Links from the Blog

The original Blog Links page was getting unwieldy so I figured the start of a new year was a good time to start a new listing of blog links and archive the old one.

January

May Day Mystery - Since 1981, yearly cryptic full-page ads have been published in a university newspaper by an unknown group. What is the mystery behind the May Day ads? I found out about this through a youTube video from Curiosity Crusades. It's just under 5 minutes. I would check that out first and then go to the link, which is the website set up by the student mentioned in the video. Site is old school but still maintained. There are scans of the pages and you can enter comments if you have any ideas on any of the clues.
How the World's Most Famous Code was Cracked - Outside the CIA headquarters there is a sculpture with encrypted messages, Kryptos. The first 3 codes were cracked early on but it wasn't until last September that the 4th one was deciphered.
52 Things I Learned in 2025 - I found this through one of the sites I follow but I didn't note which one. I have feelings about Substack, which this is hosted on, but it's a free article with lots of cool factoids. Even better, the author has noted where she got the factoids from so this could lead to a lovely round of rabbit-holing.
Making ‘Food Out Of Thin Air’ - Article from 2024 about a Finnish company exploring an idea that's been around since the 1960s - using microbes to convert waste into edible proteins. You can search "solar foods finland" and see that the company has grown since this article - they were really onto something! Although, I think the trade name "Solein" sounds a little too close to "Soylent Green."
Be My Eyes - "Be My Eyes connects people who are blind or have low vision with volunteers and companies worldwide through live video and artificial intelligence." This sounds like a really neat way to help people. This app connects you with a blind/low vision person who needs your eyesight. I was reading through the stories and the reasons people need help range from confirming what color a piece of clothing is, to figuring out instructions to descale a washing machine and one person couldn't find her cat in her apartment and had someone be her eyes while she searched for the kitty (who was found!).
The Vintage News - I think this may be on its way to becoming a dead site as it hasn't been updated since April of last year. However, that's kind of ok because it's all about vintage news anyway. The stories may be old but it looks like there's lots of rabbit-holing that can be done here. Some topics covered are news stories, history, pop culture, vintage Hollywood and mysteries.
New Caledonia imposed a 50-year ban on deep-sea mining across its entire maritime zone
The key to safer neighborhoods - the taco stand.
one of the DOGE team members involved in gutting our government. Not sure how I feel about this post which details his time in that department - he seemed to want to do good (?) by coding a new UX for filing veteran disability claims but he also does not seem at all regretful that his actions also led to so many unnecessary and possibly illegal employee terminations. The term "banality of evil" comes to mind.
The woman in this story became an evolutionary scientist because she used to not believe in evolution. Interesting story on how her beliefs changed.
The 89 Percent Project "is a year-long global media collaboration aimed at highlighting the fact that the vast majority of people in the world care about climate change and want their governments to do something about it."
Trying to find out what the lives of girls were like in ancient Egypt.
sweet story about the slowly developing friendship between a woodworker and a feral cat.
Bluesky post from a college professor and how she encourages reading stamina by giving her students different reading scenarios to do and reflect on (read by candlelight, read a chapter aloud to someone, read with a sketchpad and draw characters, scenes or another element from the story).
the death of 24 hour america - why nothing stays open late "In this video essay, we will talk about the loss of late night businesses in the USA and the slow death of the 24 hour city and the effect it has had on society and culture through criminalizing existing at night. (YouTube link)
Beer from Victorian Arctic expedition to be opened
Reading Behind Bars, and Beyond Barriers - Essay from a journalist who spent time with a volunteer program that sends books to prisoners. She learned about the prison system and how it makes reading difficult (and sometimes impossible) for prisoners, she learned how to judge whether or not a book might pass through the prison mail-room and not get confiscated, she read books outside her usual genres to better serve the people sending in book requests.
American - Kieran Healy is a professor of sociology at Princeton but he is also an immigrant. This essay is a reflection about the day of his naturalization ceremony.
Why I Gave the World Wide Web Away for Free - Tim Berners-Lee explains how the world wide web was born and why it was made free to all, where we've gone wrong with it and what we can do about it, specifically in regards to AI.
The Secret Trial of the General Who Refused to Attack Tiananmen Square (archive link)
Golden-eye and the Burnt City: The earliest known ocular prosthesis from the city of Shahr-i Sokhta - first known prosthetic eye in the archaeological record, from 2900-2800 BC.
The stories we admired most this year - The editors and writers at Bloomberg each picked what they thought was the one piece of journalism from 2025 that should not be missed. (archive link)
Tiny Mario - someone made a ridiculous Mario game that you play in the URL bar of your web browser. Open source, so you can add levels if you want!
Betelgeuse’s long-predicted stellar companion may have been found at last
How was the wheel invented? Computer simulations reveal the unlikely birth of a world-changing technology nearly 6,000 years ago
New Deep Sea Creatures ‘Challenge Current Models of Life,’ Scientists Say
Zim&Zou’s ’80s-Inspired Paper Cassettes and Boombox Radiate with Color
The Influence of Middle Schoolers on Our Language
What was food like before the FDA?
We Pitched a Museum a 1993 Game Hint Line (And They Actually Said Yes) - Just going to quote the intro from the website here:

Early 2025, ACMI, the Australian museum of screen culture, put out a call for comissions for Game Worlds. They wanted to commission microgames from Australian developers, and the brief was deliberately open: make something playable for a museum context, 5-10 minutes of experience, ready in two months. The games were to feature compelling world-building, interesting relationships between player and maker, be easily understood by a wide variety of visitors in terms of game design, playability and mechanics, and be a playful, and thoughtful response to the context of ACMI as a museum of screen culture.

We were excited to pitch, but after brainstorming a few ideas, we realised that we wanted to do something that was a bit different. Something that would be a bit of a surprise.

So we pitched a ridiculous idea Paris had: a hint line simulator with a 300-page physical binder.
Cosmic Voyage - Writing collaborative set in a science fiction universe. Pretty sure I heard about this from the 32-Bit Cafe.
The End - Directory of audio dramas that have either reached a season finale or a series conclusion. I found 2 science fiction shows to try out - Celeritas and Cosmiko Neon night. I found this link on Azure's bookmarks page.
CreepyLink - URL shortener that makes your links look as suspicious as possible.
Stand up for Science: 31 Days of Action - this was started last year when the US Congress was still cutting the budget for, well, everything good but this group is still promoting calls to action for things happening now.
Deciphering urban disaster codes
Getting down and medieval: the sex lives of the Middle Ages
NETWORK OF TIME - Six degrees of separation but with photos
Jump the Paywalls and Help Others Over the Top
Blogging with Messages - CSS to mimic a text conversation on your blog
Windows 95 Calming Icon Pack - Vaporwave parody on the original Windows 95 icons.
How to Write in Cuneiform, the Oldest Writing System in the World: A Short Introduction
Cats and butterflies - Scenes featuring cats and butterflies by Japanese artists.

