Links
A collection of interesting things I’ve discovered and recommended in my monthly newsletters.
- Sister Rosetta Tharpe - Didn't it Rain
A galvanizing 1964 performance where Sister Rosetta Tharpe descends onto a rundown train platform and electrifies the crowd with electric gospel blues.
- You're Weirder than You Think
A seven-question tool built on General Social Survey data that reveals how unrepresentative your own life actually is compared to everyone else’s.
- Kagi Small Web
Kagi’s site for discovering recently published content from individuals, celebrating the noncommercial, human side of the internet.
- What Every Adult Should Know About Parasocial Media and Teens
danah boyd’s discussion of how social media has shifted from genuine connection to algorithm-driven, passive consumption of influencer content.
- Marconi Union - Multiforms: Ambient Transmissions, Vol. 3
A warm, expansive ambient electronic release that’s the frontrunner for album of the summer, with evolving textures and standout instrumentation.
- The American Revolution
Ken Burns’ PBS documentary reveals the full extent of the war’s brutality and impact, streaming free until July 12th.
- Making Music: Creative Strategies for Electronic Music Producers
Dennis DeSantis’ free book on universal patterns for starting, developing, and finishing music, useful at any stage or skill level.
- Scritchy Scratchy
An idle game about scratching lottery tickets to increase your luck and payouts, with a free demo and a full game under $10.
- RNGdle
A free, mindless daily game where you get a random number and earn points for how rare its patterns and attributes are.
- Caught In Joy
Karol Pokojowczyk’s YouTube channel shares tracks from his prolific Bandcamp output, harking back to Berlin-school ambient classics.
- World History Timeline
An updated visual timeline of history in the style of Joseph Priestley’s charts, showing civilizations rise, fracture, and mix over time.
- At what point does it make sense to ditch a gas car for an electric vehicle?
NPR breaks down the tradeoffs to help you decide when switching from a gas car to an EV actually makes sense.
- Your data is everywhere. The government is buying it without a warrant.
Investigative reporting on how government agencies buy private data from brokers to bypass warrant requirements — a still-unresolved threat to everyone’s privacy.
- The Conversation
Gene Hackman’s greatest film — a tense mystery/thriller about surveillance and isolation, now free on YouTube.
- Tastebuds NYC
Two guys randomly pick a country, find a restaurant in the NYC area serving its cuisine, and eat very well — great food, great people, genuine fun.
- Kottke.org
Longtime blogger Jason Kottke has been curating the best of the internet for nearly 30 years — a reliable source of discovery across art, design, music, and culture.
- The Aadam Jacobs Project
Thousands of indie, punk, and rock concert recordings from the 80s to the 2010s, uploaded free to the Internet Archive with surprisingly good sound quality.
- Endgame for the Open Web
Anil Dash makes the case that corporations are weaponizing the open internet against the very people who built it, consolidating control over our online lives.
- The West Wing
The landmark political drama from the turn of the 21st century — civic exposition, bipartisanship, and principled living as a form of escapism that hints at a better world.
- YouTube Channel Surfer
Watch YouTube like old-fashioned cable TV, dropping into curated topic-based channels to see whatever’s currently playing. You can even import your own subscriptions.
- Tiny Puppet Sound — French House Mix
A puppet playing French House music during lunch break. Sometimes that’s exactly what the world needs.
- Wes Cook and The McDonald's Mural
Panic’s Cabel Sasser tells the full story behind his most impactful talk, a wonderful rabbit-hole adventure with a great message about the value of following curiosity.
- These AI Prompts Exposed My Biggest Blind Spots
Daniel Pink demonstrates how LLMs can surface real self-knowledge by using prompts on his own data, even when the results sting.
- Tiny Beautiful Things
A Hulu miniseries about family and grief that’s hilarious and heartbreaking in equal measure, with smart storytelling geared toward adult audiences.
- Embroidery
A ~300-line JavaScript Codepen that generates elaborate, beautiful embroidery patterns - a great example of creative coding that anyone can appreciate.
- How Will the Miracle Happen Today?
Kevin Kelly explores the importance of being a recipient of direct, non-reciprocal kindness rather than only focusing on giving kindness to others.
- AGI is here (and I feel fine)
Robin Sloan’s AI-focused newsletter makes a compelling case that the artificial general intelligence milestone was actually met a while ago, challenging conventional AI discourse.
