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 #
Rickrolling an entire high school district
— exploiting lax security for a senior prank, followed by a debrief with IT to fix the issues they discovered #
How Slack Upended the Workplace
— the chat tool can invert power structures by letting employees speak candidly and organize internally #
ProPublica investigation into Tennessee juvenile court that jailed Black kids for nonexistent crimes
— until ordered to stop in a federal court, Rutherford County locked up children in almost half of cases, compared to the state average of 5% #
Please Don’t Destroy makes their SNL debut
— flashbacks to the Lonely Island; Rebecca Alter profiled the online comedy trio for Vulture in July #
Netflix suspends trans employee who tweeted about Dave Chappelle special
— "You can’t do a carbon offset for bigotry" #
After three years, Michael Hobbes leaving You’re Wrong About
— Sarah Marshall will continue the podcast with special guests (via) #
ScummVM turns 20
— they merged with ResidualVM, adding support for Grim Fandango, The Longest Journey, Escape from Monkey Island, and Myst 3 Exile #
just the punctuation
— Clive Thompson made a little utility to look at literary styles by stripping out everything except punctuation (via) #
50 Years of Text Games on “Violet” and Inform 7
— a delightful game about procrastination with a unique narrator, enabled by an equally unique authoring tool #
Bloomberg goes looking for Tether’s billions
— searching for the not-so-stablecoin's reserves inexplicably leads to a Mighty Ducks child actor and the co-creator of Inspector Gadget #
Song Exploder on John Lennon’s “God”
— the first posthumous episode, made with the help of the Lennon estate using unreleased interviews and demos #
Reuters investigation into how AT&T helped build alt-right news network OANN
— 90% of their revenue came from a contract with AT&T-owned TV platforms, including DirecTV #
Entirety of Twitch leaks to 4chan
— source code repos, creator payouts, encrypted passwords, mobile/console/desktop apps, and internal/unreleased tools #
Who Is the Bad Art Friend?
— a wild ride about an author who gave a kidney, another author who drew inspiration from it, and the ensuing legal drama #
An anonymous former Treehouse employee on the company’s mass layoffs
— this doesn't paint a pretty picture of leadership under Ryan Carson, the online coding school's founder/CEO #
Pitchfork revisits 19 album review scores they’d change “if they could”
— not sure what's preventing them from amending their original snarky takedowns, but it's a nice thought exercise #
Gimlet’s Heavyweight goes Spotify-exclusive
— is it even a podcast if I can't listen to it in my podcast player? i guess a lot can change in two years #
Cloudflare explains how Facebook disappeared from the internet
— interesting to see the immediate impact on other social networks #
Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Oculus back online after hours of downtime
— removed BGP routes locked out FB employees from offices, internal tools, and their own VPN, plus every site that uses FB auth #
Facebook whistleblower on 60 Minutes
— "Facebook has set up a system of incentives that is pulling people apart" #
Meet the original streamer, who ran his own public access gaming show in 1993
— "Video Games and More" was like Twitch on TV, with kids calling in to talk to a 12-year-old gamer instead of spamming chat (via) #
Garbage Day on the mystery of the “I Want To Live In This Era” photo
— "being nostalgic for being in the early-2010s being nostalgic for the 90s" #
The Pandora Papers
— WaPo investigation based on 12M leaked documents reveal how the global elite shield their riches in international tax havens, including in the U.S. #
Demi Adejuyigbe’s thread of behind-the-scenes footage from his final September 21 video
— absurd commitment to the gag; less than $25k left to hit $1 million raised #
Fully Justified Metroid
— embarrassed to admit I wrote every post like this when I was a Cool Teen in the BBS era (via) #
Party Is Such Sweet Sorrow
— a delightful short point-and-click adventure; hints available in the Metafilter thread (via) #
Adrienne LaFrance on Facebookland, the largest autocracy on Earth
— "a weapon against the open web, against self-actualization, and against democracy" #
Licorice Pizza trailer
— PTA's latest is a coming-of-age story set in 1970s San Fernando Valley with impeccable attention to detail #
What Do We Do With All This Rage?
— "I don’t want to bleed out empathy, a virtue I cherish. But I’m angry." #