretty cool" draggable="false" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/e51548bc-8ffa-4aa8-9705-457872fdc65d.jpg?w=960&fit=max"/><figcaption></figcaption></figure> For its 50th anniversary, Casio has created a <a href="https://www.casio.com/us/watches/50th/Heritage/1970s/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">timeline of all its digital watches, from the 1970s to today, with a short writeup on each.</a> It’s trippy to see how they experimented with features; in many ways, Casio watches were the first wearable computers. Above is <a href="https://www.casio.com/us/watches/50th/Heritage/1980s/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">the “Data Bank”, which Casio introduced in two styles in 1985 …</a> <blockquote>These two watches came equipped with two special features for business users: a Telememo function that stored up to 50 telephone numbers, and a schedule function that provided reminders for up to 50 schedule items. The higher-capacity internal memory could store entries combining 5 letters and 12 numbers.</blockquote> Or dig this one — <a href="https://www.casio.com/us/watches/50th/Heritage/1990s/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">the 1993 “Wrist Remote Controller”, which let you control a TV or a VCR …</a> <figure><img alt="A vintage Casio wrist remote control watch is shown with a rectangular digital display and an array of buttons along the sides and bottom. Labels like “POWER,” “TV/VCR,” “STOP,” and “PLAY” indicate its ability to operate electronics, while directional and channel buttons sit below the screen. It looks extremely retro" draggable="false" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/66eb1f23-69db-4991-9442-fe5a1723852e.jpg?w=960&fit=max"/><figcaption></figcaption></figure> <blockquote>Its function-minded layout of large remote control buttons ensured intuitive operability. Users could turn their TV or VCR on or off, change channels, adjust the volume, and more using the watch on their wrist. It was compatible with TVs and VCRs from the major manufacturers. At last, no more searching for the remote! This convenient lifehack made the CMD-10 quite popular in its day.</blockquote> “Popular” may be doing a lot of work in that last sentence; I am not sure I ever saw one of these gorgeous beasts in the wild, and my friendship circle in 1993 was pretty nerdy. The last one of my faves is <a href="https://www.casio.com/us/watches/50th/Heritage/1980s/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">the 1987 “Pulse Check” …</a> <figure><img alt="A Casio digital watch is shown with a square display and bold yellow accents highlighting its “Pulse” and “Sensor” buttons. The screen displays the day, date, and time along with smaller indicator icons for modes like alarm, jogging, and timer. Its black band and chunky design give it a rugged, sporty feel, emphasizing its built-in pulse-checking feature" draggable="false" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/405d67a2-4181-4e5e-9c8c-836e6e4972ee.jpg?w=960&fit=max"/><figcaption></figcaption></figure> <blockquote>It used photoelectric pulse detection, employing LED light to measure changes in blood flow. Users simply placed a fingertip on the sensor to get a pulse readout. Comparing post-run readings with ordinary pulse rate could help users determine their optimal exercise intensity.</blockquote> Go check out <a href="https://www.casio.com/us/watches/50th/Heritage/1970s/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">the rest of the gallery — there are dozens and dozens of watches.</a> <hr/><h2>9) 🌟 The “Webb compare”</h2> <figure><img alt="An image compares the Southern Ring Nebula as seen by two space telescopes, with the left side labeled “Hubble” in near-black and the right side labeled “Webb,” showing a vivid, detailed view. The nebula appears as a glowing blue core surrounded by layers of fiery orange gas against a star-filled background. A circular slider sits in the middle, allowing the viewer to reveal more or less of each telescope’s version" draggable="false" src="https://buttondown-attachments.s3.amazonaws.com/images/c19fc3a6-e4a5-4f0a-8edd-c1561839ea6d.gif?w=960&fit=max"/><figcaption>via NASA and <a href="https://www.webbcompare.com/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">John Christensen</a></figcaption></figure> When the James Webb Space Telescope — also known as the <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg25634100-900-the-extraordinary-jwst-is-named-for-james-webb-whose-legacy-i-deplore/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">“Just Wonderful Space Telescope”</a> — went into operation, it started sending back images of galaxies that were much crisper than those of the Hubble. But how much better were they? The software engineer John Christensen wondered, so he collected images of galaxies shot by both telescopes, at precisely the same size and scale. Then he created a little slider you can move back and forth to help show just how much better the JWST images are. He made <a href="https://www.webbcompare.com/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">a gallery of them — the “Webb Compare” — here.