Jason Cosper

Category: Links

  • Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables, 05.18.20

    This content was imported from gomi no sensei, a project I briefly did during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead of maintaining yet another WordPress install, I’ve decided to shove this content into the everything bucket that is my long running personal blog. 🥴

    And it keeps coming and it keeps coming
    And it keeps coming ’til the day it stops

    LCD Soundsystem, Someone Great

    Sometimes, you get overwhelmed by life and let things fall by the wayside. You don’t mean to do it. It just sort of… happens.

    Eventually, you make it to the other side. But then you find yourself filled with the overwhelming desire to figure things out.

    So… what now? You can’t say “I’m never going to let this happen again.” because never sure as hell is a mighty long time.

    You’ve just got to find the thing that’ll work for you, and then try to do that thing for as long as you can.

    Anyway… How about some links?

    GMK Redacted Keycap Set

    Not to go all mechanical keyboard guy on y’all, but this pre-order (through June 2, 2020) for a keycap set with a number of redacted keys is very much my vibe.

    Stan Lee vs Rob Liefeld & Todd McFarlane

    Now, I know this video is 28 years old, but I found it while doing a deep dive on YouTube a couple weeks ago and it is fantastic.

    In it, Stan Lee lowkey savages Liefeld and McFarlane while they create one of the greatest examples of dumb 1990’s comic book maximalism, Overtkill.

    The Third Quarter of Isolation

    We may now be entering the dreaded third quarter of hollow-eyed stares, odd fixations and brooding resentment. Time grows sludgy. The days blur into the nights, and the weekdays into the weekends. You’ve hidden the notifications from a recently downloaded exercise app and you’re no longer telling people you’ll learn Italian. You begin to suspect that your friends have their own Messenger group.

    See also: Fuck the Bread. The Bread Is Over.

    Stealing Home

    In lieu of watching the Dodgers play baseball this summer, I’ve decided to read this instead and grapple with the complicated history of one of my favorite teams. (thx) 😬

    Tonight We Riot

    Over the past couple weeks, I’ve spent a decent amount of time playing this Switch brawler that allows you to control a whole movement of people trying to throw off the shackles of capitalist oppression. 🌹

    It’s unapologetically leftist, and I fucking love it.

    Bad Baby Names

    Why let Space Karen and Grimes have all the fun?

    P.S. Please join us in welcoming our new child, Dr. Bronner Paulblart, Reloaded. 👶🏻

    The Father of the Title Sequence

    On what would have been his 100th birthday, Criterion celebrates one of my all-time favorite designers, Saul Bass.

    This Word Does Not Exist

    AI generated words, with definitions. Some of them feel as if they’ve been lifted out of a William Gibson novel. (via)

    The Conspiracy Museum

    A short story by Robin Sloan for The Atlantic’s Shadowland.

    David Lynch’s Weather Report

    Back in the early aughts, David Lynch used to do the weather report for LA alternative station, Indie 103.1‘s morning show. I don’t even know why he did it, but I’ll be damned if I missed a single one of them.

    As of last week, he’s started doing them again and putting them up on YouTube. Even though I no longer live in LA, I’ve happily watched every. single. one.

    I Paint Any Ass

    You give them €40 and a photo of your butt and you get back a painting. Dunno what else to say about it, TBH.

    Jeez. Seems like I’ve been saving them up for a while, huh? 😂

    We’ll (hopefully) talk again soon!

  • Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables, 04.27.20

    This content was imported from gomi no sensei, a project I briefly did during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead of maintaining yet another WordPress install, I’ve decided to shove this content into the everything bucket that is my long running personal blog. 🥴

    I wish weekends felt more like weekends and less like days where I’m not financially obligated to sit at my computer. I need something relaxing, but everything rn is stressful and weird.

    Usually, when I’m feeling stressed, I take a few days off, pack the dogs and Sarah into the Jeep, and head out to Palm Springs or Pismo Beach. Don’t really have that luxury right now.

    I guess I need to upend my routine or something. 🤔

    Mini vMac 3DS

    The total lack of documentation on the GitHub page for this project is very much a “You’re on your own, bro.” sort of statement. But if you can get it to work — and people have — you can run System 7 on a 3DS. 😍

    GoldenHour

    A macOS app that adds a translucent, color temperature adjustable overlay on your screen.

