content: 2026-07-17 capture run — 26 finds across 9 productive sources
Shortlisted 11; review candidates: porcelain-room-aranjuez, we-are-rewind-pink-floyd-cassette, best-made-sailors-knife. Dedup caught 11 re-serves from 07-16 before writing, plus 2 items re-served after being dropped on the bar yesterday (Samsung Music Studio 5, Project AirLink pants) — dropped again on the same grounds. Verification corrected the record on three finds: Gear Patrol's Sailor's Knife hook was wrong (the century-old salvaged Cumarú is the handle, pulled from the Panama Canal after 113 years under water — the blade is new Robert Herder stainless); the Armenia "Donatello" is studio-of, not autograph; the Transformers set is a September preorder. Two vendor stats omitted as unverifiable. hock (A.Word.A.Day) dropped on the alcohol rule despite a strong etymology story. Amazon: 2 links added, 2 dropped on the same-model rule. Sources: no maintenance changes; 3 Reddit subs held on 429 throttling (not skipped — r/macapps succeeded from the same host). 2 new nominees.
@@ -161,3 +161,10 @@ Goal of this round: expand `gifts` coverage with sources that lean Amazon-purcha
|
||||
### 2026-07-16 capture round
|
||||
|
||||
- **No new nominees this run.** The organic feeds surfaced no fresh outbound "via/h-t" credits worth adding. The standing backlog remains the priority for vetting — highest-conviction, repeatedly re-surfacing: **The Public Domain Review**, **Michael Tsai**, **MetaFilter**, **Colossal**, **Craig Mod / Ridgeline**, and **Nomadico** (the last three all read a step downstream through Kottke / Cool Tools already). Adding any of these to sources.json is a user decision.
|
||||
|
||||
### 2026-07-17 capture round
|
||||
|
||||
- **Book Freak** — https://bookfreak.substack.com/ — Mark Frauenfelder's book newsletter, from the same Cool Tools Lab team we already read. Surfaced this run as the credited origin of Recomendo #523's "Deep Cuts" item (a monthly out-of-print book resurrected as a clean EPUB/PDF). Honest caveat: same curators we already get via Cool Tools and Recomendo, so the marginal yield may be low — but it's a genuinely distinct beat (books, not tools) and the site has no books axis at all right now.
|
||||
- **Psyche** — https://psyche.co/ — Aeon's psychology/philosophy sister site. Surfaced as Recomendo's credit for a "cognitive shuffling" sleep-technique piece. Weaker fit than the standing backlog: it publishes techniques and idea essays rather than buyable/usable things, so most of it would fail the bar. Flagged for completeness, not advocated.
|
||||
- **Considered and not nominated:** Wired (credited by Recomendo for an iPhone-accessibility piece) — a mainstream tech outlet, not a curated-oddity source. Fails the brief.
|
||||
- **Backlog unchanged and still the priority.** Highest-conviction, repeatedly re-surfacing: **The Public Domain Review**, **Michael Tsai**, **MetaFilter**, **Colossal**, **Craig Mod / Ridgeline**, **Nomadico**. Now 10+ unvetted nominees standing — worth a vetting pass.
|
||||
|
||||
@@ -2870,3 +2870,73 @@ Rotated from john-margolies-americana-archive (which had held since 07-15).
|
||||
Chosen over the run's other two graduations (tropfsteinmaschine-hamburg, moist-towelette-online-museum) and the existing pool on the two pick criteria — best hero visual and broadest, most immediately-legible appeal. The hero is the maker's own shot of the cream Clasica camper parked in an Oregon wildflower meadow with Mount Hood behind it: a warm, dreamy tile that reads instantly at thumbnail size and delights without any context — a cute retro caravan in a field of flowers. Appeal is broad (travel, design, the outdoors) and it is entirely benign, nothing that could read as endorsing harm.
|
||||
|
||||
Not tropfsteinmaschine: it has the richest *story* of the three (a machine growing a stalactite until 2496), but its hero — an industrial machine behind a glass wall in a museum basement — is visually ambiguous at tile size and doesn't telegraph its delight the way the camper does. Not moist-towelette: charming, but a photo of shelved towelette packets is a niche, low-contrast tile. Not holding john-margolies: its Donut Hole tile is strong, but this is a daily site and a fresh, equally-delightful review is exactly what the "don't look frozen" rule favors — rotating after a single feature day keeps the homepage moving.
|
||||
|
||||
## 2026-07-17 — capture run
|
||||
|
||||
Sources scanned: 59 total — 13 `fetch: skip`, 12 cadence-skipped (Carryology, Messy Nessy Chic, AFAR, Wallpaper* Travel, Web Curios, TidBITS, Brett Terpstra, Dr. Drang, Quote Investigator, The Marginalian, Things Magazine, Wikiquote — all weekly/monthly sources productive within their windows), 34 actively scanned. Of the 34: 9 productive, 22 empty / dup-only / dropped-on-bar, 3 blocked (r/shortcuts, r/BuyItForLife, r/dadjokes — HTTP 429, single attempt each).
|
||||
Productive sources: r/macapps (6), Atlas Obscura (4), A.Word.A.Day (4), The Awesomer (2), Gear Patrol (2), icanhazdadjoke (5), Cool Tools (1), Recomendo (1), Hacker News — Show HN (1).
|
||||
|
||||
Fanned out 7 scanner subagents (source clusters) → central dedup/bar/shortlist in the main session → 5 writer subagents (verify + files + heroes).
