A very poignant account of one family’s grief and search for meaning in the twenty years since 9/11. It’s hard to believe it was that long ago. An unthinkable tragedy.
Links
Tick tock ticker
A tech report from The Verge combining two of my favourite things — watches and anxiety.
Got a light?
Someone needs to buy Tomohiro Okazaki a lighter, he’s having serious difficulties with his matches.
How not to write html
Brutalist basketball
This member of the Japanese basketball team never fails to score. Perhaps there’s an Olympic sport I can get behind after all.
Take your time
With a title that recalls Wait But Why’s method of considering a typical lifespan that I’ve mentioned a few times here, Oliver Burkeman’s new book, Four Thousand Weeks: Time and How to Use It, almost sounds like an anti-productivity manual.
Take a shortcut
This hypnotically simple animation from Martin Wattenberg (previously) held my attention for far longer than I expected.
Scrolling to Mars
The South China Morning Post has a fun, animated visualisation of the Zhu Rong rover’s seven month journey to Mars and the three months spent orbiting the planet before finally landing. It makes it all look very simple, but it’s such a long way away.
Looking for your next read?
As great as these books from @paperbackparadise and @vintage_covers may seem, you might have trouble tracking them down on Amazon.
March 2020
It’s great to see xkcd’s latest cartoon is optimistically updating that depressing calendar from last year.
Just click and scroll
I had more fun than I was expecting with this little screen toy Trassel (Swedish for tangle, you’ll see why) from interface designer Hakim El Hattab.
Stark consequences
Another striking data visualisation from Mona Chalabi, this time a simple bar chart showing what happens to US police officers after they have killed someone.
Mac Chimes of Death
Last year I shared a link to someone recreating Windows start up sounds. Here’s perhaps the opposite, the sounds Macs made when they didn’t boot up properly.
Pattern recognition
I enjoyed the serendipity of hearing about Adam Curtis’s new documentary series on (amongst many other things) our fascination with conspiracy theories at the same time as being sent a Kindle discount voucher for Umberto Eco’s Foucault’s Pendulum. I haven’t re-read that in years, perhaps now would be a perfect time.
A Mexican spike
Every now and then my stats jump inexplicably, this time due to this tweet about Van Gogh, I think.
Still sounding good
I almost forgot to wish Mozart happy 265th birthday.
Some things never change
Hip to be the Sandman
It’s great to see Metallica dueting with Huey Lewis and The News thanks, once again, to the amazing video editing skills of Bill McClintock.
Nothing is harder to do than nothing
Waterstones has uploaded a lengthy, introductory extract from Jenny Odell’s excellent book, How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy. Vital reading. There’s also the video and transcript of the related talk she gave in 2017.
Warhol’s Monroe, but wooden
Timur Zagirov has converted another famous face, Marilyn’s this time, into a 3D, pixellated sculpture painting thing. An interesting partner to his re-worked Van Gogh, and much nicer to look at than that sculpture of her in Palm Springs.
