content: 2026-05-13 capture run — 58 finds across 21 productive sources

Four-day gap since the 2026-05-09 sweep. Productive sources: r/macapps,
r/shortcuts, Six Colors, MacStories, DF, Brett Terpstra, Eclectic Light,
OSXDaily, Dr. Drang, MoMA, Kikkerland, Wallpaper, AFAR, Boutique Homes,
Outbound, Kottke, Open Culture, Web Curios, Wikiquote, The Marginalian,
A.Word.A.Day, Quote Investigator, r/BuyItForLife, Carryology, r/dadjokes,
icanhazdadjoke.

Source-maintenance flags this run (see log): Atlas Obscura confirmed
Cloudflare-blocked for the 6th run, A Continuous Lean dormant since
Dec 2025, Things Magazine cadence: weekly → quarterly, This Is Why I'm
Broke / Cool Material / StyleForum returning JS-rendered shells or
changed templates.

4 new source nominees in candidate-sources.md.
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Newly nominated sources awaiting review before promotion to `sources.json`. Each entry says where it came from and the case for adding it. Vet manually, then move to the main list. Newly nominated sources awaiting review before promotion to `sources.json`. Each entry says where it came from and the case for adding it. Vet manually, then move to the main list.
## 2026-05-13
- **Lex Friedman — lexfriedman.com** — https://lexfriedman.com/ — surfaced as the developer of Gnome (the menu-bar GIF picker captured this run). Friedman is a long-time Macworld/Six Colors contributor with his own site indexing his personal projects and writing. Low-volume but high-signal — when he posts about a new utility he built, it's worth scanning. Possibly more useful as a developer-tracker than a feed.
- **Kyle McDonald — kylemcdonald.net** — https://kylemcdonald.net/ — surfaced via Web Curios linking to his Apocalypse Early Warning System (private-jet tracker). McDonald is a data artist with a long catalog of unusual web projects spanning data viz, machine learning, and net-art. Worth a single-pass scan to harvest current projects; cadence is irregular.
- **Brilliant Maps — brilliantmaps.com** — https://brilliantmaps.com/ — surfaced via Kottke's link to the crowdsourced US-regions map this run. Long-running map-curation site that's a steady source of unusual cartographic finds (linguistic maps, historic boundary maps, sub-regional curiosities). Likely WebFetch-friendly.
- **Hand-drawn Games — handdrawngames.com** — https://handdrawngames.com/ — surfaced via Kottke linking to their revived Desktop Tower Defense. Studio rebuilding Flash-era browser games for the modern web. Low-volume but each release is the kind of nostalgia find that earns a capture; worth a quarterly check.
- **Sandwich Vision (Hovercraft)** — already nominated 2026-05-06 — note that Six Colors continues to surface their work (Hovercraft post this run reconfirms Sandwich is a productive source). Promote next.
- **Routinehub.co** — already nominated 2026-05-05; the Add-to-Calendar Shortcut captured this run is hosted on iCloud rather than Routinehub, so the Routinehub-vs-iCloud-Shortcuts split remains open. Worth a one-pass vetting to see whether Routinehub catches Shortcuts the r/shortcuts thread misses.
## 2026-05-09 ## 2026-05-09
- **Daniel Fox — danielfox.ie** — https://www.danielfox.ie/ — surfaced as the author of the YouTube HLS Shortcut captured this run. Personal blog with deep-cut iOS Shortcuts research and reverse-engineering writeups (the YouTube post documented an undocumented YouTube player API). Low-volume but unusually substantive when posts land — worth quarterly check. - **Daniel Fox — danielfox.ie** — https://www.danielfox.ie/ — surfaced as the author of the YouTube HLS Shortcut captured this run. Personal blog with deep-cut iOS Shortcuts research and reverse-engineering writeups (the YouTube post documented an undocumented YouTube player API). Low-volume but unusually substantive when posts land — worth quarterly check.
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Hero + carousel: 4-slide carousel matching the homerow/dockdoor pattern. Pulled `Radial Menu.mp4`, `Preview.mp4`, `Cycles.mp4`, and `Stash.mp4` from `MrKai77/Loop` GitHub develop branch (`assets/graphics/`). Sources were 3680×2304@60 retina screen recordings, 4-6 MB each — re-encoded with ffmpeg (`scale=1280:-2`, libx264 CRF 23, yuv420p, faststart, audio stripped). Final sizes: 1.3 MB / 2.9 MB / 1.2 MB / 182 KB. Hero (slide 1, radial-menu.mp4) registered in `src/lib/hero.ts`. Hero + carousel: 4-slide carousel matching the homerow/dockdoor pattern. Pulled `Radial Menu.mp4`, `Preview.mp4`, `Cycles.mp4`, and `Stash.mp4` from `MrKai77/Loop` GitHub develop branch (`assets/graphics/`). Sources were 3680×2304@60 retina screen recordings, 4-6 MB each — re-encoded with ffmpeg (`scale=1280:-2`, libx264 CRF 23, yuv420p, faststart, audio stripped). Final sizes: 1.3 MB / 2.9 MB / 1.2 MB / 182 KB. Hero (slide 1, radial-menu.mp4) registered in `src/lib/hero.ts`.
Category: `interface` (existing — same bucket as alcove, alt-tab, dockdoor, monocle). Category: `interface` (existing — same bucket as alcove, alt-tab, dockdoor, monocle).
Pattern note: **GitHub `assets/graphics/` directories are an underused hero source for open-source mac apps**. Listed via `api.github.com/repos/.../contents/assets/graphics`, downloaded with curl. Source quality (retina captures) means re-encoding is mandatory or the page weighs 25+ MB; standard recipe is `scale=1280:-2` + CRF 23 + strip audio. Pattern note: **GitHub `assets/graphics/` directories are an underused hero source for open-source mac apps**. Listed via `api.github.com/repos/.../contents/assets/graphics`, downloaded with curl. Source quality (retina captures) means re-encoding is mandatory or the page weighs 25+ MB; standard recipe is `scale=1280:-2` + CRF 23 + strip audio.
## 2026-05-13 — capture run
Sources scanned: 59 total — 50 active, 9 `fetch: skip`. Productive this run: 21 sources, 58 new finds after dedup against the 289-find baseline (347 total now). Four-day gap since the 2026-05-09 morning sweep.