|
||||
|
||||
**Dedup did the heavy lifting.** The scanners surfaced ~40 candidates; 11 were already captured on 07-16 and caught before writing: tellie, mushroom-desktop-pet (re-served as "Shroomy", its new name — same app), prostir-zvuku, finbar, nanoclip, joolca-hottap-go, king-jim-kerita-folding-cutting-mat, outlier-sunwarp-sunguard, outlier-ultra-ultra-easy-shorts, still-titanium-brush-pen, braun-analog-digital-watch-step-counter. Two more were re-served after being explicitly dropped on the bar on 07-16 and were dropped again on the same grounds: Samsung Music Studio 5 (mainstream) and Project AirLink air-conditioned pants (ecosystem-locked, buyability unclear — the scanner independently reached the same doubt).
|
||||
|
||||
Captured finds:
|
||||
- mdv-markdown-viewer — MDV — source: r/macapps
|
||||
- voiceink — VoiceInk — source: r/macapps
|
||||
- text-catalyst — Text Catalyst — source: r/macapps
|
||||
- audiobo-audiobook-maker — AudioBo — source: r/macapps
|
||||
- speed-reader-rsvp — Speed Reader — source: r/macapps
|
||||
- panelet — Panelet — source: r/macapps
|
||||
- audiopen — AudioPen — source: Cool Tools
|
||||
- leaves-disk-treemap — Leaves — source: Hacker News — Show HN
|
||||
- ugreen-airplane-phone-holder — UGREEN Airplane Phone Holder — source: Recomendo
|
||||
- best-made-sailors-knife — Best Made Co. Sailor's Knife — source: Gear Patrol
|
||||
- we-are-rewind-pink-floyd-cassette — We Are Rewind WE-001 (Pink Floyd Edition) — source: Gear Patrol
|
||||
- sushi-chess-set — Sushi Chess Set — source: The Awesomer
|
||||
- transformers-mysterious-prime — Transformers Scooby-Doo: Mysterious Prime & Automutt — source: The Awesomer
|
||||
- porcelain-room-aranjuez — Porcelain Room — source: Atlas Obscura
|
||||
- celestia-pennsylvania — Celestia — source: Atlas Obscura
|
||||
- national-gallery-of-armenia — National Gallery of Armenia — source: Atlas Obscura
|
||||
- hubbell-rubbell — Hubbell Rubbell — source: Atlas Obscura
|
||||
- noodle-three-etymologies — Noodle — source: A.Word.A.Day
|
||||
- gamy-lexical-polygamy — Gamy — source: A.Word.A.Day
|
||||
- quote-murdoch-bicycle — "The bicycle is the most civilized conveyance known to man" — source: A.Word.A.Day
|
||||
- quote-doctorow-time-rich — "Never underestimate the determination of a kid who is time rich and cash poor" — source: A.Word.A.Day
|
||||
- joke-aware-wolf — Aware wolf — source: icanhazdadjoke
|
||||
- joke-sediment-beach — Thanks for all the sediment — source: icanhazdadjoke
|
||||
- joke-shakespeare-javelin — Shakespeare — source: icanhazdadjoke
|
||||
- joke-hands-down-clock — Hands down — source: icanhazdadjoke
|
||||
- joke-feline-well — Feline well — source: icanhazdadjoke
|
||||
|
||||
26 finds. Shortlist (11, ranked):
|
||||
1. porcelain-room-aranjuez — a room clad floor-to-ceiling in porcelain, lit by a chandelier shaped like a palm tree with a monkey climbing the trunk; best hero of the day (4112×3088 Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0). [review candidate]
|
||||
2. we-are-rewind-pink-floyd-cassette — a cassette player that ships with the only cassette pressing of the Dark Side 50th-anniversary remaster; clean studio hero, in stock. [review candidate]
|
||||
3. best-made-sailors-knife — handle is Cumarú pulled from the bottom of the Panama Canal after 113 years under water; the story survived fact-checking better than the source told it. [review candidate]
|
||||
4. transformers-mysterious-prime — the Mystery Machine transforms into an Autobot with swappable Shaggy/Fred/Daphne/Velma heads; delight is legible in one glance.
|
||||
5. panelet — binds 2–4 windows into one persistent workspace that moves and hides as a unit — a real distinction from Moom/Rectangle's one-time layouts.
|
||||
6. mdv-markdown-viewer — free Markdown viewer from the Itsycal developer; bundles a Quick Look extension and a CLI, watches the file and reloads on save.
|
||||
7. voiceink — fully local dictation, GPL v3, one-time license, no subscription and no cloud.
|
||||
8. national-gallery-of-armenia — a Chagall and a studio-of-Donatello Madonna, eight floors up in Yerevan; the surprise is the whole point.
|
||||
9. speed-reader-rsvp — RSVP reader that OCRs any non-selectable text anywhere on screen, not just in a browser tab.
|
||||
10. leaves-disk-treemap — disk-usage treemap drawn in terminal characters, so it works over SSH where WinDirStat/QDirStat can't follow.
|
||||
11. sushi-chess-set — maki rooks and shrimp-tempura bishops on a roll-up mat that stows in a bento box; heroless (Etsy hard-blocks this environment) but too delightful to bench.
