Beautifully sadly recognizable, this.

This is insane and satisfying and a surpising mix of a modern-feeling live-generated environment in a very old-fashioned feeling first-person 3D experience: "a nearly-infinite virtual museum generated from Wikipedia", built by Maya Claire.

I've known about Wernher von Braun's move from leading development of V-2 rockets in Nazi Germany to leading development of the Apollo program for ages. But I always imagined that they would have been working in an environment relatively sheltered/cut off from the Nazi regime's atrocities back in Germany. Not so. I find it amazing that the Americans didn't just take these men to the US and put their expertise to work in return for pardoning their war crimes, but that they put them in charge and made them stars and figureheads for progress.

Aside from the predictable answer to the title of this post, the study described shows that students did not notice the difference. Another example of students being unable to judge what is effective – just like in study strategies like rereading vs recall/testing.

A history of Netflix describing how it came to be full of content “designed to be played but not watched”. I've never understood why a subscription-based service feels so similar to ad-based platforms like YouTube, seemingly optimized to make you keep scrolling. I mean I've paid already, so surely it would be best for profit if I use the service as little as possible while still renewing (saving bandwidth and compute costs) instead of annoying me with a 10 second autoplay timer that can't be turned off. I still don't quite get it. But at least partially, now.

I find this essay beautiful in a way I find difficult to describe. It’s a sort of ‘Zen and the Art of Picture Framing’, I guess. But more personal, more lyrical. I love this genre of personal essay combining memoir with vividly material reflection on the smaller or more obscure parts of life and work. Found via a 2024 year-end top 10 list by the Electric Typewriter.

On ‘biological dark matter’, ‘obelisks’, and other utter mysteries in biology at the molecular scale.

This essay was resurfaced for me by The Browser. I don't think I agree with its analysis and conclusions, but it's difficult to put my finger onto why, exactly. Which is to say: a good bit of thought-provoking writing. On a fun topic.

The theory in question is Jevon's paradox. If you've never heard this term, go read this article.

An old school collection for use on websites or slides. Wonderful. I like 'Basketball', 'Food', and 'Shattered (Dark)'. All textures are CC-BY 3.0, according to an HN comment by the creator.

A browser extension that auto-answers cookie popups. Including the ones where you need to uncheck 20 separate options. Nice.

Regardless of how well this works, it's a great example of the kind of countercultural engineering I’d love to see more of at universities - but that almost can’t happen there due to their reliance on industry funding.

Well, duh.

A nice set of parenting ideas. Cultivating family traditions instead of defaulting to hap-hazard parenting is something I struggle with.

An exhaustive (?) collection 324 design manifestos.

Sara Hendren is one of those thinkers who, for me, bring deep and surprising insight to whatever they turn their attention to. Here she summarizes a series of blog posts considering what college she would like her children to attend – and in doing so develops a compelling and refreshing vision of what it is that higher education should strive for.