In this video for Wired, physicist and origami master Robert J. Lang demonstrates the 11 increasingly complex levels o
A Quick Cyber Shopping Guide for Black Friday
So, I’ve begun working on my annual holiday gift guide (here’s 2018’s guide) and hope to have it done as early as next
Why We Celebrate Thanksgiving
Boston College historian Heather Cox Richardson has been writing a near-daily political dispatch called Letters from an
Ornitographies, Time-Merged Images of the Paths of Birds Through the Sky
For his Ornitographies project, Xavi Bou takes photographs of birds and stitches them together into single images so th
415 Hours of East German Home Movies from 1947-1990
Open Memory Box houses what they say is the largest digitized collection of home movies from East Germany. The 415 hou
Beautiful News Daily
Each day since the beginning of October, the team of designers, technologists, and researchers at Beautiful News Dai
Watching Teen Superstar Billie Eilish Growing Up
It is an understatement to say that a lot has happened to Billie Eilish in the past three years. She has gone from bein
The Origins of Stop Motion Animation
In this episode of the Almanac video series from Vox, Phil Edwards takes a look at how an early film using stop motion
A Deepfake Nixon Delivers Eulogy for the Apollo 11 Astronauts
When Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed safely on the Moon in July 1969, President Richard Nixon called them from th
Thanksgiving Dinner Served on the L Train
File this under “I Love NYC”. On Sunday night, riders on a Brooklyn-bound L train were treated to a full Thanksgiving d
Can You Copyright Work Made by an Artificial Intelligence?
In a recent issue of Why is this interesting?, Noah Brier collects a number of perspectives on whether (and by whom) a
An Official High-Resolution 3D Model of the Bust of Nefertiti Is Available for Download
The spectacular bust of Nefertiti, some 3300 years old, is currently housed at the Neues Museum in Berlin. A few years
This Algorithm “Removes the Water from Underwater Images”
Engineer and oceanographer Derya Akkaynak has devised an algorithm that “removes the water from underwater images” so
How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic
The Grist has compiled a list of articles written by Coby Beck “containing responses to the most common skeptical argum
Slow Motion Ocean
MOCEAN is a mesmerizing short film by cinematographer Chris Bryan of ocean waves crashing and surging in slow motion.
The Typologies of New York City
Using almost 1300 photos from Instagram of iconic/stereotypical shots of NYC, Sam Morrison spent 200 hours creating wh
2019 Films as Simpsons Screencaps
On Twitter, Hannah Woodhead posted a thread of screencaps from The Simpsons that uncannily encapsulate movies released
Spotlight and the Difficulty of Dramatizing Good Journalism
For the lastest episode of Nerdwriter, Evan Puschak reviews the history of movies about journalism and shows how the m
Sasha Baron Cohen Says Tech Companies Built the “Greatest Propaganda Machine in History”
In a keynote address to the Anti-Defamation League, entertainer Sasha Baron Cohen calls the platforms created by Faceb
The Art of the Travelling Salesman Problem
All art is bounded by one constraint or another. Mathematician Robert Bosch makes what he calls “optimization art”, w
How to Watch Tonight’s Rare Unicorn Meteor Storm
Astronomers are expecting a particularly strong meteor storm tonight visible from parts of Europe, Africa, North Americ
The Colorful Ceilings of Mumbai’s Taxis
Since April 2017, Rachel Lopez has been taking photos of the ceilings of Mumbai taxis, many of which are decorated wi
The 50 Best Nonfiction Books from the Past 25 Years
Slate recently compiled a list of the 50 best nonfiction books published in the past 25 years and it could not possibly
Renderings of Our Dystopian Pop Culture Future
For more than 11 years for a series he calls Everydays, Mike Winkelmann (aka Beeple) has been making a daily picture. A
How the Great Pyramid at Giza Looked in 2560 BCE
The current outer surface of the Great Pyramid at Giza is made of rough limestone blocks, colored a dark sandy brown fr
Going to the Movies with Jackie Kennedy
Carly Simon’s recent piece in the New Yorker about going to the movies with Jackie Kennedy (an excerpt of her book Touc
Rebel Girls Chapter Books
The makers of the hugely popular (at least in our household) Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls series are branching o
The Hippie Aesthetic of the 60s Is “Art Nouveau on Acid”
I had somehow never registered this before, but it was (ridiculously) obvious once it was pointed out to me in this vi
Life in Miniature
Delph Miniatures is a small company that makes what they call “modern miniatures”, 1/12th scale miniatures of everyday
Spinning Tethers for Space Propulsion
I love rocket launches. They are loud, carry cool things into space, and last a surprisingly long time considering how
Phoebe Waller-Bridge Answers
The Guardian got a bunch of writers and performers — folks like Olivia Colman, Roxane Gay, Nigella Lawson, and Victoria
iPhone Case Is Also a Playable Game Boy
Here’s a thing I just found out about: protective iPhone cases that are also playable Game Boy-style handheld gaming c
The Traditional Seasons and Inventive Microseasons of the World
In this info-packed little Twitter thread, science writer Ferris Jabr reminds us that the four “traditional” seasons of
Highlights from Circe by Madeline Miller
I’ve been enjoying sharing the highlighted passages from the Kindle books I’ve read lately. Going over your notes is a
Dreamy Cave-Like Photos Taken Inside Musical Instruments
For a 2012 print campaign for the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, photographers Andreas Mierswa and Markus Kluska photog
Javascript Library for Creating XKCD-Style Charts
Tim Qian has created a Javascript library called chart.xkcd for making charts that look hand-drawn in the style of XKCD
The Secret to Enjoying a Long Winter
I grew up in Wisconsin, and have lived in Iowa, Minnesota, and New York. Except for a two-year stint in the Bay Area,
What Can Americans Learn from Germany’s Reckoning with the Holocaust?
For The New Republic, Heather Souvaine Horn reviews Susan Neiman’s book, Learning from the Germans: Race and the Memory
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