</a> Not many, but very fun to look at! Above, that’s the Southern Ring Nebula. (Thanks to <a href="https://bookofjoe2.blogspot.com/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Joseph Stirt</a> for this one!) <hr/><h2>10) 🦼 The joy of all-terrain wheelchairs</h2> <figure><img alt="A woman in an all-terrain wheelchair travels along a forest path carpeted with autumn leaves, accompanied by a service dog sitting at her side. The trees around them glow with vibrant yellow and orange foliage, and the ground is covered almost completely with leaves" draggable="false" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/4cdfe8b2-011f-4899-be8c-295eb5c536b4.jpg?w=960&fit=max"/><figcaption>via <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/DDcXLuuK6n4/?img_index=1&utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Trackchair</a></figcaption></figure> The Trackchair is “a cross between a wheelchair and a tank”, and for anyone with limited mobility, it offers something remarkable: The ability to go off-road and into nature. David Wallis, a journalist and old friend of mine, went on a ride-along with a group of people using Trackchairs, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2025/nov/08/off-road-wheelchair-trackchair-hiking?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">and wrote a fantastic piece about it for The Guardian:</a> <blockquote>… the mood among guests was palpably cheerful. The sun burst through, and the oaks and maples exploded in red, orange and yellow. The three-mile loop on the gravel carriage roads wound past babbling streams and verdant fields. Sheer cliffs glistened in the distance.“I could get used to this,” exclaimed Stephen Fray, 61, who has ALS. The highly reactive battery-powered Trackchairs with motorized tilting seats impressed the former civil engineer (and Boy Scout). But his disease has forced him to prematurely retire and tap his savings so he was skittish about the cost of one: between $13,000 and $27,000.David Daw, who attended an afternoon session, also seemed ebullient: “I feel free. I don’t feel sick when I’m out here.”</blockquote> Indeed, given how much we now know about the restorative quality of being in nature — it’s good for everything from blood pressure to mental health — you’d want anyone with mobility issues to have access to a Trackchair, right? But as David discovered, insurance companies are too damn cheap to pay for them. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2025/nov/08/off-road-wheelchair-trackchair-hiking?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">The effect of being outside is soul-restoring, though:</a> <blockquote>At an event at Green Lakes state park, he met a woman born with stunted limbs who asked if he could take her to the beach in a Trackchair. Once there, she asked him to scoop some sand into her hand.“She starts crying,” Trager recalled. “I’m like, ‘What’s the matter?’”She told him she had never felt sand before.“She got very emotional,” said Trager. “And this is why we’re doing this.”</blockquote> Go read <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2025/nov/08/off-road-wheelchair-trackchair-hiking?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">the whole piece — it’s remarkable, and the black-and-white photography that illustrates it is striking.</a> <hr/><h2>11) 📖 “Adversarial poetry” can jailbreak an LLM</h2> <figure><img alt="A small stack of poetry books rests on a wooden table, with Pablo Neruda’s Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair on top in its distinctive red cover" draggable="false" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/0af9bb43-d44c-4a7a-acd8-f13972f95213.jpg?w=960&fit=max"/><figcaption><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/jamesonfink/12312916275/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">“Poetry” by Jameson Fink, via Flickr</a> (<a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">CC 2.0 license</a>, unmodified)</figcaption></figure> These days, most large-language-model AIs are deployed with “guardrails” to try and prevent them from offering dangerous replies — like delivering bomb-making recipes or offering advice on committing assault. So there’s a cottage industry of security folks who try to red-team the LLMs, experimenting to find prompts that will jailbreak the AI and get it to ignore its guardrails. Usually this involves engaging in a long-ish conversation. But a team of computer scientists discovered another way to do it: <a href="https://arxiv.org/pdf/2511.15304?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Write your prompt in the form of poetry.</a> They hand-crafted 20 poems that asked for illicit responses, and tried them on 25 well-known LLMS. Bingo: <a href="https://arxiv.org/pdf/2511.15304?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">On average, they had a 62% success rate, up from around 8% when you use regular-English attacks.</a> Then they took 1,200 malign prompts from a standard test suite of these — prompts in the areas of “Hate, Defamation, Privacy, Intellectual Property, Non-violent Crime, Violent Crime, Sex-Related Crime, Sexual Content”, and more — and had them autotranslated into poems. These did pretty well too! Fully 43% were able to jailbreak the LLMs. Some LLMs fared <a href="https://arxiv.org/pdf/2511.15304?