May 28, 2023
Lawyer cites fake cases invented by ChatGPT, judge is not amused
— imagine the client learning their lawyers are charging them to literally type "is this a real case" in ChatGPT #
Two fans spent over 7,000 hours recreating Disneyland from scratch in Dreams
— the project's wrapping because Media Molecule announced the end of support for the game creation engine in September #
Exploring an abandoned home largely untouched since the 1960s
— sadly, the Westchester County house was demolished last week with "pretty much everything still inside" #
Adel Faure’s text mode art
— so much to explore here, all rendered with a custom typeface for ASCII art #
Captcha Is Asking Users to Identify Objects That Don’t Exist
— "Please click each image containing a Yoko" #
Guitar Slinger Reconstructed
— Linus Åkesson covered the classic Amiga tracker tune from 1993, with a stop-motion video controlled by the original MOD pattern data #
1980s arcade game designers hid their names in high score tables
— a long growing list of classic high score screens and their known credits (via) #
Gandalf, a game of prompt injection
— convince an increasingly annoying chatbot to reveal a secret password (via) #
Why Has a Group of Orcas Suddenly Started Attacking Boats?
— the behavior appears to be learned but may be a fad, like the Puget Sound orcas who spent the summer of 1987 wearing dead salmon as hats #
Arc’s new Boosts feature lets you change the way any website looks
— like a visual Stylish without touching CSS, with built-in sharing options #
Conner Griffith’s “Still Life”
— animated short made from over 1,000 historic engravings of objects #
Better Living Through Algorithms
— Naomi Kritzer's short sci-fi story about a helpful AI, not unlike the one in Mrs. Davis (via) #
Mel’s Loop
— finding the identity of the programmer behind "The Story of Mel," a classic piece of hacker lore that just turned 40 (via) #
Kenny Log-Ins
— "generate a secure password from the lyrics of America's greatest singer-songwriter" (via) #
The Nib is shutting down
— after ten years and multiple near-death experiences, the award-winning comics publisher is closing in August #
Visualization of data breaches that have exposed your identity over time
— built on top of data from Have I Been Pwned?, I haven't heard of many of the companies that leaked my info #
Hank Green talks about his cancer diagnosis
— his thoughts about his favorable prognosis and how the treatment he starts today may affect his life and work #
TikTok users sue Montana, calling state ban unconstitutional
— each of the five plaintiffs talk about their experiences in the complaint #
Supreme Court rules against Andy Warhol in copyright dispute over Prince portrait
— Kagan's dissent is worth reading, arguing the opinion will "stifle creativity of every sort" #
Montana governor signs total ban of TikTok in the state
— the unconstitutional and dangerous law goes into effect on January 1, though it's likely to be challenged #
The Last Recording Artist
— Jaime Brooks contextualizes deepfaked vocals to the history of virtual pop stars, Vocaloid software, and minstrelsy (via) #
How readers asked Platformer to cover artificial intelligence
— a useful set of guidelines for technology journalists #
The Dangers of Google’s .zip TLD
— related: badidea.zip links to a ZIP file called badidea.zip containing a QR code that points to badidea.zip #
Google to start deleting accounts that haven’t logged on in two years
— a Google spokesperson said they won’t be removing accounts with YouTube videos “at this time.” #
50 years after release, Disney’s Robin Hood is still a life-changing furry phenomenon
— "Love for this movie showed me a community of people like me." #
Question Mark, Ohio
— an immersive mystery with Night Vale vibes, I recommend starting with Violet's Instagram or the town's announcements #
Anna’s Archive
— launched last November, a massive open-source search engine for shadow libraries like Sci-Hub, Libgen, and Z-Library, with a takedown-resistant architecture #
IRS tests free e-filing system to compete with tax prep giants
— the pilot program developed with U.S. Digital Service will begin in January, if Intuit's lobbying doesn't kill it first #
Early Computer Art in the ’50s and ’60s
— another brilliant Amy Goodchild post; don't miss her attempts to recreate Sol LeWitt's wall drawings with Midjourney and ChatGPT #
Sing A Note
— Louie Zong turned over 200 clips of fans singing a single note into a musical keyboard to make songs with #
Moderator Mayhem
— Techdirt made a free web game, best played on mobile, that demonstrates some of the challenges moderating social networks #
The Oral History of MTV News
— it's permanently shuttered after 36 years; Doug Herzog casually revealed Clinton's infamous Boxers vs. Briefs question that I wrote about was planted! #
Cavern Sweeper
— clever Minesweeper-like with beasts who have different bomb patterns, watch the video in the comments if you're stuck (via) #
Pop Culture Detective on the solarpunk narrative of Disney’s Strange World
— a rare depiction of a sustainable ecological future in popular media #
How Google tried to fix the web by taking it over
— long-read on Google's aggressive, monopolistic push to get publishers to adopt AMP, leading to lawsuits and distrust #
Nintendo goes after Switch emulators after new Zelda leaks online
— Tears of the Kingdom is playable at 60 fps on PC emulators #
Chris Onstad reboots cult webcomic Achewood, with help from an AI
— he almost made a Netflix animated series based on "The Great Outdoor Fight" with Pendleton Ward?! (via) #
The Oral History Of BuzzFeed News
— on the day the site goes into archive mode, former staffers reflect on their 10+ years of reporting #
The Pudding analyzes dark patterns used when canceling 16 online services
— Vimeo was the most egregious, while the New York Times took over 17 minutes to cancel by phone #