Neal Stephenson’s great essay about undersea cable laying is a perfect example of what one of my favorite writers does best: take an incredibly dull subject and turn it into the most interesting and exciting story. This text resembles In the Beginning was the Command Line but better - because it’s about an utterly unfamiliar theme which hasn’t dated as much as his 1999 comparison of computer operating systems.
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Erik Wernquist’s Wanderers offers some perspective.
Jason K. Smith’s Beautiful Programming is a great collection of P5.js sketches.
This is an old one, but entirely appropriate, either as a celebration of things done, or as a celebration of what just feels right in times that feel so, so wrong. The Most Satisfying Video in the World, as compiled by Digg editors. Beware that searching for The Most Satisfying Video in the World on YouTube opens a Pandora’s box of endless satisfaction. Do that at your own peril.
Things that never cease to amaze: Demoni by Theodore Ushev, in which vynil records are turned into Zoopraxinoscope discs through the syncing of the camera shutter with the record player’s rotation.
Ushev is the author of the incredible Sleepwalker (trailer) I watched at this year’s Cinanima animation film festival (where Demoni had won an award a few years back): as if Oskar Fishinger’s classic films had art by Joan Miró, but in an effortlessly undated way. Nice.
Noya and Bill Brandt with Self Portrait (Although They Were Watching This Picture Being Made), by David Hockney (1982). A fascinating pience on its own merits, discussed as metaphor in Frank Chimero’s great speech about responsive web design and technological determinism The Web’s Grain. Go read it, now.