NYT on Neopets fans after the death of Flash
— how they've adapted to the redesign of something they never wanted to change #
An oral history of Processing
— the second part documenting the history of the influential creative coding language is out now #
The growing partisan gap of U.S. covid deaths
— because of natural immunity in red counties and new antiviral treatments, that gap may soon peak (via) #
Steve Albini reflects on his edgelord past
— interesting conversation about privilege and culture from someone with a history of ironically saying shitty things for shock value (via) #
The Untold Story of Sushi in America
— how a religious movement played a role in spawning the U.S. sushi industry (via) #
50 Years of Text Games on Porpentine’s Howling Dogs
— how the Twine revolution opened up interactive fiction to a new world of writers and audiences #
Clive Thompson on the legacy of COBOL in the banking industry
— related: an oral history of Bank Python (via) #
haveagood.today
— built on her collection of found GIFs, Olia Lialia's Perpetual Calendar wishes you a happy day (via) #
Tweet Shelf
— an excellent replacement for Nuzzel, I love being able to break out articles, websites, and videos #
Metaverse Noir
— Kathryn Yu made this branching narrative thread for an MFA class project, earning her an A in the process #
5,162 attempts Super Mario Bros speedruns combined into a single video
— don't miss the behind-the-scenes video showing the custom software used to reconstruct it #
Rebecca Jennings on the Mountain Goats’ “No Children” going viral on TikTok
— she talked to John Darnielle about its surprising rise as a TikTok meme #
Garbage Day on the Facebook Papers
— reiterating again that Facebook knew all along, ignored everyone ringing the alarm bell, and lied about it publicly #
Cabel Sasser shares a prototype original iPod
— I'm lucky enough to have seen this yellowing beast in person #
Lay All Your Love On Me, performed by a vampire
— the first song from Brian David Gilbert's AAAH!BBA, his Halloween-themed ABBA cover album releasing at midnight PT tonight #
“History Will Not Judge Us Kindly”
— Adrienne LaFrance on how employees repeatedly raised alarms about the harm Facebook was doing but were ignored by leadership #
Casey Newton on how Facebook decides which countries need protection
— "There is a pervasive sense that, on some fundamental level, no one is entirely sure what’s going on." #
Ben Smith on how the Facebook Papers coverage was coordinated
— it's unusual for so many major publications to work together like this, but Frances Haugen was able to set the terms #
Washington Post’s key takeaways from the Facebook Papers
— there's simply too much good reporting on this to read today, but WaPo has solid highlights with links to deeper reporting on each #
Facebook’s lost generation
— Facebook is dealing with an aging user base, while teens are using Instagram less #
Running list of all the Facebook Papers stories
— no longer under embargo, 17 publications started releasing their reporting on the internal Facebook docs leaked by Frances Haugen #
Michael Hobbes on the methods of moral panic journalism
— media coverage of the "cancel culture" panic is rife with irrelevant examples, bad stats, and false equivalence #
Janelle Shane plays with Ask Delphi, the ethical AI
— played with the demo and the results were laughably awful #
Trump’s new social media site collapses after trolls flood it before launch
— it's also just a modified Mastodon instance and they're violating the license terms #
Clickbait Genius
— quiz to guess which headlines performed better, using real data from the Upworthy Research Archive (via) #
Resignation screenshots on r/antiwork
— subreddit filled with stories of people quitting abusive jobs #
The story behind Mariah Carey’s secret ’90s alt-rock album
— the label killed the idea of releasing anything that could compromise her pop star image #
The Worst Thing on Earth
— an excerpt from Tamara Shopsin’s debut novel LaserWriter II, out tomorrow #
magneticscrolls.net
— every classic Magnetic Scrolls adventure playable with color graphics via SSH #
NYT simulation of how gender bias affects promotion cycles
— very good interactive infoviz showing how biases stack to impact women in higher roles #
Adam Savage goes incognito at NYCC with an incredible Ghostbusters costume
— his enthusiasm is contagious, mirrored by Jason Reitman and the young cast of Ghostbusters: Afterlife #
Investigation finds Amazon puts its own brands above better-rated products
— not just house brands like Amazon Basics, but it puts Amazon-exclusive products above competitors (via) #
“Every Frame A Painting” creators to co-direct VOIR, David Fincher’s new Netflix docuseries
— visual essays celebrating cinema, a perfect fit for Taylor Ramos and Tony Zhou #
Ryan Broderick on TikTok’s low stakes toxicity
— conspiratorially obsessive discourse over mundane subjects going viral, a fender bender or a girl surprising her boyfriend #