|
||||
|
||||
Not shortlisted (captured, lower priority): audiopen (custom-style voice-to-text — real, but the AI-dictation axis is crowded and its virtue is softer than VoiceInk's local-and-open stance), text-catalyst (its image-OCR search is a genuine distinction, but the clipboard category stays saturated — same call as nanoclip on 07-10), ugreen-airplane-phone-holder (useful, cleanly Amazon-matched, but a commodity accessory), audiobo-audiobook-maker (narrow, and heroless — see below), celestia-pennsylvania (honest write-up of thin remains; a marker and some foundations don't carry a tile), hubbell-rubbell (charming — Batman on a motorcycle in welded scrap — but heroless), plus the two words, two quotes, and five jokes. Spread across the 11: 5 software, 3 physical, 2 travel, 1 heroless-but-delightful oddity.
|
||||
|
||||
Amazon links added: 2 (transformers-mysterious-prime — B0G2P7VN8F, exact Hasbro set, Amazon confirmed an official preorder retailer; ugreen-airplane-phone-holder — B0D7BWRHCY, title verified against the live listing). Dropped on the same-model rule: we-are-rewind-pink-floyd-cassette (the only ASIN found, B0F8QFZ4SM, is the generic "Edith, Pink & Green" WE-001 — not the Pink Floyd edition or its box set) and best-made-sailors-knife (boutique collab, not on Amazon).
|
||||
|
||||
Image-fetch notes: 13 of 26 finds carry a hero. No hero — sushi-chess-set (Etsy 403/429s to curl under every UA tried, WebFetch 403, reader-proxy hit a CAPTCHA — no image retrievable by any method), audiobo-audiobook-maker (all ten App Store screenshots carry marketing headline overlays — "Turn MP3s Into One Audiobook", "Make it look perfect" — all fail the overlay rule; a missing hero beats a noisy one), celestia-pennsylvania and hubbell-rubbell (no free Commons image of either site exists; declined to substitute a generic forest photo or use AO's copyrighted shots). Words, quotes, and jokes carry no hero (expected). Two og:image endpoints returned the SPA HTML shell rather than an image (text-catalyst, panelet) — real in-app screenshots used instead.
|
||||
|
||||
Corrections made in-body during verification:
|
||||
- **best-made-sailors-knife** — Gear Patrol's hook ("blade forged using century-old salvaged nautical materials") is wrong, and the truth is better: the *handle* is Cumarú reclaimed after 113 years submerged in the Panama Canal; the *blade* is new German stainless (1.4197.02, niobium-alloyed, convex-ground) from Robert Herder of Solingen. Written as the corrected picture. Also: $320, currently sold out with a waitlist — stated plainly rather than glossed. Best Made Co. is back under founder Peter Buchanan-Smith, who bought it back from Duluth Trading in Nov 2023.
|
||||
- **national-gallery-of-armenia** — the Donatello claim is real but nuanced: the Madonna and Child belongs to the *studio of* Donatello, not his own hand. Copy says "credited to the studio of Donatello". The Chagall ("Summer Residence") and two Kandinskys check out cleanly.
|
||||
- **transformers-mysterious-prime** — a preorder (opened 07-07, arriving September 2026), not shipping stock. Said so in the body.
|
||||
- **ugreen-airplane-phone-holder** — Recomendo's "folds flat" claim isn't in the product copy; body says "compact enough to toss in a bag" instead of asserting a fold mechanism that may not exist. Jaw range 8–25mm and MagSafe compatibility verified against the live listing.
|
||||
- **quote-murdoch-bicycle** — attribution traced to the source text: Iris Murdoch, *The Red and the Green* (1965), ch. 2. Holds.
|
||||
- **quote-doctorow-time-rich** — traced to *Little Brother* (2008), p. 87 — a novel, not an essay as it's usually cited. Noted in the body.
|
||||
- Unverifiable vendor stats omitted rather than repeated: VoiceInk's "99% accuracy" and Speed Reader's "80% faster / 250→450 WPM".
|
||||
- **hock** (A.Word.A.Day, 07-16) — dropped despite a strong multi-etymology story: one of its senses is a Rhine wine. Categorical alcohol exclusion.
|
||||
|
||||
Source maintenance: none. r/shortcuts, r/BuyItForLife and r/dadjokes all returned HTTP 429 while r/macapps succeeded from the same old.reddit.com/.rss host in the same run — the established per-subreddit throttling pattern, not dead sources, so all three are held rather than skipped (the real fix remains app-only OAuth; still no REDDIT_CLIENT_ID/SECRET in env or .env). No quarterly re-probe due. Watch item, not yet actionable: StyleForum's RSS now returns only spam/coupon-code threads with no real menswear content — one run of observation, so no change yet; if it repeats for two more runs it earns a `fetch: skip`. Also stale but already `as-needed`, so no demotion available: Roadtrippers Magazine (newest post 2026-06-09, and everything inside the window is sponsored content or listicles), A Continuous Lean (newest 2026-06-09), Snow Peak (newest 2026-05-16), Kikkerland (no products newer than 2026-03-24 on the /collections/new endpoint).
|
||||
|
||||
New source nominees: 2 (Book Freak, Psyche — see candidate-sources.md; Wired considered and declined as a mainstream outlet). The standing backlog is now 10+ unvetted and flagged for the user.
|
||||
|
||||
@@ -0,0 +1,13 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
name: "AudioBo"
|
||||
subtitle: "Merges MP3s into one chaptered M4B audiobook without forcing a 24-hour split"
|
||||
date: 2026-07-17
|
||||
link: "https://apps.apple.com/us/app/audiobo-audiobook-maker/id6754019673?mt=12"
|
||||
linkText: "AudioBo on the App Store"
|
||||
source: "r/macapps"
|
||||
topics: [macos-apps, music-and-sound]
|
||||
tags: [audiobooks, m4b, file-conversion]
|
||||
description: "AudioBo converts audio and video files into a single chaptered M4B audiobook with metadata and cover art, even past the usual 24-hour limit."
