The Friday Links

Happy Friday everybody!

There are twenty one shopping days until xmas. (I know: what is “shopping”?)

I hope you are all hanging in there.

This is the 2020 Christmas List Thingy version of the Friday links.

Obviously this year is quite different from those that came before.

One of my go-tos, kottke.org, has simply not put out a list this year. To me, that’s significant.

I decided to start by highlighting the need for donations at an unprecedented scale for food banks.

Find a food bank in Canada.

Canada, East to West, and North:

• Newfoundland
• Nova Scotia
• Prince Edward Island
• New Brunswick
• Quebec
• Ontario
• Toronto
• Manitoba
• Alberta
• Saskatchewan
• British Columbia
• Whitehorse, Yukon Territories
• Yellowknife, Northwest Territories
• Nunavut

Major food bank systems in the US:

• New York
• Greater Boston
• Florida
• Chicago
• Oregon
• Washington State
• Texas
• Houston
• Austin and Central Texas

Overseas:

• European Food Banks Federation
• The UK
• France

And then, sure, gift guides. My Xmas group is passing on gifts altogether. We might (might!) still do a dinner, but it’ll be much more frugal than usual.

• Esquire
• Wired UK
• Buzzfeed
• BoingBoing
• New York Magazine
• Vanity Fair
• Elle
• Rolling Stone
• Mike Shouts

Side note: I miss ThinkGeek.

It is definitely recommended that you support your local retailers as much as possible. Yes, you can get virtually anything from Amazon but we really don’t want that to be the only remaining option.

It’s links time!

Looking Glass Portrait

“Your first personal holographic display. For people, real and imagined.”

Holy cow. This is actually pretty phenomenal tech.

It over-over-reached it’s goal. The device will sell next year for $349.

52 things I learned in 2020

Written by Tom Whitewall.

“#31: When bar codes were patented in 1952, they were round”

h/t: Kottke.

Castles In The Sky

“While renovating a house in San Francisco, a couple discovered a diary, hidden away for more than a century. It held a love story—and a mystery.”

Written by Christina Lalanne for the Atavist Magazine.

Includes a narrated version of the story.

Worth it!

Intercity Scooter Racing

Not particularly challenging. You have to reach a certain (unmarked) position within the available time, so you can earn more time.

The dynamic scenery is nice. 🙂

And there we are! Your pre-Christmas Friday Links!

I hope you’re all staying safe and well, and I hope your Friday is most excellent.

Hang in there. We’re getting through this.

See you next week.

ad

Welcome back Friday people!

It’s the holidays! And it’s Friday. And by golly we’re going to get through this!

Are you with me?

Let’s go!

Just Give Me Positive Good News

(Specifically about Covid-19)

e.g.: “Major milestone as zero active coronavirus cases achieved in Victoria (Australia)”

“Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine to be sold to developing countries at cost price”

A good idea!

Old Time Radio

Choose a format and listen to an already-in-progress show from the 1930s and 40s.

Especially if you’ve run out of Netflix during this pandemic, this is stuff you can put on in the background.

Cleanly designed. I like it.

Atlas Obscura: My Hunt for the Original McDonald’s French-Fry Recipe

An actually fascinating little read, plus a bit of corporate and culinary history.

Plus, you know: French Fries!

Road Fury

Controls are a little iffy. You have to keep your mouse within the tiny gameplay area. Shoot at cars to blow them up, then collect the cash that flies up.

Challenging!

And there we go. There it is. Awayyyy we go. Yup yup yup…

Have an excellent Friday, I hope your Thanksgiving (such as it was) was lovely. And have an amazing weekend!

The holidays (such as THEY are) are here!

Happy Friday!

ad

Ok so happy Friday everybody.

Where I live, things are about to lock down even further, so we could all use some Friday distraction I think.

Here we go!

Forensic Architecture: The Beirut Port Explosion

A really detailed, exhaustive investigative report and video about the massive port explosion that happened this past August in Beirut, Lebanon.

Fantastic work! Really engrossing and well done.

24h Sunrise/Sunset

“24h Sunrise/Sunset” is an installation that displays a realtime sunset and sunrise somewhere happening in the world with the use of CCTV.

Created by Dries Depoorter whose manifesto states that he “creates artworks about surveillance, privacy, social media and machine learning. Dries is based in Ghent, Belgium.”

A beautifully executed project.

Cruise Mapper

I know. 2020! Cruises?!?!

But there they are.

You can filter by cruise company, and see where they are, right now, in the Earth’s oceans.

Onion Or News?