    Pretty handy! Especially since all of the key lights that are worth a shit are sold out rn. (via)

    Baphomet Pee-wee Herman Sticker

    I mean, it’s kind of all right there in the title, isn’t it? (via)

    The Cool Quarantine, Episode 2

    I missed this when it dropped last week, but Henry Rollins is back with another 4 hours of great freeform radio.

    “Expert Twitter” Only Goes So Far

    Twitter was optimized for links and short musings. It’s not well suited for complex discussions or nuanced analyses. As a result, the feeds of these newly emerged pandemic experts are often a messy jumble of re-ups, unrolled threads, and screenshot excerpts of articles. We can do better.

    TL;DR: Get a blog.

    I’ve already got one, so I’m sure you can understand how I might be bullish about them… 🤣

    Five is good for today, right?

    Until next time, friends!

  • Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables, 04.23.20

    This content was imported from gomi no sensei, a project I briefly did during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead of maintaining yet another WordPress install, I’ve decided to shove this content into the everything bucket that is my long running personal blog. 🥴

    We’ve got a war on our hands, people.

    The springtime gophers that have taken up residence in our back yard have been going off this year. When I woke up this morning, I found at least four new mounds of varying sizes scattered about.

    Last year, a heavy blanket of Uncle Ian’s all over our yard took care of them. But I checked the garage a few days ago, and found that I maybe have enough to funnel into each one of their mounds before flattening them back out.

    That’ll keep them away for a minute, but I’m definitely going to need to order more repellent. Maybe a sonic spike or two. 🤔

    Heaven forbid I have to go full Caddyshack on their lil asses…

    Porcupine Racetrack 2020

    Members of 90s comedy troupe The State reunite (virtually) to do a cover of their classic Porcupine Racetrack sketch.

    I’ve already watched the cover and the original at least five times each. It is very much my happy place. I hope that maybe it’s yours too.

    FAQ: Composting

    McSweeney’s comes through with a composting FAQ that goes off the rails very quickly.

    6 Feet Back or 6 Feet Under

    My buddy Derek made a new tee that’s perfect for anyone who’s courageous enough to wander outside rn.

    TiddlyRoam

    An open source fork of TiddlyWiki with features similar to the (eventually premium) SaaS offering Roam.

    I’ve been keeping my outboard brain in nvALT for ages, but before that I used Instiki. I kind of miss having a personal wiki, so maybe I’ll import some content over and try living with it… (via)

    Alright… I need to get a little exercise in before I start working on dinner. Only ~13 minutes worth, according to my watch.

    Cheeseburgers tonight! Pretty nice…

  • Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables, 04.22.20

    This content was imported from gomi no sensei, a project I briefly did during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead of maintaining yet another WordPress install, I’ve decided to shove this content into the everything bucket that is my long running personal blog. 🥴

    We’ve got a big one today. The next post might suffer for it, but why should I sit on all of these tasty morsels and end up get scooped by the likes of Kottke and Waxy? 😄

    Epidemic Lofi

    Let’s kick the day off on a chill note. This Soundcloud playlist from Epidemic Sound has damn near 200 songs worth of lofi hip hop vibes to get you through your day.

    I don’t know about you, but I’ll use whatever I can to get through my day at this point.

    Blind Users Struggle with State Coronavirus Websites

    Forty-one of the 50 state pages we surveyed contained low-contrast text, which can be challenging for users with low vision, including seniors, who are at higher risk in the outbreak.

    …

    Navigation was another challenge for users with visual disabilities. Thirty-one of the 50 state pages contained empty links or buttons, which means a screen reader will not be able to tell the user what the button does or where the link is supposed to go.

    😞

    Of course most of these sites are lousy on accessibility. People with disabilities tend to be an afterthought all over the web.

    Big Honking Button

    Why press Y to honk when you can press a big honking button instead?

    This is more than “just a button” though — it’s a hackable, one-button sampler that runs CircuitPython.

    Psilocybin Produced in Yeast

    Too bad there’s a yeast shortage, because I could really stand to get trip balls on some dough rn. 🍞

    Gophers

    Keep a gopher network alive in a post-apocalyptic wasteland – your community will thank you for it.

    I’m pretty fucked out on post-apocalypse shit at the moment, but I really adore the concept and style of this (free!) game produced as part of Ludum Dare 46. (via)

    98.css

    Nothing means anything anymore — and, as we covered the other day, the internet feels pretty 90s lately — so why not make something that looks like Win98? (via)

    People of the Pandemic

    An effective visualization of how a pandemic can spread through a community, masquerading as a game. 🦠🕹

    I find it interesting that the game uses the decisions of 19 previous players to inject a little entropy into your decisions. Because, in situations like these, you’ve always gotta worry about what the other assholes in your town are doing… 🙄

    MonoLisa

    I know what some of y’all are saying… “$350 for a typeface for my terminal?! Are you high?”