February

Snow Roses - It was 82F (28C) here today so no snow roses for me (ever) but it seems like almost everyone else is getting crazy amounts of snow so ... maybe something fun to do with your frozen water.
Regional UK Dartboards - I had no idea dart boards would differ by region, but apparently they do! This site is mainly about the game of darts but this subsection has images and descriptions of regional board varieties. (via the Tom Scott newsletter)
'This mysterious little beast is returning to our forests': Rare images of Europe's 'ghost cat' - It is fren-shaped but it is not fren. I haz a sad. Gorgeous photos (and a short film clip!) of the European wildcat caught on trail cameras in the Czech Republic and Italy. (via MetaFilter)
How the Horse came to be Ridden
The Xi Jinping School of Journalism (via Longreads.com)
Words we love: Pebbling – a new love language
interchangeable electric display apparatus
The Organic Waterproof Raincoats of the Inuit People
Why I’m Learning Sumerian, and What It Taught Me About Hard Work, Burnout, and the Joy of Doing Useless Things (from the Tangent Space
Scientists Discover the Origin of Kissing — And It’s Not Human
The Remains of an Ancient Planet Lie Deep Within Earth
The Way You See the World May Be Radically Unlike Those Around You
Scientists find a new Neanderthal population that stayed completely isolated for 50,000 years
How a Black fossil digger became a superstar in the very white world of paleontology - Story of how a man with no formal training became a fossil expert and is passing on his knowledge to a new generation in their own language. (via Metafilter)
Rainbow Wool - This farm in Germany rescues gay rams (which would otherwise be killed) and uses the wool to create fashion products that support queer community projects. It's also a way to highlight how common same-sex behavior is and how dangerous it is to be gay. (via Metafilter)
The British Museum Plans to Hire a Treasure Hunter. Duties Include Recovering Missing Artifacts Before They’re Lost to History - The museum announced a theft back in 2023 of 1,500 Greek and Roman artifacts. 654 have been recovered so far (some after being found for sale on eBay!) but the museum is looking to hire a treasure hunter to track down the rest. (via Damn Interesting)
When Kittens Came to My Prison, I Had Not Petted One in 15 Years - an incarcerated author writes a short essay on the effect a litter of kittens had on a group of prisoners.
Knit Hello - Typeknitting - A typeface for handknitting.
Games That Weren't - An archive of dedicated to finding and documenting lost or unreleased games on a variety of platforms.
Hamster Mortis: an Educational, Gory Children's Storybook - (YouTube link) CW: narrates the process of decay and features an increasingly dead hamster, a mortician rat and somewhat graphic illustrations. Seriously, I think this is awesome but don't look at it if this kind of thing squicks you out. But if natural life processes don't bother you - take a look! (via MetaFilter)
I Sell Onions on the Internet - Delightful story about how an addiction to acquiring domain names led to a journey culminating in becoming a Vidalia onion salesman. (via Curious About Everything)
Godzilla’s Monsterpiece Theatre Presents Launches in April with Romeo & Juliet and Godzilla - Oh man, this looks so fun! This will be a 4 issue comic series that puts Godzilla in famous works of literature.
Rolling cosplay costume (Tumblr link)
A Detailed History of DMC Thread Company - for all my fellow cross-stitchers, some deep nerd history on DMC thread
Obscure But Badass Folks You Should Know About
Homing Ability of Cats: Explaining Their Internal Navigation System
Bone Kitty - Amigurumi Crochet Pattern
POP Phone - Do you miss phone handsets? Are you old enough to remember talking on the phone with the handset cradled between your neck and shoulder so you could free your hands while conversing? If you miss those days, then Native Union has your back with this!
Little Charachter - font - Little Character is a font made in tribute to LITT.CHR, a font developed by Philippe Khan and a graphic designer called Lisa at the Borland Software Corporation in 1986 and was the default font in Eagle from 1988 until 2017.
Why we have two nostrils instead of one big hole
Dorothy Waugh’s Graphic Design, Revived - A look at the artwork she created in the 1930s to promote tourism to the National Parks.
Toilet Rats - I never knew this was an emergency preparedness issue that people in some states had to be aware of ... and now I wish I was still unaware!

March

ASCII characters are not pixels: a deep dive into ASCII rendering - This is not a casual read! It's a super deep dive into image-to-ASCII rendering.
BOINC (Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing) - Use your computer to help advance scientific research by downloading scientific computing jobs and running them in the background. Check out their projects page.
Gourmet - Condé Nast forgot to renew the trademark for Gourmet magazine (shuttered in 2009) so a group of journalists took it over and revived it as a worker-owned venture producing biweekly newsletters. Subscription only but you can read some content in the archives.
list animals until failure - like it says on the tin, list as many animals as you can in the time alloted!
Color Game - you'll be shown a color and then asked to recreate it. Easy! Or is it?
On Contrarian History - Post from Dr Eleanor Janega, medieval historian, who has a rant about the term "Dark Ages"
The Other Almanac - Maybe you have to be of a certain age to be familiar with The Old Farmer’s Almanac but this book is a reimagining of it, updated for the current world, and including content not found in the original.
When You Hear What Happens When They Put Lab Mice in Nature, You Might Rethink Your Entire Life - Lab mice might be healthier and give better results if they didn't ... live in a lab
Why the world is running out of frankincense
The evolution of expendability: Why some ants traded armor for numbers
Brain Blends Fast and Slow Signals to Shape Human Thought
itiner-e, the digital atlas of ancient roads
Unraveling the JPEG
Sizing chaos - Deep dive into women's clothing sizes, how they have changed over the years and why nothing fits!
CIA World Factbook Archive - The CIA World Factbook was discontinued but this is an archive of all of the past editions.
Found on a Scotland beach. At home it started giving off smoke and a burning smell - Imagine: you thought you found a nice chunk of amber on your seaside stroll, only to have it start burning!
All Hail the Mighty Snail
Unmasking the Sea Star Killer
United States Early Radio History
What Does It Mean To Be Thirsty?
Living Nightlights: Scientists Turn Succulents Into Colorful Glowing Decor
How Art Deco Shaped 100 Years of Forward-Thinking Design
Graphic Design Archive
The Submarine Cable Boom as Told by a Decade of TeleGeography Maps
Strange ‘Little Red Dots’ in Space Have a Mind-Boggling Explanation, Scientists Discover
The secret medieval tunnels that we still don't understand
Random Numbers, Persian Code: A Mysterious Signal Transfixes Radio Sleuths -- And Intelligence Experts - I am fascinated by numbers stations!
The Met Introduces High-Definition 3D Scans of Dozens of Art Historical Objects - The Met now has 3D renderings of 140 of its objects. A mere fraction of their total collection but a cool idea, nonetheless.
An Internet of Checkpoints - I found this last week and posted it on the 32-Bit Cafe Discourse so if you know me from there this might seem familiar. I love this piece of internet history! The idea of people gathering and sharing thoughts at an oasis of sorts is just so lovely! The original site has been taken down but it's been archived and other people have created their own checkpoint channels. It's nice to see that this idea is being kept alive! (Archived checkpoint)
Saving the Venus Flytrap: How One Woman Rallied a Town Around Its Weirdest Attraction - Despite their outsize hold on popular imagination, Venus flytraps are native to a tiny corner of the globe: the Coastal Plain of the Carolinas. As development threatens, one town—spurred on by one tireless botanist—has taken up the shovel to save the world’s most fascinating plant.
The dawn of the post-literate society - What happens when deep reading and sustained attention give way to short-form content and screen time all the time? "If the reading revolution represented the greatest transfer of knowledge to ordinary men and women in history, the screen revolution represents the greatest theft of knowledge from ordinary people in history," writes the author of this piece.
The New Science of Aeroecology Reveals So Much About the Amazing Creatures That Populate the Skies and How Humans Can Ensure Their Survival - The sky above us is a complex ecosystem, just like the land and sea. A new field of research is bringing a fresh understanding of the birds, bugs and other species that live there
The original Mozilla "Dinosaur" logo artwork - Blog post from one of the founders of Netscape and Mozilla.org where he provides us not only with the original Mozilla dinsosaur logo vector images but also some really cool Mozilla banners.
7,000-year-old underwater wall raises questions about ancient engineering — and lost-city legends - Scientists found a massive underwater wall off the coast of France that might help explain the origin of the legend of Ys.
Marvelous Mold and Fabulous Fungus - Artistic moldscapes.
Dissected Greenland shark eyeballs could help humans see forever - Not sure if this is a trigger warning or an enticement but the article does discuss eyeball parasites. Studying how the shark has kept its vision could lead to advances in treating human vision problems.
Digital Florentine Codex - The Digital Florentine Codex gives access to a singular manuscript created by Franciscan friar Bernardino de Sahagún and a group of Nahua elders, authors, and artists. Written in parallel columns of Nahuatl and Spanish texts and hand painted with nearly 2,500 images, the encyclopedic codex is widely regarded as the most reliable source of information about Mexica culture, the Aztec Empire, and the conquest of Mexico. Upon completion in 1577 at the Imperial Colegio de la Santa Cruz in Tlatelolco (today Mexico City), the manuscript was sent to Europe where it entered the Medici family’s library in Florence—thus, the Florentine Codex. This digital edition unlocks the manuscript’s content by making the texts and images searchable.
World's biggest spiderweb discovered inside 'Sulfur Cave' with 111,000 arachnids living in pitch black - 2 different species of spiders live cooperatively in a cave and have created the world's largest spider web.
Spurious Correlations - Correlation is not causation, as Tyler Vigen illustrates on his site that has endless data sets that match, but aren't related. It's a fun exercise but also a caution that not every association has meaning.
The Fascinating History of Tarot Card Decks: From the Renaissance to the Modern Day - Short article on the history of Tarot cards but it includes a 15 minute video from the V&A Museum showcasing several of the decks in their collection plus links to a half dozen other tarot card articles.
Fontemon - A game within a font. You can play in your web browser or download the font. There's a link to a technical blog post explaining how it all works. (via Kottke)
How to be less awkward - I feel so seen by this article. The whole awkward world inside of your head? It's so real! The article has some solid advice so, if you are one of my fellow awkward people, it's worth a read. (via Curious About Everything)
Just Dance: Carmen - "...contemporary flamenco artist Carmen Avilés leads a powerful street performance in Seville for this short film." via Nag on the Lake
The Last Yak Herder Of Ladakh
How the color of a theater affects sound perception - Fascinating article on how our senses are entwined. "Timbre, sometimes understood as the "sound color" of music, was most affected by the visual color. More saturated colors, which appear visually cooler—especially in green and blue—evoked a colder sound color.
Scientists crack the case of “screeching” Scotch tape - it all has to do with shock waves and supersonic speeds.
The Most Elusive Color in Chemistry Might Surprise You - Before going to the article, what color do you think it is? It's one of the basic rainbow colors and not the one I would have thought!
How to clean things - This is a Tumblr post full of videos, book suggestions and advice on how to clean things. Cleaning is not intuitive and sometimes you don't know what you don't know!
The Bernese Bear Will Keep His Penis - I'm sure this was of concern to everyone! A politician tried to have it removed but the bear prevailed.
25 medieval manuscripts you can look at online right now - A chance to immerse yourself in the wonderful and sometimes weird world of medieval illumination.
A Landing a Day - random geography blog. The author uses an app to generate a random lattitude/longitude within the continental United States and then does research to find out something interesting about the location. (via MetaFilter)
Is This Where Morality Lives in the Brain?
Junk Drawer Jukebox - Per this MetaFilter post, Claire Hughes is a "Social worker by day, iPod archeologist by night." She buys junk iPods, restores them, and then does a delightful dive into the restoration and the music she found on the devices on her Junk Drawer Jukebox Facebook page. She has also created Spotify playlists for each iPod she has worked on.
A Minnesota Town Has a Public Works Chicken - How Noodles the chicken joined the Truman Public Works Department. Per one of the workers, "The fire department has Dalmatians, we've got a chicken."
Margaret Calvert - Cool graphic design story about the woman who designed British road signs and had a font named for her. (via Nag on the Lake)
VHS Slipcover Maker - You can also generate cassette tape inserts, CD labels & inserts, playing card boxes and other stuff!
The Friends of Fritz Vincken - I forget where I originally heard this story - maybe from one of Joe Scott's unsolved mystery episodes. But this is a really neat story and the mystery does end up getting solved!
WhereWIKI - this post from Perfect for Roquefort Cheese will explain a little about WhereWIKI and then you can hop a link over to it and start going down Wiki rabbit holes. I mean, you can do that on your own but with WhereWIKI you also find out how things you are interested in are physically connected to your area. Kind of a neat idea!
Global Building Data Downloader - Here's one for the infrastructure nerds. The Global Building Atlas is a "...high-resolution dataset describing 2.75 billion buildings worldwide, including their footprints, heights, and simple 3D (LoD1) geometry." This Downloader allows easy access to all this data.
Simple Lace Stole Crochet Pattern (Cascade Yarns) - I know I saved this thinking that some day I would progress my crocheting skills from making one single endless chain to actual rows of chains but I don't know if that day will ever come. This is a lovely looking shawl, though, so maybe someone else who actually has the skillz will be interested in this pattern!
Jellyfish Snooze Like We Do, And It Could Explain The Origins of Sleep - I never even would have thought jellies needed sleep! (via Damn Interesting)
Glaciers Across the The Globe Are Melting—Except This One. It’s Growing. - Despite all the evidence about climate change and glaciers dissappearing, one glacier appears to be bucking the trend.
Hacking The Krups Cook4Me Smart Cooking Pot For DOOM - Here's another addition to DOOM running on something it wasn't intended to. (via Neatorama)
Scientists Just Rewrote the Story of the Dinosaurs’ Final Days - Dinosaurs were thriving, not declining, when the comet hit.
Only humans have chins: Study shows it's an evolutionary accident - Human chins are just an evolutionary byproduct.

