Posts tagged “music”
- This LA Times interactive map of the Southern California wildfires has been very handy. – via @dansinker.com
- “Just a reminder that the French revolution started with a climate crisis-induced famine, an empire that had overexpanded into too many foreign wars, and parasitic nobility that funneled all the wealth upward while regular citizens suffered.” – via @chris.writes.books
If you want to “follow” me somewhere (other than here, of course), you should use my verified account on bluesky. I adored Twitter when it launched, and for many years after. But I haven’t looked at that social network in months and deleted my account a while ago. I’ve been enjoying Threads, but it looks like it’s time to abandon that platform, too. I’m very, very glad I have my own personal website. (I hardly ever look at Instagram, and doubt I’ll keep my account there for much longer. If I didn’t feel obligated to remain on LinkedIn, I’d quit that site, too.)- In China, there are registries of haunted apartments. If you’re willing to live somewhere with a sinister history, you can get a discount of 30%. – via @tomwhitwell
- I am starting to get concerned about the bird flu, H5N1. Paying attention to updates from Your Local Epidemiologist is a good way to be prepared.
- A wilderness survival trainer spent years undercover, climbing the ranks of right-wing militias. He didn’t tell police or the FBI. He didn’t tell his family or friends. Then, in 2023, a ProPublica reporter received an envelope with no return address. Inside was a flash drive containing tens of thousands of secret files. – via @propublica
- “In species where males invest in weaponry (antlers, horns, tusks, etc.), female brains are bigger.” – via Kent Hendricks
- I watched Conclave over the holiday break and thought it was pretty good. The acting was great, of course, but I’d expect nothing less from a film featuring John Lithgow, Stanley Tucci, and Ralph Fiennes. If you dig Roman Catholic esoterica, I’d also suggest reading this deep dive into the Vatican’s secret saint-making process.
- Ozempic is a modified, synthetic version of a protein discovered in the venomous saliva of the Gila monster, a large, sluggish lizard native to the United States. – via Tom Whitwell’s 52 Things I Learned in 2024, not to be confused with Kent Hendricks’ equally-awesome list of 52 Things I Learned in 2024
- Some of the 77 Facts That Blew Our Minds in 2024 (from The Atlantic Science Desk) are really pretty wild! – via kottke
- The Ghosts in the Machine is a great explainer on the current kerfuffle over Spotify’s nefarious fake music.
Please don’t say just, “hello,” via text. – via The Curious About Everything Newsletter, where I also found this awesome food map of Italy- I enjoyed reading this quick essay on how to write readable sentences.
- What happens when websites start to vanish at random?
- An average of about 900 people per week have died of COVID-19 over the past year in the USA, according to the CDC. – via PBS
- I love The Octonauts, although I do sometimes worry it’s giving my son an unrealistic perception of the coffee consumption rate of the average undersea exploration headquarters polar bear captain. – via @gatordavid
- How The Netherlands Built a Biking Utopia – via distilled
- Here’s some cool stuff you can do with Bluesky (aside from following me, of course).
- There’s No Longer Any Doubt That Hollywood Writing Is Powering AI – via @rking_618
- This is your annual reminder that the album Sugar & Booze by SNL alum Ana Gasteyer is chock full of fantastic holiday music and you can stream it on Alexa.
- In part he cried because he knew what lay ahead. The families of the dead, the people who were shot, had now been in war, like he had. They would struggle like he and so many of his combat buddies had.
- I joined Mastodon seven years ago — a full decade after I started using Twitter, by the way — and still have absolutely no idea how it works. (Note that I’ve spent the last thirty years building web and mobile applications.)
- This kid’s reaction to Lamar Jackson‘s scramble last weekend is the best (via Ravens). – via @randderuiter
Disney Music in the 1930s
An old college essay
I wish I could think of something uplifting or witty to say by now, but I don’t. I’m sure that day will come soon, but today I’m just … tired. Hopefully these links will brighten your day a little.
- Meet Armando Villarreal, the man behind college football’s coolest helmets. – via @theathletichq
- Choose your decade and channel-surf the past on virtual TV sets. – via Laura Olin, who has a fantastic newsletter
- Allegedly, you can now scrub your personal information from Google searches. Here’s how to do it.
- JSON Crack is a free, open-source data visualization app capable of transforming JSON (and several other structured formats) into interactive graphs. – via @sung.kim.mw
- “1500+ free HTML templates for websites, landing pages, blogs, portfolios, ecommerce and admin dashboards” – via @devluc
- Great news for people who love bad news: This year won’t just be the hottest on record — it could be the first to surpass the 1.5-degree-Celsius threshold laid out in the Paris climate accord. – via @scientific_american
“Vanity Fair hits it on the nail.” via @deirdre.assenza- Related: “Unfriendly reminder that good people don’t support rapists.” – via @iamayortrightkay
- Apropos of nothing: It’s nearly impossible to be a depressed ball of rage-filled anxiety while listening to Clair de lune. – via @gatordavid
- Please tell me Taylor is working on a “The White House” version of “The Black Dog”. And if she’s not, maybe Weird Al can get on it. I hope it’s shitty / in the White House… – via @gatordavid
When Indiana Jones tells you he needs your help fighting Nazis, you help Indiana Jones fight Nazis. – via @laurenthomanwrites (Vote!)- If you’re looking for some good news: The population decline of honeybees has actually reversed! – via @dirtyrealism42
- In 2034 people are going to rediscover these unhinged John Mulaney musical sketches and realize they were incredibly brilliant and hysterical. #SNL – via @gatordavid
- The Boss opening his show in Montreal with a cover of Ghostbusters makes me really happy. – via @coachbennett
- I wonder how many of the rabid anti-immigration folks in the US could pass a citizenship test?
- Learn programming by playing games! – via @denicmarko_
- I’m no rocket scientist, but this headline seems bad. The International Space Station Has Been Leaking for Five Years – via @laura.helmuth
- The Athletic just published a great article about sports video game soundtracks that’s worth a read.
- “Can you imagine the beautiful chaos if LinkedIn allowed commenting on open job positions?” – via @regina.thequeen.bee (I love this idea! Couldn’t someone make a browser extension for this?)
Several times when they went to commercial during tonight’s College Football Championship game, ESPN was playing Gimme Shelter from the 1969 Rolling Stones album Let It Bleed. It’s an awesome song. The entire album is fantastic, and I’ve loved it since I was in middle school. I am just having a hard time wrapping my head around the idea that a song released five and a half decades ago is still so popular (and well known?) that it works. For comparison, if ESPN had existed in 1969, and if the CFP existed in 1969, they’d be playing Carry Me Back to Old Virginny by Alma Gluck or It’s a Long Way to Tipperary by John McCormack. Those were “hits” right at the start of World War I and — I don’t think I’m going out on a limb here — teenagers at the tail end of the 60s weren’t rocking out to Alma Gluck.
And the Stones are still touring!
Dear Amazon Music,
If I say, “Alexa, play Taylor Swift songs,” I don’t want to hear anything else. I don’t want to hear songs that remind you of Taylor Swift. I don’t want to hear artists that sound like Taylor Swift. I want to hear… Taylor Swift. This should not be hard.