November 2024 blend of links
Some links don’t call for a full blog post, but sometimes I still want to share some of the good stuff I encounter on the web.
Skyblock: The Great Potato War・Last year, I got the chance to catch up with the work of Technoblade, the late Minecraft YouTuber gone way too soon, and I was not disappointed. You don’t have to know anything or even care about Minecraft to enjoy the pure fun and joy of these videos. I must have watched this particular series a dozen times already.
Nieman Lab. Predictions for Journalism, 2025.1・Each year, the Nieman Journalism Lab manages to treat its readers with this list of predictions, and each year, this is one of the most interesting things to read online. Precious.
Extremism won, and journalism helped・“It makes me deeply sad to believe that most journalists will stick with what they have done for years now: business as usual. Or, I should say, malpractice as usual. The consistent failure of our top political journalists and their organizations has been a deliberate failure. They have relentlessly normalized extremism, and in this election they outright refused to seriously confront the implications of vicious right-wing rule in America, much less lift a finger to prevent it. The majority of journalists, I believe, will maintain the ‘neutrality’ that has been so destructive to democracy.”
Near 2,143 McDonald's: An unfiltered global tour through Google Street View・I’m pretty sure this book will either end up on my coffee table or wrapped in gift paper at the bottom of the Christmas tree this winter. (via Meanwhile)
Here’s Why I Decided To Buy ‘InfoWars’・You’ve probably seen the news of the Onion buying Infowars by now, but this fake column from the fake CEO has been one of the most enjoyable reads of the year.
How it went・John Gruber shared a very beautiful and sad story earlier this month. While the post is very well written, hearing the story on his podcast was especially moving. The rest of the episode is pure gold, as are all episodes of The Talk Show where Merlin Mann is the guest.
Solving the true age of Cassius, the world’s largest captive crocodile who died last week・Well, I didn’t know crocodiles could live that long, and I certainly would have never suspected that such an animal would be the centre of such a moving story.
One Billion Users: The Social Media Card Game・This game, created by the people at Techdirt, looks great, and I hope the Kickstarter goal will be reached. As a kid I loved playing Mille Bornes, and this game apparently shares a lot of its mechanics, so I guess at least one copy will head to my home next summer.
Wipr 2・My favourite Safari extension got a big update this month, and if you’re a Safari user, I cannot recommend it enough.
Blend of Links Archive・Now that this monthly collection of links is sizeable enough to be at risk of repeating itself — I may have forgotten that I already shared something and post the link twice — I figured I needed to keep track of everything I shared, grouped by category. This lives on Google Sheets for now, but I will try to move it to something open-source soon. In the meantime, I hope it will give you the opportunity to revisit some of the great links that have been shared here over the past year or so. UPDATE: this table now lives on Baserow. I will also add the link to all Blend of links posts.
More “Blend of links” posts here