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.
Links
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.
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.
Not going anywhere #2
In the UK, the word of the year is obviously ‘lockdown’. Over in China, neijuan or ‘involution’ might be the key word.
It’s a sign
Noah Kalina puts up a Biden/Harris yard sign … with possibly predictable results. A concise illustration of how polarising politics has become.
Reasons why women shouldn’t vote
You know those suffrage posters? Turns out there was a book, too.
Screensaver dreams since 1999
I can’t believe Electric Sheep is still going. This distributed computing project for animating and evolving fractal flames has been going on for about 20 years now. One of the first things I put on my iMac.
Keeping an eye on them
Sleep on it
You can now get bedding complete with side pockets for your phones/tv remotes/fags. Something tells me that keeping these things so close might not be promoting a positive attitude to sleep.
Is three weeks enough?
So there’s to be a three-week delay for ‘most’ GCSE and A-level exams in England next summer. The main set of exams will start on 7 June and run until 2 July, apart from the English and Maths GCSEs, which will be held before the May half-term. Here’s the press release from the government.