Productive sources: r/macapps (5 — Switch, Aira, Steno, ChessUnlock, Zenteek), r/shortcuts (2 — Add-to-Calendar Shortcut v4, Clipboard Sync via WebDAV), r/dadjokes (7), icanhazdadjoke (3), Six Colors (2 — Bartender 6 dynamic peninsula, Gnome), MacStories (1 — Monologue), Daring Fireball — Linked List (1 — Kagi Snaps), The Eclectic Light Company (1 — Versatility), OSXDaily (1 — Dial-up ISP with Raspberry Pi), Brett Terpstra (1 — TerminalWidget), Dr. Drang (1 — iOS Mail list-view block), MoMA Design Store (2 — Teenage Engineering EP-136 K.O., Kodak Charmera Keychain), Kikkerland (2 — Light Up Pencil, Woodpecker Garden Shears), Wallpaper* Travel (3 — Hannah St Hotel Melbourne, Auguste London, Cece's London), AFAR (1 — The Vietage by Anantara), Boutique Homes (1 — The Desert Wave Palm Desert), The Outbound Collective (1 — Zion Subway Bottom-Up), Kottke.org (4 — Tolkien Palantir essay, US regional map by Reddit vote, Desktop Tower Defense revived, Typhoon Sinlaku 4K), Open Culture (1 — WKRP becomes a real station), Web Curios (7 — Flipbook, Apocalypse Early Warning, Single Ride NYC, Audio Spaces, Wax Letter, Takeaway, Play Your Tubes Right), Wikiquote (1 — Julian of Norwich), The Marginalian (1 — Whitman/Emerson criticism), A.Word.A.Day (2 — Daphne du Maurier mirrors, Rake's progress etymology), Quote Investigator (2 — Tagore-misattributed children proverb, Zimmerman's Law of Complaints), r/BuyItForLife (4 — Justrite gas can, Speed Queen TC5, Floto duffle, Swedish Hasbeens), Carryology (1 — SOLIDSTATE Hardware buckle).
Blocked or empty: Atlas Obscura (Cloudflare-stub for 6th run — confirmed dead, flagging for `fetch: skip` per source maintenance notes below), This Is Why I'm Broke (JS-rendered SPA — body is template-shell only with `{{header.title}}` placeholders visible), Cool Material (returns 297K but listings are JS-rendered; only category and feature/* URLs visible, not parseable by regex), Unusual Hotels of the World (curl returns 4K shell only — title `<title>Uhotw</title>` is the entire useful payload), TidBITS (403 to WebFetch), StyleForum (curl returns 160K but structItem-title regex matches zero — XenForo template changed since last successful parse), Reader's Digest Jokes (curl timed out), A.Word.A.Day index page (WebFetch returned navigation only — had to fetch /words/today.html directly for the daily quote).
Captured finds:
- switch-window-cycler — Switch — source: r/macapps
- aira-teleprompter — Aira — source: r/macapps
- steno-private-ai-notes — Steno — source: r/macapps
- chessunlock-mac — ChessUnlock — source: r/macapps
- zenteek-music-player — Zenteek — source: r/macapps
- bartender-6-dynamic-peninsula — Bartender 6 — source: Six Colors
- gnome-gif-menubar — Gnome — source: Six Colors
- monologue-dictation-cli — Monologue — source: MacStories
- kagi-snaps — Kagi Snaps — source: Daring Fireball — Linked List
- terminalwidget-desktop — TerminalWidget — source: Brett Terpstra
- versatility-versioned-pdfs — Versatility — source: The Eclectic Light Company
- dial-up-isp-raspberry-pi — Dial-up ISP with a Raspberry Pi — source: OSXDaily
- ios-mail-block-list-view — Block iOS Mail senders from list view — source: Dr. Drang — leancrew.com
- add-to-calendar-shortcut-v4 — Add to Calendar Shortcut v4 — source: r/shortcuts
- clipboard-sync-webdav-shortcut — Clipboard Sync via WebDAV — source: r/shortcuts
- teenage-engineering-ep-136 — Teenage Engineering EP-136 K.O. — source: MoMA Design Store
- kodak-charmera-keychain — Kodak Charmera Keychain Camera Blind Box — source: MoMA Design Store
- light-up-pencil-kikkerland — Light Up Pencil — source: Kikkerland
- woodpecker-garden-shears — Woodpecker Garden Shears — source: Kikkerland
- hannah-st-hotel-melbourne — Hannah St Hotel — source: Wallpaper* Travel
- auguste-london — Auguste — source: Wallpaper* Travel
- ceces-london — Cece's — source: Wallpaper* Travel
- vietage-vietnam-train — The Vietage by Anantara — source: AFAR
- desert-wave-palm-desert — The Desert Wave — source: Boutique Homes
- zion-subway-bottom-up — The Subway, Zion (Bottom Up) — source: The Outbound Collective
- tolkien-palantir-essay — What Would J.R.R. Tolkien Think of Palantir? — source: Kottke.org
- us-regional-map-reddit — US Regional Map by Reddit Vote — source: Kottke.org
- desktop-tower-defense-revived — Desktop Tower Defense — source: Kottke.org
- typhoon-sinlaku-4k — Mesmerizing 4K Video of Cat-5 Typhoon Sinlaku — source: Kottke.org
- wkrp-cincinnati-real-station — WKRP in Cincinnati Becomes a Real Station — source: Open Culture
- flipbook-ai-encyclopedia — Flipbook — source: Web Curios
- apocalypse-early-warning-jets — The Apocalypse Early Warning System — source: Web Curios
- single-ride-nyc-subway — Single Ride — source: Web Curios
- audio-spaces-global-map — Audio Spaces — source: Web Curios
- wax-letter-custom-seals — Wax Letter — source: Web Curios
- takeaway-letters-puzzle — Takeaway — source: Web Curios
- play-your-tubes-right — Play Your Tubes Right — source: Web Curios
- julian-norwich-mercy-grace — Julian of Norwich "Mercy and forgiveness leadeth us to grace" — source: Wikiquote
- whitman-disobey-all — Whitman: "I felt down in my soul the clear and unmistakable conviction to disobey all" — source: The Marginalian
- daphne-du-maurier-mirrors — Daphne du Maurier: "How simple life becomes when things like mirrors are forgotten" — source: A.Word.A.Day
- rakes-progress-hogarth — Rake's progress — source: A.Word.A.Day
- do-not-confine-children-1887 — "Do Not Confine Your Children to Your Own Learning" — source: Quote Investigator
- nobody-notices-things-go-right — "Nobody Notices When Things Go Right" — source: Quote Investigator
- justrite-gas-can — Justrite Gas Can — source: r/BuyItForLife
- speedqueen-tc5 — Speed Queen TC5 / DC5 — source: r/BuyItForLife