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
AudioBo merges a folder of MP3, AAC, or FLAC files into a single M4B audiobook with chapters, metadata, and cover art, and unlike similar tools it doesn't force a split once the runtime crosses 24 hours. Batch rename can strip repeated prefixes and renumber chapters with regex, and updating just the metadata or artwork preserves the original audio quality instead of re-encoding it. It's a one-time purchase at $9.99.
|
||||
|
After Width: | Height: | Size: 62 KiB |
@@ -0,0 +1,13 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
name: "AudioPen"
|
||||
subtitle: "Voice notes rewritten in your own writing style, not a generic one"
|
||||
date: 2026-07-17
|
||||
link: "https://www.audiopen.ai/"
|
||||
linkText: "audiopen.ai"
|
||||
source: "Cool Tools"
|
||||
topics: [ai, writing-and-notes]
|
||||
tags: [voice-to-text, transcription, ai-writing]
|
||||
description: "Voice memos transcribed and rewritten into a chosen style, including a custom style trained on your own writing samples"
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
AudioPen transcribes a rambling voice note and rewrites it into clean prose — pick a preset style, or hand it a sample of your own writing and it learns to imitate your voice instead of a generic one. The free tier needs no credit card; Prime adds 15-minute recordings and unlimited storage, priced from $6.63 a month on the two-year plan up to $11 month-to-month.
|
||||
|
After Width: | Height: | Size: 413 KiB |
@@ -0,0 +1,14 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
name: "Best Made Co. Sailor's Knife"
|
||||
subtitle: "A sailor's knife whose handle spent 113 years at the bottom of the Panama Canal"
|
||||
date: 2026-07-17
|
||||
shortlist: true
|
||||
link: "https://www.bestmadeco.com/products/sailors-knife"
|
||||
linkText: "bestmadeco.com"
|
||||
source: "Gear Patrol"
|
||||
topics: [carry-and-wear, history-and-archives]
|
||||
tags: [knife, fixed-blade, maritime, steel]
|
||||
description: "A fixed-blade sailor's knife with a handle of Cumarú wood salvaged after 113 years submerged in the Panama Canal, paired with a modern German steel blade."
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Best Made's Sailor's Knife pairs new German steel with old, salvaged wood: the handle is Cumarú (Brazilian teak) pulled from the bottom of the Panama Canal after 113 years submerged, denser and harder for the soak. The blade itself is unrelated to that history — a modern niobium-alloyed stainless (the Niolox family) ground convex by Robert Herder, the Solingen workshop that's made knives under the windmill mark since 1872. At $320, it's currently sold out; Best Made takes waitlist signups for the next run.
|
||||
@@ -0,0 +1,13 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
name: "Celestia"
|
||||
subtitle: "The forested remains of an 1850s utopia deeded to God"
|
||||
date: 2026-07-17
|
||||
link: "https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/celestia"
|
||||
linkText: "atlasobscura.com"
|
||||
source: "Atlas Obscura"
|
||||
topics: [travel-and-places, history-and-archives]
|
||||
tags: [pennsylvania, ghost-town, history]
|
||||
description: "In Laporte Township, Pennsylvania, Peter Armstrong's 1850s millennialist settlement Celestia collapsed after he deeded its land to God in 1864 — today it's mostly forest."
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Peter Armstrong founded Celestia in the 1850s as a mountaintop refuge for millennialists awaiting the end of the world, laying it out in a nine-block grid with the central lot reserved for Christ's return. In 1864 he deeded the land itself to "Almighty God and His heirs in Jesus Messiah" — an owner who never paid property taxes, so the county seized and sold it. What's there now is forest, a few old foundation lines, and a historical marker on Route 42; the town itself never really got built.
|
||||
@@ -0,0 +1,13 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
name: "Gamy"
|
||||
subtitle: "Six unrelated senses, one word — and no relation to '-gamy'"
|
||||
date: 2026-07-17
|
||||
link: "https://wordsmith.org/words/gamy.html"
|
||||
linkText: "wordsmith.org"
|
||||
source: "A.Word.A.Day"
|
||||
topics: [words-and-humor, learning-and-reference]
|
||||
tags: [etymology, language, wordplay]
|
||||
description: "A.Word.A.Day catalogs six unrelated senses of 'gamy' — from tainted meat to plucky spirit — that Wordsmith calls a kind of lexical polygamy."
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
"Gamy" carries six senses under one roof: the flavor of game meat, meat gone slightly off, plain rank, sordid, racy, and plucky — all traced to "game," the hunted animal and the fighting spirit, first recorded in 1820. Despite the look of it, none of that connects to the "-gamy" of monogamy or bigamy, which comes from the Greek *gamos*, marriage. Wordsmith calls the pileup of meanings "a kind of lexical polygamy" — a joke the word can't actually make about itself.
|
||||
@@ -0,0 +1,13 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
name: "Hubbell Rubbell"
|
||||
subtitle: "A rancher's decades of welded scrap-metal creatures roadside in Kansas"
|
||||
date: 2026-07-17
|
||||
link: "https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/hubbell-rubbell"
|
||||
linkText: "atlasobscura.com"
|
||||
source: "Atlas Obscura"
|
||||
topics: [travel-and-places, design-and-art]
|
||||
tags: [kansas, folk-art, roadside-attraction]
|
||||
description: "On Highway 99 in Howard, Kansas, rancher Jerry Hubbell spent decades welding farm scrap into a roadside menagerie, including a stagecoach built around a Model A frame."
