October 15
Choose Your Own Adornment
Choose your flourish carefully. For this band of material shall bind your fate. A fun little Halloween game from the delightful webcomic Crow Time by secondlina.
So Listener Discretion is Advised
The mountains of Appalachia, in an alternative timeline, were never meant to be inhabited, but served as the prison for eldritch horrors from a time before memory. However, as stone gives way to eons and elements, darkness leaks, and a conflict resumes between the Old Gods of Appalachia, with humanity caught in the middle. [more inside]
Arguably the finest and most beautiful American forestry work
Hough’s first step was technological: he patented a machine capable of cutting razor-thin wood veneers in three directions: transverse, radial, and tangential. His initial impulse was commercial. The wooden cards were so thin that they could be used as projection slides in Magic Lanterns. (One imagines that this was the height of at-home entertainment at the time.) Moreover, the tranverse sections were so strong that they could also be used as business and greeting cards. For just 10 cents ($1.00 today), customers could buy individual wooden cards to use for whatever purpose they wished. Hough’s innovation in veneer-cutting proved a massive commercial success. Fortunately for the world of book collecting, Hough was not prepared to stop there. from Romeyn Hough’s American Woods [Bauman Rare Books] [more inside]
Best of the Web
Concerns Over SpaceX as a Credible Launch Provider
The successful launch and recovery of the Heavy Booster (with a subsequent planned water landing of Starship) has provided SpaceX with very positive press and enthusiasm from the public. What remains, however, are significant issues that undermine the credibility of not just the Heavy Booster development program but SpaceX as a credible launch provider more widely.
Last month, the FAA, the controlling authority on commercial spaceflight, recently hit SpaceX with a potential fine, focusing on improper control room procedures, and perhaps more concerning, insufficient handling of explosives (note that the Super Heavy is the largest spacecraft launched to date with twice the thrust of a Saturn V. [more inside]
A sanctuary for one of Australia's rarest birds was a 98yo farmer's gift
A sanctuary for one of Australia's rarest birds was a 98yo farmer's last gift. When George Cullinan discovered the plains-wanderer, a small, shy and critically endangered bird with a moo-like call, on his farm in Victoria's Mallee he went about creating a sanctuary to protect it.
“Let’s not do any more questions. Let’s just listen to music.”
"Still, it gave her something useful to do."
Two short speculative stories in which characters deal with medical gatekeeping. “This Week in Clinical Dance: Urgent Care at the Hastings Center” by Lauren Ring (published June 2024): "Brigitte Cole presents with lower abdominal pain, nausea, and a long-sleeved black leotard." Bitter satire that "draws upon my own experiences as a disabled woman navigating the US healthcare system." "It’s in the Blood" by Susan Kaye Quinn (published July 2024): "Full disclosure. More than you’d get in a clinical trial, which this was, only the illegal kind." A rebel activist struggles with disability and with the promise she's created.
How not to run a sAAs company
Founder Mode. Somewhere someone said something and a meme was born. David Gerrells is a better developer than me. He flipped the switch on founder-mode /s and built a web-crawler-data-parser using Python(!) and SQLite(!!) to provide free* backlink analysis as an elaborate, yet philosophical middle finger to SEO marketing companies like Ahref and Semrush because "backlinks are the digital road signs for the public and they should be freely and EASILY searchable by anyone."
* You can "pay" to unlock AI generated analytics reports, Stripe is configured to auto-refund your payment. Clicking the payment button is enough to fake it out. It's for fun! not profit [more inside]
In the darkness there’s so much I wanna do
Once again (previously, previouslier, previousliest) the Spanish band Broken Peach has released a Halloween Video in their classic style.
Tomb filled with skeletons found underneath the Treasury in Petra
"While many tombs uncovered within Petra are found empty or disturbed, the chamber was filled with complete skeletal remains and grave goods made from bronze, iron and ceramic." [more inside]
American woman becomes World Champion while King accused of cheating
In the big contest of this autumn, Kelci Banschbach, originally from Indianapolis, Indiana, won all her matches to become both Queen Conker and overall winner of the World Conker Championships. Overseas competitors also took home the team title, as ‘The Skuumkoppers’ from the Netherlands won the trophy. However, one competitor thought it suspicious Mr Jakins had "obliterated opponents’ nuts in one hit". St John Burkett, a spokesperson for the World Conker Championships, said the cheating claims were being investigated. Elsewhere: footage from Peckham.
