Archive

Tony's Pick

A lot of the datavis content that gets attention on the internet is more about looking cool than about improving understand of the data. This one is an exception for me. It communicates a lot of data quickly in a relatively obvious way, and with a clear narrative. Brilliant!

Climate change go "shwoosh shwoosh"

Kyle's Pick

Tony's Pick

This demo is a real banger because it combines several newish technologies to create a valuable product that otherwise could not exist. Bonus: there’s not a whiff of crypto bullshit.

That poor corn kid

Kyle's Pick

Tony's Pick

Check out the Public Domain Review. It’s a contemporary web publication that plumbs the depths of content in the public domain. They cleverly monetize the operation by selling prints of public domain images, among other things. Awesome! This greatly aligns with parts of my personal philosophy informed by the likes of Creative Commons, Cory Doctorow, and Kirby Ferguson.

Did you know really big elephants are actually buildings?

Kyle's Pick

Tony's Pick

More space stuff from me this week. You may have heard that the Artemis I mission is set to launch this week as a trial run for the systems that will send humans back to the moon. If you’re a space nerd like me then you probably also know that the SLS rocket and capsule are a cobbled together Frankenstein’s monster of tech from the cancelled Constellation project and the Space Shuttle. My official pick is this video from the YouTube channel Real Engineering about the SLS, but this mostly an excuse to share this crazy fact: it’s not just Space Shuttle tech - The SLS for Artemis I is literally built with engines salvaged from decommissioned Space Shuttles.

These engines have already been to space

Kyle's Pick

Tony's Pick

You’ve probably heard of the “observable universe”, or all places in the universe we can currently observe, which is essentially defined by the speed of light. Here’s a new one for me: the “affectable universe”, or the areas of the universe that we can affect by way of sending light. BUT because the universe is expanding, the affectable universe is shrinking at the same rate that observable universe is expanding. As time goes on, we can see ever more of (the past of) the universe while our ability to impact the universe is ever more constrained.

Not pictured: Tony

Kyle's Pick

Tony's Pick

I’m a sucker for a minimal-nonsense deep dive into technical topics unrelated to my areas of expertise - especially infrastructure. Austin Vernon has several bangers. I’ll point you first to this one about smart grid if only because it provides a great overview of the US grid in general. If you have a good time with that, maybe check out this one on nuclear energy.

more like the alone star state, amirite

Kyle's Pick

Tony's Pick

This tweet introduced me to the Flipper Zero. It’s described as a “Multi-tool Device for Geeks” but it’s much cooler than that. I have no need for it in my daily life, but that doesn’t stop me from wanting one in my bag.

Kyle's Pick

Tony's Pick

Things are picking up steam in the CCS (carbon capture and store) space. I just learned about Noya, which is based on a clever premise. If you put DAC (direct air capture) tech in places where huge volumes of air are already moving, you get higher rates of capture and the cost to the move the air is already sunk. Their target: HVAC cooling towers. (I previously linked to Charm and Climeworks, which are great because you as an individual can pay for verifiable, durable carbon sequestration. )

You see, the air goes in and carbon comes out

Kyle's Pick

Tony's Pick

Turns out people haven’t wanted to work for a long time.

Will someone please think of the editor?

Kyle's Pick

Tony's Pick

This Slate article makes the case for the return of the residential hotel in the face of, and as a solution to, our growing affordable housing crisis. I never knew this was a thing outside of the old west, despite those episodes Season 2 of Mad Men when Don Draper lived in a hotel. I just thought it was an impossibly luxurious thing for a top ad executive to do. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Just chilling at home with my bud

Kyle's Pick

Tony's Pick

I was recently introduced the STAR Voting system. It’s an interesting alternative voting mechanism that combines score-based voting with runoffs. For use in capital-D Democratic processes, I’m not sure this is more grokable to the average voter than Ranked Choice, but I like the innovation. Maybe give STAR a try for your next roadmap meeting or group dinner?

She's so lucky, she's a star...voter

Kyle's Pick

Tony's Pick

As many of my past picks probably indicate, I’m very into the details of our built environment. One of my favorite cul-de-sacs in that information space is the fact that the Dutch build some of the best transportation infrastructure in the world. This twitter thread is a good light introduction, and basically any video from Not Just Bikes will give you a spicy deep dive (this older one about traffic calming is a good starting point.) I hope you find yourself radicalized about infrastructure!

Paradise is A Dutch Woonerf

Kyle's Pick

Tony's Pick

I’ve recently developed a small passion for ultramarathons, or foot races longer than a marathon. If you didn’t know, ultras have aid stations at various points along the race and it’s very common for runners to have a crew to help them. Check out Hayden Hawkes, in second place at the time, come in to the 30 mile aid station at the Western States 100 this past weekend. This is next level, like a pit stop at an IndyCar race!

arms up, shirts off

Kyle's Pick

Tony's Pick

You may or may not be familiar with the source material from this article (I wasn’t!), but it’s still fascinating to learn what was possible with creative use of clever technical knowledge in early film!