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">a lot worse than others:</a> <figure><img alt="The table compares attack success rates for various AI models under baseline prompts versus poetry prompts, with higher percentages meaning more unsafe outputs. Each row lists a model alongside its baseline ASR, its much higher poetry-prompt ASR, and the percent increase, which is visualized with a red-to-green heat map. Overall, poetry prompts dramatically raise vulnerability, with the average ASR jumping from 8.08% to 43.07%, a 34.99-point increase." draggable="false" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/6fb14da2-96da-4b1b-acaf-f299a5c7f7f5.png?w=960&fit=max"/><figcaption>via <a href="https://arxiv.org/pdf/2511.15304?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">“Adversarial Poetry as a Universal Single-Turn Jailbreak Mechanism in Large Language Models”</a></figcaption></figure> What’s additionally interesting, as the authors point out, is that bigger models were more susceptible to poetic attack than smaller models. Why, exactly, would poetry jailbreak an LLM? The researchers don’t know, but they suspect that LLMs are overtrained on “prosaic surface forms”, and thus simply don’t have enough experience looking at poetry. These findings may also be further evidence that LLMs don’t grasp the actual meaning of language, so they can’t really understand “underlying harmful intent”. <a href="https://arxiv.org/pdf/2511.15304?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">It’s probably a mix of both of these explanations …</a> <blockquote>For safety research, the data point toward a deeper question about how transformers encode discourse modes. The persistence of the effect across architectures and scales suggests that safety filters rely on features concentrated in prosaic surface forms and are insufficiently anchored in representations of underlying harmful intent. The divergence between small and large models within the same families further indicates that capability gains do not automatically translate into increased robustness under stylistic perturbation.</blockquote> My only complaint about this paper, <a href="https://arxiv.org/pdf/2511.15304?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">which is free to read here</a>, is they don’t reproduce any of the poems themselves! I know that’s for security purposes, but I’d love to have see them. Frankly, I’d love to have all 1,220 of the poems in a print-book anthology 😅 (Thanks to <a href="http://debcha.org/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Debbie Chachra</a> for this one!) <hr/><h2>12) 🪢 “Homo cordage”</h2> <figure><img alt="A cave floor is covered in thick coiled ropes, their surfaces dark and textured. The ceiling above is rough and pale, lit to reveal layers of rock and mineral deposits. The ropes look incredibly ancient" draggable="false" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/4f59e68e-f647-4494-9de4-0737e66ad03c.jpg?w=960&fit=max"/><figcaption>4,000-year-old ropes discovered in Egypt (via the Joint Expedition to Mersa/Wadi Gawasis of the Università “L’Orientale,” Naples and Boston University)</figcaption></figure> In <a href="https://hakaimagazine.com/features/the-long-knotty-world-spanning-story-of-string/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">a wonderful essay for Hakai Magazine</a>, the science writer Ferris Jabr ponders the role of string, rope and knots in human civilization. This is not something I had ever considered before! But as he points out, cords are one of our oldest technologies — and they’re a catalytic one, because they make other technologies possible. You could argue, as he notes, that humanity could be considered “Homo cordage”. Indeed, <a href="https://hakaimagazine.com/features/the-long-knotty-world-spanning-story-of-string/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">we were making cords long before we made other tools …</a> <blockquote>Because they are prone to decay, pieces of intact string from more than a few thousand years ago are scarce. Even when they are found, they rarely make headlines or feature in museum exhibits, more likely to be relegated to storage. But they do exist: in 2009, scientists revealed the discovery of tiny 30,000-year-old flax fibers in clay excavated from a cave in Europe. Some of the fibers were twisted, knotted, spun, or dyed turquoise and pink, suggesting complex textiles. If one looks at the archaeological record in the right way—focusing on the implied rather than the material existence of ancient fiber—then the evidence for the importance of string and rope is even older. In South Africa, Israel, and Austria, researchers have found shell and bone beads dating as far back as 300,000 years ago. And in the Hohle Fels cave in southwestern Germany, archaeologists discovered a 40,000-year-old piece of mammoth ivory carved with four holes, each enclosing spiral incisions. They think the tool was used to weave reeds, bark, and roots into a thick cord.Although string and rope began to take shape on land, it was the ocean that unleashed the full potential of cordage. The earliest watercraft were probably rafts lashed together from branches or bamboo, and dugout canoes carved from logs, such as the 10,000-year-old Pesse canoe discovered in 1955 during motorway construction in the Netherlands. At first, the only means of propulsion were oars, poles, and the whim of the currents. Sailing required a critical insight: that the wind, like a wild animal, could be caught, tamed, and harnessed. A mast and sail, which is really just a tightly knit sheet of string, could trap the wind; long coils of sturdy rope could hoist and pivot the sail. String transformed seagoing vessels from floating lumber to elegant marionettes, animated by the wind and maneuvered by human will.