    I mean, a little. 😬 Don’t worry though — there’s also a more modest $70 version for the junior ballers in the crowd.

    Still, take some time to look at the specimen and fuck with the playground on the site. I’m sure you’ll agree that MonoLisa is a beaut.

    Hoo boy. 🥱 Let’s call it a day, shall we?

    Hope to see all you nice people back around here soon!

    P.S. I’m still crossposting these regular link dumps 💩 to my newsletter. If you’re still not reading RSS feeds because you haven’t quite gotten over losing Google Reader, you should subscribe.

  • Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables, 04.21.20

    This content was imported from gomi no sensei, a project I briefly did during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead of maintaining yet another WordPress install, I’ve decided to shove this content into the everything bucket that is my long running personal blog. 🥴

    Hrm. Today’s edition ended up being a bit rona heavy. Sorry about that. 😬 It wasn’t intentional, honest. I just went where the currents took me.

    If I could’ve posted about the ginormous bumblebee that’s been going HAM on the flowers outside of my office window since this morning, I totally would have — but I couldn’t find any links about it.

    C’est la vie.

    Rich Americans Activate New Zealand Pandemic Escape Plans

    This lede… 😳

    As coronavirus infections tore across the U.S. in early March, a Silicon Valley executive called the survival shelter manufacturer Rising S Co. He wanted to know how to open the secret door to his multimillion-dollar bunker 11 feet underground in New Zealand.

    The tech chief had never used the bunker and couldn’t remember how to unlock it.

    🙄

    1. This asshole clearly needs to read Cory Doctorow‘s Masque of the Red Death.
    2. I already know the answer to this, but what sort of prepper doesn’t even bother to familiarize themselves with the shit that’s supposed to keep them alive?

    (via)

    Amoeba Music Needs Help To Survive

    One of my all-time favorite record stores is running a GoFundMe to help keep the lights on in these times:

    All three of our stores have been closed since mid-March and must remain closed indefinitely. With no way to generate income, our savings are running out, with bills and rent coming due, and with a primary commitment to our staff, who we are trying to keep as healthy and financially sound as possible.

    They’re still shipping out online orders too, so consider picking up some music or merch if GoFundMe isn’t your bag.

    Webcomic Name Face Masks

    Everybody’s selling face masks now. But I only know of one person selling face masks with the punchline from Webcomic Name on them…

    Stripe Is Silently Recording Your Movements on Its Customers’ Websites

    They claim to be doing this in the name of fraud detection — which is a very necessary thing in the eCommerce world — but I’m still lowkey cranky about this. (via)

    How to Fix Virtual Cameras in Zoom 4.6.9+ for macOS

    People use virtual cameras for a lot more than Zoombombing, so I’m glad that someone has figured out how to work around the restriction Zoom put in place with version 4.6.9 of their software on macOS. (via)

    What Self-Isolation Has Taught Us About Cooking

    As someone who has never cooked at home as much as he has in the past couple months, this article from the Serious Eats team shows that even the pros are learning new things and having their fair share of problems.

    All I know is that — as someone who is exhausted by endless dishes and overwhelmed by meal planning — I really needed to read it. Maybe you do too.

    Leave Philly Alone

    I would like variations on this fantastic t-shirt for every municipality, please and thank you. (thx)

    Okay, y’all… Enough sitting at my desk.

    Since the weather here will be in the eighties the rest of the week — and continuing to rise 😩 — it’s high time to get out of the house and enjoy the rest of this partly cloudy 73° F day.

  • Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables, 04.20.20

    This content was imported from gomi no sensei, a project I briefly did during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead of maintaining yet another WordPress install, I’ve decided to shove this content into the everything bucket that is my long running personal blog. 🥴

    Fetch the bolt cutters — and happy super 420 — it’s time for some links!

    Star Wars Videoconferencing Backgrounds

    If whatever y’all are using for videoconferencing allows you to load virtual backgrounds, the official Star Wars blog has released a metric crapload of great ones.

    I popped into a work meeting from the Millennium Falcon this afternoon and it felt awesome.