- MTV Rewind
Experience old-school music videos in sequence from MTV’s early days with this free player, recreating the experience of watching music television in its golden era.
- The Lowdown
Sterlin Harjo’s gritty Western noir FX series featuring stellar performances from Ethan Hawke, Keith David, and Kyle McLaughlin with laugh-out-loud scenes and a propulsive plot.
- Punjabi Disco
A rare 1982 album from the London suburbs combining Indian wedding music with a cutting-edge drum machine and synthesizer, finally reissued and available digitally for the first time.
- The Secret to Loving Winter
An Atlantic article exploring how embracing the inevitable cold and darkness of winter, drawing on poets and deep thinkers, can help us get through the season with more acceptance if not quite love.
- Size of Life
An interactive web experience by Neal Agarwal that takes you through life on Earth from smallest to largest organisms with beautiful presentation and a fantastic interface.
- The Mr. Bean Christmas Special
Rowan Atkinson’s classic wordless comedy special available free on YouTube, connecting to the tradition of Jacques Tati, Charlie Chaplin, and Buster Keaton.
- Phoenix Code
A free code editor that runs on Windows, MacOS, Chromebooks, and web browsers, hitting the sweet spot between utility and simplicity with built-in git, previews, and code quality tools perfect for web development.
- The Resonant Computing Manifesto
A manifesto challenging technology choices optimized for profit and extraction rather than human thriving, advocating for deliberate choices that support better ways of using technology in our society.
- WeatherStar 4000+
A retro ’90s-style weather display for your local forecast with lots of customization options for those who appreciate nostalgic interfaces.
- Color Palette Pro
A roll-up-your-sleeves color scheme tool modeled like an analog synthesizer, offering deep experimentation and discovery beyond typical palette generators.
- Double Fine PsychOdyssey
A 33-episode YouTube documentary providing unprecedented access to a creative team balancing limited resources and market forces with making art and publishing a top-tier game.
- A History of the Internet, Part 3: The Rise of the User
Jeremy Reimer’s final installment covering the period when the Internet became a fixture in everyday people’s lives, capturing the early 2000s web’s weirdness and character.
- The Majority AI View
Anil Dash’s clear-eyed take on how nearly all tech professionals think the hype around AI is ridiculous, preventing valid criticism and obscuring the technology’s actual value.
- Handy
A free front-end for OpenAI’s Whisper speech recognition model that provides text-to-speech functionality without the $20/month price tag of popular transcription apps.
- The Fear of Never Landing
Marconi Union’s latest album delivers their signature beautiful atmospheres and expert musicianship, perfect as a soundtrack for focused work.
- The Myth of Hercules: 12 Labors in 8 Bits
A delightful TED Ed video retelling Hercules’ story with full 8-bit aesthetic in both sound and graphics, managing to be retro on multiple dimensions while remaining entertaining throughout.
- Paprika
A recipe collection tool that works well, imports recipes easily, tracks pantry items, and syncs across desktop and mobile devices - perfect for keeping all your recipes organized in one place.
- Just a QR Code
A refreshingly simple, no-nonsense site for creating QR codes on-device without ads or spam - a breath of fresh air in a sea of cluttered QR generators.
- Become a Wikipedian in 30 Minutes
Crypto industry watchdog Molly White’s excellent introduction to editing Wikipedia content, laying out everything you need to know in perfect sequence to get started contributing.
- Two Ways to Film the Same Scene (#2)
Fascinating analysis comparing Hollywood and European art cinema approaches through the same scene from Wim Wenders’ Wings of Desire and its remake City of Angels.
- VERT.sh
VERT converts files (images, audio, video, and documents) from one format to another, all on your device with no cloud processing, file size limits, or ads.
- Ldial
A collection of the best indie and community radio stations in the US on one page for streaming discovery.
- Andor
This Disney+ series restored my faith in the Star Wars franchise with its gritty, nuanced look at the years leading up to Episode IV.
- ChatGPT is an energy guzzler. These things you're doing are worse.
A Washington Post article with latest data about AI energy use compared to other common activities, providing a helpful update to my ethics post.
- Fender Studio
100% free music recording software that works across all major platforms. Easy to learn with powerful features, focused on recording rather than composition.
- AI Is Life
Astrobiologist Sara Imari Walker argues that AI isn’t artificial life but actually part of life when you zoom out to consider the bigger picture.