Laws often protect web giants while victims struggle for justice
Fifty-six agencies provided records in which adults alleged that sexually explicit photos and videos had been posted to OnlyFans without their consent. Fifty agencies declined to provide records, citing privacy laws, technical limitations and other factors. Others did not respond, said they had no relevant records or provided records that were not relevant to this story. Using the law enforcement files, along with some state and federal court cases, reporters identified 128 cases of women and men who complained to police that sexually explicit images or videos of themselves had been posted on OnlyFans without their permission. Reporters conducted detailed interviews with nine people who made those allegations. from Behind the OnlyFans porn boom: allegations of rape, abuse and betrayal [Reuters] [CW: Rape, CSA, sexual content, NSFW text] [more inside]
October 14
Holograms are Real-Life Magic.
Holograms are way more complex and fascinating than I ever realized. Not only are they capturing the 3D form of an object from multiple angles, but also the way that light reacts to objects, from reflection to distortion and refraction. A laser shines on a 2D image, and, as the viewer moves around it, the hologram gives the illusion of light bending and reflecting off of glass and metal and plastic that isn't there. [more inside]
'Patogena'
The Degradation Drug
“I had no brakes, no morals, no inhibitions. There was no Jiminy Cricket sitting on my shoulder saying, ‘Vicki, no, don’t do that.’ ” A medication prescribed for Parkinson’s and other diseases can transform a patient’s personality, unleashing heroic bouts of creativity or a torrent of shocking, even criminal behavior. A look at dopamine agonists.
AI retinal scanner can better and faster diagnose blindness
AI retinal scanner can better and faster diagnose blindness than eye specialists.
The Lions Eye Institute has won $5 million in state funding for an Australian-first invention to improve eye care in Western Australia's isolated and remote communities. (The Lions Eye Institute is a not-for-profit centre of excellence that combines an ophthalmic clinic with scientific discovery developing techniques for the prevention of blindness and the reduction of pain from blinding eye conditions.)
森林浴
When it comes to biological superlatives, we typically focus on individuals: The largest tree in a forest, the oldest organism on the planet. After visiting the Hoh Rainforest, however, I began to wonder about superlative communities. What are the oldest existing ecosystems on Earth, and what can we learn from them? [nautilis] (previously)
An online information oasis of last resort
For years, the typical story about governments, politicians, or public figures showing up on Reddit focused on the unlikeliness of that match. Reddit was rowdy, weird, or nerdy, and it was sort of interesting or fun or strange for people with big platforms to show up there. In recent years, Reddit has grown from a large cluster of online communities into a sort of last refuge semi-protected habitat for online communities in general — that is, spaces where actual people gather to discuss or find information about certain topics or interests, organized and moderated by other actual people. Now, nobody is deigning to post on Reddit. They’re just hoping it might add to their audience a bit. from Is Reddit the Future of Crisis Comms? [Intelligencer; ungated] [more inside]
Stream More Than 30,000 Movies for Free With This One Simple Item.
Hint: All you'll need is a public library card or an university email. Create a Kanopy account. Check out all the movies offered. Be happy. [more inside]
Whence are a few of my favorite things [Free Thread]
Most of us could name a favorite book, movie, or album and talk for ages about why we love them so much. But how did you come to find these things in the first place? Is there a special person who introduced you to your favorite band, or did you happen upon your favorite TV show through pure chance? Maybe a MetaFilter thread clued you into a favorite app or video game. And do you find it true that your favorites were mostly encountered during a formative, nostalgic period in life, or is your top tier more wide-ranging? (Or in other words, what's a more recent all-time fave you've discovered?) Discuss this and more in your weekly free thread!
A four-tonne machine just printed a house in the US
A four-tonne machine just printed a house in the US. Texas just opened its biggest 3D-printed neighbourhood as a solution to its acute housing problem.