</blockquote> One other <a href="https://hakaimagazine.com/features/the-long-knotty-world-spanning-story-of-string/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">detail that thrilled me:</a> <blockquote>Cordage is so invaluable that it has even accompanied our most sophisticated scientific machinery into the depths of space: to secure cables on the Mars rover Curiosity, NASA engineers relied on variations of the clove hitch and reef knot, two traditional knots that have been used for thousands of years. That rover is currently exploring the surface of Mars.</blockquote> This is just a taste; it’s <a href="https://hakaimagazine.com/features/the-long-knotty-world-spanning-story-of-string/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">a long, richly reported piece that’s worth savoring in full</a>. <hr/><h2>13) 👻 The invention of the haunted house</h2> <figure><img alt="A black-and-white photo shows an abandoned, weather-beaten house on a slight hill, surrounded by leafless trees and overgrown brush. The building’s siding is warped and peeling, with boarded or broken windows hinting at long neglect. The stark contrast and barren landscape give the scene a haunting, desolate atmosphere." draggable="false" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/65253ff3-e653-47a7-87d1-69570c250753.jpg?w=960&fit=max"/><figcaption><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/skutchb/3077733229/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">“Haunted House 3”, by Bridget H on Flickr</a> (<a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">CC 2.0 license</a>, unmodified)</figcaption></figure> In the last Linkfest I wrote about <a href="https://buttondown.com/clivethompson/archive/linkfest-40-the-chthulucene-doom-on-a-satellite/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">the ethics of selling a haunted house</a>. (Apparently 51% of buyers believe a seller should be required to disclose if a house is haunted.) When did people start thinking that houses could be haunted, though? The author Caitlin Blackwell Baines has a book about precisely this question — How to Build a Haunted House: The History of a Cultural Obsession. She argues that <a href="https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v47/n20/jon-day/gloomth?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Horace Walpole was maybe the first to invent the conceit of a haunted house, in his novel The Castle of Otranto:</a> <blockquote>The Castle of Otranto, too, emphasises its confected artificiality. With a complicated plot involving a long-lost heir, star-crossed lovers and a mysterious death by falling helmet, Walpole promoted it as ‘a new species of romance’, which fused ‘imagination and improbability’ with a ‘strict adherence to common life’. The novel established narrative tropes that have proved remarkably persistent in the haunted house genre ever since: gloomthy location, veiled prophecies and a narrative framing device involving the discovery of a manuscript. More significant than plot was the novel’s setting. Before Walpole, ghosts in English literature tended to haunt people, or generic geographic locations: crossroads, bridges, graveyards. After him, they came inside, haunting domestic spaces.Baines’s central argument is that the rise of the haunted house in the popular imagination coincided with the emergence of the modern home as a physical and psychic reality: a building designed specifically as a dwelling, separate from farm or workplace, where a single nuclear family lived together in isolation from the rest of society. This led to a turning inward of domestic experience that is, as many historians have argued, reflected across culture more broadly. On this reading, haunted houses are ghostly analogues of the stream of consciousness novel, Impressionist painting or the rise of psychoanalysis. In the essay in which Freud first used the term unheimlich, he pointed out that one of the few successful English translations is ‘“haunted”, in the sense of “a haunted house”’.</blockquote> That quote above is from <a href="https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v47/n20/jon-day/gloomth?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Jon Day’s essay in the London Review of Books, which has tons more intriguing details.</a> Makes me want to read Baines’ book in full! <hr/><h2>14) ✈️ The climate benefits of eliminating jet contrails</h2> <figure><img alt="An infographic explains how rerouting just 5% of flights can avoid “contrail forming zones.” On the left, a grid of airplane icons highlights one aircraft in orange to represent the small share being shifted. On the right, two orange planes take slightly altered paths (1–2% shifts) around a blue-shaded zone, while a white plane follows the mitigated contrail-free route, illustrating how minor adjustments can reduce climate-impacting contrails." draggable="false" src="https://assets.buttondown.email/images/32965da9-8633-4ee7-b2ff-79e79175e20e.webp?w=960&fit=max"/><figcaption></figcaption></figure> Hannah Ritchie has written <a href="https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/eliminating-contrails?