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Jerry Hubbell learned to weld to fix farm equipment, then spent decades turning the leftover scrap into a roadside menagerie on Highway 99 in Howard, Kansas: a purple dinosaur, a Batman astride a motorcycle, a stagecoach welded around a Model A frame he winched out of a friend's field. Hubbell died in 2021, but the land's current tenant keeps the sculptures standing and the lot open around the clock.
|
||||
@@ -0,0 +1,12 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
name: "Aware wolf"
|
||||
date: 2026-07-17
|
||||
link: "https://icanhazdadjoke.com/j/D5wAA5o4TCd"
|
||||
linkText: "icanhazdadjoke.com"
|
||||
source: "icanhazdadjoke"
|
||||
topics: [words-and-humor]
|
||||
tags: [pun, wordplay, animals]
|
||||
description: "A dad joke from icanhazdadjoke: a careful wolf is an 'aware wolf' — said aloud, a werewolf pun."
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
What do you call a careful wolf? Aware wolf. Said out loud, "aware" and "were" are close enough to fool the ear, and the whole setup exists only to land on that one homophone — one wolf pun, no filler, no second joke hiding underneath.
|
||||
@@ -0,0 +1,12 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
name: "Feline well"
|
||||
date: 2026-07-17
|
||||
link: "https://icanhazdadjoke.com/j/iGJeVKmWDlb"
|
||||
linkText: "icanhazdadjoke.com"
|
||||
source: "icanhazdadjoke"
|
||||
topics: [words-and-humor]
|
||||
tags: [pun, wordplay, animals]
|
||||
description: "A dad joke from icanhazdadjoke: a sick cat isn't 'feline well' — a near-homophone pun on 'feeling.'"
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
My cat was just sick on the carpet, I don't think it's feline well. "Feline" stands in for "feeling," a near-homophone that only works because the sentence is already about a cat — swap the animal and the pun stops parsing, which is the whole trick.
|
||||
@@ -0,0 +1,12 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
name: "Hands down"
|
||||
date: 2026-07-17
|
||||
link: "https://icanhazdadjoke.com/j/pzsrrcU08pb"
|
||||
linkText: "icanhazdadjoke.com"
|
||||
source: "icanhazdadjoke"
|
||||
topics: [words-and-humor]
|
||||
tags: [pun, idiom, wordplay]
|
||||
description: "A dad joke from icanhazdadjoke: 6:30 is the best time on a clock, hands down — literally."
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
The best time on a clock is 6:30 — hands down. At half past six, both hands point toward the bottom of the clock face, so the idiom for "obviously" becomes a literal description of where the hands are sitting — one phrase, doing duty as verdict and diagram at once.
|
||||
@@ -0,0 +1,12 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
name: "Thanks for all the sediment"
|
||||
date: 2026-07-17
|
||||
link: "https://icanhazdadjoke.com/j/MJB511wAXvc"
|
||||
linkText: "icanhazdadjoke.com"
|
||||
source: "icanhazdadjoke"
|
||||
topics: [words-and-humor]
|
||||
tags: [pun, wordplay, ocean]
|
||||
description: "A dad joke from icanhazdadjoke: the ocean thanks the beach for all the sediment — a pun on 'sentiment.'"
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
What did the ocean say to the beach? Thanks for all the sediment. It's a homophone doing double duty: "sediment," the sand and silt the tide leaves behind, and "sentiment," the thank-you note tone the ocean is technically using — one word, two jobs, and the geology checks out.
|
||||
@@ -0,0 +1,12 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
name: "Shakespeare"
|
||||
date: 2026-07-17
|
||||
link: "https://icanhazdadjoke.com/j/pGe2EYozAsc"
|
||||
linkText: "icanhazdadjoke.com"
|
||||
source: "icanhazdadjoke"
|
||||
topics: [words-and-humor]
|
||||
tags: [pun, wordplay, sports]
|
||||
description: "A dad joke from icanhazdadjoke: a nervous javelin thrower is 'Shakespeare' — his own name literally shakes a spear."
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
What do you call a nervous javelin thrower? Shakespeare. The whole joke lives inside his own name — "shake" plus "spear" is exactly what a jittery person with a javelin is doing, and the playwright gets drafted into the bit purely by etymological accident.
|
||||
|
After Width: | Height: | Size: 329 KiB |
@@ -0,0 +1,14 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
name: "Leaves"
|
||||
subtitle: "A disk-usage treemap rendered entirely in terminal characters"
|
||||
date: 2026-07-17
|
||||
shortlist: true
|
||||
link: "https://github.com/patonw/leaves"
|
||||
linkText: "github.com/patonw/leaves"
|
||||
source: "Hacker News — Show HN"
|
||||
topics: [cli-and-automation]
|
||||
tags: [rust, disk-usage, terminal, open-source]
|
||||
description: "A WinDirStat-style nested-rectangle treemap of disk usage drawn in text, so it works over a plain SSH session"
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Leaves draws a WinDirStat-style nested-rectangle treemap of your disk entirely in block characters — each file or folder sized by its share of space, files tinted by extension and directories by name. Because it never needs a display, it works over a plain SSH session where GUI tools like WinDirStat or QDirStat simply can't follow. Written in Rust, installable via `cargo install` or a prebuilt binary, with an x-ray mode that groups files by type before drilling into directories.