April

Barry Webb Documents a Marvelous, Macro Array of Colorful Slime Molds - Some really neat macrophotography featuring slime molds.
Ugly Gerry - Old yet still relevant. This font was created in 2019 to protest gerrymandering.
Why it takes you and an elephant the same amount of time to poop - Get all the poop on ... well ... poop!
NASA Space Poop Challenge
And the winner of Science’s 2026 ‘Dance Your Ph.D.’ contest is … - TIL I learned there is a " “...Dance Your Ph.D.” contest, a competition in which scientists express their research through dance."
The Complete History of the Polaroid Camera (And Why It Never Really Died)
‘Call a Boomer’ Payphone Instantly Connects Youth with Seniors to Tackle Loneliness Across Generations - I love this! It's a social experiment trying to connect 2 demographic groups that have the highest levels of social isolation. I am neither a boomer nor a zoomer but if a random payphone rang while I was walking past it, I would totally answer. Would you?
Cabinets From the Past So Elaborate They Were Considered Masterworks of Their Time - The workmanship on these cabinets is out of this world! Something you all don't know about me (but are about to find out) is that I adore little boxes, especially if they have secret compartments. These cabinets scratch that itch! I would probably end up losing stuff if I had a cabinet/desk like any of these.
The Death of Adventure Games: The Cat Mustache Was Never the Issue Here
Computer Bug Artworks - Using e-waste to create works of art!
How an unappetizing shrub became dozens of different vegetables - Remember when Homer Simpson declared the pig a wonderful, magical animal? I got those vibes from this article but with brassica instead of pork. Also, they reference "feral cabbages." Gotta love that!
ZIP Code First - I have seriously often griped at online forms that make me fill out a whole address when asking for my ZIP code could have filled in at least 3 of the requested lines. This article rants about that! Glad I'm not the only one to think this.
Alien Life Might Exist on the Starless Moons of Rogue Planets, Scientists Say - Interesting concept that a sun is not necessarily a key component to planetary life.
Entomologists Create Digital Library of Global Ant Diversity - "...entomologists have created interactive digital images representing 212 genera and 792 species of ants."
Wit, unker, git: The lost medieval pronouns of English intimacy - English used to have more pronouns, specifically ones to denote two people.
Why So Many Control Rooms Were Seafoam Green - The short answer is color theory! Interesting look at workplace color usage.
A Brief History of Domain Names - A jaunt through domain name history, written last year to commemorate the 40th birthday of dot com.
Science Fiction is Dying. Long Live Post Sci-Fi?

