I bring you the finest reading material in my weekly Linkfest — Thursday has arrived. The workweek is 4/5 done. Instead of dutifully toiling at your cubicle/kitchen-table, why not rebel? Take an hour off! And peruse the fruits of the Internet, which I have lovingly gathered in this Linkfest, just for you. Let’s begin … 1) 👽 Using ultraviolet light to turn desert plants into extraterrestrials I dig the photographer Cody Cobb’s new…

Hectic, dangerous, and requiring constant vigilance — just like a first-person shooter — Cycling in New York City is incredibly dangerous. I do it a lot; in the last week — while running errands, shopping, going to meetings or visiting friends, plus some pleasure cycling — I’ve pedaled about 80 miles. But with each trip I’m in a state of constant hypervigilance. I’m…

Weird, revealing, and incredibly fun to read — When I’m bored and worried about falling into a Twitter hole, there’s one thing that can always divert my attention. Going over to the Internet Archive and perusing the incredibly weird ads of early-20th-century Popular Mechanics. What, you haven’t already discovered this yourself? You’re in for a treat. Popular Mechanics…

I bring you the finest Internet reading in my weekly Linkfest — Okay, it’s laaaate Sunday and the official industrial-age workweek is about to start. Let’s instead chill out with the finest Internet reading … … in my weekly Linkfest. I am knocking myself out for you fine people, collecting this stuff! To begin … 1) 🎨 The geometric art of Sophie Taeuber-Arp Somehow I’d never heard of Sophie Taeuber-Arp…

How well can GPT-3 capture the gist of what I’ve written? “tl;dr, human” — You’ve probably noticed the rising tide of AI-generated prose these days. Marketers are using tools like GPT-3 to crank out ad copy; students are using it, on the down low, to pen college essays. …

How can an AI can play masterful chess, yet be so clumsy it breaks a kid’s finger? “Moravec’s Paradox” — If you follow nerd media you may have seen this clip above — of a chess robot accidentally breaking the finger of its opponent, a seven-year-old child. It’s quite distressing to watch! The robot is moving its pieces around, and the child reaches to grab a chess piece —…

We’ve monocropped streets — so they’re used almost exclusively for cars. Time to rewild — In the 1970s, the city of Utrecht in the Netherlands wanted to make it easier for people to drive downtown to shop. So they took a 900-year-old canal that ran through the city, and filled in a big chunk — turning it into a four-lane highway. …

I’m gonna savor every penny of my $125 settlement — You may have heard that Apple has finally agreed to pay restitution to every wretch who bought a Macbook Pro with a busted, terrible “butterfly” keyboard. It is, without doubt, the worst keyboard in history. I should know — for four years, I’ve been suffering through using it. In fact…

I bring you the finest Internet reading in my weekly Linkfest — Friday’s over. Week’s done! Time to relax with hours of fabulous Internet treats … … via my weekly Linkfest, of the best stuff I found online in a week of hunting. To begin … 1) 🔌 The spectacular circuit-sculptures of Mohit Bhoite Mohit Bhiote is a hardware engineer in San Francisco who makes astonishing electronic sculptures — by…