    Setting Up Your Computer for Remote Work, Podcasting, Videos, and Streaming

    Speaking of videoconferencing, this resource from Matt Stauffer has helped me think about how I need to step it up on the video front — both because I work from home and because I’m a regular on the best WordPress podcast in the game.

    Seinfeld Adventure

    The pitch: What if Monkey Island, but Seinfeld? (via)

    Why Does It Suddenly Feel like 1999 on the Internet?

    I thought it was because I follow a handful of people on Mastodon who have been:

    1. Building stuff on the Gopher inspired Gemini protocol.
    2. Getting super into HyperCard.

    But nope, looks like the internet is running in classic mode for more than just me. 🤔

    Why Does WordPress Notify Google That I’m Writing This?

    Turns out that the WordPress block editor (AKA Gutenberg) loads Google’s Noto font from Google servers every time you go to write or edit a post.

    From a privacy standpoint, that’s not great, Bob. But at least there’s a way to disable it.

    Papercraft Computers

    If you’re looking for something to do — and all the puzzles you look at seem to be on back order — why not try a little vintage hardware papercraft? (via)

    Alright… So that’s Monday.

    Guess I better go start dinner and watch last night’s Westworld before the internet spoils it. 😬

  • Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables, 04.16.20

    This content was imported from gomi no sensei, a project I briefly did during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead of maintaining yet another WordPress install, I’ve decided to shove this content into the everything bucket that is my long running personal blog. 🥴

    While I didn’t get to cut out of work early yesterday, I did get to drink a beer by the pool. And it was everything that I thought that it could be.

    Maybe I can do it again today, before I start whipping up dinner. 🤞🏻

    P.S. I decided to try something new with the layout for this post. It looked wack in the RSS feed though, so back to the drawing board I guess…

    Avatarify

    Wild AI generated avatars for video calls. Zoom as Mona Lisa… Skype as Albert Einstein… Go live on Twitch as Steve Jobs…

    Currently requires a system with a beefy GPU. MacBooks need not apply. 😞

    Didn’t I Write This Story Already?

    Naomi Kritzer on her 2015 story “So Much Cooking” about a food blogger living through a global pandemic.

    I haven’t read this before, but it just made it to the top of my pile. (via)

    Tsundoku

    Speaking of my to-read pile, earlier this year I learned that the Japanese have a word for book hoarding, which I identify with very deeply. Maybe you will too.

    Chasing a Ghost

    Robin Sloan — one of the authors to consistently make it out of my to-read pile — explains the ghostly fade-out effect seen during title sequences of older movies.

    Neven’s Pizza Dough

    When you want to graduate from cooking bread with that sourdough starter you’ve been working on, consider Neven Mrgan’s pizza dough recipe.

    And since we’re mixing it up today, let’s finish things off with with a quote…

    Civilized life, you know, is based on a huge number of illusions in which we all collaborate willingly. The trouble is we forget after a while that they are illusions and we are deeply shocked when reality is torn down around us.

    JG Ballard

    See y’all again real soon! ❤️

  • Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables, 04.15.20

    This content was imported from gomi no sensei, a project I briefly did during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead of maintaining yet another WordPress install, I’ve decided to shove this content into the everything bucket that is my long running personal blog. 🥴

    It’s 82° F and clear in Bakersfield today. The sort of day that, TBH, we don’t see all that much. Late spring through early fall is, usually, oppressively hot, and late fall through early spring tends to be right above freezing. So days like today are a treat.

    I probably ought to cut out of work ~30 minutes early — before the sun gets too low — go sit on a lounge chair by the pool, and tell myself “If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.“

    Other Music

    An amazing looking documentary on iconic NYC record store Other Music. They’re doing a virtual screening April 17–20th in partnership with a bunch of indie record stores, including my local fave. (thx)

    We’re on the Brink of Cyberpunk

    While Blade Runner’s once-distant future of November 2019 feels resonant in so many ways—vast corporate power, persistent surveillance, life in a time of constant crisis—it misses the actual 2019’s most salient feature: an inescapable, painful awareness of politics and of the presence or deliberate absence of government in daily life.

    Our dystopia is already here — it’s just not evenly distributed. 🦾

    Flipper Zero

    Speaking of cyberpunk, this portable “tamagotchi for hackers” meets hacker multitool looks like a blast. RFID, Infrared, GPIO out, rubber ducky emulation, iButton support… 🤯 (via)

    PowerWash Simulator

    One of my favorite things to do after a stressful day is throw on a pressure washing video and just sort of zone out.