The Offbeat Sari challenges cliches made about the 'traditional' and 'uncomfortable' sari

British Library Medieval Manuscripts Blog Posts - The British Library has a series of blogs about the medieval manuscripts in their collection. In Ferocious Fish, they take a look at several savage fish found in a 13th century Psalter.
Archaeologists Deciphered 2 Ancient Tablets—They Contained Records of Blood Money Payments
How We Think of Time Depends on the Language We Use For It - Cool look at how the language you speak can affect how you view and speak about time.
The Jellies That Evolved a Different Way To Keep Time - And speaking of time, these jellies track time in an unusual way.
Too Small to Mess With - Low power, community radio stations - what they are and how they're different from public radio stations.
Arabic document from 17th-century rubbish heap confirms existence of semi-legendary Nubian king
Toronto’s Winter Stations - there is a yearly contest in Toronto where artists are tasked with taking lifeguard stations (which are unused during the winter) and turning them into interactive public art installations.
Inhabit, Outhabit - A guide to 29 collective housing projects from across the world.
Human brain cells on a chip learned to play Doom in a week - I've posted links in the past about DOOM being played on a cooking pot and a European satellite as well as rats learning how to play DOOM. This is another entry in the seemingly never endless reports of DOOM being played on things/with things/through things.
ONCEPOSTED - a lovely little archive of vintage postcards. From the site creator: "The front of a card shows where someone was. The back shows what they chose to say. Together, they offer a quiet glimpse into how people once moved through the world."
Worldwide Sidewalk Joy - "Sidewalk Joy spots are free, curated installations that bring a bit of whimsy and inspiration to the community." I love this idea! Kind of like Little Free Libraries but with all sorts of other things. There are several in my area and I think I'll go on a field trip and explore some of them! Are there any trinket boxes near you that you've visited?
ambient.garden - ambient.garden is an experiment that started with the question: can a composition be organized in space rather than time?
The Electronic Connector Book - this site is promoting an actual book but we're here for the online components: identify a connector, check out the connector's 150+ year history and find out which manufacturers make what kind of connector. If you ever had a connector question, you can probably find the answer here!
5 British TV Tie-in Computer Games from the 8-Bit Era - A cool bit of gaming nostalgia.
Card Games - Site started in 1995 with information on traditional card and tile games from around the world.
Archivio Grafica Italiana - online archive dedicated to the history of Italian graphic design.
Cosmic Odometer - "...a highly interactive, scientifically-grounded calculator and 3D planetarium that shows exactly how far you’ve traveled through the universe since the exact moment of your birth."
Daily Tao - this site displays a new chapter of the Tao Te Ching every day.
Collection of WPA posters - Library of Congress collection of WPA posters. (The WPA was a New Deal program in the 1930s and 1940s that employed people to carry out public works projects.)
Isopod Site - Beautifully done site that's all about isopods. Gorgeous macrophotography, tips on raising them, information on isopods found throughout the world.
A Website to End All Websites - This is basically a small web manifesto but an interesting one that correlates the web, how it used to be and what it is now with the automobile, what its intention was and how it's taken over our lives. The author then goes on to explain convivial tooling and how to recapture the web we want.
DOOM - as a text adventure - This is pretty cool. There are even sound effects!
An Irresistible New Memoir Chronicles the Wild Saga of a Jeweled Egg That Cost Its Maker Everything - A book has just been released which tells this crazy story about a jeweler from the House of Kutchinksy who created the Argyll Library Egg - a 2 foot tall, 33 pound, diamond-encrusted gold egg inspired by the Fabergé eggs - which eventually bankrupted the jewelery house and led to the egg being sold off into obscurity.
Cecilia Levy - paper artist - This artist creates sculptural objects in paper, using old book pages and wheat paste. I first saw her tea cups on this page and was enchanted enough to want to see more of her work. It's all so cool!
Man who helped fellow runner across Boston Marathon finish line says it was natural instinct to help
Millions of Americans may now also be considered Canadian under a new law
Aspirin can reduce the risk of cancer - and we're starting to understand why
Try the Oldest Known Recipe For Toothpaste: From Ancient Egypt, Circa the 4th Century BC
Does Closing Your Eyes Help You Hear?
Entire Animal Kingdom Communicates at the Same Tempo
Zine Machine
Why Do Humans Have Clear White Eyes While Most Apes Have Dark Ones?
A Collection of Transit Tickets
Scroll Lock with a Vengeance

