Hello internet friends!

Good news, everybody: Sperm count drop ‘could make humans extinct’
(And also, come on. We’re this close to getting science to a point where we don’t need sperm anymore anyway. (Or are we at this point already? I’m not really up-to-date on reproductive science.))

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Nude

Just in case you wonder how that is like: Spending a Week in the Nude
This is good reporting right there.

Squash

Talking about good reporting: I watched in bewilderment while a man tried to return butternut squash because he thought it was cheese

Atemlos

A: Yes.
Q: Is Schlager Music The Most Embarrassing Thing Germany Has Ever Produced?

Scam

Even if you’re not into podcasts, you might want to make an exception for that one: Long Distance by Reply All.
These people went ahead and decided to research who is behind a tech support scam call.

Ship

This is weirder than what most writers of thrillers come up with: The Hijacking of the Brillante Virtuoso
What a name for a tanker, too.

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Toodles!
And oh. Don’t watch the Emoji movie.

Hello internet friends,

yes, obviously it is problematic but The Fifth Element is easily one of my favourite movies. (Just so you know, your fave is problematic.) And it’s not just the visuals, it is actually the story, too.

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bus-y

Citymapper announces ‘hyper-local multi-passenger pooled vehicle’ – which is, as you might have guessed, a bus. With all the hullabaloo around self-driving cars and on-demand mobility in the end a proper, well-working and affordable public transport is probably still the best solution for most cities. And it is actually a smart move by Citymapper to use their data to identify demand for this line and use the desire path.

duck-y

By now we know that dinosaurs had feathers and made duck-like sounds. (If not, news flash: they had feathers and made duck-like sounds.) And the most fearsome of them, the gigantic feather, quacking Tyrannosaurs Rex wasn’t even that fast, either: Tyrannosaurus Rex Would Break Its Own Legs if It Chased Jeff Goldblum IRL.
Good news for Jeff Goldblum, I guess.

henge-y

We may have cracked the mystery of Stonehenge. “May” being the word here. And while that “may” is still a “may” let’s look at videos instead. For example: Decoding the ancient astronomy of Stonehenge Or you know… that one.

binks-y

This guy, more than anyone in the world, should be thankful that CGI was around when they made the Star Wars prequels: How the Guy Who Played Jar Jar Binks Survived the Fandom Menace

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🎶 What’s the meaning of stone-heeeenge… 🎵

Toodles!

Hello internet friends,

after years of being pretty loyal to iPhones, I might have finally found a good reason to switch to Android: Apple rival Huawei debuts KFC-branded Android phone in China

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Emoji

If you’ve been diligent about clicking on every emoji link I posted in these emails, especially the more technical ones, you know that certain emoji are a ligature of two other symbols. Now this dude decided that things are not far enough down that road, so here are some ligatures he invented and some interpretations he got from Twitter: The emoji ligature Rorschach test

Umbrella

Ah, it has been everywhere but when I first saw the article I just knew I had to include it here: Umbrella-sharing startup loses nearly all of its 300,000 umbrellas in a matter of weeks
We all laughed but by now we should know what happens when the umbrella corporations have to look for other fields of business, right?

Arabidopsis

Now you might have just read that last paragraph and had a little nerd chuckle. But more likely you were wondering what I was going on about. And apparently I just made the mistake that is The Single Reason Why People Can’t Write, According to a Harvard Psychologist.
(You don’t have to click. The single reason is that writers assume that every reader knows as much as they do and hence use jargon and in-jokes.)
((In-jokes aside – do you dare doing an image search for the header of this section?))

Props

I’m not sure if they are the greatest per se but it is an interesting, fun article – even though it is a listicle: The 100 Greatest Props in Movie History, and the Stories Behind Them

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Toodles!

Hello internet friends,

let’s start with something really important: Fact-checking Owl City’s description of being hugged by 10,000 fireflies
Okay, maybe not that important, but now that I have that song stuck in my ears I wanted to share that joy with you. Sharing is caring.

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Mistress

Apparently this is a real job: China’s Mistress-Dispellers and that is pretty fascinating. Would I watch a Netflix series about these people? I probably would.

Leaks

There is a whole sector of the publishing industry devoted to rumors and leaks around technology products, mostly those from Apple. And now there is this: Leaked recording: Inside Apple’s global war on leakers
Good god.

Skating

I really enjoyed this article on how Learning to Skateboard When You’re an Adult Is Extremely Embarrassing.
(Side note: is is a coincidence that the Broadly text logo is so similar to the German Brigitte?)

Bees!

I can’t wait for a future where Amazon plants big beehives for their delivery drones into cities – maybe built by nanobots and with structures completely planned by deep learning AIs: Amazon’s vision for the future: delivery drone beehives in every city
The MetaFilter thread for this article is gold, especially but not only for this comment:

2037: CAPTCHA’s grow more strict every year. Slip up, and you’re locked out of your Amazon account, your apartment, your job, your life. Renegades hide out in abandoned big-box stores and survive on what they can shoot down. Arecibo Noether, daughter of elite Prime Members, never thought she would end up as one of them but

Once again: I would totally read/watch this.

