Dug this out after the last of the Mitford sisters died last week. Fascinating stuff.
Author: loughlin
✩ Want You To Know: Who’s Becky?
Taylor Swift, winning the Internet, or Tumblr at least.
Play This Now
Gridland. It is Friday after all.
- Want more games? Try Steam Curator Curator, "curating curation for those who don't know which curators they want to curate their games but want someone to curate those curators."
- Twine 2 is now in beta.
Schadenfreude Klaxon
So Marc Andreessen has noticed that there are a lot of stupid start-ups floating around, doing not much that's of any use. Does sound very late 90s, doesn't it?
Finally, there are exceptions to all this. But if you're reading this, you're almost certainly not one. They are few and far between
Still Awful
Eye Candy
Crockery, cutlery and kitcheny things. Art + JavaScript = this.
Worth Pondering
Totally Confused
'Did he actually say that?', Dirtbag Zeus, animals on trial, a map of the introvert's heart, by an introvert and Ballmer bans iPads.
Your weekly dose of Pocket lint.
'The Human Factor'. On Flight 447, automation and cockpit culture, 12,000 words, 41 minutes.
'How We End Up Marrying The Wrong People', 3,300 words, 11 minutes.
'The Troll Slayer', New Yorker profile of Mary Beard. 6,800 words, 23 minutes.
'Welcome to Colon, Magic Capital of the World', 3,700 words, 12 minutes
'15 Lessons From 15 Years Of Blogging', 1,200 words, 4 minutes.
Finally, look at this dog.
Bon weekend!
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✩ Want You To Know: Pantsbending
[image via Colossal]
Here are a few things people are likely to keep posting about on Twitter today (which will be subsequently picked up by broadcast and print media).
- Cuddlr, the cuddling app. Which, because this is the Internet, is not what people are using it for at all.
- Suitsy, the smart-casual onesie for every occasion
- iPhone 6s pantsbending. For good measure, Apple also decided to break some phones with a software update. The LAPD are on the case, thoughtfully advising people not to microwave their new phones.
Today in birthdays: Mark Hamill.
Icy
The UN Climate Change summit is on, so listen to this poem. Then discover what the latest polar bear fast food fad is.
- These fish actually have ice in their veins. Never befriend anything has ice for blood.
Techno
Samsung says auf wiedersehen to Europe for laptops and Chromebooks. Presumably to focus on making a phone that's even bigger and even bendier than anything Apple can ever make.
Today in eBay
People are selling Ello invites on eBay. Sounds like 2004 and Gmail invites.
Spoilsports that they are, eBay are refusing to let a man sell a lamp made from his amputated leg. Everybody loves lamp, surely?
Eye Candy
Chicago in the fog. Face collages.
Worth Pondering
Totally Confused
Blizzard cancelling things is a good thing, Sesame Street vs. The Beastie Boys, thumb extenders, robot calligraphers and serious answers to stupid questions
▶ Finally, watch Will Oldham perform 'Ohio Riverboat Song' for an audience of bemused children and puppets.
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✩ Want You To Know: Dot Dot Dot
Today is National Punctuation Day in the US of A. Be careful who you correct, lest you fall victim to Muphry's Law.
- Find pedants throughout the day on #NationalPunctuationDay
- Does anyone actually type out 'dot dot dot' in messages? Seems to defeat the purpose of an ellipsis somewhat.
"The world does not need every single opinion at every single moment"
Read this interview with the oh-so wonderful, whip-smart and extremely funny Mallory Ortberg. Then, since you're already there you might as well read the rest of that issue of Kernel Mag. It's all about making the Web a better place. There's another great interview in DigiDay which discusses actual disruption in the media, rather than the buzzword-y kind.
Here are five of my favourite Ortberg humour pieces from the Toast.
- Song Lyrics Improved By Replacing Proper Nouns With Cats
- Two Medieval Monks Invent Maps
- Two Medieval Monks Invent Art
- Every Irish Novel Ever
- Dirtbag Teddy Roosevelt
History Lessons
Attempt to remove mentions of civil disobedience from history curriculum sparks civil disobedience.
The right-leaning board-members said they believe history teachers should teach nationalism, respect for authority and reverence for free markets. They should avoid teaching any historical events or acts that promote “civil disorder, social strife or disregard of the law.
World Of Brocraft
Idiots still making apparel emblazoned with rape jokes. Someday this won't be a semi-regular occurence.
