brilliant free Minesweeper-inspired roguelike by Daniel Benmergui #
Chrome extension to download your liked/faved TikTok videos and metadata locally as MP4s, with a static HTML interface for browsing them #
an encyclopedia of "known unknowns," documenting gaps in human knowledge #
violating the First Amendment right of free speech for millions of Americans under the specter of national security #
"Keep your eye on the donut and not on the hole." #
Andrew Plotkin made a tool for exploring the original Zork's annotated source code and game state while you play #
Lila Shapiro's new reporting following the podcast series that broke the story last year; CW: graphic descriptions of rape and assault #
a dedicated site for the weirdly addictive stock-trading minigame from Neal.fun's Stimulation Clicker #
bending the knee to the incoming administration, the Hateful Conduct policy changes are incredibly disturbing #
Taylor Lorenz reports that Meta reversed the restrictions after she reached out for comment #
if this 12 minute version isn't enough, there's an hour-long version compiling 2,800 clips from 206 videos #
on its fourth anniversary, Jason Kottke revisits the attempted coup and attack on Congress #
even if you don't care about this conspiracy theory, Maia and Ryan's OSINT research is an interesting read #
Neal.fun's latest is an overstimulating idle game borrowing every form of online sludge and engagement bait #
Maggie Appleton reflects on "the strange experience of growing a human from scratch" in her new visual essay #
sip wine, eat hors d’oeuvres, and peruse art from The Met's Open Access collection in a reimagined version of E1M1 #
books, films, songs, and art published in the 1920s are now in the public domain, along with sound recordings from 1924 #
the latest Bobby Fingers video is a wild ride of lost data, broken bones, and pitch-perfect parody #
all but one of the sauces' Scoville units are lower than their on-screen numbers, with Da Bomb 2.8 times hotter than The Last Dab #
wild quest to rescue the last surviving Sony 43" CRT, tracked down from one of only two known photos of the 440-pound behemoth #
in other news, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek is now richer than any musician, more than 4x Taylor Swift's net worth #
the app grew increasingly unstable, randomly drawing a black tire mark through the entire image on day four #
the most common English words that never appeared in a book, like "woman" in Winnie the Pooh or "difficult" in Moby Dick #
Nolen Royalty's postmortem of the challenges making EveryUUID.com #
Sarah Jeong was on vacation in South Korea (and pretty toasted) when their president declared martial law in a coup attempt #
$50/year seems like a good deal for some of the best tech journalism around, plus full-text RSS feeds and a limited-edition print magazine #
a simple but tricky puzzle game to find a word that makes every picky eater happy #
Mia Sato talks to two women whose similar aesthetic was shaped by Amazon product options, social media algorithms, and other larger influencers #
Adam Aaronson made a printed calendar where each month is a crossword grid where each day is a square #
the dedication and planning here is incredible #
97% positive on Rotten Tomatoes, this low-budget slapstick indie comedy is one of the best movies I saw this year #
major media revolutions throughout history lead to predictable cycles of populism and the erosion of institutional trust #
if you're on a desktop Chrome/Chromium browser, go find yourself on the interactive map #
I will never get tired of Bell Brothers transporting characters into different movies #
crank the delay up to 120ms, pick the Mountain shape, and try the Heap Sort for a real banger #
mapping 0-9 integers to button controls, it finally caught its first Pokémon in July after 80M digits of Pi and 973 days of nonstop play #
retreat into private spaces is not the only option, ceding the public internet to predatory global mega-platforms #
author Steven Johnson used Gemini Pro to make an interactive fiction game out of his latest book and wrote about it #
enter your birthdate, estimated lifespan, and choose from over 500 movies to see where you're at in the movie #
calculating the difference between their birth and death place; George Mallory is high up there, but can you find the person with the greatest negative change? #
