I bring you the finest Internet reading in my weekly Linkfest — It’s Wednesday. You’re ploughing through a short workweek, if you’re in the US of A. Celebrate getting through the first day … … with this Linkfest: My collection of the finest reading material on the Internet! To begin … 1) 📷 Skateboarding photos of Clarence Klingebiel My friend and bandmate Lizzie Caplan recently met Clarence Klingebiel, a…

What we can learn from technology that’s designed to be stepped on — Last weekend I played my first gig with my new band, Lipstick Driver. It’s a three-piece power-trio, in which I play electric guitar, so I’d spent the last month assembling a new pedalboard. That’s the board, above! Over the last few weeks, I’ve spent hours and hours fiddling with those…

The amazing power of the “slow hunch” — In his terrific book Where Good Ideas Come From, Steven Johnson wrote about a fascinating aspect of big ideas: They take a long time to bake. We like to think that big ideas come from a sudden “aha” moment, but as Johnson argued, this most often isn’t true. He investigated…

It’s because of “timbre” — the secret ingredient in pop music — Last night I killed it at Heardle. My wife was playing the game, which — for those who aren’t familiar with it — begins by playing a mere second of a pop song. You try to guess which song it is. If you can’t, it’ll give you increasingly longer chunks…

I bring you the finest reading each week in my Linkfest — Monday! Eh. I can’t solve the beginning of the workweek for you. I can only divert you — with my weekly Linkfest, offering the finest online readings I could scavenge across the Internet! To begin … 1) 📷 The sumptuous cyanotypes of Rosalind Hobley Rosalind Hobley is an artist who works in cyanotype, one of the earliest forms…

A new survey shows that life is getting dicey for election workers — In late 2008, I travelled around the country reporting a story about electronic voting machines. Back then, there was widespread distrust of the machines. Many people worried they were hackable, and that someone could rig an election. That included Democrats who worried about an inside job, because the Republican CEO…

They’re idiotic, selfish forms of noise pollution that do nothing to deter crime — I recently brought my car — a 2010 Hyundai Elantra — into the shop to have the air conditioner repaired. “While you’re at it,” I told them, “please disconnect the car alarm.” My car alarm had, I’d discovered, begun malfunctioning and going off for no reason. Here in Brooklyn where…

I bring you the finest reading material every week in my Linkfest — Friday! The week is nearly done. And so, thus, are you. Stop working, folks. You can pretend to toil while you flip open dozens of tabs, filled with the Internetal delights of my weekly Linkfest — the best online reading, collected by moi pour vous. 1) ♾️ The “infinity roof” of Daoming Town Daoming Town in Sichuan Province…

It transforms your bike into a machine for hauling tons of stuff — When it comes to cycling, I’m not a big gearhead. I don’t ride an expensive cycle; I have an entry-level one that’s pretty heavy, actually. I don’t wear cycling shoes that clip into the pedals. …