Real time image of Kyle giving feedback on pull request

Kyle's Pick

Tony's Pick

This week I’ve got another Apple TV+ show that’s past it’s cultural moment. For All Mankind is good! In case you didn’t know: it’s an alt-history show that posits a world where the Soviets beat the US to the moon. It’s bit of a juicy soap opera and certainly requires some suspension of disbelief as the seasons progress, but it’s also full of cool space stuff. Season 3 has just started, so you’ve got a back catalog to catch up on.

How do I get a jumpsuit?

Kyle's Pick

Sorry for the late send this week - it was all Kyle’s fault.

Tony's Pick

More content for the “neat hardware hacks” file. Charlie Gerard used inaudible sounds to send Stripe payment info as a kind of lo-fi wireless payment dubbed ultrasonic payments. I had no idea this tech was in widespread use already, mostly for creepy advertising stuff:

Tony's Pick

We finally watched Severance. I’d avoided it because the previews made me think there was an overt horror component. I was wrong about that and everyone recommending it is right. It’s really great TV, and well worth a month of Apple TV+ if you don’t already have it.

Kyle's Pick

Tony's Pick

Bionic Reading showed up a few times in my Twitter feed, but I’ve actually been using it for awhile in my mobile RSS reader (Reeder, and yes I inexplicably still subscribe to RSS feeds.) I can’t speak to the purported improvements in cognition, but I do find I read a bit faster and it’s a bit easier to read long passages for long periods. When I sent this to Kyle he said “That seems clever and I might hate it”, so it’s a win-win for me.

Kyle's Pick

What We're Up To

We’re working on a prototype for the world’s first Souls-like table tennis game, tentatively titled Doink Souls. Along the way, we struggled to find a good beginning tutorial for Playdate SDK development, so we wrote one. You can check it out here:

https://github.com/mostlybits/playdate-unlicensed-paddle-game-tutorial<

Tony's Pick

I recently stumbled across Victionary, a Hong Kong-based publisher of art, design and illustration books. Mostly they make very specific reference-style books, like this one about signage and wayfinding or this one about retail packaging for coffee and tea. Interestingly, they also make childrens books and travel guides. One of everything for me, please!

Kyle's Pick

Tony's Pick

I’m back on crazy hardware hacks this week. Check out this insane Volumetric Display using an Acoustically Trapped Particle. It uses ultrasonic waves to levitate and move a tiny foam ball to create images. They even use color LEDs to apply color! The video gets pretty technical, but you can ignore all that if you want and just look at the thing in action. Nuts!

It's a butterfly!

Kyle's Pick

Tony's Pick

If you’re not using Yoink, you should be! It dramatically improves the experience of dragging and dropping files in macOS. Protip: add it to the share menu so you can quickly share open files (like a downloaded PDF in Preview.)

I used yoink to get this image into this newsletter

Kyle's Pick

Tony's Pick

Last Friday was Earth Day, and my inbox was full of (dubious) marketing messages on that theme. It reminded me: most carbon offsets are indistinguishable from scams, at least if your goal is actually shifting the balance of carbon in the atmosphere. But real, durable, verifiable, carbon offsets do exist from Charm and Climeworks, and they sell directly to consumers.

Kyle's Pick

While Tony was out, I started playing with the Playdate SDK. This is my first time using Lua. As someone who mostly writes Ruby and JavaScript, it feels fairly natural so far. And the SDK has a lot of nice convenience methods, like a built-in A* pathfinding algorithm and a way to display a native “Use the crank!” alert for games that require it.

Tony's Pick

Similar to last week’s pick, John Calhoun’s recent e-ink project is a fun hack on esoteric hardware with an artful result. Consider me inspired! Now I just need to figure out something interesting to make with a thermal printer, an e-ink display, and all the servos I have lying around…

Not pictured: Oregon Trail

Kyle's Pick

Tony's Pick

I have a real soft spot for projects that hack esoteric hardware for some low utility fun. Andrew Schmelyun’s GitHub Issue receipt printer lands squarely in that zone. 

Kyle's Pick

Welcome to our inaugural issue! Each week, Tony and Kyle will share something interesting we’ve been reading about or playing with. Sometimes we’ll also share a sneak peek of something we’re working on or a shared pick.

Some things we’re into and/or trying to get better at include programming, design, games, music, art, marketing, running, hardware, gadgets, and sustainability.

Tony's Pick

I find buildings fascinating, and the challenge of designing spaces for human use is very compelling to me. That’s why I aspire to design and build a house some day - and I can only hope I do as thorough and thoughtful a job as Emmanuel Quartey is doing with his family home.