Via Kottke, this is more fun than expected. Admittedly though I had seen musician Dustin Ballard’s intriguing series “There I Ruined It” but dismissed them as a bit too jarring (of course delivering as promised) after a few seconds, however, we know have a restored appreciation for favourite songs, lovingly destroyed—like Eminem v Mario.Whoops there goes gravity.
Monday, 25 September 2023
featured ruinations (11. 023)
Saturday, 9 September 2023
7x7 (10. 991)
trochilinae: a look at the evolution of evolution of hummingbirds—see previously
uranometria: a comparative study of constellations across cultures—via Web Curios

lightning 4-2: a record-setting speedrun of Super Mario Bros
zero width non-joiner: let AI generate a custom emoji—note the cursed thumbs up/down icons—via Waxy
extended-stay: Plato’s Cave (previously) will be raising its rent—via JWZ
halcyon days: a slow-motion look at the kingfisher’s dive
synchronoptica
one year ago: Stone Temple Pilots plus the proclamation of King Charles III
two years ago: more on DC statehood, the Battle of Teutoberg Forest (9 AD), rewilding begins at home plus assorted links to revisit
three years ago: the establishment of Washington, DC (1791), the disputed Hans Island, a lighthouse transformed plus AI supervillains
four years ago: more on the moons of Jupiter
five years ago: Trump threatens to remove US troops from Germany plus an expansive pattern library
Tuesday, 22 August 2023
8x8 (10. 957)
☃️: brr (previously) on electricity and power generation at the South Pole
blogoversary: Miss Cellania reflects on eighteen years of blogging

ascertainment bias: people who submit to genetic testing and studies are predisposed for it—via Kottke
pulmonic egressive sounds: an individual who can talk backwards—via the new shelton wet/dry
lending-library: appealing an injunction, the Internet Archive removes commercially available titles from its public database—via Waxy
it’s-a me: the voice of Mario, Charles Martinet, retiring after a quarter of a century
ษส: lignuists observe the birth of a new accent forming among Antarctic communities
synchronoptica
one year ago: the State of Idaho, assorted links to revisit plus the plague of overtourism
two years ago: Petra rediscovered (1812), the moon Iapetus, more links to enjoy plus My Little Occult Book Club
three years ago: a canine saint, AI poetry plus happy birthday Ray Bradbury
four years ago: returning to the Bretange
five years ago: dualling Trump trial coverage, a Romano-Gaul called Ultragoth plus gravity wells and potential energy
Wednesday, 19 July 2023
6x6 (10. 895)
choose your own adventure: the rise and fall of type-in narrative games, an addendum to Fifty Years of Text Games (previously)—via Waxy
collective nouns: a group of butterflies is properly a kaleidoscope, whilst a swarm of caterpillars is an army—see more
tayme that crabbe: a medieval guide to food presentation
the blobs are happy in their new, hand-build wizzinator and that’s all that’s important to me right now: experimenting with a fun physics sandbox—see also
jennyanydots: a favourite Mountain Goats’ character returns
Wednesday, 21 June 2023
8x8 (10. 825)
the restaurant of mistaken orders: a pop-up establishment in Japan serves a lesson in compassion along with its dishes
specimens of fancy turning: these late nineteenth century lathe patterns look like spirographs

mercurial: more on the found and lost planet Vulcan
monk parakeets: over a decade living in Wiesbaden, these invasive birds went from rare, doubtful sightings to absolute flocks
area sacra: assassination site of Caesar and since taken over by semi-feral cats opening to the public
รฑ: the origins of the letter with a diacritical tilde
evergreen appeal: once considered dire sustenance only, pine-based cuisine in Nordic countries is becoming fine-dining
Saturday, 29 April 2023
famicase (10. 705)
In what’s become an anticipated yearly tradition, various artists, like the pictured from Zach Roy, conceive, develop and design cartridges for Famicom video games—what might be more familiar as the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) was first released in Japan in 1983 as the Family Computer. Exhibitions have been hosted annually since 2015. What 8-bit everyday adventure would you create?
Thursday, 20 April 2023
126³ (10. 687)
Via Present /&/ Correct, we are directed to the superb Tiny Voxel Shop series by Shin Oh. Working with three-dimensional pixels—from volume + pixel, which in turn is from pics + element—became therapeutic for the artist working through depressed and dispassionate point and hopes the collection of typical Malaysian shops and stalls will be an inspiration for others to cherish and conserve small local businesses and the distinctive character that they bring to communities, once lost gone forever. More at the link above.
Friday, 14 April 2023
9x9 (10. 673)
photo booth: a self-meme generator that uses AI—via Web Curios
1up: the Super Mario Brothers’ theme inscribed in the US National Recording Registry—via Miss Cellania

