Blot — incredibly minimalist file-based blog service, actively developed in public (via) #

Light Commands — inject unauthorized voice commands into Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple voice assistants with lasers! (via) #

Sephora Reviews that Mention Crying, Sobbing or Tears — a useful dataset from Connie Ye (via) #

Reporter writes about getting fired by the Des Moines Register — cowardly behavior from the paper, withering under a firestorm of criticism fueled by bad-faith actors #

Polygon’s 100 Favorite Videogames of 2010s — it's been a very good decade for games #

Bijan Stephen profiles Hot Ones for The Verge — the chicken wing gimmick is silly but effective, Sean Evans is a remarkable interviewer, and I love every episode #

VICE’s Allie Conti investigates an Airbnb scammer — lax verification enables large-scale hosts to exploit their platform #

Blade Runner intro but it’s actually Los Angeles in November 2019  #

Kotaku’s Death Stranding review — the first reviews for Hideo Kojima's new game are dropping, and it looks both audacious and agonizing #

Untitled Goose Costume — in a year of amazing goose costumes, Cabel's is tough to beat #

Websocket Ouija Board — feel spirits move your cursor planchette from the great beyond! (via) #

Hellvetica.ttf — for designers, a typeface scarier than Comic Sans and Papyrus (via) #

Ugly Gerry — typeface made from gerrymandered districts  #

Chris Wetherell reflects on building the Retweet for Twitter — Chris previously started and ran Google Reader, a product sorely missed by everyone who used it (via) #

Robin Sloan on the scale and feedback of social media platforms — interesting twigbunch on Rosegarden  #

Run Your Own Social — Darius Kazemi's guide to running a small social network for your friends; emphasis on "small"  #

User Inyerface — frustrating and funny interactive dark patterns (via) #

Profile of 8chan creator, Frederick Brennan — he should have let it die instead of selling it to this asshole  #

Mike Davidson on Superhuman’s creepy email tracking — and more generally, about ethics in technology (via) #

Using machine learning to find public domain Krazy Kat comics — novel use of AI to search newspaper archives with solid results  #

How The Shawshank Redemption Humanizes Prisoners — stunning video essay from Pop Culture Detective's Jonathan McIntosh on America's shifting perceptions of the prison-industrial complex  #

The Guardian’s Silicon Valley dictionary — sharply-written modern descendant of Devil's Dictionary 2.0 (via) #

The New Yorker goes on the road with Mitski — great profile of a spectacular artist  #

First Look Media ends funding for The Nib, shuts down Topic — The Nib is going independent, and you can support it here  #

Flappy Royale — compete against 99 other birds; open-source, and free for web, iOS, and Android  #

How Lil Nas X used the meme ecosystem to make a #1 hit — even Taylor Swift can't top Old Town Road on the charts  #

Kickstarter turns 10 — with a retrospective and a bunch of easter eggs across the site  #

Neuhaus — participatory music video where visitors upload images that make up the world  #

GB Studio — a free visual game builder for making Game Boy games  #

Source code released for 45 Infocom games — critical gaming history including unreleased and unfinished prototypes; more context from Jason Scott (via) #

Beto O’Rourke was in Cult of the Dead Cow — writing gems like this under the handle "Psychedelic Warlord"  #

The Christchurch attack was made to go viral — Charlie Warzel writing for the NYT  #

Spotify files antitrust complaint against Apple — they make a strong case  #

Baba Is You — the IGF-winning puzzle game is out today for PC/Mac/Switch, and it's stunning  #

Chart Party’s search for the saddest punt — somehow, against all odds, Jon Bois finds a way to make me interested in football  #

This Person Does Not Exist — reload for a new GAN-generated face; see also: This AirBNB Does Not Exist (via) #

Endless Jeopardy — a new Twitter bot/game from Neil Cicierega  #

Netflix launches new podcast with Another Round’s Tracy Clayton — Strong Black Legends is an instant subscribe  #

Reflecting on My Failure to Build a Billion-Dollar Company — remarkably unusual story of how Gumroad's founder turned a VC-funded startup into a "lifestyle" business (via) #

Holly Wood’s mega-thread of anonymous dirty secrets in various professions — fascinating to see people spilling dirt about their respective industries (via) #

Simone Giertz’ brain tumor is back — Burn Brian 2019 #

Guess the most expensive domain name — I'm disturbingly good at this (via) #

Bird Scooters threatens Boing Boing over Cory Doctorow post — laughable legal claim, with a great response from the EFF #

The oral history of the Hampsterdance — a wild story of copyright, remix, and early web culture (via) #

In A Nutshell — stunning stop-motion reminiscent of PES's work (via) #

The meta-meme history of the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez dancing video — from a Phoenix remix and Larry Lessig lawsuit to a failed smear of a badass Congresswoman #

2019 Independent Games Festival finalists announced — as always, great selection of the best of the new and upcoming indie game scene #

Scratch 3.0 released — extensions as building blocks, an offline editor, and new tutorials #

Meditations — 365 small games, each only available to play for a single day #

365 RFCs — Darius Kazemi's new year-long project to blog one RFC daily in chronological order #