• A list of “human universals” — things said to be common across all human civilisation.
• “I agree with the flag-waving patriots that America is God’s own land — I just happen to believe that that God is Dionysos.”
• Are Boeing’s first aeroplanes secretly being stored underneath a sacred mountain in New Zealand?
• Is there any song more melancholic, and yet, so hypnotically addictive, as “Golden Brown”? Something about that harpsichord just sends me to another world.
• I’m going to need you all to look at this ridiculously comprehensive, wide-ranging sci-fi alternate history map project Thing — including the associated lore docs, which are currently longer than the first Harry Potter book. Joanne could never.

• If you have any interest in web development stuff — which i suspect is a decent chunk of my dear readers — then you should look at these Pokémon cards right fucking now.
• Sign language in VRChat, using a cool new hand-tracking feature! Furries’ spare cash 1, Facebook’s billions upon billions 0. Well — it’s probably more like Furries 50, Facebook 0 at this point.
• “Slow Roads”, a neat little driving simulator. Every day i grow more astonished at what people can do in a web browser.
• The Youtube rabbit hole:
  • “Dear Raid: Shadow Legends: I don't want your money. I want a Date.” [3′]
  • Watching The Fifth Element¹ recently had me thinking, naturally, about Russian pop singer Vitas’ 1999 classic “The Seventh Element”, which is far catchier than it really deserves to be. [4′]
  • The criminally underrated Captain KRB on the downfall of Myspace and the ruins of the web, which, well, you’re probably on Neocities, you’re going to watch it either way [30′]
  • BlameItOnJorge investigates creepypasta lost media, which is the sort of thing that’s basically guaranteed to make me watch your video. [33′]

I suppose it’s only fair that the first roundup of October is spooky number thirteen, and we’re starting things off with a suitably spooky link:

• Why is a mysterious voice haunting the intercoms of American Airlines flights?
• The closely guarded secret of the New York Times’ Yiddish translator
• Holy shit, they found silphium! I hope some day, many years down the line, when cultivation comes to fruition, we can all finally taste this ancient spice.
• John Green explains why his first non-fiction book suddenly became a hit with old people [4″]
• The Hummingbird Clock, or, using the grid to investigate misdeeds

• Everyone working at this mammoth deëxtinction company looks exactly how i would expect someone working at a mammoth deëxtinction company to look.
• The numbers pool and the ultimately large telescope
• I would say “shut up and take my money” to this cyborg ankle bracelet if only they listed a price tag of any sort — if this isn’t vapourware i want one so badly. From the people who brought you the magnetic north organ
• Who scratched the word “PRAY” on every phone booth in New York in the seventies?
• The Youtube rabbit hole:
  • Are you gnomepilled yet? (14′)
  • Justin Whang presents The game composer who was caught faking being deaf (21′)
  • Roasting every state welcome sign (24′)
  • Jet Lag is back, and they’re playing a game of tag across Europe! (26′)

• Morbidly fascinated by this study of people who felt an overwhelming lifelong urge to cut one of their limbs off, did so, and were actually quite a bit happier afterwards
• First person video of someone caught in the collapse of a glacier in Kyrgyzstan
• I’ve decided to become an elephant civilisation truther.
• RIP ball pits, too good for this impure world
• The story of the man who lied about designing the U.S. flag
• Wallace and Gromit is terrifying

• Who made the music for the Wii homebrew channel?
• Vsauce is back! Did people use to look older?
• Robin Rendle on the joys of analogue photography
• Fuck it, Potato Diet
• In which a group of Tumblr users get together to beautifully typeset and hand-bind My Immortal
• Steven Spielberg used to own a submarine-themed chain of submarine sandwich restaurants
• This tool lets you compare photos taken by Hubble with those taken by the new James Web Space Telescope
• A bored Chinese housewife faked hundreds of years of Russian history on Wikipedia
• Amazing Content™ as sad covid boy Hank Green eats foods he hates but can’t taste
• Which Tory leadership candidate do you support?, a fun quiz for people who hate themselves (I got Tom Tugendhat)

I had a really good idea for a post the other night. Then i fell asleep and promptly forgot it, so you’re getting this instead — apologies.

• It’s here it's here it’s heeere! The 1975 have released the first single off their new album, and by god, they might not be the greatest band in the world, but they got me into music, so i can’t help but call them my favourite band in the world.
• From Atlas Obscura, the rise and suspiciously rapid fall of Freedomland, USA
• What’s the deal with mirrors?
• I think you should take a look at this beautiful illustrated map of the world.
• The Matrix of Reddit Profanity — may need to incorporate some of these into my vocabulary
• An absolutely ancient interview with a pre-politics Keir Starmer
• The Youtube rabbit hole:
  • Why isn’t it possible? [10 seconds]
  • Scott the Woz on the history of 3D gaming [25 minutes]
  • Kurzgesagt tries to answer the question “how many humans will there be?” [10 minutes] They’re also starting a bunch of new channels in languages like Hindi and Korean, which is nice.

Is it really almost June? Good heavens, it’s been a while. Here’s your regular dose of links, to help you surf the inter-webs.