- floto-duffle-bag — Floto Duffle Bag — source: r/BuyItForLife
- swedish-hasbeens-clogs — Swedish Hasbeens — source: r/BuyItForLife
- solidstate-hardware-buckle — SOLIDSTATE Hardware — source: Carryology
- joke-suitcase-emotional-baggage — Suitcase Emotional Baggage Joke — source: r/dadjokes
- joke-shatner-panties — The Shatner Panties Joke — source: r/dadjokes
- joke-final-front-ear — The Final Front-Ear Joke — source: r/dadjokes
- joke-wind-turbines-metal-fan — Wind Turbines Metal Fan Joke — source: r/dadjokes
- joke-mortician-electrician — Mortician and Electrician Joke — source: r/dadjokes
- joke-postmen-anagram — Postmen Anagram Joke — source: r/dadjokes
- joke-cow-lightning-medium-rare — Cow Lightning Medium Rare Joke — source: r/dadjokes
- joke-queue-silent-letters — The Queue Silent-Letters Joke — source: icanhazdadjoke
- joke-moscow-russian — Moscow Russian Into Things Joke — source: icanhazdadjoke
- joke-garden-plot-thickens — Garden Plot Thickens Joke — source: icanhazdadjoke
### Hero coverage
Heroes saved: 31 of 42 attempted (the 10 jokes and 6 quote-only finds are text-only by convention and excluded from the denominator). Misses (11 finds): aira-teleprompter (Reddit video post with no static preview asset), terminalwidget-desktop (Brett's OG image was the 96×96 site favicon — too small), typhoon-sinlaku-4k (Kottke's OG was a 1×1 spacer; fixed by falling back to YouTube `maxresdefault` thumbnail), justrite-gas-can (corporate site og:image was just the brand logo — removed), speedqueen-tc5 (no og:image meta), swedish-hasbeens-clogs (no og:image), apocalypse-early-warning-jets (data-art site, no og), desktop-tower-defense-revived (JS app, no og), audio-spaces-global-map (no og), takeaway-letters-puzzle (vercel app, no og), us-regional-map-reddit (brilliantmaps article had no fetchable og), add-to-calendar-shortcut-v4 (icloud.com Shortcut URL — Apple's shortcut-sharing service doesn't expose any preview).
Pattern notes this run:
- **Reddit JSON `external-preview.redd.it` URLs require a valid `s=` signature parameter** — stripping it returns a 425-byte empty response (not a useful image, not a redirect). The signature is per-image and per-fetch; reconstructing it without it is impossible. If a Reddit post has only `external-preview` (typically video posts with no static preview), there's no usable hero — skip. This is distinct from `preview.redd.it` URLs (gallery items) which do work.
- **YouTube thumbnail fallback for Kottke video posts**: Kottke's own OG image is sometimes a 1×1 spacer or a generic site logo when the post embeds a YouTube video. Falling back to `https://i.ytimg.com/vi/<id>/maxresdefault.jpg` (or `hqdefault.jpg` if maxres 404s) gives a usable 1280×720 hero. Worth formalizing in the skill as the canonical Kottke-video-post recipe.
- **OG image presence is roughly inversely correlated with site freshness for hobbyist projects**: most of this run's misses (Apocalypse EWS, Audio Spaces, Takeaway, Desktop Tower Defense revival) are small one-developer projects on Vercel/Netlify/personal-domains where setting up `og:image` is the last polish step nobody got to. Wallpaper, MoMA, Wikipedia, and YouTube reliably ship social cards because they have someone whose job it is. Don't bet on hobbyist sites having OGs and don't try to chase fallbacks for them — accept the miss.
- **icloud.com Shortcuts URLs have no fetchable preview**: Apple's shortcut-sharing service `icloud.com/shortcuts/<uuid>` returns a JS-rendered preview page with no og:image. For Shortcuts captured via r/shortcuts, the canonical pattern would need to be: fetch the Reddit post's preview image (often a screenshot of the Shortcut's flow) rather than trying to find an OG on the iCloud landing page. Not always possible — skip if neither is available.
### New source nominees
4 this run (see candidate-sources.md):
- Lex Friedman (lexfriedman.com) — developer of Gnome captured this run; small personal site with project releases
- Kyle McDonald (kylemcdonald.net) — data-artist behind Apocalypse Early Warning System; long catalog of unusual web projects
- Brilliant Maps (brilliantmaps.com) — map-curation site surfaced via Kottke; steady source of unusual cartography
- Hand-drawn Games (handdrawngames.com) — Flash-era game revivals; quarterly check candidate
### Source maintenance notes for next prune
- **Atlas Obscura confirmed dead**: 6 consecutive runs returning the 5471-byte Cloudflare stub. The prior maintenance note suggested trying their RSS feed at `https://www.atlasobscura.com/feeds/articles` as a possible bypass — that wasn't tested this run. **Action: flip `fetch: skip` with `skipReason: Cloudflare-blocked, RSS feed untested but try once before fully retiring.**
- **A Continuous Lean**: still at SIGNALS #151 (December 19, 2025). Six-plus months of dormancy. The May 2 ACL × Rivay collab announcement preceded a complete posting hiatus. **Action: flip `fetch: skip` with `skipReason: dormant since Dec 2025`.**
- **Things Magazine**: still at April 5, 2026. Eight-plus weeks since last post. The cadence in `sources.json` says `weekly` but actual posting is every 12 months. **Action: change `cadence: weekly` → `cadence: quarterly` and revisit again in two weeks.**
- **Put This On**: posted twice this run (Plantar Fasciitis style drawings May 13, Cufflink Countdown May 11) — actively writing but the content this cycle is style-tip / shop-promo, neither of which surfaces individual buyable items the way their archives used to. Keep at `weekly` for now; the cadence isn't the issue, the editorial focus shift is.
- **Unusual Hotels of the World**: curl returns only 4K with `<title>Uhotw</title>` and no body — site appears to have lost its content or migrated to a SPA. Not actionable from this skill; **flag for manual review** rather than auto-skip.
