As high-profile websites vanish, it’s a reminder that the web has no built-in archival layer.
But some publishers are now blocking the Wayback Machine.
What’s at stake if the web stops being archived? Our new FAQ explains: preserving the public record matters. 🌐📚 https://t.co/fifJnv3xiu
Kids these days probably don’t even know how to make micro-adjustments to their font sizes and page margins.
Back in my day, half the fun was figuring out whether you could turn a 9-pager into a 10-pager without the teacher realizing you set Times New Roman to 12.3 pt.
it’s a bit ridiculous to say “the time you spend scrolling could be spent building a business/writing a novel/reading the classics”. sometimes that’s true but usually scrolling happens as a result of cognitive fatigue, and the idea that you can just “swap in” another intellectually demanding task means you’re treating your body/mind as a machine
a better approach would be “the time you spend scrolling could be spent taking a stroll/napping/staring out the window/having a meandering conversation with a friend”. that’s both more palatable and probably what we’re actually craving when we reach for our phone: a brief break from the demands of life, and a time to let our mind relax
"Weird Al" credits Van Halen for helping him start his Hawaiian shirt collection.
"Van Halen had the thing where they had no brown M&M's in their rider, which they say they did for safety concerns, sort of like the canary in the coal mine thing. 'Well if you don't get that right how are you going to get everything else right…' But I was just thinking, 'Oh, you can ask for free stuff, great: give me a free tacky Hawaiian shirt for every show that I do.' That year I did 200 shows, so I got 200 shirts. That was a jump start for my collection."
(via @rockschoolpod)
📸: Ron Adar / Shutterstock
The greatest trick George Lucas ever pulled was retroactively making the first movie Episode IV and then convincing a shocking number of people that he had this whole thing planned out all along
These two giant turtles have been fighting each other for more than 120 years.
According to the zoo, one turtle stole the other’s food 120 years ago, and since that day they became enemies.
There hasn’t been a single day where they don’t fight for 2–3 minutes😂
Arctic wolves have had almost no contact with humans, so they haven’t developed avoidance behavior.
They calmly approach people, observe them, and don’t run away.
At the same time, they usually don’t show aggression — instead maintaining neutral behavior, driven more by curiosity.
I introduced 6yo to Calvin and Hobbes a month or so ago. She seemed exasperated; she wasn’t getting the jokes. I dropped it, thinking she wasn’t quite ready.
Turns out she’s secretly stayed up late every night for weeks reading it. She makes vocabulary lists for it. She cites Calvin’s altercations with Moe and Susie for moral guidance. She asked her teachers for homework so she could try resenting homework (which didn’t work, she found the homework fun). She is treating one of her stuffed bears as a Hobbes: “She likes to take naps on the floor while I’m away and scare me when I come back home.”
There's a bit in the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy (written in 1979) where the heroes come upon an intergalactic flight has been grounded for thousands of years.
Its automated systems told it not to launch until it was fully stocked up with lemon-soaked paper napkins, for the comfort of its passengers. But the surrounding civilization collapsed, and the napkins never arrived.
Consequently it put all the passengers into hibernation (waking them once every few hundred years for coffee and biscuits) until such time as another civilization might arise, and restock its lemon-soaked paper napkins.
The Guide is a more accurate and prophetic account of modernity than most Very Serious Science Fiction writers could dream of creating.