76: Never Equally Distributed

November 24, 2014

Hello internet friends!

It’s another monday and I am still not over the fact that “Can you forward me that email?” translates to “Print the email and put it on my desk.” for some people. Oh well. Onwards.

If someone had told me I’d read a profile about a software engineer on vogue.com that is not a total puff piece, I’d not have believed them.
Well, here is one: How Pinterest Engineer Tracy Chou is Breaking the Silicon Ceiling.

Talking about professions in magazines that I would not have thought to be possible, here is an article in the New Yorker on The Rise of the Professional Cyber Athlete.
After reading the article you might actually want to watch that Bomber vs Scarlett match – it’s a thing of beauty.

A very different thing of beauty is the idea and execution behind this gallery: 24 Photographs Taken at the Exact Same Moment All Around the World.

This is a very fast train. And it’s maybe a bit less disappointing than the Shanghai Maglev that even at full speed feels a bit like a metro. (Which is probably by design – it is how it is used, anyway.)

Have a good start into the week.

75: Pretty Chill

November 17, 2014

Hello internet friends!

It’s 2014, that poor little probe we landed on a comet is already out of juice. A bit like my iPhone around lunchtime.
Talking about probes: at least Uranus might be full of surprises.

Last week I mentioned Serial and how I wouldn’t listen to it because reasons. Well, those of you who know me might have guessed it: I had to give it a try anyway. I’m still not too sure what to make of it – from what I have heard in my binge-listening-and-then-unsubscribing this weekend, it seems to me the guy did it and now a whole bunch of people who were hoping to put this behind them are in the internet’s spotlight.
Serial is a big hit, though – and suddenly people like podcasts.
Suddenly?

Besides listening to podcasts my weekend was eaten away by 0h h1. Curse you, addictive browser logic game!

Oh, wait, no – back to podcasts. (Sorry.)
The wonderful Allie Brosh was on Marc Maron’s WTF Podcast – it is a great interview and oh boy, does it get dark.

Too dark for you? How about some knowledge about the weird reproductive cycle of jellyfish and how they’ll soon take over the world?
Or you know – space sloths.

Be safe.

74: Basil Goes With Everything

November 10, 2014

Hello internet friends!

74 newsletters in and I still didn’t bother to check the rules whether there needs to be a comma behind that “hello” or not.
Onwards.

2014: An enormous bitcoin mine went up in flames.
Is this the future? It sounds enormously cyberpunk-y to me.

Talking about enormously cyberpunk-y things – my copy of City of Darkness arrived this weekend. A stunningly well-made book about Kowloon Walled City I will probably be busy looking at the great photos and diagrams and reading about the inhabitant’s lives for quite some while.
And yes, one of these cross-sections made it into the book as well.

A Call For Web Developers To Deprecate Their CSS ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The big podcast du jour is The Serial which chronicles a reporter looking into a murder case from 1999. Apparently it is very well made and yet – I am not all that willing to give it a listen. Mostly because I am afraid I might like it too much and then forget that these are real people and not something like Lost or Twin Peaks.
Obviously I am not the only one with those ideas. Especially since some listeners seem to start looking into the case by themselves.

And hey, sure, why not? Cooking 101: An Infographic is worth a thousand recipes.

Be safe.

All Tomorrow's Parties

November 3, 2014

Hello internet friends!

This weekend I flooded my kitchen with coffee.

I also finished reading William Gibson’s new book “The Peripheral” and it is unsurprisingly very good.
I always thought that it is unneccesary to tell people about him and his work, but “What’s a William Gibson book? Is that like Harry Potter?” made me rethink that.
Turns out, William Gibson is already here, he’s just not very evenly distributed.

Of course a new William Gibson book also means a lot of William Gibson interviews. Here are some I enjoyed: (Warning, some are quite spoilery)

And then there is this long portrait of Mr Gibson.

That should keep you busy for a while – if you’re not that interested, here, have a sleeping puppy:

Or the best wombat movie ever made.

Or some Japanese rock music.

Be safe.