|
||||
|
After Width: | Height: | Size: 249 KiB |
@@ -0,0 +1,14 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
name: "MDV"
|
||||
subtitle: "A Markdown viewer with a Quick Look extension and a CLI tool built in"
|
||||
date: 2026-07-17
|
||||
shortlist: true
|
||||
link: "https://www.mowglii.com/mdv/"
|
||||
linkText: "mowglii.com/mdv"
|
||||
source: "r/macapps"
|
||||
topics: [macos-apps, writing-and-notes]
|
||||
tags: [markdown, quick-look, cli]
|
||||
description: "MDV renders GitHub-flavored Markdown with a live file watcher, a bundled Quick Look extension, and a command-line tool, all in one Mac app."
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
MDV renders GitHub-flavored Markdown files as cleanly as Preview renders PDFs, but the detail worth noting is what's bundled: a Quick Look extension that lets Markdown files preview right in Finder, and a command-line tool (`mdv`) installable straight from the app's menu. A file watcher keeps the display in sync as you edit elsewhere, and it handles Mermaid diagrams and YAML front matter without extra setup.
|
||||
|
After Width: | Height: | Size: 3.9 MiB |
@@ -0,0 +1,14 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
name: "National Gallery of Armenia"
|
||||
subtitle: "Donatello and Chagall turn up among 42,000 works in Yerevan"
|
||||
date: 2026-07-17
|
||||
shortlist: true
|
||||
link: "https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/national-gallery-of-armenia"
|
||||
linkText: "atlasobscura.com"
|
||||
source: "Atlas Obscura"
|
||||
topics: [travel-and-places, design-and-art]
|
||||
tags: [armenia, yerevan, museum, art]
|
||||
description: "Yerevan's National Gallery of Armenia holds more than 42,000 works across eight floors, including a Marc Chagall canvas and a Madonna and Child from Donatello's studio."
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Yerevan's National Gallery holds more than 42,000 works across eight floors, a scale that outstrips its reputation. Ivan Aivazovsky alone has more than sixty seascapes here, but the European wing holds the real surprise: a Marc Chagall canvas, two paintings by Kandinsky, and a Madonna and Child credited to the studio of Donatello — not a hand you'd expect to find in the South Caucasus.
|
||||
@@ -0,0 +1,13 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
name: "Noodle"
|
||||
subtitle: "One spelling, three unrelated word histories"
|
||||
date: 2026-07-17
|
||||
link: "https://wordsmith.org/words/noodle.html"
|
||||
linkText: "wordsmith.org"
|
||||
source: "A.Word.A.Day"
|
||||
topics: [words-and-humor, learning-and-reference]
|
||||
tags: [etymology, language, wordplay]
|
||||
description: "A.Word.A.Day traces 'noodle' back to three unconnected origins — pasta, head, and the catfish-catching verb — that happen to share a spelling."
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
"Noodle" holds three unrelated ancestries under one spelling. The pasta sense borrows straight from German *Nudel*. The head — as in use your noodle — is probably a twist on *noddle*. And the verb, to noodle: playing loosely on an instrument, turning an idea over, or catching catfish bare-handed, is imitative in origin or simply unexplained. Same six letters, no shared root — a case of coincidence, not connection.
|
||||
|
After Width: | Height: | Size: 330 KiB |
@@ -0,0 +1,14 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
name: "Panelet"
|
||||
subtitle: "One shortcut hides and restores a whole multi-app workspace, not just a window"
|
||||
date: 2026-07-17
|
||||
shortlist: true
|
||||
link: "https://panelet.app/"
|
||||
linkText: "panelet.app"
|
||||
source: "r/macapps"
|
||||
topics: [macos-apps, productivity]
|
||||
tags: [window-management, workspaces, native]
|
||||
description: "Panelet groups two to four Mac apps into a resizable workspace that hides or restores as one unit with a single keyboard shortcut."
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Panelet groups two to four apps into a single resizable layout: drag the dividers to adjust proportions, then hide or bring back the whole workspace with one keyboard shortcut instead of hunting down each window individually. It's a native macOS utility, not a screen-recording or remote-desktop tool, and Panelet states plainly that it never reads what's inside the apps it arranges. It's a one-time purchase, discounted to roughly US$1.75 during early access.
|
||||
|
After Width: | Height: | Size: 9.1 MiB |
@@ -0,0 +1,14 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
name: "Porcelain Room"
|
||||
subtitle: "A Rococo chamber at Aranjuez sheathed floor-to-ceiling in porcelain"
|
||||
date: 2026-07-17
|
||||
shortlist: true
|
||||
link: "https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/porcelain-room"
|
||||
linkText: "atlasobscura.com"
|
||||
source: "Atlas Obscura"
|
||||
topics: [travel-and-places, design-and-art]
|
||||
tags: [spain, palace, porcelain, rococo]
|
||||
description: "The Royal Palace of Aranjuez's 1765 Porcelain Room is sheathed floor-to-ceiling in Buen Retiro porcelain, topped by a chandelier shaped like a palm tree."