May

ReciproCard - Did you know that libraries often have reciprocal agreements with other libraries enabling you to have more than one library card? More cards = access to more books! Just a note - this appears to be US only.
Crocheted Technology - Textile artist Nicole Nikolich creates crochet artworks that reference old technology.
The creation of instant coffee - Have you ever wondered how instant coffee came to be? Well, even if you haven't, this is a surprisingly interesting read!
Interactive Interstellar Map
New theory shows time exists in quantum superpositions, ticks fast and slow
Tenfold Knottiness - Somewhat low-res but cool scan of a diagram drawn by scientist Peter Guthrie Tait in 1885 showing possible variations of knots with 10 crossings.
HVD Bodedo - downloadable font based on Bodoni, carved into potatoes, stamped on paper and called Bodedo.
Microsoft open-sources “the earliest DOS source code discovered to date” - Predating MS-DOS, it's 86-DOS.
Scorpions Reinforce Their Deadly Claws And Stingers With Heavy Metals
Fav tech museums - Someone made a list of what they thought were the best tech museums they've visited. Cool list with sites around the world!
Seeds can 'hear' the sound of rain, new study suggests
Color Leap - History's Palettes - "Color Leap is a handcrafted collection of 180 color palettes that showcase colors used throughout 12 distinct eras in history, covering 4000 years. Each palette was created by sampling pieces of artwork from the time period. Every color can be copied with a single click and used in your own project."
WikiCity.app - Visualizes the 100,000 most-viewed Wikipedia articles as a city skyline. Each building is an article. The more people who have read it, the taller it is.
Signed, Sealed, Delivered: What happens when someone throws a message into the sea? - fabulous long-read article about messages-in-bottles. The article interviews people who look for them, people who have written them and the mystique that surrounds them.
Modern Illustration - Archival project from illustrator Zara Picken who aims to document examples of mid 20th-century commercial art. You can search the archive by decade or by medium.
A small, aging pride of lions - Not sure where I found this link but this is the personal blog/substack/newsletter of someone who reports on safari parks in Africa and the animals that live in them. I was amazed at the story of a blind lioness who was helped by her adult daughters. They would hunt and then call to her to share in the meal. When walking together they would help guide her around obstacles. I wouldn't think to find such altruistic behavior in a lion pride.
the hidden cassettes - Emily found out as a kid that her dad secretly recorded all the house phone calls. Once she found out, she was able to use this knowledge to skirt the family phone rule of keeping calls under 3 minutes. 30 years later she found some of the cassettes and has posted the audio files. There are only 4 up there now but there are placeholders for more, so hopefully this project grows.
Since You Arrived - taken - What kind of information is your computer freely handing out?
The Bat Cloud - Ask the bats a Yes or No question and receive a reply from The Bat Cloud. Kind of a fun art project experience although I'm a little concerned that the answer to my question of "Will I win the lottery this week?" was FEAR. 🤔
Birthday color - kind of a fun site that will tell you what your birthday color is based on your birthdate. In Japanese, so you'll probably have to run the translator. Sad to say, my birthday color is very blah. I hope yours is better!
Dracula Daily - email newsletter that sends you Dracula in bite-sized pieces.
The Internet has no benches - thoughtful piece on how someone is creating their own internet neighborhoods.
When I Heard a Montreal Fortune Cookie Factory Was Closing, I Needed to Get Inside - a photographer finagled his way into being allowed to photograph the last day of a fortune cookie factory through a heartfelt plea and old matchbook bribery.
The Y Chromosome May Be Vanishing. What Does It Mean For The Future of Men? - Nothing drastic, as this genetic shuffle has happened in other species as well. Nature just reroutes.
Why some mathematicians think we should abandon pi - Apparently tau could be a better option.
Embroidered Everyday Objects - Ulla-Stina Wikander, a Swedish fabric artist, covers everyday objects with cross-stitched fabric. She prefers using household items from the 70s for the nostalgia factor.
Researchers in Ireland uncover medieval book in Rome with oldest English poem - This poem was written in the 7th century by "an agricultural worker." Amazing that it has survived but also makes me wonder how literate the general population was in the 600s. I wouldn't have thought they were particularly literate but this person worked on an Abbey farm so maybe he had the benefit of ecclesiastical education that the general population wouldn't have had.
Magic by Return of Post: How Mail Order Delivered the Occult - Linotype machines, cheap pulp paper, and newly improved postal networks all allowed the occult to blossom in 20th century America.
QuiltCon 2026 Winners Gallery - Check out these amazing quilted pieces! My favorites are Tinker Toys, Chingona - (noun), Badass Woman and Momentum. What are yours?
Storied Colors - "Storied Colors is a catalogue of named colors — pigments, dyes, lakes, glazes, and a small number of digital hues — each accompanied by the documentary evidence required to call it by its name." Fascinating site cataloging over 250 colors, with a new one dropped every Sunday. Robust search feature that lets you filter by era, hue, status, source, lightfastness, year first documented and tags.
A look at search engines with their own indexes - Not sure how I came across this one but it's a blog post about search engines. The author says these are all the ones they were able to find and they intend for this to be a living document. It was originally written in 2021 and updated in 2025.
SURVIVA: A Future Ancestral Field Guide - I heard about this when ICT News interviewed the author. This part graphic novel/part art work is part of a larger collective of work in various media that "...seeks to reimagine Indigenous life and culture in a postcolonial world where space exploration has reduced and reconfigured the earth’s population." What I appreciate about this particular work is it's a 1970s military survival guide that has been redacted and edited with artwork. I find that deliciously subversive.
Print Gallery of an Artist: A brief exploration of recursive spaces - fun little platformer game! I had to stop before finishing because it was making me dizzy but the graphics are cool.
An "art car" parade (Houston, 2025) - This is a post from one of the blogs I follow, TYWKIWDBI. He shows off some screencaps from a 2 hour long YouTube video of The 38th Annual Houston Art Car Parade (and links to the video). For video viewing, he recommends, "best approached for casual viewing by clicking along the scrubber bar at the bottom." I haven't looked through the whole video yet but some of the art cars are just awesome!
Pipe Dreams - a shrine to Yahoo Pipes, which "...was a web application from Yahoo! that provided a graphical user interface for building data mashups that aggregate web feeds, web pages, and other services; creating Web-based apps from various sources; and publishing those apps." - Wikipedia
Pictureofhotdog.com - this reminds me of the weird stuff you could find back in the glory days of the old web
Kittenwar! - click to vote on which is the cutest kitten pic. *You* always win, because you get to see cute kitten pics!
Pinball Map - "Founded in 2008, Pinball Map is an open source, crowdsourced worldwide map of public pinball machines." You never know where you might be when the urge to play some pinball hits!
I Want My MTV - Rewind - 67 channels, a chance to interact with other users, play MTV Music Jeopardy, submit your own playlist and get into the rotation.
1912 Eighth Grade Examination for Bullitt County Schools - Interesting look at what children were expected to know at one time. Could you pass this test? (via Nag on the Lake)
Meet ‘Snuffleupagus,’ a newfound fish sporting shaggy camouflage
Culcitology (QUILTS) with Luke Haynes, Olivia Joseph, and Joe Cunningham - almost 2 hour long podcast episode that I have not listened to yet but it looks so interesting! "Scrap quilts. Sewing bees. Secret codes. Political activism. Controversies. Three of your new favorite Culcitologists – Olivia Joseph, Luke Haynes, and Joe Cunningham – are stitched together for one mega episode on one of the most underappreciated and widely practiced arts in the world: quilting. We cover donated quilts, galleries vs. linen closets, incarcerated quilters, the ONE person you do not want to enter a fair with, quilting and covid, the Gee’s Bend Alabama quilters who turned modern art criticism on its head, and the icons you need to know about. Also: washing, preserving, appraising, repairing, and enjoying quilts. It’ll change the way you interact with your aunt, your local thrift store, art shows, and your very bed itself."
The journey of a 17th-century shipwreck continues as a unique knitted dress - In 2019 in Finland, a 17th century shipwreck was discovered during construction. While a large section of the hull was able to be removed and conserved, there were some fragments that weren't able to be used. They were just going to be disposed of until researchers at a university got permission to use the wood to create a woven textile that could then be knitted into a dress. The dress is beautiful - lovely brown with a woodgrain design. Such a neat story! (via The History Blog)
Paul Brown's iPod - Paul Brown passed away in 2018. His son recreated his iPod contents with a playable iPod emulator. Come spend some time getting to know Paul through the music he enjoyed. I found some lovely ambient music from "Porn Sword Tobacco," a band new to me. (via Kottke)
Elizabeth Saloka’s Vibrant Painted Rocks Adopt the Personalities of Snacks and Pop Culture Icons - Rocks (and bricks) painted to look like pink erasers, jam jars, packets of ramen, stacks of cash and all sorts of other things.
How a Houston company got its art on the walls of stoners across America - I think it would be cool to have a blacklight room - bean bag, lava lamps, walls covered with these posters. Bong optional.
BFI Replay - A collection from the BFI National Archive featuring classic online video. "This unique collection of online videos combines iconic highlights of British online video with other examples chosen to illustrate that sheer diversity."
Gone but Not Forgotten: Recovering the Dead Web - blog post from archive.org discussing the vanished web.
Ukiyo-e Search - Search engine specifically for Japanese woodblock art. Started back in 2012, its database currently contains over 200,000 prints from over 24 institutions.
You’ll Need a Magnifying Glass to Read Some of the World’s Smallest Books at the V&A - Teeny tiny books! squee!
I built a CSS framework where every class name is an emoji - Because, why not? Started as a joke but made real, the author declares, "That is valid, production HTML. It works in every modern browser. I am not sorry."
Play DOOM on a travel router - I should start a page dedicated to all the "Play DOOM on _____" articles I've found. I'm fascinated by it but I have to confess, I have never played DOOM. Well, I tried. It makes me very motion sick, very quick. I haz a sad.
The Rephone Project - Project run by students at L’École de design Nantes Atlantique exploring how old smartphones can be repurposed by combining new software ideas with creative physical design.
This Archivist Has Saved 175,000 Articles from 30 Years of Writing about Magic: The Gathering - "The Library of Leng contains old usenet posts and forgotten articles from Magic: the Gathering's long history."
The Sound of Ocean Heat Energy - Visual and sonic representation of the ocean's heat content from 1970-2025.

