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Brief encounter
You meet all kinds of interesting people on the train. Frederick Joseph, a Black writer born and raised in the USA, writes unforgettably of his post-2024-election trip across country on the Amtrak Zephyr. [more inside]
Was this useful for me? For you? For anyone? Probably not.
Most Mario games with polygonal logos have a different color per letter, but the sequence of colors in Mario’s name is rarely the same sequence across games. This captivated me—for some reason—and I set out to analyze every Mario video game logo to see if I could find a pattern for specific arrangements of colors and to determine the “most Mario” color scheme: The Most Mario Colors
Brrrrr.
I'll tell you about turtlenecks. In honor of the Polar Vortex currently hitting much of the US, "Derek Guy", menswear writer (Die, Workwear!, Put This On) and social media raconteur, gave us a short but comprehensive BlueSky thread on the history of the turtleneck sweater and how to wear it in contemporary life.
Around the world in 180 beans or less
Beans, beans, the musical fruit been found in ancient Egyptian tombs and are mentioned in the Illiad. They were cultivated in Peru as early as the second millennium B.C.E. (Warning: Raw beans of the Phaseolus genus have a toxin (phytohaemagglutinin) that requires cooking at high temperatures to neutralize). [more inside]
Some clichés are like planets, their gravitational pull too strong
For all that creative labor across the past century, the English-speaking world has been largely resigned to the idea of middle age as a dreadful, isolating crisis. This is likely due in part to the midlife crisis’s amazing elasticity – the way it stretches to accommodate shifting cultural contexts and the rise of whole new artistic forms. Few other topics seem to lend themselves so generously to esoteric offerings and crowd-pleasing genre fare, to the page and the screen. from How midlife became a crisis [The Conversation; ungated]
Guitar Rig Diagrams
Happy Inauguration Day, DOGE!
A coalition representing veterans, public health professionals, teachers and other groups filed a suit today against DOGE, citing the the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA), and asking a court to block DOGE's activities until it complies with law.
The 1972 Federal Advisory Committee Act says that committees of outside government advisers must be “fairly balanced in terms of the points of view represented,” and that they must make their records available to the public — yet Musk and Ramaswamy's DOGE does neither. [more inside]
Space is the Place
Everyone Who Has Ever Been to Space, Charted, a set of visualizations by Clara Moskowitz, senior editor at Scientific American, along with graphics intern Zane Wolf. Related: How many people are in space right now?
Mothership RPG
Henry Moore
Do Not Obey In Advance
1. Do not obey in advance. Much of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then start to do it without being asked. You've already done this, haven't you? Stop. Anticipatory obedience teaches authorities what is possible and accelerates unfreedom. - Historian Timothy Snyder from On Tyranny with 20 rules for resisting tyranny
Aboriginal stories advance scientific understanding
Aboriginal stories advance scientific understanding of environmental events.
Uncle Ken's ancestors told stories of the land trembling and the ocean moving. Researchers believe this information is crucial for advancing scientific understanding of major events and changes to Australia's environment over time.
"Pop! Pop pop! Pop! Pop into Pop Up Video!"
Between 1996 and 2002, VH1 had a show called Pop Up Video which paired music videos with trivia and jokes that "popped up" on screen, mostly without controversy. Most of it is unavailable today, but the Internet Archive has a number of episodes taped off televion. Here is a list: [more inside]
The Milestone Society
... was formed in 2004 "to identify, record, research, conserve and interpret for public benefit the milestones and other waymarkers of the British Isles". They have a history of milestones on their site, and link to a more detailed one. Last year members found a stolen milestone listed for auction in Welshpool, and got it restored to its site in Derbyshire. [more inside]
Gone With the Wind?
Since the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act... the U.S. wind industry, especially manufacturing, has been enjoying a renaissance. ... That growth is now in question, as just this week, [Donald] Trump stated that he plans to ensure "no windmills" are built during his term in office. [more inside]
EPIC, the musical
EPIC: The Musical is a musical adaptation of Homer's The Odyssey created by Jorge Rivera-Herrans Per Athena Scalzi, I found out about EPIC, an online musical that's beautifully mind-blowing. [more inside]
Siberia was a bar...
Full time waitress, half-assed artist Cynthia Georgianne writes about her experience meeting a sometime-writer and chef at Siberia Bar in the 1990s. Known primarily for its original location in the 50th Street 1 and 9 subway station in Manhattan, it was about as dive as dive can be. According to legend, owner Tracy Westmoreland dragged a non-functional toilet all the way to Japan for a board meeting after a long-running dispute with Mitsubishi, owners of the developer Rockefeller Group. He eventually moved the bar to a new location in the 40s and the bar closed shop only a few years later. [more inside]
“Nice hole Tim”
It's 2026 and you wonder what your friends are up to [SLMastodon thread]. In which Dan Fixes Coin-Ops on Mastodon gives us a taste of would could still become true if we only could make it so in one, long, delicious fever-dream of a toot-thread. (Dan, previously.)
Leonard Peltier granted clemency
Joe Biden has granted clemency to Indigenous activist Leonard Peltier, in one of his last actions as president. Clemency isn't a pardon--the conviction stands--but the 80-year-old Peltier will be released from prison.
Sometimes you have to play with your food...
Theo Rooden is an artist who does a lot of work with optical illusions and geometric patterns in weaving. Usually fabric. Sometimes Pringles.