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">a fascinating essay about why it’d be good — and easy — to eliminate jet contrails.</a> Why would it be good? Because jet contrails are heat-trapping gases. Jets form contrails when they emit vapor, soot and particles that trigger the formation of high-up clouds of ice-crystals. When heat tries to escape the planet, trace amounts bounce off the bottom of the contrails and get redirected downwards. A lot of naturally-occurring clouds have this effect; it’s called “radiative forcing”. Contrails create about 2% of all the planet’s radiative forcing. That isn’t a huge amount, but it has the benefit of being artificially generated — which means it’s something we could, in theory, avoid or reduce. This is the “easy” part! Basically, planes create contrails only when they fly through thin regions of the atmosphere that are cold and humid. All we’d have to do is predict where these regions are, and have the planes take slight detours around them. It wouldn’t add more than a few minutes to a flight. Better yet, contrails are quite rare — only 3% of all flights create nearly 80% of them. So we’d only need to add very small detours to a very small percentage of all flights, and we could get rid of 2% of radiative forcing. In the engineering puzzle/challenge of dealing with climate change, a quick fix is a rare and significant “win”. Granted, making flights every so slightly longer would increase their CO2 emissions — but the greenhouse reductions you’d get from eliminating contrails would be much bigger. As Ritchie points out, <a href="https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/eliminating-contrails?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">this also wouldn’t be very expensive:</a> <blockquote>Let’s take a quick example for British Airways. They operate around 300,000 flights per year. If we reroute 2% of those to avoid contrails, and rerouting increases fuel burn by around 2% (I’m being deliberately harsh here), then I estimate that the additional fuel costs are in the range of $1.2 to $2 million per year. Let’s say that the operational costs of forecasting and modelling adds another 50%. That takes us to around $2.5 to $3 million.In 2024, British Airways had an operating profit of around $2.7 billion. Contrail avoidance would therefore be just 0.1% of its operating profits.</blockquote> They could pass the price on to customers if they wanted — estimates vary, but it might only be 10 or 15 bucks per flight, which is only a couple pennies per passenger. <a href="https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/eliminating-contrails?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Go read the essay</a>, and while you’re at it subscribe to Ritchie’s newsletter. She does excellent by-the-numbers dives into climate-change mitigation all the time, and they’re invariably fascinating. (I covered <a href="https://buttondown.com/clivethompson/archive/linkfest-27-aztec-death-whistles-supercircular/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">her analysis of “supercircular” solar-panel recycling back in Linkfest #27.</a>) <hr/><h2>15) 📬 A final, sudden-death round of reading material</h2> <a href="https://strangeco.blogspot.com/2025/10/the-return-of-libelous-tombstones.html?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Libelous tombstones.</a> 📬 <a href="https://www.therobotreport.com/california-agencies-eye-burnbot-for-wildfire-prevention/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Burnbot</a>. 📬 <a href="https://ambrook.com/offrange/livestock/turkeys-of-the-sun?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Turkeyvoltaics</a>. 📬 The historic origins of <a href="https://bigthink.com/books/the-word-for-wind/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">the word for “wind”</a>. 📬 NYC’s “fan man” <a href="https://gothamist.com/news/nycs-flying-fan-man-demands-nypd-return-his-fan-after-he-soars-near-verrazzano-bridge?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">wants his DIY motorized parachute-sail back.</a> 📬 The <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/08/science/biggest-spiderweb-sulfur-cave.html?unlocked_article_code=1.0k8.gLtx.2iDolO40b26G&smid=url-share&utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">world’s hugest spiderweb</a>. 📬 The Incans used a mountain <a href="https://archive.ph/pzFdU?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">as a spreadsheet</a>. 📬 Data-center <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2025-05-14/finland-s-data-centers-are-heating-cities-too?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">cogeneration</a>. 📬 Two-car regional-airport <a href="https://arstechnica.com/cars/2025/11/california-airport-tries-out-bidirectional-ev-charging-microgrid/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">microgrid</a>. 