- **This Is Why I'm Broke**: HTML is a Vue/React shell with `{{header.title}}` placeholders visible in body. Content is API-fetched at runtime. The same pattern as Permanent Style and others. **Either find their backend API endpoint (preferred) or flip `fetch: skip` with `skipReason: SPA, requires headless render`.**
- **Cool Material**: 297K HTML returned cleanly but my listing parses returned zero results — the post-block CSS selectors I was matching against have changed. Their `/feature/` URLs are visible in raw HTML; the next pass should grep for `<a href="https://coolmaterial.com/feature/[^"]+"` and pull from there. **Action: update the skill's parse pattern for Cool Material.**
- **StyleForum**: similar story — 160K HTML, but `class="title structItem-title"` no longer matches. XenForo template changed. **Action: re-derive selectors against the current homepage, or skip until refresh.**
- **Reader's Digest Jokes**: curl timed out (exit code 28) — server appears to be either slow or actively rate-limiting. Worth one more retry next run before flagging.
- **Snow Peak homepage**: this run the homepage emphasized Alpha Breeze / Land Lock / Land Nest tents and the IGT Camp Kitchen — none of which earn a capture under our brief (too specialty-camping rather than daily-use-titanium-kit). Their /collections/new-arrivals JSON is still the right channel; the homepage on its own is not productive for our purposes. **Note: continue fetching new-arrivals JSON, deprioritize homepage scanning.**
## 2026-05-13 — review: bartender-6-dynamic-peninsula
Graduated from find captured 2026-05-13, source: Six Colors.
Hero + carousel: 4-slide carousel matching the homerow/dockdoor/loop pattern. Pulled `bt6-hero-dark.png`, `widgets.png`, `BartenderBar.png`, and `triggers-dark.png` from `macbartender.com/Bartender6/img/`. All are clean marketing screenshots with no overlay text. Peninsula (slide 1) reused the find folder's existing hero copy. Total page weight ~4.7 MB across the four PNG screenshots — comparable to homerow and loop carousels.
Category: `interface` (existing — same bucket as alcove, ice, dockdoor, monocle, loop).
Connection note: pairs naturally with the existing `ice` review (subtitle: "The free, open-source successor to Bartender") and `alcove` (Mac notch widget app). All three sit in the same conceptual neighborhood; the Bartender 6 review references Alcove directly in the body since the peninsula is genuinely on Alcove's turf.
## 2026-05-13 — review: gnome-gif-menubar
Graduated from find captured 2026-05-13, source: Six Colors.
Hero: single screenshot. Replaced the find's icon-based hero with the actual product screenshot from `lexfriedman.com/gnome/screenshot.png` (726×466, 89 KB) — the icon was a misleading hero for the grid since Gnome's interest is the menu-bar interaction, not the app glyph. Single-image format matches hyperkey/alcove/tot — no carousel since the source page only has the icon + one screenshot.
Category: `interface` (same bucket as alcove, dockdoor, monocle).
Editorial note: Gnome's text-in-GIF Apple-Vision OCR is the underappreciated feature — "type 'don't call me Shirley' and the Airplane! GIF surfaces" — so the body leads with the hotkey workflow but earns its second paragraph from OCR. Lex Friedman's own copy on the product page is delightful (the post-trial Weird-Al-or-Rick-Astley freemium gimmick is a keeper); the review preserves the gimmick without copying his voice verbatim.
@@ -0,0 +1,14 @@
---
name: "Add to Calendar Shortcut v4"
subtitle: "Turn your screen's contents into a calendar event"
date: 2026-05-13
link: https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/77505cb6f9854801a5cfd77ab8781b2f
linkText: "icloud.com/shortcuts"
source: "r/shortcuts"
topics:
- apple-tips
tags: [shortcuts, calendar, ios]
description: "Major update to a Shortcut that scans whatever's on your iOS screen — text in an email, an image of an invitation — and creates a calendar event from it."
---
An upgraded version of the "Add to Calendar" feature Apple added to visual intelligence in iOS 26 — but works across more contexts and lets you edit before saving. Particularly clever for screenshots of event flyers, screen-grabs of email confirmations, and texts that include date/time but didn't auto-link.
@@ -0,0 +1,13 @@
---
name: "Aira"
subtitle: "Free Mac teleprompter that stays hidden on calls"
date: 2026-05-13
link: https://www.reddit.com/r/macapps/comments/1tar1aw/i_built_aira_a_free_teleprompter_for_mac_that/
source: "r/macapps"
topics:
- macos-apps
tags: [macos, video-calls, writing, indie]
description: "A free Mac teleprompter whose script overlay is invisible to screen-sharing and HireVue-style video calls."
---
Built by a 2nd-year computer engineering student after one too many HireVues and last-minute presentations. The specific virtue: the teleprompter overlay sits in your line-of-sight, but does not appear in screen recordings or shared video. So you can read prepared remarks during an interview or panel without it being obvious.
@@ -0,0 +1,13 @@
---
name: "The Apocalypse Early Warning System"
subtitle: "Tracks private jets to estimate catastrophic-event likelihood"
date: 2026-05-13
link: https://ews.kylemcdonald.net/
source: "Web Curios"
topics:
- general-delight
tags: [data-viz, jets, tracking, art]
description: "Kyle McDonald's data art piece that watches private-jet flight patterns on the theory that the wealthy flee first when catastrophe approaches."
---
The conceit is half-serious data art: pull live ADS-B Exchange data on registered private jets, look for anomalies (mass departures, unusual destinations, off-pattern timing), and present an "apocalypse likelihood" score. Useless as an actual predictor; revealing as a visualization of who-leaves-where. Updates in real time.
@@ -0,0 +1,13 @@
---
name: "Audio Spaces"
subtitle: "A collaborative global map of location-tagged sound recordings"
date: 2026-05-13
link: https://audio-spaces.com/welcome
source: "Web Curios"
topics:
- general-delight
tags: [audio, maps, art]
description: "Crowdsourced map where users upload short audio recordings tied to a location — a worldwide soundscape navigable by geography."
---
Click anywhere on the map, hear the nearest uploaded recording: market sounds in Marrakech, a Tokyo intersection at 3am, your friend's quiet Vermont backyard. Listening is free; recording requires registration. The pleasure is in stumbling onto a place you've never been and hearing what it sounds like — closer to actually being there than any image can deliver.