acta et vita: today is the feast of Lidwina, patron saint of chronic illness and ice- and roller-skaters
spring break: a look at the highdays and holidays of Old London—via Strange Company
jubilee: US Supreme Court ruled against blocking cancellation of student loan debt—see previously
the real macguffin: the Holy Grail of grail stories—with plenty of references to pop-culture
double-feature: raw footage from a video rental store on a Friday night in 1987—what titles would you have picked?
robo boys: an untethered large language model builds on a college years group chat with insights on the process of AI fine-tuning—via Waxy
Sunday, 9 April 2023
hidden mickeys (10. 663)
From subtle homages, hidden tracks and hidden levels to surprise features and the first known such subversive addition—in a text-editor in 1968 that completed the maxim “Make love—not war” when the first half of the chant was keyed in—which gives a credit, an attribution to an otherwise anonymous programmer, Tedium presents an omnibus edition of easter eggs in software applications. Comparing the moment of serendipity that the discovery presents both for the finder and the culprit coder to the burst of joy—fleeting or enduring and inspired that—that one gets with the unexpected virtuosity of a human-AI collaboration, everything about the usually interfaced being terribly planned and predictable, albeit one of the many present detractions from its use as a tool as something more convincing rather than reliable, introduces an interesting sidebar about the fate of such surreptitious gems once machines take over programming and entertainment. There’s also a link to the Easter Egg Archive listing hidden surprises in other media including films, television and home appliances. My favourite sort of easter eggs come in the form of a visual reference hiding in plain sight from the Disney tradition, and the reminder that She-Ra: Princess of Power—and more recently Adventure Time—has a cameo-character appearing in the background of one scene per episode. In the case of the Etherian series, the figure was called Loo-Kee, a chipmunk type creature, who (and happily have no memory of this) would reappear before the closing credits and ask the audience if they had found him before relating the moral of their just concluded narrative. What are some of your favourites?
Saturday, 4 March 2023
๐๐๐๐ (10. 589)
Language Log directs us to the ongoing puzzlement over a grouping of four emoji—from the original set created in 1998 for DoCoMoNTT (the only symbol predating this innovation being the ❤︎) and what cultural context prompted the inclusion of these four particular characters, surmising that they were a reference to gaming menus but with no compelling narrative for their inclusion—instead, like most other stories about these glyphs, have found novel and dynamic use outside of the laboratory—see also here and here.
Saturday, 18 February 2023
8x8 (10. 555)
konekon no rakugaki: an imaginative 1957 cartoon from the studios that would become Toei Animation
the riddle of today: Nelson Riddle’s “Sunshine Superman” and other tracks

the remorse of professor panebianco: a selection of short fiction one can read from its annals for the centenary (today) of Weird Tales—see previously
ai mirror test: misattributing software for sentience to review before exploring this two-hour conversation with a robot interlocutor—via Waxy
80s cold war techno thriller: the trailer for a Tetris movie—see previously, see also
secondhand songs: an exploration of original versions upstaged by later covers—via the Awesomer
my green crocodile: a 1966 stop-motion Soyuzmultfilm
Tuesday, 7 February 2023
7x7 (10. 531)
business vulnerable: dress codes for your wedding to confound invited guests

fanilect: more eggcorns and mondegreens in misheard lyrics to Taylor Swift songs
gaming like it’s 1927: annual public domain table-top project playing and remixing expired IPs—via Things Magazine
overworld theme: beatboxer recreates the songscape of Super Mario Bros. 2
only the shadow knows: a noir short by Fabrice Mathieu
family dining: Facebook to open Metaverse to children to try to rehabilitate flagging interest
assistant to the regional manager: the Great Resignation and unethical reclassification practises helped create inflated job titles
Monday, 6 February 2023
tetromino (10. 530)
Via the Awesomer, we are treated to the musical stylings of the artist JER and his rendition of the Tetris theme as a super-energising Ska cover. The folksong ‘The Peddlers’ (ะะพัะพะฑะต́ะนะฝะธะบะธ) has a ironical O Henryesque twist—the comedic courtship of two young fabric-sellers takes a tragic turn when one rejects the gift of all of the other’s wares in order to encourage him to stay in the business and ends up being mugged after a successful day of sales—somehow seems ripe for the genre. More chiptune adaptations from The Skatune Network at the link above.
Sunday, 5 February 2023
native client (10. 528)
Via Clive Thompson’s latest Linkfest, not only are we directed to a collection of emulators of graphing calculators like the example pictured but are moreover educated in the method reproducing these classic interfaces using MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator, an open-source tool to re-create hardware as software, previously)—a collaborative bit of programming by Nicola Salmoria to ensure that historic coding isn’t lost to the ages and that virtual consoles can exist within all sorts of operating system and browser environments. More at the Emulation Station at the hyperlinks above.
9x9 (10. 527)
famous one hundred twenty-three metre spire of salisbury cathedral: Polish coast guard rescues divers near critical infrastructure who were searching for amber
macroagression: some GOP members in the US congress have switched their American flag lapels for tiny assault rifles—see also
backbox: watch composer and sound designer Suzanne Ciani, Diva of the Diode, create a soundscape for a pinball game

