The best cat wand ever made
The best $10 you’ll ever spend.
I very rarely find the need to boast about an Amazon purchase but recently a friend of mine told me about this cheap retractable cat wand and it has made my cats crazy for play. I’ve tried all sorts of toys and gadgets for my cats and none of them seem to work as well as this $10 toy. Did I mention it comes in a 2-pack?!
Over 40,000 reviews seem to agree as well! This thing is a bargain for fun with your cats.
Hello Kitty and Friends Monopoly
The best Monopoly edition ever.
It finally happened after months of price-watching: The Hello Kitty Monopoly edition has gone on sale for $33!
This special Monopoly edition with Hello Kitty and Friends includes a fully customized board layout, special edition metal player pieces, and unique Monopoly money and cards. The same great classic game with a wonderful pink overlay.
OK GO - LOVE
A must-see music video!
Wow. Just wow. On a technical level this music video for OK GO’s “LOVE” is just impressive. Most music videos or movies would be trying to hide the rigs used to obtain shots but this music video incorporates those rigs into the actual video. And as with most OK GO productions, timing plays a huge part in the making of this video.
Why Pantone colors are so expensive
A rage-inducing video about the design industry and the hold that Pantone has on colors.
I feel for the designers who are stuck in the Pantone world. It’s a necessary evil to ensure quality production, but it really sucks that Pantone has recently been quite hostile to the people who are responsible for their success.
Fuji GFX 100 II as a Mini Alexa 65
Medium format stills camera rivals an Alexa Mini 65.
This is pretty spectacular actually that a “stills” hybrid camera like the GFX 100 II can actually deliver some incredible video specs on par with the Alexa Mini at a fraction of the price. Obviously, I know there are some use cases where the GFX won’t cut it, but by all accounts as budgets and crews get smaller, this is pretty phenomenal.
Honestly, it’s probably why the GFX Eterna exists.
How Clearview AI is stealing your face
Clearview AI technology knows your face!
A great interview between Kashmir Hill and Adam Conover about the dangers of facial recognition technology, specifically that of Clearview AI.
If you missed it, I wrote about the incredible book Kashmir wrote recently called Your Face Belongs To Us.
A cross section of a typical NYC street
A great cross section view of a typical street in Manhattan.
A lovely cross-section illustration from the book Decoding Manhattan. See more from The New Yorker in Manhattan as a Muse.
Your Face Belongs To Us
The scary reality of facial recognition technology today.
I just finished this book by Kashmir Hill about the rapidly advancing field of AI and face-recognition technology. I first heard about Kashmir’s research from a 2024 Search Engine podcast episode called “Should this creepy search engine exist?” where it was revealed that there is technology readily available that can put a name to a face in even the most obscure pictures.
The majority of this book builds up to the insane and scary practical implications of a technology in secret use today known as Clearview AI. For most of us who have been on the internet through all of its various stages in the 2000s, the fix is long gone. We are in some database somewhere even if we’ve tried to curb our internet uploads at some point. If you’ve uploaded a photo to Flickr, Facebook, Instagram, Venmo, or any social media platform in the last 10 years, we are cooked! Done. Finished. No going back.
If you are curious about how every public and private space has been eroded of every privacy assumption we’ve ever come to know, then pick up this book and read it.