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---
name: "Auguste"
subtitle: "Self-funded flame-grilled Abruzzo in a Marylebone theatre dining room"
date: 2026-05-13
link: https://www.wallpaper.com/travel/restaurants/auguste-london-review
linkText: "wallpaper.com"
source: "Wallpaper* Travel"
topics:
- travel
tags: [restaurant, london, italian]
description: "New London opening from the teams behind Elm and Bambi — flame-grilled flavours from Abruzzo in a theatrical Marylebone dining room."
---
Self-funded by the operators (rare in this segment) which gives the room a sharper editorial point of view than a typical investor-backed opening. The food leans into Abruzzo's woodfire and lamb traditions; the room is designed as a kind of intimate theatre with sight-lines to the kitchen flame. Worth the booking effort if you are in London.
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---
name: "Bartender 6"
subtitle: "Menu bar manager turns the notch into a dynamic peninsula"
date: 2026-05-13
link: https://www.macbartender.com
linkText: "macbartender.com"
source: "Six Colors"
topics:
- macos-apps
tags: [macos, menu-bar, notch]
description: "Bartender's major version adds a Pro tier that transforms the MacBook notch into a 'dynamic peninsula' — Alcove-style ambient widget for menu bar items."
promotedTo: bartender-6-dynamic-peninsula
---
Bartender has organized cluttered menu bars for over a decade. Version 6's Pro feature collapses the notch from "black bar Apple asks you to ignore" into useful pixels — Now Playing strip, custom widgets, and a peninsula that expands on hover. Subscription pricing for Pro; the core hide/show is still a one-time purchase.
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---
name: "Cece's"
subtitle: "Public House's theatrical Notting Hill Italian"
date: 2026-05-13
link: https://www.wallpaper.com/travel/restaurants/ceces-london-review
linkText: "wallpaper.com"
source: "Wallpaper* Travel"
topics:
- travel
tags: [restaurant, london, italian]
description: "Theatrical new Italian in Notting Hill from the Public House group — a cinematic dining room paired with deceptively simple regional cooking."
---
Public House (the group behind Hicce, Hicce Hart, Three Falcons) does interior-led restaurants with sharper-than-average kitchens, and Cece's is their most cinematic room yet. The food is mostly handmade pasta and grilled fish; the conceit is that the room sets a stage that the food then has to live up to, and it does. Notting Hill location, dinner-and-show-without-the-show.
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---
name: "ChessUnlock"
subtitle: "Solve a chess puzzle to unlock your Mac"
date: 2026-05-13
link: https://www.reddit.com/r/macapps/comments/1t6ekb8/chessunlock_forces_you_to_solve_a_chess_puzzle_to/
source: "r/macapps"
topics:
- macos-apps
tags: [macos, chess, focus, indie]
description: "Forces you to solve a daily chess puzzle before unlocking your Mac — gating a frequent action behind deliberate practice."
---
Built by a 2nd-year CS student stuck at 1100 Elo who could not stay consistent with puzzles. ChessUnlock turns the unlock screen into a chess.com-style puzzle — you don't get into your Mac without solving today's. Niche, but the pattern (gating a frequent action behind a deliberate practice prompt) generalizes to vocabulary, music theory, or any drill where consistency beats intensity.
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---
name: "Clipboard Sync via WebDAV"
subtitle: "Cross-platform clipboard sharing using your own WebDAV server"
date: 2026-05-13
link: https://www.reddit.com/r/shortcuts/comments/1taf63a/clipboard_sync_through_webdav/
source: "r/shortcuts"
topics:
- apple-tips
tags: [shortcuts, ios, macos, webdav]
description: "Shortcut that pushes and pulls your clipboard through a WebDAV server, letting Apple devices share a clipboard with Android tablets and any non-Apple OS."
---
KDE Connect and ClipCascade are flaky for cross-OS clipboard sync; this Shortcut's author solved it by routing the clipboard through their own Nextcloud/WebDAV instance. Reliable because it leans on a battle-tested protocol. Handles text and image clipboard payloads, with file-size limits configurable.
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---
name: "Daphne du Maurier: \"How simple life becomes when things like mirrors are forgotten\""
date: 2026-05-13
link: https://wordsmith.org/awad/
linkText: "wordsmith.org"
source: "A.Word.A.Day"
topics:
- quotes
tags: [quote, du-maurier, self]
description: "A.Word.A.Day's Thought for Today (May 13, 2026) — Daphne du Maurier on the simplicity of a self-image-free life."
---
> How simple life becomes when things like mirrors are forgotten.
— Daphne du Maurier (19071989), novelist. Cited by Anu Garg's A.Word.A.Day newsletter as the Thought for Today on May 13, 2026. The line is a counter-spell to the social-media age: not "be confident" but *forget the mirror*.
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---
name: "The Desert Wave"
subtitle: "Awe-inspiring modernist statement in Palm Desert"
date: 2026-05-13
link: https://boutique-homes.com/property/the-desert-wave
linkText: "boutique-homes.com"
source: "Boutique Homes"
topics:
- travel
tags: [rental, palm-desert, modernism, architecture]
description: "Architectural rental in Palm Desert — a modernist statement house whose roofline mimics a desert wave, paired with the expected pool and Aria-Mojave landscaping."
---
Palm Desert has more mid-century-modern stock per square mile than almost anywhere outside Palm Springs proper, and the Desert Wave sits firmly in that lineage with a contemporary update. Curved concrete roof, full-glass living-room wall, deliberate indoor-outdoor flow. The rental angle: the kind of house you visit specifically to live in the architecture for a long weekend.
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---
name: "Desktop Tower Defense"
subtitle: "Paul Preece's 2007 Flash-era classic revived for the modern web"
date: 2026-05-13
link: https://handdrawngames.com/desktop-tower-defense/
linkText: "handdrawngames.com"
source: "Kottke.org"
topics:
- general-delight
tags: [games, browser, retro]
description: "The original Desktop Tower Defense — the 2007 Flash game that arguably defined the genre — playable again in a modern browser."
---
Hand-drawn Games rebuilt the original from scratch in JavaScript so it runs without Flash. The simplicity is the virtue: you place towers, the creeps walk, you upgrade, you survive. No microtransactions, no level-unlock economy, no anxiety. The way browser games used to feel.
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---
name: "Dial-up ISP with a Raspberry Pi"
subtitle: "Build your own dial-up internet provider for a vintage Mac"
date: 2026-05-13
link: https://osxdaily.com/2026/05/09/retro-fun-make-your-own-dial-up-isp-with-an-old-mac-raspberry-pi/
linkText: "osxdaily.com"
source: "OSXDaily"
topics:
- apple-tips
tags: [retro, raspberry-pi, mac, diy]
description: "DIY guide for turning a Raspberry Pi into a dial-up ISP so an old Mac with a modem can dial in and connect to the internet over a phone line again."