June

Rheum rhabarbarum - A Social History of Rhubarb - (via Curious About Everything)
The Red List of Endangered Crafts - this focuses on heritage crafts in the UK that are in danger of being lost. You can check the list and see which crafts are extinct, critically endangered, endangered or currently viable.
Internet Pattern Book - I found this really neat project via the sweetfish.site Checkout Counter. "The Internet Pattern Book is an ongoing effort to develop a workable archive and sortable resource to showcase tilable backgrounds used in early web design. To date, it contains 317 patterns that you can browse by style or color. These are taken as background assets from various defunct sites on Geocities circa the 2000s."
Rigby’s Encyclopaedia of the Herring - wow, there is a lot more to know about herring than I ever would have imagined!
Ian's Shoelace Site Is Still The Best Site For Tying Your Shoes - Ian's site is pretty awesome - I even have it linked on my Fun Links page. It's an old school, helpful site that's been around forever. But, Ian himself asks, “Have you ever wondered ... why websites like mine are disappearing from the Internet?”
Lighthouses of the Northern Seas - This is a really cool, interactive lighthouse map (which also shows beacons and minor lights). Clicking on a light will give you various bits of information like the range, what color the light is, if it's fixed, height, light flashing pattern, time period of the flashes. I spent a lot of time clicking on lights!
World's biggest whale graveyard found in Indian Ocean off Australia - This is amazing! Not just one whalefall but 5, plus a boatload of fossils and the discovery of a new extinct species.
Meet ‘Snuffleupagus,’ a newfound fish sporting shaggy camouflage - Remember Mr. Snuffleupagus from Sesame Street? This little fish's camouflage makes him look like a Sea Snuffleupagus.
Stained Glass Shopping Cart - this is actually an art project that's a commentary on consumerism, wealth disparity and material survival. But darn it, it's pretty! I'd like to tool around the local Winco with this.
CrankGPT - a fully offline, human-powered local AI. I have feelings about AI but this almost analog AI is an interesting project.
Swarovski can continue to fuck off - Delicious sparkly drama in this Tumblr post. Swarovski attempted to make their product a true luxury item by restricting who could buy and demanding strict business agreements. It didn't go entirely well for them.
I've got a bridge to sell you - Well, I don't. Cape Cod does. In fact, they have 2! They're looking for someone to buy the bridge(s) and then dismantle them and set them up in a different location for preservation. So, if you have a lot of money burning a hole in your pocket and room for a bridge, this might be an opportunity for you!
There’s Something Living Inside Fog, Scientists Find - Shades of Stephen King!
The Red List of Endangered Crafts - Heritage Crafts, a UK charity set up to celebrate, support and safeguard traditional craft skills, has come up with a list of heritage craft skills that are endangered, often because the current practitioners have no one to pass the skills on to. Crafts are divided into 4 categories: Extinct in the UK, Critically Endangered, Endangered and Viable.
Ocean Census project discovers 1,121 new species of ocean life around the world in one year - Discovery stories like these always amaze me.
Cat Walks on Stage during Performance of Romeo and Juliet - this has been making the rounds so you might have seen it already. In Turkey, during a performance of Romeo and Juliet, an orange cat decided to insert himself in the play. Props to the actor playing Romeo - not sure I could have held still with a cat wrangling my head!
Heikki's Garden of Flowers- You need to check out this analog ASCII artwork made by letterpress in the 1700s! The creator of this archive wrote their thesis on Amiga ASCII Art. While looking for information on the history of ASCII, they came across a blog post about "Analog ASCII" which showed off pictorial typography made with letterpress in the 1700s. They ended up collecting over 2500 images which they have assembled into this archive. Be sure to read the essay - it's super interesting!
Early Web Links - I found this on MetaFilter and was delighted to find that my Government Cats and Riot Dogs page is listed! This is a one person passion project that uses an automated crawler to follow links across the web, searching for sites with that Old Web feel. Sites are given descriptions and categorized into directories. I did notice a lot of duplicates in the categories and there are a lot of Tripod sites, which are now all dead links. But this is a neat project and a good way to find more Old Web-like sites.
Why the Cookbook Endures - There was a thought at one time that physical cookbooks would be replaced by electronic versions but they are as popular as ever.
The Forgotten Castles of the Garamantes - I listened to an In Our Time podcast last week about the Garamantes and this week I find this neat article! What a neat little bit of coincidence.
Solar Terrestrial Dispatch - bringing you space weather for the past 37 years.
Tatter - "TATTER is a cultural arts organization that explores textiles to tell human stories & cultivate understanding. " They have a physical textile library in New York City but there's a lot of neat stuff on the website. There are 4 issues of a journal with essays and features and in the section The Fold are articles about all sorts of things, like portable sewing kits, a pincushion with a mystery and artist spotlights. (via Messy Nessy Chic)
TYWKIWDBI - The dark side of Beatrix Potter - sometimes children's stories can be unexpectedly dark!
Telescope Ranching - Starfront Observatories is in Rockwood, Texas, which has ultra-dark night skies. Astrophotographers from around the world ship their telescopes to the ranch where they are set up and accessed via laptop for a small monthly fee. Currently the ranch is hosting over 500 telescopes.
Chili Peppers of the World - "A visual field guide to the chili peppers of the world, from wild origins to cultivated forms, illustrated with 176 hand-drawn peppers. "
“There Ain’t Nothin’ Different”: When Dystopian Sci-Fi Ruled the Cola Wars - interesting look at the intersection of science fiction and cola advertising
Attenborough at 100 - A Nature Documentary - this is an archive of every show David Attenborough has worked on. You can search by animal, habitat, location, natural phenomenon, or theme. Search results will show where you can watch a particular episode.
How I Did the Animorphs Covers - the illustrator for the Animorphs book series goes through his process of how he created the covers.
The Fog is Alive - did you think fog was just a mist? There are things (helpful things) living and growing in fog!
The Dirt That Refused To Die - Soil releases carbon dioxide as part of microbial respiration. For an experiment, a biochemist needed lifeless soil so he tried to sterilize it with gamma rays. The soil wouldn't stop "breathing."
Nuigurumi Jinja is a Shrine to Stuffed Animals - "This shrine is a place to bring your beloved stuffed toys or to express gratitude and honor the memory of bygone plush animals. It is also a Shinto religious site, so the activities are grounded in a sense of communion with the sacred nature of the forest."

July

United We Stitch - Americans are invited to make fabric panels for this nationwide community art exhibit to be held on September 20, 2026, in honor of the International Day of Peace. There is information on the site on how to make, register and display your panel.
Hello Kitty Lawsuit Tracker - "An unofficial archive of Sanrio and the law".
rip.so - the digital graveyard - detailed entries of beloved websites that have died - and some that are surprisingly still alive after all these years.
My Grandfather's Cat - organization in Nova Scotia helping seniors and terminally ill people across Canada feed and arrange second homes for their pets.
The Rooster Registry - is a "...community matchmaking platform for roosters and other feathered gentlemen across Atlantic Canada (Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland & Labrador)..."
An interactive introduction to the terrific experience of rendering Arabic typography and its technical debt - pretty technical post that was way beyond my knowledge level but I still found it interesting.