- Very tangential: Blizzard cancels Titan. After seven years of development work, though it's not clear what that actually means.
Everybody Needs Good Neighbours
Occupants of the Westboro church and Equality House have even exchanged phone numbers. Recently, when someone took all of the Equality House gay pride flags and, without their knowledge, deposited them in Westboro’s yard, Hammet’s phone beeped with a text message. “It said something like: ‘A criminal has taken your flags and put them in our yard. We have put them in your mailbox. We would like to return them to you.’”
Eye Candy
Worth Pondering
Totally Confused
A bed for your smartphone, a speaker that only plays U2, a guide to spoilers, dancing traffic lights, and comedy is the new rock 'n' roll … again.
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✩ Want You To Know: Theoretical Physician
Internets
Always surprisingly slow on the uptake, brand advertisers have finally noticed that Facebook may not be a particularly useful or trustworthy advertising platform. Why they thought this might work out otherwise is anyone's guess.
Also in Facebook news, they're back chasing their weird techno-libertarian dream of forcing their users to use their real names, for no particularly good reason.
Google has decided that it might be a good idea to stop supporting climate change deniers.
- Long, thoughtful New Yorker piece on Google's 'right to be forgotten' in Europe.
The knuckledraggers of the Internet continue to abuse women for being women.
Morkeshing
If this really is true and the cupcake bubble is over, what will PRs send to journalists for no good reason instead? Cronuts? Soup?
The Grauniad Abides
Worth Pondering
Eye candy / History Lesson
Ages of Empires. Historical map showing exactly who was beating up whom and when.
- As an aside, did you know fish and chips was a 6th century Persian invention?
Betteridge Of The Day
Does A Cancer Diagnosis Turn You Into A Better Person?
Totally Confused
Survey respondents are liars, men can't remember things, robots can be oenophiles, lasers locate lost cities and this is how you quit your job
Tune: ▶ Big Star, 'Daisy Glaze'
Sportsing Corner
Today in golfing crimes against clothing
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✩ Want You To Know: Alphabetti
Aaaand we're back, though a bit later than anticipated. Silly season is over, the Dail is back in session and those who wished to have removed the U2 album from their iDevices.
To get back into the swing of things, here's a big ol' bunch of links in alphabetical order from the last few months. Contains more animals than usual for some reason.
Some thematic order will hopefully be restored over the next while 🙂
A Dark Room
Vintage text gaming, in your browser.
Bovine
Canine
The peculiar rise and fall of Dogecoin, "a dog on a f#$!ing coin".
Downing Street
Extinct
Every single animal that became extinct in the last century.
Fish …
… play Street Fighter II: Turbo Fighting. Lots of people watched it when it was live, apparently. People are still reassuringly strange.
GIFs
Hum Hum Beep
12 hours of the ambient noise in Deckard's apartment in Blade Runner. If that's not enough hums and beeps, there's a whole playlist.
Insulating
Jean-Claude Van Dance
Yes.
Kern Your Enthusiasm
More typefaces than you could shake a Letraset at, or something.
A highlight is Jessamyn West on Comic Sans.
Losing The Run Of Themselves
Yes, the seagulls in Dublin briefly became a terrifying public menace in one public representative's mind.
image Linda Kavanagh
Menu
Here's What Every Trendy Restaurant Menu Looks Like.
Nineteen Seventies
Footballers at home. Beehives. Sideburns. Sadly only one picture is in glorious seventies luricolour.
Online Dating Ipsum
At least once a day please post your real pictures other shenanigans is pretty awesome. My lovingly curated list of ipsums.
Padlock Pedantry
QuickType
Oranges are not going to be able to see my tweets
Predictive text on steroids appears on the latest iPhones. Confusion ensues.
Recipe Blog Comments
If you haven't read everything Mallory Ortberg has written on the Toast, go and sort that out immediately.
Smallened
Jonathan Franzen thinks it's a perfectly cromulent word.
Tokyo Hero
“When I first began, people basically said, ‘Get away from me, you weirdo’,” he recalled.
U2
Vocal
Acapella tracks on Soundcloud. If you're interested, here's one way to do it.
Warren G. Harding
XOXO
"a link blog come gloriously to life". A far cry from Bono-approved smugfests in the RDS. Just sayin'.