Surviving Pompeii
Records of Pompeii’s survivors have been found—and archaeologists are starting to understand how they rebuilt their lives. [more inside]
"a detailed plan to shut you up, and shut you out"
"Hi. We’re a group of comic book writers & artists who are furious about Project 2025, The Heritage Foundation’s plan to consolidate power under authoritarian rule. So we made a bunch of comics to explain their agenda and move you to vote against it." stopproject2025comic.org (quote from Bluesky) 15 comics up now on Internet freedom, taxation, the environment, anti-trans legislation, and other issues; more coming soon. License: CC BY-ND. Transcripts included. Contributors include Matt Fraction, Greg Pak, and Greg Rucka.
Geeks Peek Freak Leak
Pokémon developer Game Freak suffered a server breach recently, leaking an enormous amount of unseen assets, including diagrams of the universe's pantheon, frightening concept art (YT 15:02) and some quite unusual lore.
'Shine your light on the world'
Zendesk fumbles software vulnerability
Tell me if you've heard this one before: a curious young bug hunter discovers a major software vulnerability, tries to report it, and is ignored and gaslit. Today's villain is Zendesk, which you've probably used if you've interacted with customer support tickets.
VFX Artists Expose AI Scams
Visual Effects channel the Corridor Crew (previously) look at AI scams and how to identify them (25 minutes)
A rose by any other name
Apple Intelligence engineers don't think that LLM's reason, and have described their tests to see if the reasoning is reliable and predictable (and useful for an Apple-style 'it just works' product). Here's a summary rolled up from exTwitter by Threadreader, and this is the arXiv.org pre-print. More analysis at why this is a bad thing at Gary Marcus' substack: LLMs don’t do formal reasoning - and that is a HUGE problem.
In particular, adding irrelevant data to the input or swapping names of things (rose, schmose) caused unintended variability in the LLM's response.
In particular, adding irrelevant data to the input or swapping names of things (rose, schmose) caused unintended variability in the LLM's response.
An honest hack
I always try to live by what Thoreau said, which is that it’s very important not to let your knowledge get in the way of what’s more important—which is your ignorance. As long as I know that I’m ignorant, I can learn something. from SPIN DNA: William T. Vollmann on Journalism
October 13
Queensland's Houdini crocodile to remain in popular lake
Queensland's Houdini crocodile to remain in popular lake, but mystery remains about how it got there. An elusive freshwater crocodile that has been the talk of an outback town for months will not be targeted for removal after wildlife authorities deemed the "shy and timid" animal no threat to human life.
Context: No human fatalities are known to have been caused by this species. [more inside]
Catch me back at the pad, how about that!
On October 13, Space X launched Starship 5 and several minutes later, caught the first stage ( called Super Heavy Booster) when it returned to the launchpad from whence it came! Scott Manley has great commentary about the feat, including the separate return of Starship itself into the ocean.
Mosaic Netscape 0.9 was released 30 years ago today
“According to my notes, Netscape went live shortly after midnight on Oct 13, 1994. We sat in the conference room in the dark and listened to different sound effects fired for each different platform that was downloaded. — jwz (Jamie Zawinski) reminisces on his blog about releasing the first public version of Netscape. [more inside]
The evidence in favour of daylight saving is somewhat flimsy
While scanning these files I came to realise that timezones were even more complicated than I had originally understood, with the rules in a constant state of flux. I was intrigued to see what patterns might emerge if I could visualise this dataset in its entirety ... from Exploring 120 years of timezones [Scott Logic, 2021]
Creating realistic CG Black hair
A paper to be presented at Siggraph 2024 examines the geometric properties of tightly curled Black hair and creates algorithms to model it for computer graphics. This is essentially the first formalized description and algorithm for rendering tightly curled hair in the decades long history of computer graphics.
"The closest human beings will likely be the astronauts aboard the ISS."