    Okay, so now that you know that, you’d better believe that I was thrilled af to discover this game — which just dropped as an early beta. I was less thrilled to see that it’s (currently) Windows only, but I’m hopeful that it’ll be easy to port elsewhere because Unity.

    I don’t know about you, but I’m good with calling it a day at four links. 🤷🏻‍♂️

    Guess I should go grab a tallboy out of the fridge and pull up a lounge chair before the sun up and calls it a day.

  • Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables, 04.14.20

    This content was imported from gomi no sensei, a project I briefly did during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead of maintaining yet another WordPress install, I’ve decided to shove this content into the everything bucket that is my long running personal blog. 🥴

    It’s been one of those “lowkey overdo it on CBD, listen to white noise for five hours, and try to get work done” sort of days. Y’all have those too, right? 😬

    Zooooom.us

    A macOS screensaver that simulates an increasingly absurd Zoom call.

    I’ll stick with Brooklyn — lest I give myself an anxiety attack over thinking that I forgot about a meeting — but I’ll keep this in my back pocket for future pranking purposes. (via)

    Airbreak

    What we have done is to “jailbreak” the the AirSense 10 CPAP machine, a common, low-cost sleep therapy device intended to treat sleep apnea, so that it is possible to run additional tasks on the device. These new tasks add the features and adjust the range of parameters that make it possible to use the device as a temporary ventilator.

    This is incredibly clever. My only hope is that it doesn’t drive up the cost of the AirSense 10 and its supplies on the CPAP grey market as people start to panic buy them up.

    ArduBee

    I’m not really a drone guy, but I do like the concept of this small, hackable, open source powered, mini drone kit (allegedly) coming soon to Kickstarter.

    Arcade Game Typography

    Vintage video games and deep dives into typography: two great tastes that taste great together. (via)

    Okay, that’ll do for today. How about a nap? 💤

  • Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables, 04.13.20

    This content was imported from gomi no sensei, a project I briefly did during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead of maintaining yet another WordPress install, I’ve decided to shove this content into the everything bucket that is my long running personal blog. 🥴

    Alright, International Brotherhood of Indoor Kids! How about we get back at it?!

    Ugh. Do we really have to though? Mondays were already tough, but Mondays in these times are like peddling a heavy mountain bike up the steepest hill you can think of from childhood in first gear. 😞

    Guess I should stop pedaling so hard and just walk the damn thing up the hill, huh?

    Twelve Hours of Satellite of Love Ambient Noise

    crysknife007’s YouTube channel is a veritable treasure trove of nerd friendly white noise, but I’ve got a soft spot for the low, rumbling background noise used on MST3K.

    Don’t forget to turn down your lights (where applicable). 😉

    Bar None

    I’ve had a Touch Bar MBP for ~3 years now, so I’ve grown to used to having a virtual function row on my machine. Hell, I’d even go so far as to say that I like my Touch Bar.

    Still, I love this tool by Shaun Inman that disables the Touch Bar unless you’re holding down the fn key. (via)

    House Industries Lettering Manual

    New book alert!

    One of my all-time favorite type foundries is publishing a gorgeous looking book — based on their wildly popular lettering workshops — that drops tomorrow.

    Totally snuck up on me, but I’m glad Mike tipped me off to it.

    TIC-80

    An open source fantasy computer for game development, with an inexpensive — and totally optional, but still useful — Pro version.

    🤔 Wonder if I can manage to get this running on my old PocketCHIP… (via)

    Pro Chefs Make 13 Kinds of Pantry Pasta

    I’m really glad that the Bon Appétit Test Kitchen crew are still making videos from home. Here, a whole bunch of them improvise a ton of different pantry pasta dishes.

    Social Distancing and the Resurgence of Drive-In Theaters

    I’m a great believer that mental stability is as important as physical stability. If people don’t have a certain amount of normalcy in their life, it’s going to affect them.

    John Watzke, Owner, Ocala Drive-In Theater

    I’ve got a lot of fond memories of going to the drive-in with my parents in the eighties. Double features… Sneaking in giant Tupperware bowls full of air popped popcorn and way too much butter… Bulk bags of M&Ms and Whoppers…

    If we get a mini drive-in boom over the next few months, definitely I wouldn’t be mad about it. 😃

    Okay. Bike’s up the proverbial hill. Time to coast now. See y’all again soon!

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