Yakkety-Sax
Zoe Quinn
5 Things I Learned As The Internet's Most Hated Person. What Being Targeted By Every Troll In The World Feels Like.
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Dear America
Poignant, chilling and heartbreaking. An interesting slant on how to do documentary.
✩ Want You To Know: Berlin Alexanderplatz
Oireland
Our glorious leader Enda Kenny is in Berlin today. Amongst other things, he shall be opening a Primark store on Alexanderplatz. This is one of his official duties as laid out in the constitution of the Irish Republic*.
*may not be true
Internets etcetera
Want to really unfriend a friend? What better way than to send all your tweets to them as text messages. Someone on IFTTT has created a recipe just for you.
Octopus Raft, in third person. The video is more than a little unnerving.
Grumpy Cat is richer and more successful than you.
The squidlike Goldman Sachs got itself in a bit of a tizzy over an email and wants Google to unsend it. Due to the wonderfulness of the Streisand effect, everybody knows about it now.
Meanwhile, this happened.
Of course, this led to many many more people reading the article in question than probably read it in the first place. Also, it still shows up in DuckDuckGo searches.
Worth Pondering
Totally Confused
Turning off autocorrect, airport horror stories, fish in a shopping mall, Yo has an API and some words are older than you think.
Football Corner, And General Sportsing
- WE PETITION THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION TO:
Change the name of Washington National Airport (DCA) to "Tim Howard National Airport" - Tim Howard's beard now has its own Twitter account, of course. @timhowardsbeard
- "your opponent can do things in the match that you're not expecting." Defeated Wimbledon champion Andy Murray shares his sportsing insights.
- Sportsing can be dangerous to local wildlife.
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✩ Want You To Know: Yo, Hodor
Oireland
Government announces that a referendum on same-sex marriage will be held early next year. The bottom half of the Internet responds by ranting about the very real problem of people marrying horses.
Meanwhile, people had to be rescued from a genuine tunnel of goats situation in Tramore.
Eye Candy
Tables with lakes and rivers in 'em. Historical figures' letterheads. World War II fighter plane graveyard.
What the Internet of Things has been building towards. A tweeting couch. This is the future we have dreamed of, friends.
Schools in the US attempt to block Internet access, poorly. Turns out the kids have next to no problem in getting around the blockade. There's a non-surprise.
Steve Wozniak was so unimpressed by the Galaxy Gear that he sold it on eBay shortly after he bought it. Wearables shmearables, for now at least.
Trolling has become so devalued these days that it's nice to occasionally see it being done well. Hats off to @SCOTUSBlog.
Worth Pondering
Real World Uber-Rich Update
Hundred dollar drawers, as no doubt worn by some participants in this billion-dollar divorce case.
Totally Confused
Trademarking doge, Doctor Zhivago in Russian, why mosquitoes bite you, a cycling sprint finish and a history of the Walkman.
Football Corner
- A Century Of American Soccer Anxiety. The New Yorker on American misgivings about soccer. Seven points for a goal!
- A terrifying US soccer photo shoot from 2002
- Lionel Messi is impossible
- World cup themed haircuts
Adgame of the day: kill some vintage Windows icons.
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✩ Want You To Know: Phone > Deodorant
Another piece about the improbable but obviously excellent comeback of email newsletters. This is obviously today's most important link.
Anyway, once more unto the breach, dear friends!
"Ninety-one percent said their phone is as important as deodorant and their car."
A kidney dies only hours after removal. You can do nothing with one stolen from a stranger, except stir fry it
So says Chinese police officer Wang Haiding, who debunks rumours and urban myths online. Amazingly, it's an official account.
The Obama administration has admitted that the FBI searches for Americans' private communications in a database assembled using the NSA's warrantless spying program.
World Of Brocraft
Coming as a surprise to nobody, Tinder co-founder Whitney Wolfe is suing the company for harassment.
Taking a leaf out of GitHub's book, Tinder is conducting an internal investigation. Bros investigating bros always works out well, doesn't it?
Facebook. 'Nuff said.
Hello There, Buy Now Button
Worth Pondering
Totally Confused
Spy suitcase, the Bayeaux Tapestry completed, the royal houses of Europe, robojournos and Dolly didn't mime.
Today's music pick: They Might Be Giants' 'First Album Live'
Football Corner
More match fixing.
A compendium of diving excellence from the Telegraph.
Still serious business. So serious that Google has a World Cup war room.
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