On Point Nemo, the most remote place on earth (Cullen Murphy for The Atlantic)
Take a look, it’s in a book
ARCHiOx (Analysis and Recording of Cultural Heritage in Oxford) is a project to create detailed 3D models of a variety of books and objects from the collections of the Bodleian Library, allowing users to explore highly decorative and unusual bindings without a visit to the reading room. (Previously)
Hong Kong's Umbrella Movement, 10 Years Later
The protest anthem Glory to Hong Kong has been banned this year under Hong Kong's National Security Law, which criminalizes advocating for "secession from China" or "seditious activities. Looking back, Hong Kongers reflect on where they started, and where they are now: “I thought 2014 was shit at that time, but compared to 2019 it was just a piece of cake,” she says. “I was so naive, believing the government would be sensible, respect people’s voice, and abide by the promise in the Basic Law. But now I can say I was totally wrong.” HKFreePress follows up on 12 leaders of the protest movement and where they are today. Founder of defunct Apple Daily Jimmy Lai was denied a request for a jury trial for his libel case against a pro-Beijing newspaper. (Previously, previously, previously.
50 Years of SNL’s Graphic Parodies
Many men seem to be in agreement: college is stupid and unnecessary
When mostly men went to college? Prestigious. Aspirational. Important. Now that mostly women go to college? Unnecessary. De-valued. A bad choice. from Why aren't we talking about the real reason male college enrollment is dropping? [Matriarchal Blessing]
October 12
Elders bring home sacred Indigenous artefacts held in UK museum
Elders bring home sacred Indigenous artefacts held in UK museum for 120 years. Warumungu artefacts, including a famous boomerang, are being returned to country in Central Australia in an emotional milestone for the community.
water, water, every where
blue lagoons of water amid the palm trees and sand dunes of the Sahara Desert, nourishing some of its most drought-stricken regions with more water than many had seen in decades [aljazeera]
How Are They Doing This?
Watch game reviewer Raptor be endlessly delighted by the simple, elegant building game Tiny Glade. [more inside]
You light up my lighter.
Old cigarette lighters are more than just lighters. A one minute video showing the imaginative design and function of cigarette lighters from the last century. No smoking involved.
Highway Robbery
Government highway agencies have enabled the blatant falsification of traffic model results. As a result, the United States wastes billions on road expansions that fail to cure congestion and make it harder to get around without a car.
Young Marble Giants Live at the Western Front November 6, 1980
At most $187,000 to pay at least $564,000 owing
On October 3, Judge Elizabeth Riles of the Superior Court of Alameda County (Calif.) granted, with a few caveats, Small Press Distribution’s motion to consolidate all claims in their dissolution, totaling $316,000 owed to 163 publishers, most of whom are unlikely to receive much of what is owed them (previously). Under the fold, a roundup of 25 new books by former SPD presses. [more inside]
Can you Venmo me $3.74 for the sip of my drink you took?
Altruism, or doing nice things for others, is “something very deeply ingrained in our psyche,” says Ghodsee. “But the minute you introduce economics into it, you actually diminish the experience of that friendship,” she says. According to her, the expectation of ‘reciprocity’ can do more harm than good. “You do favours so at some future moment when you’re in need, that person will return the favour, right? This is the reason we call friends ‘toxic’, because there are some people who take, take, take, and then never give back,” she explains. While of course it’s fair (and sensible) to take a step back from a relationship if you feel as if it’s draining you, it’s generally a good idea to resist the temptation to ‘keep score’ with your closest friends. from Is frugality ruining our friendships? [Dazed]
Analog horror for the web
FAKE DOCUMENTARY Q is a subtle, slow-burn psychological horror mockumentary series from Japan, consisting of a series of 22 standalone episodes "sourced" from old VHS tapes, security camera footage, answering machine messages, and more, all forming a loosely-linked narrative which can be watched in any order: CURSED VIDEO - BASEMENT - THE PORTRAIT - INFERNO - NO FICTION - THE VISIT - SANCTUARY - STRANGE MESSAGES - HOUSE OF MIRRORS - EXORCISM - HIDDEN LINK - LAST COUNTDOWN - PASSENGERS - WHAT THE DECEASED LEFT BEHIND - FLOWER OFFERING - OBSCURE - PLAN C - BIVOUAC - TAKE100 - MINDSEEKER - MOTHER - LIVESTREAM. English subtitles are available for all entries. More: Fake Documentary Q: Gateway into Modern Japanese Horror
worth it
Wednesday: I apply to, interview for, and begin an apprenticeship as an electrician. ...I then whittle the fallen log into a tasteful mid-century modern footstool... Friday: I wake up blindfolded and handcuffed to what feels like the mast of a ship [pointsincase]