“Is the following headline from the satyrical The Onion or a real news outlet? Try to guess!”

Harder than you might think (especially this year.)

Et voila! Les links du vendredi.

I hope your Friday is fantastic.

Stay safe. Stay warm. Stay sane.

See you next Friday everybody.

ad

Happy Friday… the thirteenth! [orchestra!!]

I hope things are as well as they can be where you are. This year. It does not stop…

But now! To the links!

The Queen And The Crown

A pretty excellent virtual showroom of the costume design and art direction for The Crown and The Queen’s Gambit.

Created by Netflix. Quite well done.

Note: if you haven’t seen the shows, this site does feature some spoilers. I am a huge, huge fan of the Queen’s Gambit.

Short Trip – Alexander Perrin

“Short Trip is the first instalment in a collection of interactive illustrations created for the web.”

More info here.

There’s a hint of Richard Scarry going on here and I am here for it.

Van Gogh Worldwide

“Van Gogh Worldwide is a free digital platform providing art-historical and technical data about the work of Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890).”

Browse, virtually, the complete works of this seminal artist.

Tower Climb

Click on the side with no spikes to continue climbing. Also: climb faster than tyhe rising water / fluid.

Quite challenging!

Donald J. Trump Presidential Library

“This Presidential Library is an attempt to provide the American and International communities a place to reflect on what the rise of White Nationalism has meant to our country and try to eradicate it from our political discourse.”

Featuring a “Covid Memorial”, a “Wall of Criminalty”, and an Alt-Right Auditorium.

It appears to be a genuine thing. It has open hours, etc.

Sent in by quite a few subscribers.

We have reached the end for this week.

Thanks for following along. I hope your weekend is most excellent.

Stay safe! See you next week.

ad

Yaaaay it’s Friday!

And it’s November. And where I live, we’re experiencing bizarre high temperatures. (Not normal!)

But it’s Friday! And it makes me happy.

Links time!

Noises Online

It describes itself as “Premium Masking Sounds”. It’s a series of ambient loops of nature sounds like rain, ocean waves, birds, etc.

Click to play. Long-click to stop. You can turn all of them on if you want (!!!)

Kind of interesting.

Slinkachu

“Slinkachu (b. 1979, Devon, UK) has been “abandoning” his miniature people on the streets of cities around the world since 2006. His work embodies elements of street art, sculpture, installation art and photography and has been exhibited in galleries and museums globally.”

This is extremely detailed work. Really well executed. Lovely.

The Great Plague of 1665 Through the Eyes of Samuel Pepys

“We ask ourselves: how did people feel then about the threat of the illness, since they did not know what caused it and had no cure? How did they cope, emotionally, with its impact? What role did government play in the control of the epidemic, if any?”

Sounds familiar, hey?

An interesting read.

Tok Tik Color Pick

As you watch different colors drip into a can of paint, try to predict what the final color will actually be.

It’s super challenging. A weird little game but I liked it.

Alright! Links! Friday!

Friday Links!

Have a great (abnormally warm?) weekend!

See you next Friday.

ad

Look out it’s Friday!!

And it’s the last Friday of October 2020. That was super fast.

And Happy Hallowe’en!

Links time let’s gooooooo…

The House on Blue Lick Road

This is… quite the story! And such a bizarre structure!

It used to be a church, then a christian school, and most recently was owned by a bunch of criminals who used it to store stolen goods inside it.

The architecture is super confusing! The 3d walk-through is both interesting and really frustrating.

This is making the rounds but I thought it was still worth sharing in case you somehow missed it.

Origami Simulator

“This app allows you to simulate how any origami crease pattern will fold. It may look a little different from what you typically think of as “origami” – rather than folding paper in a set of sequential steps, this simulation attempts to fold every crease simultaneously.”

Really beautifully executed. Wow.

It doesn’t make fully clear how to do the folds or in which sequence. But holy cow look at the complicated examples they have.

Somewhat making the rounds, deservedly.

Just Scream!

“Wait for the beep. Scream. Hang up. That’s all there is to it.”

They have a daily collection. [https://justscream.baby/listen/]

Bow Mania

A fun, challenging, addictive little game. Hit only the apple on top of a person’s head.

It’s fun to try to do each shot super fast. It’s hard, but it’s fun!

And there we go! Linkkkkkked up!

Happy Friday everybody!

See you next week (month)!

ad

Well happy Friday everybody.

So good to see you again. And look! It’s Frrrriiiiidaaaayyyyy!

Links time!

Vocodes: Vocal Playground

Not just any text to speech site. They replicate – fairly accurately – anime and cartoon voices as well as several celebrities.