• Beleef de Lente — live cameras of birds in the Netherlands
• On writing magic
• Scientists at the US’ department of energy have figured out how to extract lithium from water
• Duck Chess! It’s chess with a rubber duck.
• The Youtube rabbit hole:
  • The Apprehension Engine, a horror musical instrument [4 minutes’ watch]
  • The (semi-)solved mystery of the Toynbee Tiles [40 minutes’ watch]
  • The iceberg of lost films [1½ hours’ watch]

Good lord, has it really been a month since the last one? Anyway. New month, new URL, new links. You know the drill.

• How to regain your childhood imagination
• Gridle: Reject words. Embrace grids.
• Home Sweet Homepage, a lovely comic about making your first personal website by one Amy Wibowo
• For $1,500, Yellowstone National Park will sell you an annual pass that you won’t be able to use until 2172
• Tokyo’s Manuscript Writing Café won’t let you leave until you’ve finished whatever you’re writing — brb, moving to Japan
• Random.earth
• The Youtube rabbit hole:
  • Why London’s “Harrods of the East” didn’t go to plan [6 min]
  • The Bruno Powroznik Iceberg [22 min]
  • Roman Abalin, a Russian Youtuber, reflects on how the Russia he grew up in doesn’t really exist anymore [15 min]

Well, i don’t know about you, but i’ve had a nice few weeks. Went to see the new Batman at the cinema, bought some records, went out on a couple of jaunts — you get the idea. Anyway. Links.

• Noah Verrier, oil painter
• Angus Barbieri’s fast
• Jim Carrey covers “Creep” — perhaps the only song that gets better when sung off-key
• The GoJauntly app generates green walking routes in your local area — right up my alley! I think it’s only in the UK for now, alas
• Hollywood greenlights a Billie Joel biopic… despite not having any rights to his music, name, or image — good luck with that
• Ukraine’s ateliers are pivoting to the business of Molotov cocktails
• An ominous emergency broadcast two days before a train crash in Hoboken: “Would you, could you, on a train?”
• An excellent website for an excellent dog
• GNU Terry Pratchett — “A man is not dead while his name is still spoken.”
• A manhwa¹ version of Asimov’s The Last Question

You know how this works. From X to Y, here’s some links i’ve scavenged from around the ’net.

• The site of Travis Ludlow, an 18-year-old Brit who recently became the youngest person to fly solo around the world
• “I ride bike not submarine”: Grab, a delivery app, apologises to a rider who was tasked to deliver food to a bridgeless island in the Straits of Johor
• From the ever-provocative Atlantic: Old music is killing new music
• Dann of Dannarchy.com on that time Sears sold a ray which shot concentrated arcs of electricity at your skin
• A cross-section of British life on a passing train. Something about this video is just so… lovely?
• Teen born without legs named Virginia state wrestling champion — I suppose as long as you’ve got arms…
• The Youtube rabbit hole:
  • Where the hell did the Jeff the Killer image come from, anyhow?
  • Why Fred is the best Scooby-Doo character
  • That time the Hell’s Angels tried to buy a Canadian nuclear bunker
  • Peter Bergmann, the man who never existed
  • Red Letter Media on the Bruce Willis fake movie factory
  • A three-part series on the rise and fall of Hendrik Schön, the German “scientist” who almost faked his way to a Nobel prize (I, II, III)

I fucked up my fingers prying open a Yankee Candle too hard the other day. At least it was my off hand. Anyway. Links!

• The Missourian town which was overrun by deadly cobras [29 minutes]
• If “American Idiot” was a bro-country song — truly, truly cursed in the best way
• The Ordnance Survey’s favourite maps of 2021 — some good taste from the boys in the newsroom
• The quest for an artificial womb
• Books set in hyperbolic space, where parallel lines curve away and never meet back up
• The Viktor Wynd Museum of Curiosities, Fine Art, & Natural History, a division of the Last Tuesday Society — straight onto the bucket list
• Bin∞cular shot — a gallery of inaccurate binocular shots in films. Once you see it, you can never unsee it

• Starting us off straight into things you shouldn’t watch if someone else is peeking over your shoulder, weird-internet-history connoisseur Justin Whang brings us the stories of the men with knobs on their arms. [14′]
• Early English editions of Euclid’s Elements used pop-ups to illustrate 3D proofs.
• T.i.l. about the “quasiquote”, a punctuation mark used in early fan zines to indicate ‘paraphrased or inexact quotes’.
• Two nice stories to end the day:
  • A deaf Californian gridiron team is absolutely steamrolling its opponents
  • The Dutch immigrant businessman building a giant scale model of Canada in Toronto

I figure over time dates will get ambiguous — it’s time to start numbering these bad boys, from the top. Five for your perusal this time around…

• The New Republic on the claimed devolution of Thom Yorke’s songwriting — well-argued, but them’s fighting words!
• Monkeytype, a ridiculously customisable words-per-minute type-tester — clearly someone’s passion project… With proper punctuation turned on, I get around 127 w.p.m, which is apparently four times as fast as the average? 😅
• Seinfeld, but it’s a Don Bluth cartoon from the ’90s — shockingly well done
• Newton’s fractal — maths nerds only; the plot twist at the end will shock you
• Some fun Ascii calendars