---
The Pi runs `mgetty` and a tiny PPP daemon; the Mac dials a phone number, hears the modem handshake, and gets a real (NAT'd) IP address. A perfect Sunday project for the SE/30 or PowerBook 1400 you cannot bring yourself to retire. The audio of the modem handshake alone is worth the effort.
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---
name: "\"Do Not Confine Your Children to Your Own Learning\""
subtitle: "Quote Investigator traces a parenting line often misattributed to Tagore"
date: 2026-05-13
link: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2026/05/13/children-time/
linkText: "quoteinvestigator.com"
source: "Quote Investigator"
topics:
- quotes
tags: [quote, parenting, attribution]
description: "Quote Investigator's tracing of \"Do not confine your children to your own learning, for they were born in another time\" — an 1887 anonymous proverb, not Tagore."
---
The line shows up on parenting Pinterest boards attributed to Rabindranath Tagore. Garson O'Toole's research at Quote Investigator traces it back to an 1887 Boston compilation titled *Gems of the Orient*, where it appears as an anonymous saying attributed only to "Arabic or Rabbinic" origin. The Tagore attribution doesn't appear until 2008 — a hundred and twenty years after the line is already in print, anonymous.
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---
name: "Flipbook"
subtitle: "Type a query, get a machine-generated illustrated encyclopedia entry"
date: 2026-05-13
link: https://flipbook.page/
source: "Web Curios"
topics:
- general-delight
tags: [ai, browser, wikipedia]
description: "An LLM-generated infinite illustrated encyclopedia — type any query and get a Wikipedia-style entry with linked terms you can click into."
---
The interface is intentionally Wikipedia-shaped: title, summary, sections, in-text blue links to related entries. The content is generated on demand. Most of the joy is exploring the link-graph the model imagines — what does it think relates to "Brutalist cookbooks" or "Welsh sea shanties"? Errors and confabulations are part of the texture, not the point. Free to try, no signup.
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---
name: "Floto Duffle Bag"
subtitle: "Italian leather duffle, 14 years and counting"
date: 2026-05-13
link: https://www.floto.com
linkText: "floto.com"
source: "r/BuyItForLife"
topics:
- tools
- clothing
tags: [bifl, leather, travel]
description: "Italian leather duffle bag whose specific virtue is durability — reports of 14+ years of weekly use with no rips, unraveling, or zipper failure."
---
Floto is a smallish Maine-based importer of Italian full-grain leather goods; the duffle is their signature piece. The leather is thick enough to scratch and patina rather than tear; the construction uses brass hardware, real stitching (not glue), and YKK zippers. Worth the price the first time you bring it on a plane and watch it survive the overhead bin without showing it. r/BuyItForLife perennial.
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---
name: "Gnome"
subtitle: "Menu-bar GIF search by hotkey"
date: 2026-05-13
link: https://lexfriedman.com/gnome/
linkText: "lexfriedman.com/gnome"
source: "Six Colors"
topics:
- macos-apps
tags: [macos, menu-bar, gif, indie]
description: "Tiny menu-bar app for searching GIFs and pasting them to the clipboard via hotkey — by Lex Friedman."
promotedTo: gnome-gif-menubar
---
Hit the hotkey, a small search bar appears in the menu bar, type "distracted boyfriend" or "thumbs up", arrow through results, hit return — the GIF lands on your clipboard ready to paste anywhere. No menus, no separate app to switch to. Built by Lex Friedman (formerly of Macworld) — a small, single-purpose utility in the One Thing Well tradition.
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---
name: "Hannah St Hotel"
subtitle: "David Flack's design coup on a triangular Melbourne block"
date: 2026-05-13
link: https://www.wallpaper.com/travel/hotels/hannah-st-hotel-melbourne-review
linkText: "wallpaper.com"
source: "Wallpaper* Travel"
topics:
- travel
tags: [hotel, melbourne, design, australia]
description: "Designer David Flack transformed an awkward triangular plot in South Melbourne into a stylish hotel blending Art Deco, mid-century, and contemporary references."
---
The site itself is the brief — a triangular block most architects would have built a square hotel onto and ignored two of the corners. Flack instead designed rooms around the geometry, with sharp wedge-shaped suites at the points and a courtyard-pierced ground floor. The lobby leans hard into mid-century Italian, the rooftop into 1970s Melbourne — and it works without looking like a moodboard.
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---
name: "Block iOS Mail senders from list view"
subtitle: "Two efficient ways to block a sender without opening the message"
date: 2026-05-13
link: https://leancrew.com/all-this/2026/05/blocking-sender-addresses-from-list-view/
linkText: "leancrew.com"
source: "Dr. Drang — leancrew.com"
topics:
- apple-tips
tags: [ios, mail, tip]
description: "Dr. Drang documents two ways to block a sender directly from iOS Mail's list view, bypassing the illogically-named 'View Contact Card' command Apple buried it behind."
---
iOS Mail hides the block-sender function behind a menu item called "View Contact Card," which makes no sense. Dr. Drang's writeup names the two real paths: swipe-and-flag-then-block, and (better) a Shortcut bound to a back-tap gesture that takes the currently-selected message and blocks its sender in one motion. Saves the four taps Apple's UI requires.
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---
name: "Cow Lightning Medium Rare Joke"
date: 2026-05-13
link: https://reddit.com/r/dadjokes/comments/1tbaquz/do_you_know_how_rare_it_is_for_a_cow_to_get_hit/
source: "r/dadjokes"
topics:
- dad-jokes
tags: [dad-joke, humor]
description: "A short pun about lightning, statistics, and steak."
---
Do you know how rare it is for a cow to get hit by lightning? Medium rare.
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---
name: "The Final Front-Ear Joke"
date: 2026-05-13
link: https://reddit.com/r/dadjokes/comments/1tacfyg/captain_kirk_has_3_ears/
source: "r/dadjokes"
topics:
- dad-jokes
tags: [dad-joke, humor, star-trek]
description: "Captain Kirk's three ears, by way of the show's opening narration."
---
Captain Kirk has 3 ears. His right ear, his left ear, and his final front ear.
