Shared posts
Qlock, a Javascript quine clock
How to copy a file from a 30-year-old laptop
How do they know dogs are colorblind?
“Donald Trump has been found guilty of all 34 counts of falsifying...
MerijnThe funniest thing to me is that the court reads out the verdict of the individual charges. Which means that he heard 'verdict on count [x]: GUILTY' a whopping thirty-four times, lmao
The Space Quest II Master Disk Blunder
Ten Blue Links
Revolutionary New Google Feature Hidden Under 'More' Tab Shows Links to Web Pages
After launching a feature that adds more AI junk than ever to search results, Google is experimenting with a radical new feature that lets users see only the results they were looking for, in the form of normal text links. As in, what most people actually use Google for.
“We’ve launched a new ‘Web’ filter that shows only text-based links, just like you might filter to show other types of results, such as images or videos,” the official Google Search Liaison Twitter account, run by Danny Sullivan, posted on Tuesday. The option will appear at the top of search results, under the “More” option.
“We’ve added this after hearing from some that there are times when they’d prefer to just see links to web pages in their search results, such as if they’re looking for longer-form text documents, using a device with limited internet access, or those who just prefer text-based results shown separately from search features,” Sullivan wrote. “If you’re in that group, enjoy!”
Searching Google has become a bloated, confusing experience for users in the last few years, as it’s gradually started prioritizing advertisements and sponsored results, spammy affiliate content, and AI-generated web pages over authentic, human-created websites.
The Sky Was Purple and Red and Yellow and On Fire
There was a big solar storm this weekend and photos of the aurora borealis took over social media; it was delightful. For round-ups, check out the NY Times, the Guardian, @itsjackcohen, PBS NewsHour, Spaceweather.com, Forbes, and MSN.
The photos above are by Albert Dros and Sean O’ Riordan (prints here). O’ Riordan took his shot in Tasmania and actually had to tone it down for publication:
When the clouds are glowing red you know something is off the charts, I tried my best to desaturate this and make it look some bit like a photo and not a science fiction scene!
Tags: astronomy · photography
Can I Lick It? (Yes, You Can?!)
Is the periodic table yummy? Well, it depends on the element. But if you’ve ever wondered if a little taste of xenon or iridium would do you any harm, this periodic table is for you.
See also What If You Swallowed All Elements of the Periodic Table?. (via @anewplacetohide)
Tags: food · periodic table · science
Bizarre Traveling Flame Discovery
MerijnSteve Mould posts a lot of interesting physics phenomena, and this one is particularly pretty. Also a nice shoutout to a Brickworks build that I've previously enjoyed very much!
Steve Mould’s videos are always entertaining and informative but this one is also a little bit mind-blowing. If you build a circular trough with just the right dimensions and fill it with lighter fluid, a flame will travel around it. And other shapes will do other things — the effect created by the star/octopus shape is especially cool. The effect is an example of an excitable medium:
An excitable medium is a nonlinear dynamical system which has the capacity to propagate a wave of some description, and which cannot support the passing of another wave until a certain amount of time has passed (known as the refractory time).
A forest is an example of an excitable medium: if a wildfire burns through the forest, no fire can return to a burnt spot until the vegetation has gone through its refractory period and regrown.
Other examples:
Normal and pathological activities in the heart and brain can be modelled as excitable media. A group of spectators at a sporting event are an excitable medium, as can be observed in a Mexican wave (so-called from its initial appearance in the 1986 World Cup in Mexico).
(via waxy)
Tags: science · Steve Mould · video
A North Yorkshire county authority banned apostrophes on street signs because they...
MerijnSounds like there's some SQL injection attacks waiting in those 'poorly designed computer systems'!
KRAZAM OS
MerijnI really liked how opening the Recycle Bin showed you a picture from your webcam XD
Famous paintings recreated with emoji
Doom Scroll
“What if owls had flags?” wonders artist Alex Tomlinson....
“What if owls had flags?” wonders artist Alex Tomlinson.
FCC votes to restore net neutrality
McSweeney’s Millennial CAPTCHA
The first episode of the podcast featuring astrophysicist Katie Mack explaining the...
Discord Shuts Down ‘Spy Pet’ Bots That Scraped, Sold User Messages
Discord banned a mass of accounts that were part of a service that scraped and sold user data, including messages posted across servers and what voice channels they joined, 404 Media has learned. The move comes after 404 Media reported on the service, called Spy Pet, last week and verified it was selling access to genuine user messages ripped from Discord servers.
Since then, and especially over the last several days, the number of servers that Spy Pet says it collects data from has fluctuated, dropping from around 14,000 to 12,000, before eventually on Thursday reaching zero. As of Friday, the Spy Pet website is also unavailable, and Discord says it is considering legal action against the site.
This sounds really good: astrophysicist Katie Mack and curious person John Green...
This looks promising: an RNA-based vaccine effective against any strain of a...
MerijnThis is very cool. Plus, it'll be administered by a spray instead of a needle!
They fixed it: NASA is able to talk to Voyager I again....
“R men ok?????” Boy Room is a new video series that features...
A Spy Site Is Scraping Discord and Selling Users’ Messages
An online service is scraping Discord servers en masse, archiving and tracking users’ messages and activity across servers including what voice channels they join, and then selling access to that data for as little as $5. Called Spy Pet, the service’s creator says it scrapes more than ten thousand Discord servers, and besides selling access to anyone with cryptocurrency, is also offering the data for training AI models or to assist law enforcement agencies, according to its website.
The news is not only a brazen abuse of Discord’s platform, but also highlights that Discord messages may be more susceptible to monitoring than ordinary users assume. Typically, a Discord user’s activity is spread across disparate servers, with no one entity, except Discord itself, able to see what messages someone has sent across the platform more broadly. With Spy Pet, third-parties including stalkers or potentially police can look up specific users and see what messages they’ve posted on various servers at once.
“Have you ever wondered where your friend hangs out on Discord? Tired of basic search tools like Discord.id? Look no further!” Spy Pet’s website reads. It claims to be tracking more than 14,000 servers, 600 million users, and includes a database of more than 3 billion messages.
“You still don’t see the link? It’s right there on the bottom...
MerijnThis is infuriating, but reminds me a lot of how my own company organizes data.
Today’s Work Music: Philip Glass Solo
I’d missed that Philip Glass Solo (previously) came out in January, but I’ve been listening to it while I work this morning and it’s just lovely. He recorded the album in his home on his piano. Here’s a short video of Glass playing on that very piano:
This is my piano, the instrument on which most of the music was written. It’s also the same room where I have worked for decades in the middle of the energy which New York City itself has brought to me. The listener may hear the quiet hum of New York in the background or feel the influence of time and memory that this space affords. To the degree possible, I made this record to invite the listener in.
And here’s a video of him playing the album’s opening piece on his 87th birthday:
You can stream the album on Spotify, Apple Music, or Bandcamp.
You can buy the album at Bandcamp or on vinyl at Amazon.
Tags: music · Philip Glass · video
I’m the Draft List at This Brewery and No, You Can’t Have...
Proudly Second Best!
A clever ad campaign by an Ikea franchisee highlights how their products for kids can’t quite replace the support and comfort offered by their caregivers. (via @gray)
Tags: advertising · Ikea · parenting