📬 Lions have <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/11/21/listen-lions-have-two-roars-scientists-discover/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">two types of roars</a>. 📬 Finally, a female <a href="https://www.npr.org/2025/11/21/nx-s1-5616284/female-crash-test-dummy-design-approval?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">crash-test dummy</a>. 📬 Powering a house for eight years with <a href="https://interestingengineering.com/energy/recycled-laptop-batteries-power-home?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">used laptop batteries</a>. 📬 Rats are snatching bats <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/rats-are-snatching-bats-out-of-the-air-and-eating-them-and-researchers-got-it-on-video-180987610?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">out of the air</a>. 📬 <a href="https://www.random.org/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Random.org</a>. 📬 <a href="https://spacetypegenerator.com/stripes?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Space Type Generator</a>. 📬 Stirling engine powered by <a href="https://www.ucdavis.edu/news/mechanical-power-linking-earths-warmth-space?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">the frigid void of space</a>. 📬 White noise <a href="https://www.instructables.com/Noise-Maker-a-DIY-Sound-Sculpture-to-Help-You-Slee/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">sound sculpture</a>. 📬 Ants use social distancing <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ads5930?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">during an epidemic</a>. 📬 The <a href="https://hackaday.com/2025/11/17/meet-the-shape-that-cannot-pass-through-itself/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">“noperthedron”</a>. 📬 <a href="https://codepen.io/boytchev/pen/NPNabOQ?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">3D marble block</a> done in javascript. 📬 The parallels <a href="https://antigonejournal.com/2025/11/fall-smaug-achilles-heel/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">between Achilles and Smaug</a>. 📬 Mechanical star system <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3iUpv1Wclw&utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">in a coffee table</a>. 📬 Using electromechanical relays <a href="https://hackaday.com/2025/11/13/2025-component-abuse-challenge-relay-used-as-guitar-pickup/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">as guitar pickups</a>. 📬 <a href="https://nukesnake.com/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Nuke Snake</a>. 📬 Bike helmet with voice <a href="https://blog.arduino.cc/2025/11/02/improving-bicycle-safety-with-voice-activated-turn-signals/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">activated turn signals</a>. 📬 The first English-language <a href="https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=72066&utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">dictionary of slang</a>. 📬 <a href="https://newatlas.com/biology/stool-banks-poop/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Stool banks</a>. 📬 Apparently yelling at seagulls <a href="https://newatlas.com/biology/seagull-stealing-food-shout/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">works</a>. 📬 The Prolo <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/prolo/prolo-ring-precision-control-for-keyboard-power-users/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">wearable trackpad</a>. 📬 <a href="https://coolhunting.com/buy/schotts-significa/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Schott’s Significa</a>. 📬 Those who drank 3-4 cups of coffee per day had <a href="https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/coffee-linked-to-slower-biological-ageing-among-those-with-severe-mental-illness-up-to-a-limit?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">longer telomeres</a>. 📬 Ultrasonic <a href="https://news.mit.edu/2025/ultrasonic-device-dramatically-speeds-harvesting-water-air-1118?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">moisture farming</a>. <hr/>CODA ON SOURCING: I read a ton of blogs and sites every day to find this material. A few I relied on this week include <a href="https://www.robinsloan.com/newsletters/long-rush/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Robin Sloan</a>, <a href="https://strangeco.blogspot.com?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Strange Company</a>, <a href="https://www.timemachinego.com/linkmachinego/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Link Machine Go</a>, <a href="https://hackaday.com/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Hackaday</a>, <a href="https://www.messynessychic.com/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Messy Nessy</a>, <a href="https://www.numlock.com/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Numlock News</a>, the <a href="https://theawesomer.com/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Awesomer</a>, the <a href="https://themorningnews.org?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Morning News</a>, and Mathew Ingram’s <a href="https://newsletter.mathewingram.com/?utm_source=clivethompson&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=linkfest-42-phytomining-adversarial-poetry-and" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">“When The Going Gets Weird”</a>; check ‘em out!