mastodon flock: find your following—via Waxy
cel-ray: a peppery, celery soda that one can still find for sale
rosetta stone: two trilingual ancient clay tablets rediscovered help scholars decipher a lost Canaanite script
brought down by the left-wing economic establishment: Liz Truss attempts to revive her political career with a long screed in the Sunday Telegraph
sรฆstrengur: Iceland developing contingency plans in case the undersea cables connecting it to the rest of the world are severed
Monday, 23 January 2023
6x6 (10. 492)
zhengyue 2: the second day of the Lunar New Year is considered the birthday of all dogs

i shot the serif: US Department of State drops the typeface Times New Roman in favour of the more legible Calibri font
yellow magic orchestra: watch performances by the Japanese group that created some of the most innovative and influential acts in electronic music
odonymy: more open etymological street maps—see also
tet: a short, hand-drawn game about cooking and serving a Vietnamese holiday meal—via Waxy
Saturday, 7 January 2023
8x8 (10. 395)
notional counting: amateur archaeologist proffers the theory that markings on ancient cave paintings may communicate information about quarry animals’ life cycles—pushing back the origins of writing ten-thousand years
social recession: declining trust, friendship and adult activities by the numbers—via tmn

arrakhis: the European Space Agency launches a tiny satellite to search for dark matter
metroid as directed by paul verhoeven: imaging 90s video games as feature films—see previously
little d: a Defender-style camper conversion kit unveiled at the Tokyo Auto Salon
upward falling payloads: proposals for an orbiting warehouse and fulfilment centre
mirabile scriptu: phony but possibly plausibly kanji generated by AI for abstract concepts—particularly appealing is one for the Chief Twit, ็ (pronounced wang, meaning king)
Saturday, 31 December 2022
implants—those aren’t your memories, they’re someone else’s—they’re tyrell’s niece’s (10. 377)
Courtesy of Super Punch, we learn that the publisher of the 1985 video game for Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum home computing systems loosely based on the 1982 film was unable to obtain a tie-in licensing deal and so declared that it was inspired by the Vangelis soundtrack instead—obliging players to listen to an unskippable opening sequence of two minutes of tinny, MIDI music. Gaming reviews were mostly unfavourable, calling it derivative of the hit adaption of Ghostbusters! from the year before.
catagories: ๐พ, 1982, 1985, Blade Runner, ⓦ
Thursday, 15 December 2022
7x7 (10. 386)
de-evolution: Dangerous Minds interviews Devo’s Gerald V Casale
risky ebay alternative: a round-up of poorly considered gift ideas from Tedium
๐️๐จ️: an infinitely recursive Game of Life—see previously—via Waxy
going to be out of pocket today: a Gen-Z lingo quiz—via Language Hat⊙
december will be magic again: a 1979 BBC Kate Bush Christmas Special with guest star Peter Gabriel
crack that whip: the group’s signature song was inspired by Thomas Pychon’s Gravity’s Rainbow
Tuesday, 13 December 2022
9x9 (10. 381)
deep field: JWST scans the skies
mar1d: in-game action as our protagonist would experience the Mushroom Kingdom—like Flatland—via Kottke

even a cat can look at the queen: an exhibition of fine feline art
tumbleword: a daily challenge from Jer Thorp—via Waxy
math and the mechanics: the surprising origin story of the Cura Calculator
cervoise: brewer informed by ancient herbal and unhopped beer predecessor
world in motion: New Order’s 1990 World Cup anthem—via Digg
splash down: Artemis’ Orion capsule (previously) returns after a perfectly executed trial run