Crypto casino apps on iOS are masquerading as children’s games
— like backdoor speakeasies, they only appear if you're in certain countries or on a VPN #
The Guardian on India’s devastating virus surge
— they're nearly one-third of all new cases worldwide, with nearly 300k yesterday #
Derek Chauvin found guilty on all counts of George Floyd’s murder
— not justice, but a rare moment of accountability after a year of protests #
The war between McDonald’s and a startup trying to fix their unreliable ice-cream machines
— they sold a device to monitor and repair the notoriously finicky hardware and ended up in court #
Zoom Jeopardy!
— amazing TouchDesigner mod to play archival or custom Jeopardy! games with friends over Zoom, get it before it's C&Ded #
The Story of “A Thousand Miles”
— VICE interviewed virtually everyone involved with Vanessa Carlton's 2002 hit, including Terry Crews #
NYPD deploys Spot Mini to public housing complex
— creepy authoritarian surveillance just got more dystopian #
Discord will block NSFW servers on iOS
— did Apple require this change or is this Discord's attempt to get their 12+ rating back? #
Just One Day – 2winz²
— the only thing better than Brian David Gilbert is four Brian David Gilberts #
Visualizing the risk-reward of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine
— the risk is so absurdly small, it seems inevitable that many more people die as a result of halting distribution (via) #
Charlie Warzel on Twitter and context collapse
— the first issue of his new Galaxy Brain newsletter on the attention economy #
Officer who fatally shot Daunte Wright resigns, as does Brooklyn Center police chief
— yet another racist killing of an unarmed black man, 15 miles from where George Floyd was killed #
Teaching a Spot Mini to pee beer
— Michael Reeves is like the edgelord version of Simone Giertz (via) #
Patrick Klepek on Cruel World, a multiplayer game designed to degrade as people play it selfishly
— it originated as a commentary on NFTs, but evolved beyond the creator's expectations (via) #
Guardian investigation finds Facebook ignored “Page abuse” loophole used for political manipulation by world leaders
— they prioritized enforcement for rich countries and their adversaries, while internal reports about abuse elsewhere languished for months #
Ben Smith on Substack
— big scoops in here including Daniel Lavery's deal, Charlie Warzel leaving the NYT, the Sidechannel Discord, and a Gawker revival?! #
What was the original URL for Yahoo before it was called Yahoo?
— a simple question from Joanne McNeil sent me on a rabbit hole through Usenet, listservs, and the Internet Archive #
Rocky Horror played to an empty theater for 54 weeks. Now, audiences return to Portland’s longest-running movie
— "I was in a position to keep a flame burning, to keep a torch lit." #
Pocari Sweat commercial’s astounding in-camera effects
— watch the behind-the-scenes video to see the rolling walkways in more detail (via) #
Google blocks advertisers from using social/racial justice keywords for ad targeting on YouTube
— "Black Lives Matter" and "Black power" were blocked, but "white lives matter" and "white power" were allowed #
Fyre Fest attendee auctioning viral tweet for a new kidney on Ja Rule’s NFT platform
— this entire story is a sad sandwich #
Justin McElroy’s loving ode to Yahoo! Answers
— for over a decade, My Brother, My Brother and Me turned its silliest questions into comedy gold #
NYT analyzes restrictions in Georgia’s new voting law
— Republicans are working overtime to make sure fewer people can vote to regain control (via) #
Leaked internal database of police departments using Clearview AI
— provided to Buzzfeed News from an anonymous source, as of February 2020 #
The Hidden Game Within Microsoft Flight Simulator
— using the photo mode to turn it into a walking simulator, exploring the glitchy planet from ground level #
Lauren Goode on algorithms that won’t let her forget her canceled marriage
— six years ago, Eric Meyer wrote about inadvertent algorithmic cruelty (via) #
New Yorker’s Rachel Aviv profiles memory researcher Elizabeth Loftus
— her controversial research on false memories made her a popular expert witness casting doubt on claims of sexual assault (via) #
Yahoo Answers shutting down on May 4
— just like Yahoo to delete 16 years of community-contributed content with 30 days' notice #
NYT on the Trump campaign’s dark design patterns for fundraising
— they tricked donors into emptying their bank accounts with automatic weekly donations (via) #
StyleCLIP, manipulating StyleGAN imagery with text
— don't miss the absurdly impressive demo video (via) #
Anil Dash on inventing NFTs with artist Kevin McCoy in 2014
— their haha-just-serious Seven on Seven presentation is worth watching, if you've never seen it (via) #
How QAnon Is Tearing Families Apart
— VICE interviewed three dozen people about their QAnon family members of widely-varying backgrounds #
Reddit’s Second
— try to guess the second-most voted picture, or wait to see vote counts for fewer points #
Slamilton, A Basketball Musical
— Space Jam mashed up with Hamilton shouldn't work this well, but it does #
Imaginary Friends Reunited
— a social network for imaginary friends like Gloop, Dracula CEO, and Tears for Fears #
68k.news, a lo-fi Google News for retro computers
— "Tested on Netscape 1.1 through 4 on a Mac SE/30" (via) #
Simone Giertz makes a chair for needy pets
— fun to see her creative process and missteps along the way #
Sixtyforgan, playing church organ music on a modded Commodore 64
— the flipside of his Chipophone project, turning an organ into an 8-bit synthesizer (via) #
The New Yorker digs into the Lawyer Cat Zoom call
— they found the source of the avatar, bafflingly set as the default webcam software for some Dell computers in the late 2000s #