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---
name: "Garden Plot Thickens Joke"
date: 2026-05-13
link: https://icanhazdadjoke.com/j/DYLukyIY8Ed
source: "icanhazdadjoke"
topics:
- dad-jokes
tags: [dad-joke, humor, garden]
description: "A garden mystery with a literary punchline."
---
As I suspected, someone has been adding soil to my garden. The plot thickens.
@@ -0,0 +1,12 @@
---
name: "Mortician and Electrician Joke"
date: 2026-05-13
link: https://reddit.com/r/dadjokes/comments/1tannlv/what_does_a_mortician_and_an_electrician_have_in/
source: "r/dadjokes"
topics:
- dad-jokes
tags: [dad-joke, humor]
description: "A short pun on two unrelated professions sharing a workplace surprise."
---
What does a mortician and an electrician have in common? They're both shocked when they touch a live one.
@@ -0,0 +1,12 @@
---
name: "Moscow Russian Into Things Joke"
date: 2026-05-13
link: https://icanhazdadjoke.com/j/ahqjV82LBAd
source: "icanhazdadjoke"
topics:
- dad-jokes
tags: [dad-joke, humor]
description: "A pun about hastily deciding to move countries."
---
I was thinking about moving to Moscow, but there is no point Russian into things.
@@ -0,0 +1,12 @@
---
name: "Postmen Anagram Joke"
date: 2026-05-13
link: https://reddit.com/r/dadjokes/comments/1tbhurm/if_you_rearrange_the_letters_of_postmen/
source: "r/dadjokes"
topics:
- dad-jokes
tags: [dad-joke, humor, anagram]
description: "An anagram joke about the postal service."
---
If you rearrange the letters of POSTMEN… …they become VERY ANGRY.
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---
name: "The Queue Silent-Letters Joke"
date: 2026-05-13
link: https://icanhazdadjoke.com/j/ZvPfFQukVvc
source: "icanhazdadjoke"
topics:
- dad-jokes
tags: [dad-joke, humor, language]
description: "An etymology-flavoured pun about the spelling of 'queue'."
---
The word queue is ironic. It's just q with a bunch of silent letters waiting in line.
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---
name: "The Shatner Panties Joke"
date: 2026-05-13
link: https://reddit.com/r/dadjokes/comments/1tav1sd/captain_kirk_was_going_to_release_a_line_of/
source: "r/dadjokes"
topics:
- dad-jokes
tags: [dad-joke, humor, star-trek]
description: "A two-line dad joke about Captain Kirk and the lingerie business."
---
Captain Kirk was going to release a line of lingerie. But the marketing people told him that Shatner panties probably wouldn't sell all that well.
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---
name: "Suitcase Emotional Baggage Joke"
date: 2026-05-13
link: https://reddit.com/r/dadjokes/comments/1t75ymg/i_told_my_suitcase_there_would_be_no_vacation/
source: "r/dadjokes"
topics:
- dad-jokes
tags: [dad-joke, humor]
description: "A short pun about cancelling vacation plans."
---
I told my suitcase there would be no vacation this year. Now I'm dealing with emotional baggage.
@@ -0,0 +1,12 @@
---
name: "Wind Turbines Metal Fan Joke"
date: 2026-05-13
link: https://reddit.com/r/dadjokes/comments/1tawi9i/two_wind_turbines_are_standing_in_a_field_one/
source: "r/dadjokes"
topics:
- dad-jokes
tags: [dad-joke, humor]
description: "Two wind turbines discuss their musical tastes."
---
Two wind turbines are standing in a field. One asked the other, "What's your favorite kind of music?" The other replies, "I've always been a huge metal fan."
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---
name: "Julian of Norwich \"Mercy and forgiveness leadeth us to grace\""
date: 2026-05-13
link: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Julian_of_Norwich
linkText: "wikiquote.org"
source: "Wikiquote"
topics:
- quotes
tags: [quote, spirituality, medieval]
description: "Wikiquote's Quote of the Day from Julian of Norwich, the 14th-century English anchoress whose Revelations of Divine Love is the earliest surviving book in English by a woman."
---
> In this life mercy and forgiveness is our way, and evermore leadeth us to grace.
— Julian of Norwich, *Revelations of Divine Love* (c. 1395). The line is a quietly resilient theology of failure: that the path is *through* fault, not around it. Cited via Wikiquote's daily feature.
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---
name: "Justrite Gas Can"
subtitle: "A 5-gallon gas can that never leaks, never spills"
date: 2026-05-13
link: https://www.justrite.com/safety-cans
linkText: "justrite.com"
source: "r/BuyItForLife"
topics:
- tools
- gifts
tags: [bifl, garage, yard]
description: "A spring-loaded safety gas can — used in commercial settings for decades — that never leaks, never spills when filling a mower, and doesn't off-gas in the car on the way home."
---
Most consumer gas cans are plastic, cheap, and design-broken: the spouts dribble, the air vents are afterthoughts, and the cap doesn't reseal cleanly. Justrite makes spring-loaded metal cans for industrial and commercial use — they cost three times what a plastic one does and last decades. The flame arrestor doubles as a seal. A r/BuyItForLife perennial.
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---
name: "Kagi Snaps"
subtitle: "Limit search results to specific sites with @site syntax"
date: 2026-05-13
link: https://help.kagi.com/kagi/features/snaps.html
linkText: "help.kagi.com"
source: "Daring Fireball — Linked List"
topics:
- macos-apps
tags: [search, kagi, productivity]
description: "Kagi's snap feature lets you scope a query to a single site by typing `@nyt` — like Google's `site:` operator, but a single character and customizable."
---
`@nyt javier baez` returns only New York Times results. Define your own snaps for any site you search often. Less ceremony than `site:nytimes.com`, and Gruber notes he rarely needs Kagi's `!g` bang to fall back to Google anymore. Available on every paid Kagi tier.
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---
name: "Kodak Charmera Keychain Camera Blind Box"
subtitle: "A working digital camera the size of a 35mm film canister"
date: 2026-05-13
link: https://store.moma.org/products/kodak-charmera-keychain-digital-camera-blind-box
linkText: "store.moma.org"
source: "MoMA Design Store"
topics:
- gifts
tags: [camera, keychain, gift, kodak]
description: "Tiny actual-working digital camera shaped like a Kodak 35mm film canister, sold as a blind-box at the MoMA Design Store."
---
The toy-camera aesthetic with a real sensor — 1MP, microSD slot, USB-C — so the lo-fi look is genuine, not a filter. Blind-box format means you get a surprise colorway. Hangs off a keychain or backpack zipper. The kind of object whose virtue isn't image quality but the joy of pulling it out at the exact moment a phone would feel intrusive.