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Toodles!

Hello internet friends,

I’ve had declining hair for a while now and yet every summer I am surprised again that the sun actually has an effect on my head. Maybe I should get some sort of person who holds an umbrella over my all the time? Or maybe just a hat, but that seems overkill.

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Same.

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Cat Scan

Now, all things considered, I’m more a dog person than a cat person. Mostly because I start to look like an extra in a zombie movie right after a cat was somewhere near. And yet, this is fascinating: Watch the History of Cat Domestication in Three Minutes

Beep Beep

Maybe I’m a bit stupid, after all I’m not in San Francisco, but – isn’t this just a private bus line? Lyft’s New Shuttle Service Is More Convenient Than Lyft Line

Wood

These are pretty incredible: Now You Can Download 2,500 Japanese Woodblock Prints from the Library of Congress
I might just have spent a little too much time clicking through these.

Merch

✊ Resistance!
Well. More like Resistance™ – because capitalism is really good at turning everything into a commodity: The Resistance Will Be Merchandised.

Coke

If you watch a comedic movie that was sort of aimed at more grown-up people, you probably see at least one person doing coke. Why? How Did Cocaine Become The Drug Of Choice In Hard-R Comedies?
(I thought it was because everybody in Hollywood is on the stuff anyway all the time, but apparently there are other reasons.)

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As usual, folks – comment, like, subscribe and hit that bell button.
Or not. Enjoy the rest of the week.

Toodles!

Hello internet friends!

First minor sun burn of the year: ✔
On the top of my feet, if only for the reason that it is the most annoying place to have that, now that I wear more closed shoes today at work.

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Gassy

Humanity is now breeding cows for secondary characteristics: Canada Is Using Genetics to Make Cows Less Gassy
I wonder if it is somehow possible to use that on humans, too?

Roady

This is pretty cool: The major Roman Roads in the style of a subway map.

Poppy

I know. But. This article is actually really good: Welcome to Poppy’s World. (And hey, she did get a shout-out at the latest Apple Keynote, so… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)
In the article they mention an ad campaign for Sanrio. Part of that is an interview which includes this gem of a dialogue:

Sweet Happy News: When is the last time you really felt alive?
That Poppy: I feel alive every time my phone is re-charged.
Sweet Happy News: Amazing.

Sunny

China just switched on the world’s largest floating solar power plant and that is pretty, pretty awesome. I mean – why waste all this free energy we get from the sun all the time?

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That’s all I have for now.
Toodles!

Hello internet friends,

did you ever wonder how fireflies in Thailand synchronize their blinking? Yeah, me neither. But now I know and it is fascinating. And the webpage that explains it is absolutely wonderful.

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Computer Talk

Just now as I am writing this the latest Apple keynote thing ended. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Let’s talk about real computers instead and what happened with those back in the days: What Really Happened with Vista
Medium Dot Com says it takes 27 minutes to read it, sooooo… about how long Vista lasted from start-up to the first background process crashing.

Butt Talk

So apparently this is a topic? Why did my boyfriend like Emily Ratajkowski’s butt on Instagram?

Bird Talk

A warning, just in case: Two Escaped Raptors Are Still At Large in North Carolina
Not dinosaurs, though. Talking about big birds – did you ever wonder about Why Flamingos Are More Stable on One Leg Than Two?

Brick Talk

How Lego clicked: the super brand that reinvented itself – nothing really new in that article, but it’s still nicely put together.
Meanwhile in assorted Lego talk, a nice love letter to the Lego Movie’s cracked space man helmet: Cracked Helmets and Being Understood

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Toodles! (And don’t forget, you don’t really need all the new iMacs and iPads and things.)

Hello internet friends,

annoyed that it is Monday already? Well, you’re probably less annoyed than these rattlesnakes being pestered with a drone.

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Web Content

We humans have a brain (usually) and a spine (some) and that’s how we think and handle the various parts of our body. But not every animal works like this – so, for example, how do spiders and octopuses think? The Thoughts of a Spiderweb

Cheese Content

Living just over the boarder from Switzerland, their various cheese dishes – mostly fondue and raclette – were a very normal part of my upbringing. And given that “melting cheese” is one of the great culinary achievements it is important to know The Science of Melting Cheese.

Car Content

In this case actual literal car content: Singapore ‘vending machine’ dispenses Ferraris, Lamborghinis.
I know this concept with Smart cars over here, but… wow. (Unrelated: the movie adaptation of Crazy Rich Asians is currently filming.)

Rihanna and Lupita Nyong’o Content

I really like everything about this: A meme come true: Rihanna and Lupita Nyong’o to star in film based on tweet
Tweet-to-Netflix is the content version of Farm-to-Table, right?

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Now go outside, have a drink.
Toodles!