Unhinged Wal-Mart Cake Decorators - I'm kinda surprised that corporate allows this but, per one of the decorators, "the weird unhinged stuff sells better and it's just more fun to make"
How to Get Your Own Ghanian Movie Poster - Here, have an unhinged movie poster to go along with your unhinged cake.
Video Game History Foundation founder says piracy remains the only viable game preservation method - ☠︎ 🏴‍☠ ☠︎ 🏴‍☠ ☠︎ 🏴‍☠
Animorphs 30 - Celebrating three decades - Tumblr account with a link to the 30th anniversary zine. I found out about this from this cross stitching post on Bluesky. This user's zine entry was cross-stitched 3D cubes with Animorph heads on them although she was showing off the finished project in her post because she didn't finish it in time for the zine publication.
Unicorns and Magic Wishes - This story is a few years old but this is the first time I heard it. A young girl wrote to the LA County Animal Care & Control asking for permission to keep a unicorn in her backyard should she find one. They replied to her with permission to do so, instructions on keeping a unicorn and an invite to visit the facility. During her visit she was given a pre-approved unicorn license, a metal license tag and a stuffed unicorn. I just thought this was a lovely moment of humanity. It was so kind of a very busy agency to take the time to reach out to a young girl like this.
Trinket Box Purveyors Are Melting Down - Back in April, I posted about Worldwide Sidewalk Joy which is a map of trinket boxes where you take a trinket/leave a trinket. I thought it was delightful! Then I came across this rather disappointing article where people are having fits because others aren't using the boxes like they think they should be.
Fighting Chaos - I found this blog when I poked around on Bubbles to see what that was all about and ended up subscribing to it via RSS. I like this post - the author had previously made a post where she listed her rules to live by to keep things running smoothly like drink enough water, don't get hungry but don't eat crap, do new and fun things. She followed up that post with this one which is a list of 100 things she does to keep chaos at bay. I like this list - there are a lot of good points that I should probably incorporate into my life.
The Grate Cheese Robbery - If there was going to be a food product susceptible to organized theft, I would have guessed it would be something like truffles. But no, cheese is apparently the most stolen food in the world.
Wander Console - Discover the Small Web - I thought this was kind of in line with what Sharkle and StumbleUpon used to be, although specifically for small web sites. I have had fun wandering through the site I'm using as my console.
Notebooks of Charles XII of Sweden - Virtually flip through his notebooks and check out his drawings. I feel like there's a lot of wasted paper (one small drawing on a page) but then, given who he was, he probably didn't suffer from lack of ability to acquire more notebooks. This page has some more information on the history of the notebook.
A 3,000-Year-Old Painter’s Palette from Ancient Egypt, with Traces of the Original Colors Still In It
How The Heck Do Solar Panels Work? - Pretty cool explainer with interactive parts and animations!
The Victorian Web - Originating at Brown University in 1987 and on the Internet since 1994, The Victorian Web describes itself as presenting "images and documents, including entire books, as nodes in a network of complex connections." They say this is different from other archives and their FAQ page explains all this.
#ShowYourStripes - Enter your location and get a set of "warming stripe" graphics that visually represent the temperature change over the past 100+ years.
1930s Equivalent of Car GPS Navigation - Analog GPS! Cool tech relic.
Dear Next Visitor... - Leave a message, get a message.
Helena Minginowicz Transforms Humble Paper Towel into Ethereal Paintings - Gorgeous works of art painted on paper towels!
The Listening Museum - I think the mechanical keyboard lovers will appreciate this site! 36 mechanical keyboards/switches that you can virtually try out.
Japan’s new pettably fuzzy cat-shaped earbud chargers meow to let you know their status - Kitty-shaped earbuds that have different meows for the functions plus a relaxing purr mode? Take my money!
The Story of Czech Graphic Design - 7 part series exploring the development of Czech graphic design and also what the symbols, signs and colors represent.
Eclipse and Sunscreen - blog post from { feuilleton } talking about and sharing clips of French animation.
How Many Apples Are You? - Find out how tall you are in apples and get fun apple facts. (I am almost 17 apples tall.)
New Zine about 1960s Penguin Crime Novels - I loved the niche-ness of this zine topic.
Interactive map of BlueSky users - I'm on the outskirts of the Pet Owner's Meadow.
Meet These Delightful Bookshop Cats (and One Dog!) - I love it when stores have shop pets.
Stealth Signals Are Bypassing Iran’s Internet Blackout - People being oppressed and restricted will find workarounds.
Web Browsers on Video Game Consoles - Interesting article that dives into the history of web browsers on video game consoles
RATFLOW NYC - "...a real-time, probabilistic visualization of New York City’s rat population — a deliberate inversion of the transit map. Instead of trains, it renders the other commuters."
The Station Melodies of Tokyo - Fascinating article about a disappearing piece of Tokyo history - the melodies played when a train pulls into a station. Stations have their own tunes written specifically for them. Some stations play anime tunes instead! And all of this will be gone within 10 years. There are sound clips and an interactive map in the article.
Jurassic Park computers in excruciating detail - a blog post detailing, as promised, in excruciating detail the computers and software used in the original Jurassic Park movie. Also solves the mystery of a Motorola Envoy pda, released in 1995, being seen in a movie that was filmed in 1992.
Princesses in Ancient Egypt Weren’t Just Royalty—They Were Trained Archers - There is osteological evidence indicating that Egyptian princesses, or at least the daughters of Amenemhat II, actually used the weapons found with their mummies.
Solar System Live - view the entire solar system or just the inner planets. You can control a variety of parameters. Can be used to plot the orbit of an asteroid or comet.
Where to Find the Colors Your Screen Can’t Show You - There are colors in the real world that can't be visualized digitally on a screen. Mostly they are cyans.
Disposable Memory Project - This was a 2008-2013 global photography project. Disposable cameras were dropped off randomly with the hope that someone would find the camera, take some pictures and pass it on. The project creator has come back in 2026 to make sure the project's images and stories remain online. (via Perfect for Roquefort Cheese)
rarefilmm: The Cave of forgotten films - This site was originally set up in 2014 by an archivist who wanted to preserve hidden film gems. The film index has 2,985 titles. Films can be streamed and/or downloaded from the site, there is an active chat area and a list of wanted films, in case you are a film collector and have something you can add to the archive. Vulture article about the site.
Adoption centre dedicated to rehoming small lab animals launches on NSW Central Coast - Check out this article f you're in Australia and want to adopt a former lab rat/mouse/rabbit/guinea pig. (via MetaFilter)
In memory of the man who put red and green squiggles under words - Memorial blog post about Tony Krueger, the person who ported Chip's Challenge to Windows but also was responsible for the red and green squiggles used by the spell checker in Word.
Uncovered.ink - Find your next book to read! Read samples blind - no author, no cover, just the story. If you like it, you can reveal the details, save it to your shelf and buy it. Reveals lead to Bookshop.org. Free, no account or app required. There is no tracking, rating or social aspect. (via Nag on the Lake)
How the World Developed Passports - Features a short TED-Ed video about the history of passports.
Super Snowflake Maker - Virtually cut out some snowflakes!
The real life mermaids of Florida’s Weeki Wachee Springs - The mermaid show has been going on since 1947 and is still quite popular! I didn't even realize shows like these were still in production.