100M+ global places of interest now available for commercial use under an Apache 2.0 license #
the full story of how two pallets of Playdates worth $400,000 were stolen in Las Vegas and eventually recovered #
every new feature they add increases lock-in, making it harder to leave while they court some of the worst people online #
Niantic leveraging its database of scanned real-world places and objects for "robotics, content creation and autonomous systems" #
inspired by Ben Wallace's recent blog post, Riley Walz crawled 5 million "IMG_XXXX" videos on YouTube and made a viewer for them #
Alexander Graham Bell kicked off the event with a few words #
like Half-Life's 25th anniversary, Valve commemorated it with a two-hour documentary, new commentary, and the games are free until Monday 1pm ET #
don't miss Deletion, the "questionable little app" that lets you glimpse deleted Bluesky posts #
incredible standalone sequel for fans of detective deduction games like Obra Dinn #
Elizabeth Lopatto investigates streaming music distributors profiting off royalty fraud by not policing bad metadata #
like Nuzzel before Twitter bought it and shut it down #
short sci-fi story about a speedrunner in a game that lets you play through a human lifetime in 25 minutes #
crate digging through YouTube for homegrown videos with generic default filenames as titles; see also: astronaut.io #
the love song may not be dying, but it's changing #
short fiction about "the near future of art and creative work" #
useful Chrome/Firefox add-on that finds your X/Twitter friends on Bluesky #
inflation was a painful global phenomenon, and every ruling party was punished for it regardless of political leanings #
anything out of frame is immediately forgotten, making it very dream-like and surreal to explore #
they're asking people not to access NYT games or cooking apps until it's over, so give up that Wordle streak #
I didn't even realize iOS automations could do this #
the incredible web-based Mac/NeXT system emulator somehow keeps getting better #
Aardman Animation worked with Patrick McHale and the original voice cast for an elaborate stop-motion tribute #
short horror story in the form of a series of 1999-era screenshots about a Windows screensaver simulating life on an island #
Papers Please/Obra Dinn creator Lucas Pope dropped a surprise spooky free web game inspired by 1980s LED handhelds #
for the last 19 years, Michael Pusateri has tracked children's Halloween costumes at his front door and published the stats online #
a dozen surprise new games released to everyone at the same time on a regular schedule #
look in the direction you want to move, open and close your mouth to go faster #
Louie Zong, Worthikids, and Brian David Gilbert formed a supergroup making Steely Dan-inspired music and are playing L.A. next month!? #
Ada Ada Ada is documenting her transition on Instagram, uploading shirtless photos weekly to test their nudity guidelines #
he has an extraordinary memory, reliving the stories behind a beautifully simple song #
grateful to Mia Sato for staying on this beat, which affects so many smaller sites I care about #
getting it to run DOOM is only a matter of time #
BRAIN scraped 16 years of Twitter to find the first people to post "RIP" when celebrities died, turning it into a morbid competition #
the BBS goes read-only on Friday, replaced by Substack comments, and the community is not happy #
a useful case study given the current debacle stemming from WordPress's "benevolent dictator for life" model #
in some cases, Meta is automatically creating the pages #
research and short essays about cultural loss and the critical importance of preservation and access #
The Verge editor-in-chief Nilay Patel's clearheaded "endorsement of democracy, solving problems, and Kamala Harris" #
like curling meets shuffleboard on a tabletop board #
Liverpool tattoo artist Rachel Baldwin made charming tattoos for each line of the Talking Heads classic and made it into a music video #
a series of articles looking back 20 years, worth exploring just for the playful article design inspired by early Gmail, Digg, Kazaa, and more #
We published all the talks from the final XOXO, possibly the best day of talks we've ever had. I wrote a bit about how we booked speakers and the themes that emerged this year.
