Links
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flurinduerst/WPDistillery: WordPress Setup runner for Scotch Box
Handy - create a Vagrant virtual machine with WordPress installed and configured. An oddly opinionated default config, but easily tweaked.
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Link Review: weblogs round-up | things magazine
Summarising which of the weblogs in their sidebar are still active. Not many. Remember weblogs?
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Sleep Ambient HD - YouTube
Six-hour recordings of ambient sound and video from different games like GTA5, Tomb Raider, Mirror’s Edge, etc. (via @mattb)
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From Friends to Frasier: 13 Famous TV Shows Rendered in Plan | ArchDaily
From 2014, fan-made floor plans of several US sitcom sets. (via Things Magazine)
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Famous TV Shows Brought to Life with 3D plans | Drawbotics
Including Parks & Rec, Mad Men, The Office (US). (via Things Magazine)
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Doomsday Prep for the Super-Rich - The New Yorker
Grimly fascinating of course. At least there are a few people quoted suggesting that maybe spending money on making society less like to collapse might be a good idea instead. (via Kottke)
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The Linguistic Evolution of ‘Like’ - The Atlantic
On the recent uses of “like” in English. More interesting than I expected and, thankfully, not at all condescending.
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The Disquiet Junto Project List (0001 – 0265 …)
A weekly assignment for composing music. “The purpose of the group is to use constraints to stoke creativity.” A nice list of all the projects. (via Russell Davies)
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What can a technologist do about climate change? A personal view.
From November 2015. I don’t feel any less useless but it’s a great way to present a piece of writing. If only every news article had such clear extra context.
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Untangling the Tale of Ada Lovelace—Stephen Wolfram Blog
Nice summary of Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage. I realised how little I actually knew about them. (via @cityofsound)
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Rose tinted memories of BBC Backstage
“I’m pretty sure it’s no longer enough for organisations to be ‘open’ because no matter how hard you try, eventually that just becomes PR and marketing fluff. Much better to aim to be porous.”
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The tech of PIXAR part 1: Piper – daring to be different | fxguide
I liked this not just because it’s amazing (every grain of sand on the beach is an individual model) but because it’s not written with normal people in mind: crammed with jargon and brand names with no explanation. An almost understandable glimpse of another world.
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10 things I learned making the fastest site in the world
Lots of handy, funny, tips. (via someone, a while back)
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continuum | Flickr
Although I love Chris Dorley-Brown’s photos, I hadn’t seen this series he’d done before. Photos, both by him, of the same London locations years, or decades, apart. Nicely done.
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Interview with Chris Dorley-Brown | The Great Leap Sideways
Lots of interesting things about his great photography, and about London, in this 2012(?) interview. “London is really still cleaning up after a war that ended in 1945.”
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My investment-tracking spreadsheet | FIRE v London
Fairly complex spreadsheet for tracking investments across multiple (UK) trading accounts.
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jlund/streisand: Streisand sets up a new server running L2TP/IPsec, OpenConnect, OpenSSH, OpenVPN, Shadowsocks, sslh, Stunnel, and a Tor bridge
“It also generates custom configuration instructions for all of these services. At the end of the run you are given an HTML file with instructions that can be shared with friends, family members, and fellow activists.”
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That One Privacy Site | Detailed VPN Comparison Chart
What it says.
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Guide to Getting Good Gloves
Handy summary of different kinds of men’s leather gloves.
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How I Got My Attention Back
Craig Mod on being more careful with when and how he’s online. As “I gave up the Internet” articles go, more thoughtful and realistic.
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The Mind of Marc Andreessen - The New Yorker
Long May 2015 profile of Andreessen. Very interesting, although it only sort of points in the direction of any criticism rather than being critical about anything. (via @kevin2kelly)
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I wore men’s clothes for a month – and it changed my life - The F-Word
On the liberation a woman felt wearing (not otherwise very liberating) men’s suits.
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‘Chasing Amy’ and the Toxic “Nerd Masculinity” of the 90s
“…a film that encapsulated the worst aspects of narcissistic nerd entitlement at its late-nineties peak…”
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The comedy book index, part 3: Toast on Toast – Paula Clarke Bain
The London Review of Fictional British TV Stars’ Memoirs’ Indexes.
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End of Unrealised Schemes
“…a display of index cards and envelopes, created and collected by cinephiles to record what films they’ve seen…” Looks great, and makes my collection of cinema tickets seem half-hearted.
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Die, Workwear! - The Ideal Coat Wardrobe
Nice overview, and nice examples, of a few overcoat styles.
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Spectacle, Speculation, Spam on Vimeo
Lots of this went over my head so I can’t quite tell if it’s good, but it was interesting, (via Russell Davies)
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The Strange Death of Municipal England (London Review of Books)
A good read, especially if you’re feeling all full of optimism about a new year and need to be brought crashing back to earth.