August

The Last Museum - Search engine for museum art. Search by theme, style, subject, or any other description. Currently over 5 million artworks are indexed and they are working on adding more. Free to use, no account required. (via MetaFilter)
Glittery poo unlocks fertility clues in rhinos at Monarto Safari Park - A safari park in Australia is using different colors of edible glitter to track their rhinos' reproductive cycles.
The Terminus - These days, when a road ends it usually does so with little fanfare. The Romans, however, marked road termini with statues and even a festival! (via Nag on the Lake)
Humans Can Learn to Echolocate in Just 10 Weeks, And It Rewires The Brain - How cool is that? Dolphin powers! (via MetaFilter)
How the Role of Book Cover Design Has Changed in the Age of Social Media - These days I don't shop by book cover but I do miss the days of lush historical romance covers. You know, the ones with a Fabio-like, half-dressed warrior of some kind and a swooning, losing-her-clothes fair maid. Now so many of them seem to be cartoonish.
We're Squandering LEDs' Potential to Save Our Night Skies" - Harsh LED lighting is bad lighting. It makes it harder for us to see by casting harsh shadows, making us think we need even more light. It also has a deleterious biological effect on humans and animals.
Creepy Houses - Not sure what city these houses are in but wherever they are, they are watching you. Creepily. (via Nag on the Lake who got it from Memo of the Air)
How to disable or avoid intrusive AI - Helpful tips from a library technologist on how to disable or avoid AI on several different platforms/software.
19th Century Japanese Woodblock Prints Creatively Illustrate the Inner Workings of the Human Body - Colorful woodblock drawings that show how your body works. Bodily functions and processes are handled by little worker men and women.
Time Traveler - Enter a date on the site to find out when a word was first recorded in print.
What just happened to TheNumbers.com should worry us all - "The inside story of how one of film data's most trusted sites vanished overnight, and why every website you rely on is more fragile than you think."
Federal Government Information After the 2025 Transition: News Reports of Removed and Altered Content - "This page compiles media/Bluesky reports of content being removed from, or altered on, federal webpages / resources, as well as reports about attempts to rescue such material." The author notes that this list is not exhaustive.
Let Me And A Food Scientist Sample The Abandoned Fish Sauce Terrorizing A Small Canadian Town - 900,000 liters of fish sauce were abandoned in a Newfoundland factory. No paywall but an e-mail might be required to read the article.
Envoy - Send Me Thy Poetry - Send a poem through the website. The website owner has a thermal printer that will play a little tone and print out the poem at his home. I thought this was such a sweet experiment! I just hope the Internet is kind to his project. (via webcurios)
ChatTJB - Artisanal Intelligence, handcrafted by one human - Chat GPT but with a real person behind the scenes, answering your questions one by one. Originally started as a one-man project (for reasons you can read about in this article from Futurism) it has become so popular that he's developing it into a community with other "AI" (Artisanal Intelligence) helpers. (via txtbased.media)
Snakes in Movies - Amazingly in-depth catalog of, well, what it says on the tin: snakes in movies. Search for movies alphabetically or check out categories such as Snake Fights, Snake People, Giant Monster Snakes, kinds of snakes, locations, movie genre and many others. Entries include photos, movie descriptions and snake scene descriptions. (via lucky instar)
The Million Dollar Homepage - A bit of Old Web lore I was not familiar with. It was created by a university student in 2005 as a way to finance his education by selling blocks of pixels on a website. The site is still up although suffering from link rot.
The Cinnamon Bachelors and Pepper Bachelors of Denmark - Apparently there are consequences to not being married by a certain age in Denmark.
Unlocking Legacy Data, One Disk at a Time: A Summer Internship in the Geography and Map Division - Interesting blog post from an intern working on the idiosyncratic disk project in the Geography and Map Division of the Library of Congress. (via MetaFilter)
Subway Stories - "Every year, New Yorkers take more than a billion trips on the subway. Using data from the MTA, we mapped out how riders flow between stations at every hour. Each story explores a slice of city life." I feel like this might pair well with RATFLOW NYC, which I posted about in Weekly Wrap Up 119.
The Lost Joy of Music Piracy - a story about the early days of music streaming and the downfall of Oink’s Pink Palace (a private BitTorrent tracker aka "the world's greatest record store")
Woman Spends $17,000 to Turn Her Basement into a Sanctuary for Her Disabled Cats - Kind of a click-baity title but a sweet story about a woman who runs a sanctuary for disabled kitties with her sister. (via Cutetropolis)
Capybaras keep their chill while crashing Brazilian legislature - Squee! I am here for the capybara invasion!
Miauricio the Stray Cat Becomes Company Manager - Story from Mexico about a stray cat who finds a job at a construction company.
The Top 100 Things I'd Do If I Ever Became An Evil Overlord - This is from the early days of the web but I thought it was worth sharing this web relic.
Why were there no tiny dinosaurs? You might blame the mammals
Birds are Shit - "Forget rarity. Forget beauty. Forget whatever Attenborough said. This is all about character. Pigeons have grafted. Vultures provide a public service. Meanwhile some colourful prick in a rainforest has spent six million years evolving a fancy hat." Read about the birds and judge them. I don't know why the Canada Goose isn't higher on this list. (via MetaFilter)
Fogpoint Radio - This is a whole concept. Fogpoint Radio is a 1940s style radio broadcast project. It runs 24/7 and has scheduled programming, to include hourly news reports, radio dramas and a dedicated blues hour. It broadcasts from "...a fictional island in the North Atlantic, east of Newfoundland." I've listened a few times already and I think this project is pretty amazing. (via Real Vintage Dolls House)
Mail Between Heaven and Earth - "It is called the drifting post, he explained, because the letters drift between heaven and earth. Set within a stretch of coastal woodland, in rural Japan, this post box receives letters written to the dead."
Your brain doesn’t see reality — it tries to predict it - Our brains don't always get it right.
History of Dungeons & Dragons Dice - this is an unrolled thread from Bluesky (so all on one page) about the history of DnD dice. Tons of information and photos! (via MetaFilter)
Eclipse Viewers - a collection of historical eclipse viewers, postcards and publications. (via Kottke.org)
UCLA marmot research lab turns to OnlyFans after funding cuts - I feel 2 ways about this article. Props to the researchers for finding a unique funding source. But how sad that scientific research in the US has come to this. (via Cutetropolis)
How “Hot” Radioactive Fossils Tested One Park’s Safety Tech - I never even realized fossils could be radioactive!
Eat This Newsletter: 311 Scrambled - This is one of the newsletters that regularly shows up in my inbox. It has a pretty neat article this month about Iran, drought and goats and rituals.
A Trip to 90s Kansai: Exploring the XD FirstClass Network BBS - not sure how I came across this story but the website appears to be dedicated to deep dives into old media and art. This particular entry is about a CD the author bought and the fascinating history it's a part of.
The Sunday Longread - Do you like a good longread? I don't even remember subscribing to this but I was hooked when it showed up in my inbox. There are so many articles in each issue and they cover a lot of different topics. The editors try their best to provide gift links so you aren't hit with a paywall, which I really appreciate. This is one of the best things I've found to subscribe to!
The Bride of Frankenstein’s Necklace - Frock Flicks is devoted to reviewing pre-1960s movies and TV shows from a costume angle but they also touch on history and design. This was a neat story about someone finding some antique jewelry in a shop, connecting it with jewelry she'd seen in a classic movie and tracking down the owner and verifying the provenance. Wow, I just made an interesting story sound boring. Ignore me and go check out the link!
Hammerhead shark embroidery - by Mary, Queen of Scots - I did not know that hammerheads even made it up to England! After checking Wikipedia, not only have I learned that they did, I also found this adorable drawing from 18th century Japan. squee! It's so cute!
Over the Edge: Death in the Grand Canyon - Interactive map based on the book of the same name and updated using National Park Service Data that shows all recorded deaths in the Canyon since 2018. Clicking on the pictogram symbols will show details of the deaths. I had no idea there were so many involving plane crashes! If this is really your kind of thing, you can download a print copy of the map.
Audiovault.net - Free, volunteer-run audio archive created "...to make it easier for blind people to find and access audio described content that is spread across multiple platforms and countries." You can download mp3 files of TV shows and movies that are audio described. Files contain the full audio track as well as scripted interjections describing what's going on in the scene. (via MetaFilter)
The ASCII Plane - Right now this is just a prototype, proof of concept but it's so neat! This is a walkable ASCII city made using a custom-built engine created with JavaScript and CANVAS in a single HTML file. I found out about this from a video the designer put up on YouTube. In a follow-up video not only has he made a lot of improvements but there's a link to his ko-fi where you can download the prototype for a small fee and walk around the city yourself. You can even go in the buildings! I'm excited to see what this eventually turns into.
Under Notre Dame, a 'dig of the century' looks to unearth thousands of years of Parisian history - As part of the restoration of Notre Dame, part of the forecourt has become an excavation site. (via MetaFilter)
Warp Point Games - This site bills itself as both a curated directory and webring that collects independent and personal gaming blogs and newsletters. (via Midnight Reading)
The Other Elephant - The problem with keeping elephants in zoos. Defector, by the way, is primarily a sports blog but they cover politics and arts and culture as well. I subscribe to them even though I do not really care at all about sports. Their other content is so worth it!
250 for 250 Booklist - I am very meh on the whole 250 celebration but the Brooklyn Public Library has come up with an awesome list of books on the stories, movements and people that have shaped America.
Parallel Lives - an alternative timeline of notable people showing who was alive at the same time and what age they were.
Plein Air - this is a term describing a style of outdoor painting. The site will match the weather at your location with an appropriate plein air style painting. Clicking on the painting's title will tell you why that particular one was chosen for your location. (via The Linkfest)
Submarine Cable Map - Not only can you see where all the cables are but clicking on one will give you a ton of information on the cable itself. Nerdy cool data stuff! (via The Linkfest)
Study: Dinosaurs were charbroiled after Chicxulub impact - It was a terrible, horrible, no good very bad and HOT final day for the dinosaurs.
Most ‘Ovarian Cancer’ Isn’t. And That Fact Can Save Lives - Studies have shown that almost all fatal ovarian cancers actually originated from the fallopian tubes.
Gridtown - You have one job: build a new town's energy grid using sustainable resources. (via Web Curious)
Brotherhood of the Mustard of Dijon - This is one of the most delightful things I've read in a while. There is a real group of people dedicated to maintaining mustard purity and the tradition goes back to the 1600s. They even have medieval-looking mustard garb! (via MetaFilter)
Sunflowers - a reverse Minesweeper where you plant sunflowers instead of getting blown up. (via Clive Thompson's Linkfest #47)
Knit Wits exhibition: when SIBLING made knitwear loud, strange and fun - article about an exhibit featuring fashions from a London label that made really weird knitted stuff.
World Monitor - this site correlates all kinds of information into one large overview. Conflict events, ship and aircraft tracking, natural events/disasters, climate anomalies, markets and disease outbreaks are just a few of the data points that can be monitored. Here's a Wired article on who created this and why.
Designer Creates World’s Most Hideous Hawaiian Shirt to Hide From AI Surveillance Cameras - not gonna lie, I kinda like the design.
Discover the Mundaneum, an Early 20th-Century “Internet” That Put the World’s Knowledge on Millions of Index Cards - a couple of Belgian lawyers had a great idea: to gather, classify, centralize, and make universally available all human knowledge. On note cards. (via Perfect for Roquefort Cheese)
Before Sci-Fi Was Cool: Scientific Romance - Here romance means an adventure, a sense of excitement and usually some action, possibly with a journey. Think Jules Verne, H.G. Wells and Edgar Rice Burroughs.
How Streaming Has Changed Pop Music - Shorter or no intros and shorter songs in general, the demise of the bridge, "wallpaper music" made to fit into an algorithmic list and music created specifically for TikTok moments.
Ray Cats, Artificial Moons and the Atomic Priesthood: How the Government Plans to Protect Our Nuclear Waste - Scientists attempted to solve the problem of how to keep far future generations away from nuclear waste sites. There were many suggestions including the one by 2 European linguists who suggested breeding cats that would change colors when exposed to radiation. Then, even if someday the scientific knowledge behind radiation was lost, there would be folklore about the color-changing cats being indicators of danger.
When You See Me, Weep - "The Hunger Stones have words engraved on them. They were etched in years of hardship—such as 1616, 1746, and 1892— when droughts brought soaring food prices and starvation. They are resurfacing again... "
Past Catalog Archive - the webmaster is scanning in his collection of old catalogs from places like Radio Shack, Heathkit and Allied Radio Corp and making them available for download. If you have an old catalog you would like to share online, he invites you to contact him. (via Kottke.org)
Font Lonesome - curated list of unicode that can be used for common icons found on personal blogs. (via 32-Bit Cafe Discourse)
Dear Readers: Yes, pen pal programs still exist in a digital world - AP News article about pen pal programs. After reading the article, you can check out International Pen Friends, an organization that's been connecting pen pals since 1967.