all of this year's XOXO talks were stellar, but this is the only one that comes with a newly-launched archive of nearly-lost artwork #
The Pudding's deep analysis of 10 years of fanfic ships on AO3 #
Chris Person compiled a list of active forums, grouped by subject area, hosted outside of the major platforms #
Green Day collaborated with BRAIN to demake their 1994 album in 15 obscure formats, including Game Boy, Teddy Ruxpin, wax cylinder, and player piano roll #
there's a nice companion piece for Dave Winer's milestone in The Guardian #
the creator of A Short Hike relaunched his charming interactive ghost town where players design and share jack-o-lanterns #
for the tenth year, Laura E. Hall brings back her popup newsletter sending a gently spooky email for each day of October #
an Android phone hidden in the Mission is set to Shazam all audio 24/7 and post the roughly 120 songs/day it can identify #
feature package on new ways religious believers are using new technology, from Muslim VR simulators to Buddhist monks on TikTok #
Nick Heer on the ever-increasing user-hostile demand for your attention from the biggest social platforms #
Linus Åkesson just casually being amazing again #
a technically-playable (but just barely) hack using iOS Shortcuts to download remote screenshots compiled into videos #
most "blue zones," concentrated areas of supercentenarians, can be attributed to pension fraud or bad record-keeping #
a search engine using OCRed text from map imagery across Brooklyn, expanding to all of NYC soon #
you'll just have to trust me on this one; recommended for desktop browsers #
very sad to hear this but I'm grateful for their effort, and loved having them at XOXO to talk about their weird and special community #
the low-stakes internet mystery to identify the only unknown celebrity on a shower curtain pattern is solved after four years #
Guy Dupont made a "Keep Honking! I'm Listening to…" bumper sticker-sized LCD display that updates in real-time #
the course of medication that cures Hepatitis C costs $84,000 at $1,000/pill, but can be produced for only $700 or $0.83/pill #
the ruling is "a knife in the back of libraries," claiming that authors won't write new books if libraries lend digital books for free #
the appeals court ruled that, despite being a nonprofit and no evidence of market harm, its implementation of Controlled Digital Lending isn't fair use #
open-source music visualizer that synchronizes MIDI to bouncing balls in a modified game of Pong #
the SEC notified them last week that NFTs on the struggling platform are unregistered securities #
1994 replica of a printed circuit board handmade on an upright wooden loom #
free monospaced pixel font with a very nice website to promote it #
Nolen Royalty tells the story of how a group of teens were writing secret binary messages on the Tiny Award-winning multiplayer experiment #
impressively deep sequel to STRG.SNEK, a stylish Snake-inspired ASCII adventure #
free desktop-only browser game where you photograph bugs by resizing and moving the browser window #
Kind of Bloop is getting a surprise vinyl reissue for its 15th anniversary, the weird little chiptune album that changed my life.
Facebook is paying bonuses for viral content, no matter how terrible, while laying off the content moderators who can prevent it #
a zoomable explorable rendering of 1M+ homepage screenshots, updated monthly #
French embroidery artist Marine Beaufils finished her needlepoint project recreating screenshots from The Sentinel #
Neal.fun's latest project pairs random strangers in a video call using only your eyes, no chat or audio #
The Echo Nest's Brian Whitman new project is a $59 portable computer for creative coding, first batch is sold out with more shipping in late August #
can any audio codec nerds out there help extract the staggering 9,342 sound clips of girls' names from a 1999 Barbie game #
Louie Zong used Melodyne to change every note of Bobby Darin's "Beyond the Sea" to C #
the amount of effort that goes into every Brick Technology video is staggering #
Dream spent a year making an elaborate rig for inserting real-time full-motion video of people into multiplayer games #
opened in 2022, Jenny Nguyen proved that a sports bar could succeed showing only women's sports, inspiring others across the country #
long Verge feature on the development of AI-assisted aids for judging gymnastics #
a nicely-designed visual search engine for public domain images, but they could do a better job linking to sources #
I never knew the shape of the in-joke for geospatial data geeks was based on the island from Myst #
elegant anagram finder with a sharable visualization for each #
interactive explainer for the various ways to code a Sudoku solver #
the excellent Double Fine PsychOdyssey just got a surprise 90-minute epilogue and a limited Blu-ray release #
I love watching a new subgenre of shitposting appear in real-time #
an experimental web journal akin to the html review, view source on each piece to read an interview with the artist #
photos, memories, sound clips, and 56 previously unknown Winamp skins hidden inside other Winamp skins #
related: Anthropic's crawler hit iFixit's site a million times in 24 hours #
Sam Lavigne's used facial recognition on an archive of 10,000 publicly-available photos of NYC police #
practice AI prompt injection with a series of challenges breaking a fictional airline's customer support chatbot #
they're happy to trade human rights and personal liberty for favorable crypto/AI/tax policies that benefit their bottom line #
this means they're blocking the Internet Archive and every other search engine, a huge over-reaction ostensibly to stop AI training #
like last year, a charming selection of oddball web pages; you have until August 11 to vote for your favorites #
Chrome add-on that automatically makes a gallery of buttons from pages you visit #
the technical details behind Mark Rober's latest video #
Al teamed up with 12 different animators for a new polka medley of #1 hits from the 10 years since the release of his last album #
using MS Paint for Windows XP, Cat Graffam mashed up the Bliss wallpaper with Andrew Wyeth's "Christina's World" #
Molly White's new project tracks crypto PAC spending on the 2024 elections; FairShake is the #2 most-funded super PAC #
like Infinite Craft, a clever but risky use of an LLM for collective gameplay #