Ghost Town

Hello internet friends!

When I just opened my bookmarks folder to look for stuff I found for you this week I learned one amazing fact: It turns out when you don’t put stuff in a folder it doesn’t magically apprear.


The author explains what the hell is going on in the fourth paragraph, but until then the title confused me so much I just had to read the whole article and it is pretty entertaining: Reading in The Horse Latitudes


We all should ask ourselves: How long could my murderer pretend to be me online?
Or maybe not. Because the longer I think about it, the scarier it gets.


Phew, now that is a problem I avoided by never being in that club from the very beginning:
What Happens When You Age Out of the Cool Kids’ Club at Work
Sounds horrible. Poor formerly-cool olds.


I hope at least one of the links was of interest to you. If not, you might like a video of Chris Harris being very excited about very exciting cars, a blogpost about the fun and weird internet from back then (it turns into a sales pitch for a react-based website builder, if you’re smart you know to stop when that starts) or rejoice in the fact that The Specials are having a reunion and a new album.


Toodles!

Mirror In The Bathroom

Hello internet friends,

did you watch the new Star Wars trailer? Oh boy, I sure hope this one doesn’t suck.


Workaholic

If you watch movies you probably noticed Eric Roberts at some point, because oh boy, this man works a lot: How Eric Roberts Went Big, Crashed Hard, and Became the Hardest-Working Man in Hollywood

Oh, ’Stralia

This is actually pretty amazing: There were trailers for a Crocodile Dundee reboot movie. High-profile actors were attached and teased the movie on their social media profiles. And then turns out: Australia’s national tourism arm subverted the Super Bowl with an ad for a fake movie

The Root of All Evil

Hyperbole? Not really. Tackling the Internet’s Central Villain: The Advertising Business (I mean… the real root is obviously capitalism, but you know. Eh.) Well, thank god they’re coming for a new medium, now: Podcast Listeners Really Are the Holy Grail Advertisers Hoped They’d Be

Hack Hack

Talking about capitalism, this is pretty great: Tractor Hacking: The Farmers Breaking Big Tech’s Repair Monopoly (Warning: video. If you prefer text, here we go: Why American Farmers Are Hacking Their Tractors With Ukrainian Firmware)


Have a good week, folks. Don’t let the bastards grind you down.
Toodles

Ennui

Hello internet friends,

for years I thought the most dangerous thing that could drop on my head could be some bird poo. Or maybe a random asteroid that will end all but the most resilient life, but I don’t think we’ll be that lucky in our lifetime.
Turns out crocodiles climb trees, too. (See, the turns out is even in their headline!) I haven’t heard any actual facts in the way of crocodiles living here in the middle of Europe, but you never know.

The rise of ~YouTube stars~ was the first thing that ever made me feel old. But I think I’ve finally come around, because whatever it is this young woman is doing is very much my kind of humor.
Meanwhile in the department of “things are different in China” – live-streaming seems to be really big there. But eh, probably they’re not that different. There’s the whole Twitch thing and… eh… whatever else is doing the live-streaming these days. How would I know? In internet years I’m old. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Here, a public service from Irregularity HQ: I have learned that some of my readers don’t quite know what these things are, what the difference is and that they have it – so I managed to find an article that explains them pretty nicely: How to Tell Whether You’ve Got Angst, Ennui, or Weltschmerz

I forgot all three of those for a short time while reading this wonderful article on Soylent. The pull quotes alone are worth clicking that link, he says, staring off into the distance.
Meanwhile people who actually produce real food have a whole other problem: their equipment is increasingly locked behind DRM.

Toodles!

Peanuts

Hello internet friends,

let’s open with a strong contender for the headline-of-the-year award: Wife crashes her own funeral, horrifying her husband, who had paid to have her killed
What a story.

Everyone on Twitter is mad about the company’s idea to move to an algorithmic timeline which showcases relevant tweets. Apparently this is how it works and tbh I think it’s a bit silly – the last time I saw a relevant tweet was probably 2010 anyway.

Last year had a lot of weird weather. Here’s a timelapse.

This is now bowling, this is ’Nam. And this time seen in photos from a North Vietnamese perspective.

Man, I can’t wait to be old. (At least where I am, 65 is also the age when most people retire? Coincidence?)

Nerd alert! Want to learn about CPU load averages? Of course you do.

And then there are a bunch of people trying to clean the trash out of the ocean. Go them!

Way back when ICQ was the biggest thing in the world I used to have an ICQ bot running with a simple markov chain. It would randomly add people[1] and talk to them and I had so much fun just reading those conversations. These days there are much better libraries for that kind of silliness and of course there is Twitter. So here is a Twitter bot markov chaining its way through my tweets.
It does interact with people, too, so that’s fun.

Take care!


  1. Remember that? It was possible to just randomly look for people on ICQ and then talk to them. Get me drunk and I’ll tell you how that worked out for me.  ↩

Crows

Hello, internet friends!

Because nothing says “monday morning” than “wanting to go back to sleep,” here is some help with that: Jeff Bridges’ Sleeping Tapes. It is really weird and now I want to be a crow, looking for Spanish doubloons with the dude. Right.
Onwards!

The nerd in me is very tickled by the existence of this Lego SHIELD Helicarrier. Just look at it. So tempting.

Ever since Wednesday, this short documentary on Grace Hopper has been on my watchlist. Maybe I’ll manage to watch it tonight, maybe you can beat me to it?

Why Can’t Public Transit Be Free?
tl;dr: because people are terrible snobs.

How one of the best films at Sundance was shot using an iPhone 5S
Using an iPhone and a steadycam rig, some way to have different lenses on the phone and a whole bunch of people with expertise in movie-making. I’m not too sure if maybe some other camera in the same price range would not have worked better? But what do I know.

For 10 years I have managed to bushwhack a circuitous path around them but now I’ve got to find a away around the men in hoodies and crocs.

Zoë Keating: What should I do about Youtube?

Have a good week folks.