The Morning News

An illustrated guide to North America's indie bookstores, by Jamise Harper and Jane Mount.

↩︎ Literary Hub 3h

Lockdown shrank our worlds—and our words. After losing vocabulary during the pandemic, a writer fights back.

↩︎ One More Question 3h

Macron denounces colonialism, but uses monetary policy to keep African ex-colonies tethered to France.

↩︎ Foreign Policy 3h

The new Fisher-Price Chatter Telephone can make and receive calls over Bluetooth.

↩︎ Gizmodo 5h

A trip to Agrafa, an area of Greece whose name means "unwritten," as it's so remote that it was once left off maps.

↩︎ BBC 7h

"There were a set of circumstances that will never be repeated." From the restrictions placed on Polish artists, a mine of design.

↩︎ Creative Boom 1d

A good repository here: "What useful unknown website do you wish more people knew about?"

↩︎ Reddit 1d

Adam Savage, former co-host of Myth Busters, attends Comic Con incognito with some very impressive hand-fashioned Ghostbusters gear.

1d

A hypersonic glide vehicle with the kinetic energy in its favor from an orbital-like delivery would likely be the very hardest to kill.

China recently alarmed Washington by testing “a nuclear-capable hypersonic glide vehicle.”

↩︎ The Drive

1d

A quiet San Francisco street is plagued by self-driving cars who love to visit and make a multi-point turn.

↩︎ KPIX 1d

With cargo and containers at a premium, toymakers are focusing on small, squishy gifts for the holiday season.

↩︎ CNN 1d

Liminal photos of ice castles, by Frankie Carino.

↩︎ Booooooom 4d

A research exercise finds nuking an incoming asteroid early enough could prevent "99% or more" of the debris from hitting Earth.

↩︎ Gizmodo 4d

A single film prop with two tubes and flashing lights has been used in countless sci-fi movies and shows.

via Kottke

4d

Missouri's governor wants to prosecute a journalist who discovered a state web app exposed educators' Social Security numbers.

↩︎ Motherboard 4d

The rectangular panels you see on almost all new constructions are there to conceal an air gap that protects the structure from decay.

4d

Today's algorithms inequality began with 19th-century railroad barons, whose libertarian streak beget the rise of Silicon Valley.

↩︎ Fast Company 4d

Data visualizations explain how, at companies where institutional sexism exists, fewer women reach executive levels.

↩︎ The New York Times 4d

"We love to tell ourselves these stories about who we are and aren't." Why generational labels are bullshit.

↩︎ The Atlantic 4d

"Goodness knows when my house will be built. I don't." Letters detail the time Edith Carlson fired Frank Lloyd Wright.

↩︎ The MIT Press Reader 4d