This is amazing!

12 Sunsets: Exploring Ed Ruscha’s Archive

“Originally captured as the medium for Ed Ruscha’s creative work, the more than 65,000 photographs selected from this archive present a unique view of one of Los Angeles’ quintessential streets, Sunset Boulevard, and how it has changed over the past 50 years.”

Quite an interesting project. I wonder how many other cities this would be possible with (using existing archival imagery.)

h/t: Kottke.

NYC MTA Subway Map

I don’t live in New York, but if I did this would be a godsend!

Live subway status including real-time subway train location.

A pretty great making-of video is available as well.

Stackhouse

A fast-paced stacking game. Stack until you can’t anymore.

It’s challenging! Kind of tense.

As you can tell from my score, I’m not very good at this one. 🙂

Sent in by Treena A.

‘Scooby Don’ Impressionist James Austin Johnson on How to Impersonate Our Dying Wet President

Look i know we’re honestly all SICK TO DEATH of hearing his voice, but this impression is absolutely amazing.

“That’s the main thing I focus on, is that this is a rasping old man who is inches from death at any moment.”

Sent in by Traci T.

And there we have it! Allllll linked up.

Happy Friday!

See you next week everybody.

ad

Hoorah! It is Friday!

And look: Links!

Let’s goooooowuh!

GANKsy

“We trained a StyleGAN2 neural network using the portfolio of a certain street artist to create GANksy, a twisted visual genius whose work reflects our unsettled times.”

These are, in my honest opinion, fantastic.

Weird, somewhat H. R. Geiger-ish, 2020 needed this.

You can buy prints of course.

Spooky Halloween Pies By Jessica Leigh Clark-Bojin

Holy crap LOOK at these!

Her Instagram is worth a follow for sure.

See also her Prince, Betty White, and Bruce Willis / Die Hard pies.

She’s a definite artist.

Calligrapher.ai

“Realistic handwriting generator. Convert text to handwriting using an in-browser recurrent neural network. Choose from various print and cursive styles. Customize the outputs and download as SVG.”

If you try the same method repeatedly, each try looks slightly different.

Super interesting.

Moto X3M Spooky Land

It’s fun!

Takes some practise to get the controls down. Fun!

And there you go: Links… For your happy Friday.

Have a great Autumn weekend everybody.

ad

Well hello there all you Friday people!

It’s links time!

And where I live, it’s a long weekend.

Let’s go!

Roland 808303.studio

A virtual Roland TR-808 Rhythm Composer, and Roland TB-303 Bass Line composer. In your browser. You can create new pieces with it and record them.

It sounds fantastic!

Lo-Fi Player

“Welcome to our magical room! By interacting with elements in the room, you can build

your own custom music stream.”

This is a bit basic but the idea is playful.

Penguin Of The Year 2020

“The original Penguin of the Year is back for a third year and it’s your chance to vote for the penguin that has captured your heart.”

From the National Aquarium of New Zealand.

Adorable.

I voted for Burny.

Last Ball

You roll the bar as far as you can and try to avoid obstacles and collect points.

It gets pretty challenging!

They made the playing area too tall for my laptop’s screen, so finding the restart icon took some time. Still good!

Huzzah!

Friday is now linked!

I hope your (long?) weekend is fabulous.

See you next Friday!

ad

Hello Friday!

And October!

And (where I live) cold!

It’s Friday Links time!

For The Last Decade, Artist And Collector Thomas Sauvin Recovered Discarded Negatives From A Recycling Plant Outside Beijing

“His Beijing Silvermine archive, one of the largest archival projects in China, now encompasses over 850000 anonymous photographs spanning the period from 1985 to 2005, thus allowing the reconstruction of a large part of the history of popular analogue photography in the country. This unceasingly evolving archive provides a visual platform for cross-cultural interactions, while impacting on our collective memory of the recent past.”

These are GOLD!

Also: So much smoking!

Small Scale L.A.

“I build miniatures inspired by my love of LA’s iconic businesses and historic buildings.”

These are fantastic!

h/t: MessyNessyChic

A List Of Things I’ve Learned About The Comic Book Industry Since I Got Into It In 1970, Many But Not All Of Which Still Apply

From Mark Evanier, who was mentored by legendary comic artist Jack Kirby

“#28: One of the biggest mistakes made by beginners involves the density of information. They try to convey too much of it in one panel or too little.”

Spot The Troll

This is where we are now, in 2020.

Sounds about right.

And so there we go. Links. On Friday. In October.

Have a great weekend everybody!

ad