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Inside the Royal Palace of Aranjuez, a small chamber is porcelain from floor to ceiling — walls, moldings, even the light fixture. Between 1760 and 1765, the Buen Retiro factory's Giuseppe Gricci modeled every surface into white porcelain reliefs of monkeys, dragons, and robed Chinese figures, then topped it with a chandelier shaped like a palm tree, a monkey climbing the trunk after the man already scaling it.
|
||||
@@ -0,0 +1,13 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
name: "Never underestimate the determination of a kid who is time rich and cash poor"
|
||||
subtitle: "From his 2008 novel Little Brother, not a stray aphorism"
|
||||
date: 2026-07-17
|
||||
link: "https://wordsmith.org/words/gamy.html"
|
||||
linkText: "wordsmith.org"
|
||||
source: "A.Word.A.Day"
|
||||
topics: [words-and-humor]
|
||||
tags: [quote, cory-doctorow, technology]
|
||||
description: "A.Word.A.Day's daily quote from Cory Doctorow, traced to page 87 of his 2008 novel Little Brother rather than an essay."
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
"Never underestimate the determination of a kid who is time rich and cash poor." Cory Doctorow wrote the line in *Little Brother* (2008), his novel about a San Francisco teenager outmaneuvering post-9/11 homeland-security surveillance — it's on page 87, part of the story itself rather than a stray aphorism borrowed from an essay. It's since traveled well beyond the book, recycled in his own DRM and hacking essays and passed around as generic advice, usually stripped of the source.
|
||||
@@ -0,0 +1,13 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
name: "The bicycle is the most civilized conveyance known to man"
|
||||
subtitle: "Confirmed: from her 1965 novel The Red and the Green"
|
||||
date: 2026-07-17
|
||||
link: "https://wordsmith.org/words/noodle.html"
|
||||
linkText: "wordsmith.org"
|
||||
source: "A.Word.A.Day"
|
||||
topics: [words-and-humor]
|
||||
tags: [quote, cycling, iris-murdoch]
|
||||
description: "A.Word.A.Day's daily quote from Iris Murdoch on bicycles, checked back to the 1965 novel it actually comes from."
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
"The bicycle is the most civilized conveyance known to man. Other forms of transport grow daily more nightmarish. Only the bicycle remains pure in heart." Iris Murdoch wrote this in her 1965 novel *The Red and the Green* — the attribution actually holds: the line appears in the text itself, not just floating around quote sites, cited back to the same chapter across independent sources. A novelist's throwaway line about cycling that outlasted the plot around it.
|
||||
|
After Width: | Height: | Size: 984 KiB |
@@ -0,0 +1,14 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
name: "Speed Reader"
|
||||
subtitle: "One-word-at-a-time reading that can live right in your MacBook's notch"
|
||||
date: 2026-07-17
|
||||
shortlist: true
|
||||
link: "https://speed-reader.pro/"
|
||||
linkText: "speed-reader.pro"
|
||||
source: "r/macapps"
|
||||
topics: [macos-apps, productivity]
|
||||
tags: [speed-reading, rsvp, ocr]
|
||||
description: "Speed Reader flashes text one word at a time using RSVP, with a display mode that fits the word stream into the MacBook's screen notch."
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Speed Reader flashes text one word at a time at a fixed point on screen, the RSVP technique that trades eye movement for pure intake, and one of its display modes tucks that word stream right into the MacBook's screen notch. An area-capture tool can OCR any patch of screen, a PDF that won't let you select text, a screenshot, and feed it straight into the reader. Lifetime license is $8.99, with a 3-day trial that skips the payment form.
|
||||
@@ -0,0 +1,14 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
name: "Sushi Chess Set"
|
||||
subtitle: "A 3D-printed chess set where the pawns are wasabi and the rooks are tuna rolls"
|
||||
date: 2026-07-17
|
||||
shortlist: true
|
||||
link: "https://www.etsy.com/listing/4296703837/sushi-chess-the-sushi-roll-themed-travel"
|
||||
linkText: "etsy.com"
|
||||
source: "The Awesomer"
|
||||
topics: [gadgets-and-toys, food-and-drink]
|
||||
tags: [chess, 3d-printed, sushi, giftable]
|
||||
description: "A 3D-printed sushi-themed chess set — pawns as wasabi and ginger, rooks as tuna rolls — that stows in a bento-box case with a roll-up mat board."
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Little Dorky Designs' officially licensed ForgeCore design turns a chess set into a sushi platter: pawns are wasabi and ginger, rooks are tuna rolls, knights are salmon nigiri, and bishops are shrimp tempura, each piece 3D-printed in PLA. The board is a roll-up bamboo-style sushi mat that folds in half and, with the pieces, stows inside a bento-box case — $69.97, shipped from the maker's shop in North Carolina.
|
||||
|
After Width: | Height: | Size: 124 KiB |
@@ -0,0 +1,13 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
name: "Text Catalyst"
|
||||
subtitle: "A clipboard manager that OCRs every image you copy so its text is searchable"
|
||||
date: 2026-07-17
|
||||
link: "https://textcatalyst.com/"
|
||||
linkText: "textcatalyst.com"
|
||||
source: "r/macapps"
|
||||
topics: [macos-apps, productivity]
|
||||
tags: [clipboard-manager, text-expansion, ocr]
|
||||
description: "Text Catalyst combines clipboard history with text expansion and runs OCR on every copied image, so screenshots become searchable text too."
