March 28, 2022

NESTED! Cat gap, moustache cups, the fastest object, almost Pong

Hello, guys, gals and non-binary pals. Hope you’re having a lovely spring time and that it will last wherever you are 😎  Here’s some links I wanted to share with you this month.

Wikipedia is the best website

• Moustache cups were popular in Victorian times, when waxed moustaches were much more common; they have a small ledge inside that allow the drinker to sip tea without having wax melting into the cup.
• Euro English is a variant of English spoken in continental Europe, particularly around EU institutions. It’s characterised by using some false friends from Romance language (“actual” for “current”, “eventually” for “possibly”, “how is it called?”) and introduces the concept of clusivity.
• You can find a Rednaxela Terrace in Hong Kong, taking its name from a transliteration mistake of the name “Alexander” read backwards.
• Bertha Benz did the first cross-country journey in an automobile by herself and it was certainly… a JOURNEY.
• The cat gap is a period of about 7.5 million years during which there are very few fossils of cat species found in North America, with disputed explanations.
• Anywhere on Earth designates when a day has passed everywhere on Earth (in practical terms, that’s UTC-12).
• A list of people claimed to be (re)incarnations of Jesus (astonishingly, it does not include Jesus himself).
• The Adventures of Tintin: Breaking Free is an anarchist, pro-union parody of the original, noted for its accuracy of drawings.
• Coffee palaces were a type of alcohol-free hotel, popular in Australia in the 19th century.
• Some parts of England have gurning contests where you should show your ugliest mug.

Slurpp

Mildly interesting

• Some delightful notes about video games and the economy.
• The McNamara Fallacy warns of the over-reliance on metrics to make decisions.
• The Evolution of Trust is an interactive guide to the game theory of why & how we trust each other.
• An art collector has been in a legal saga for 25 years with Jeff Koons, who refuses to authenticate a sculpture he may or may not have actually made.
• The fastest object made by humans was a manhole cover sent into space. With a nuclear bomb. Before Sputnik.
• Humans having a poor sense of smell is a 19th-century myth.
• An explanation for how does perspective work in pictures (and why that moon is so small when you try to photograph it but it’s so big in front of your eyes).

Everything is depressing

• Researchers found decades ago that venting doesn’t make you feel better.
• Please stop making the Ukraine war about you.
• It’s a couple years old but I missed this gross thing: Facebook paid teens to install VPN that spied on them.

Good to look at

• It’s your friends who break your heart, a beautiful essay.
• The educational methods of Maria Montessori have a very interesting history.
• Simon Beck makes ephemeral art in the sand and the snow.
• Almost Pong is an addictive mashup of Pong and Flappy Bird.
• Big fan of these guillotine earrings, sported by some after the French Revolution.

In my ears

• Wet Leg - Chaise Longue (pop-punk / UK / 2021)
• Jim-E Stack ft. Lucky Daye - Next to Me (hip-hop / US / 2022)
• Bria - Green Rocky Road (country rock / US / 2021)
• Evinha - Esperar Pra Ver (Poolside & Fatnotronic Edit) (disco / brazil / 2017)
• Danny L Harle - On A Mountain (ascendant vierge version) (harlecore / UK / 2022)
• new charli xcx duh

Work! Design! Tech!

• Beating imposter syndrome in user centred design.
• A simple system to decide whether you should build a feature or not.
• A great guide for doing good pair programming, and common antipatterns.
• How to get the most out of your 1:1s at work, whichever side you’re on.
• An excellent designer’s guide to documenting accessibility.
• How to do less by prioritising better.
• An insightful guide to typography for developers (and why it’s so bloody complex).

May your crops be bountiful,

Victor