- Nubby's Number Factory
$5 retro Windows-XP inspired roguelike game where you create larger numbers using a bouncing ball named Nubby with crazy powerups and synergies.
- The Odin Project
Comprehensive resource for learning professional web development from start to finish, presented logically with a community aspect.
- Robin Sloan's Blog and Newsletter
Intelligent writing about science, technology, and art from the author of Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore.
- The Buena Vista Social Club Tiny Desk Concert
An NPR Tiny Desk performance showcasing why the Broadway production is worth seeing - these musicians are absolutely on fire.
- A History of the Internet, Part 2
Part 2 of Jeremy Reimer’s excellent Ars Technica series covering the transition from hobbyist networks to mainstream adoption via the World Wide Web.
- That Dropped Call with Customer Service? It Was On Purpose.
Chris Colin’s Atlantic article exploring the deliberate frustration tactics in corporate customer service systems.
- SomaFM Player
Online radio station specializing in electronic genres with channels like Drone Zone for focus and Groove Salad for energy.
- Tubi's "For the Cinephiles" Collection
Fox’s FAST streaming service offers an impressive collection of art house cinema, including classics like The Night of the Hunter and Pather Panchali, with less intrusive ads and easy access.
- Arc Browser
An innovative browser that rethinks web interface design with side tabs, spaces for different browsing types, and unique features, though development has stopped (security updates continue).
- Zen Browser
A free browser similar to Arc but still in active development, offering innovative web browsing features and interface improvements for those looking for growth potential.
- Little Dig Game
A short, humorous clicker/incremental game that offers a great introduction to the genre with hours of gameplay and a satisfying payoff at the end.
- Neal Stephenson's Remarks on AI
The Snow Crash author provides fresh, insightful perspective on AI’s impact on society, offering thought-provoking analysis for anyone interested in technology’s societal effects.
- Bitwarden
A free, open-source password manager that creates and manages unique passwords for all accounts, requiring only one master password to secure everything across devices.
- LLM Energy Use Cheatsheet
Andy Masley provides perspective on AI energy consumption with helpful charts and context about ethical AI use.
- An Ars Technica History of the Internet
First part of Jeremy Reimer’s detailed series on internet infrastructure history, packed with rare photos and artifacts.
- Kagi Internet Search
A paid search engine ($5/month) that prioritizes users over ads and tracking with no history storage or paid placement.
- Mint Mobile
Budget-friendly cell service with transparent pricing and T-Mobile network coverage, recommended by Hank Green.
- James Brown and The Famous Flames on the TAMI Show
An electrifying 1964 James Brown performance that Prince reportedly played on loop and left The Rolling Stones mortified to follow.
- Dawnfolk
A beautiful cozy city-building game where you place tiles, explore, and restore the land without complex strategy or data tracking.
- Let's Get Creative
A curated collection of free, kid-safe online creativity tools covering art, music, and coding resources.
- Andrej Karpathy's LLM Deep Dive
A comprehensive 3.5-hour video explaining how Large Language Models work, essential for understanding this revolutionary technology.
- The Glassmaker
Tracy Chevalier’s novel immersing readers in Venetian glassmaking, strong women, and sweeping family drama.
- Cozy Comfort
A Reuters article about relaxing video games that doubles as an interactive cozy game itself, featuring recommendations like Stardew Valley.
- I Spent 30 Days in a Dead Game
An exploration of There.com, an abandoned multiplayer VR world still maintained by a devoted core community.
- Dragonsweeper
A brilliant browser-based Minesweeper twist featuring dragons, monsters, health management, and treasure hunting. (h/t waxy)
- Stax: Soulsville USA
A four-part HBO documentary capturing the raw energy and cultural complexity of Memphis’s legendary Stax Records.
- Marconi Union 24/7
Continuous ambient music perfect for deep focus and creative work from this influential English ambient group. (h/t Kottke)
- Your Professional Decline is Coming (Much) Sooner Thank You Think
Arthur C. Brooks explores how to transition from achievement-focused work to teaching and deeper purpose as professional peaks hit earlier than expected.
- You Exist in the Long Context
Steven Johnson’s interactive forensics game demonstrates innovative approaches to interacting with Large Language Models.
- YTCH
YouTube videos shown in subject-based channels, you get dumped in the middle like old-school cable TV. It’s nice to surf from time to time.
- Maker Skill Trees
Printable gamified learning pages with progress tiles, covering subjects from basic shapes to 30-page comics.