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Text Catalyst keeps a running clipboard history, but the detail that stands out is OCR: every image you copy gets its text extracted, so a screenshot of a receipt or a whiteboard becomes searchable like any other snippet. A Paste Stack lets you queue up several items and drop them in one after another, and Auto Copy grabs text the moment you select it, no Cmd-C required. It's free to try, with a one-time $19.99 upgrade for the Pro tier.
|
||||
|
After Width: | Height: | Size: 264 KiB |
@@ -0,0 +1,15 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
name: "Transformers Scooby-Doo: Mysterious Prime & Automutt"
|
||||
subtitle: "A Mystery Machine that transforms into an Autobot, with swappable Scooby-gang heads"
|
||||
date: 2026-07-17
|
||||
shortlist: true
|
||||
link: "https://www.hasbropulse.com/product/transformers-scooby-doo-mysterious-prime-automutt/G07145L00"
|
||||
linkText: "hasbropulse.com"
|
||||
amazonLink: "https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0G2P7VN8F"
|
||||
source: "The Awesomer"
|
||||
topics: [gadgets-and-toys]
|
||||
tags: [transformers, scooby-doo, action-figure, giftable]
|
||||
description: "A Transformers figure that converts between a 6-inch robot and a Mystery Machine van, with four swappable heads and a second figure that flips into a box of Scooby Snacks."
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Hasbro's Transformers x Scooby-Doo set converts the Mystery Machine into a 6-inch robot in 19 steps, and swaps in one of four heads — Shaggy, Fred, Daphne, or Velma — plus a camera, a flashlight, and two ascots to complete the look. A second figure, Automutt, flips between a robot Great Dane and a box of Scooby Snacks in 6 steps. It's a preorder at $57.99, arriving September 2026.
|
||||
|
After Width: | Height: | Size: 116 KiB |
@@ -0,0 +1,14 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
name: "UGREEN Airplane Phone Holder"
|
||||
subtitle: "A MagSafe clamp that grips a tray table, headrest, or luggage handle"
|
||||
date: 2026-07-17
|
||||
link: "https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D7BWRHCY"
|
||||
linkText: "amazon.com"
|
||||
source: "Recomendo"
|
||||
amazonLink: "https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D7BWRHCY"
|
||||
topics: [travel-and-places, gadgets-and-toys]
|
||||
tags: [travel, magsafe, iphone, giftable]
|
||||
description: "A magnetic MagSafe mount with an 8–25mm adjustable clamp that grips a tray table, seatback lip, luggage handle, or treadmill console"
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
The clamp opens 8 to 25mm, wide enough for a tray table edge, a seatback tray lip, a luggage handle, or a treadmill console, and holds an iPhone by MagSafe with a magnet strong enough to snap into place in about a tenth of a second. It rotates a full 360 degrees between portrait and landscape and is compact enough to toss in a bag. Lists for $14.99, though it's frequently discounted toward $9–10.
|
||||
|
After Width: | Height: | Size: 5.0 MiB |
@@ -0,0 +1,14 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
name: "VoiceInk"
|
||||
subtitle: "Open-source dictation that runs local Whisper and Parakeet models, fully offline"
|
||||
date: 2026-07-17
|
||||
shortlist: true
|
||||
link: "https://github.com/Beingpax/VoiceInk"
|
||||
linkText: "GitHub"
|
||||
source: "r/macapps"
|
||||
topics: [macos-apps, ai]
|
||||
tags: [dictation, open-source, offline, whisper]
|
||||
description: "VoiceInk is an open-source macOS dictation app that transcribes speech entirely on-device and switches configurations automatically per app."
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
VoiceInk transcribes speech to text using local Whisper and Parakeet models, so audio never leaves the Mac — no network call, no cloud service to trust. It swaps configurations automatically based on which app or website has focus, and its personal dictionary can be trained on the technical terms and names a generic dictation engine would otherwise mangle. The code is open source under GPL v3; a paid license adds automatic updates and priority support.
|
||||
|
After Width: | Height: | Size: 58 KiB |
@@ -0,0 +1,14 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
name: "We Are Rewind WE-001 (Pink Floyd Edition)"
|
||||
subtitle: "A Bluetooth cassette player wrapped in Dark Side of the Moon artwork"
|
||||
date: 2026-07-17
|
||||
shortlist: true
|
||||
link: "https://www.wearerewind.com/products/lecteur-cassette-pink-floyd-edition-limitee"
|
||||
linkText: "wearerewind.com"
|
||||
source: "Gear Patrol"
|
||||
topics: [music-and-sound, gadgets-and-toys]
|
||||
tags: [cassette, bluetooth, pink-floyd, giftable]
|
||||
description: "A Bluetooth-enabled cassette player finished in Dark Side of the Moon album art, bundled with the only cassette pressing anywhere of the album's 50th-anniversary remaster."
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
We Are Rewind's WE-001 already updates the classic portable cassette player with Bluetooth 5.1, a rechargeable battery, and a 3.5mm line-in for taping mixtapes; the Pink Floyd edition wraps that same hardware in The Dark Side of the Moon's prism-and-rainbow artwork. The $199 box includes the only cassette pressing anywhere of the album's 50th-anniversary remaster, plus a numbered authenticity card — a limited run, not an open-ended reissue.
|
||||