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---
name: "Light Up Pencil"
subtitle: "A pencil with an LED in the eraser end for writing in the dark"
date: 2026-05-13
link: https://kikkerland.com/products/light-up-pencil
linkText: "kikkerland.com"
source: "Kikkerland"
topics:
- gifts
tags: [writing, gift, kikkerland]
description: "A standard pencil with a small LED in the eraser-end ferrule — useful for jotting notes at a concert, in bed, or in any dim space."
---
Twist the cap, the LED comes on, you can see what you're writing. Battery-replaceable (LR41s). \$13 at Kikkerland. The clever bit is that the light points down the shaft, so it illuminates the writing tip without dazzling you. A bedside-table notebook companion.
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---
name: "Monologue"
subtitle: "Dictation app with a command-line interface"
date: 2026-05-13
link: https://www.macstories.net/notes/monologue-notes-cli/
linkText: "macstories.net"
source: "MacStories"
topics:
- macos-apps
tags: [macos, dictation, cli, indie]
description: "A native Mac dictation app whose key feature is a CLI — script speech-to-text into any workflow."
---
Most dictation apps are GUI-bound: open the app, hit record, paste the transcription somewhere. Monologue adds a CLI so a `monologue` command can drop transcriptions into your scripts, automate hotkey-triggered captures, or pipe speech into Raycast/Alfred/Shortcuts. Reviewed favorably by Federico Viticci, who said it "was exactly what I needed."
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---
name: "\"Nobody Notices When Things Go Right\""
subtitle: "Quote Investigator traces Zimmerman's Law of Complaints to 1978"
date: 2026-05-13
link: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2026/05/09/notices-right/
linkText: "quoteinvestigator.com"
source: "Quote Investigator"
topics:
- quotes
tags: [quote, ops, attribution]
description: "Garson O'Toole traces \"Nobody notices when things go right\" — the universal lament of operations work — to a 1978 Paul Dickson compilation crediting one M. Zimmerman."
---
The line is cited everywhere on ops, infrastructure, and parenting blogs. Quote Investigator finds the earliest print appearance in Paul Dickson's 1978 collection where it appears as "Zimmerman's Law of Complaints," credited via Wall Street Journal columnist Allan L. Otten. The actual M. Zimmerman is otherwise unrecorded. The line outlived its source.
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---
name: "Play Your Tubes Right"
subtitle: "London Underground journey-time speed challenge"
date: 2026-05-13
link: https://edjefferson.com/playyourtubesright/
linkText: "edjefferson.com"
source: "Web Curios"
topics:
- general-delight
tags: [games, browser, london, subway]
description: "Browser game by Ed Jefferson: guess which of two London tube journeys is faster — game ends the first time you're wrong."
---
Built on TfL's official journey-planner data. The trick is that your intuition about distance is wrong all the time — a journey with one change can crush a "direct" journey on a meandering line, and the Picc-Vic vs. Bakerloo races are constantly counterintuitive. Single-life endless format; high score is a small London-resident flex.
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---
name: "Rake's progress"
subtitle: "A 1733 Hogarth series became a phrase for decline by folly"
date: 2026-05-13
link: https://wordsmith.org/words/rakes_progress.html
linkText: "wordsmith.org"
source: "A.Word.A.Day"
topics:
- quotes
tags: [language, etymology, hogarth, art]
description: "The phrase 'rake's progress' (a steady decline through vice or folly) comes directly from William Hogarth's 1733 series of paintings tracking a young spendthrift's ruin."
---
Hogarth's eight-painting series *A Rake's Progress* (173235) traced Tom Rakewell's inheritance, dissipation, debtor's prison, and asylum. The phrase "rake's progress" entered English by 1833, meaning a steady decline due to vice or folly. A reminder that English carries the names of specific eighteenth-century paintings around as ordinary nouns. The originals are at Sir John Soane's Museum in London.
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---
name: "Single Ride"
subtitle: "Travel the longest possible route on a single NYC subway swipe"
date: 2026-05-13
link: https://singleride.nyc/
source: "Web Curios"
topics:
- general-delight
tags: [games, browser, nyc, subway]
description: "Browser game challenging you to travel the longest possible route through the NYC subway without revisiting a station, until you reach an end of a line."
---
The MTA's single-ride fare lets you travel as far as you can without exiting the system. This game replicates that constraint on a stylized map: pick a start, plan a route, see how many stations you can hit before backtracking forces you out. Devious because the NYC system's loops mostly require crossing the East River, and the express/local distinctions matter. Free.
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---
name: "SOLIDSTATE Hardware"
subtitle: "A former Dyson engineer reinvents the side-release buckle"
date: 2026-05-13
link: https://www.carryology.com/insights/how-a-former-dyson-engineer-reinvented-the-buckle/
linkText: "carryology.com"
source: "Carryology"
topics:
- tools
- gifts
tags: [edc, design, hardware]
description: "Wingback designer Alasdair McClaine's SOLIDSTATE buckle line — a serious mechanical redesign of the cheap plastic side-release on every bag since the 1970s."
---
The side-release buckle (squeeze the two tabs, the two halves disconnect) hasn't been seriously redesigned in fifty years. SOLIDSTATE uses a sliding-pawl mechanism instead of flexing plastic tabs — same one-hand operation, but the part that wears out (the elastic tab) is replaced by a machined metal slide that doesn't fatigue. McClaine left Dyson to build this; Wingback ships them on their bag line.
@@ -0,0 +1,14 @@
---
name: "Speed Queen TC5 / DC5"
subtitle: "Commercial-grade washer-dryer set for high-volume households"
date: 2026-05-13
link: https://speedqueen.com
linkText: "speedqueen.com"
source: "r/BuyItForLife"
topics:
- tools
tags: [bifl, appliances, laundry]
description: "Speed Queen's residential-priced, commercial-grade washer-dryer set — the TC5/DC5 line is the unfussy successor to grandma's never-dying Maytag."
---
Built like the laundromat machines they're derived from: top-load, agitator-based, mechanical timer dials. No touchscreens, no "eco" modes that don't actually clean, no proprietary detergent pods. A family of six doing 15-20 loads a week is what these are scaled for. Three-year full warranty out of the box; commercial users see them last 25+ years.
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---
name: "Steno"
subtitle: "AI meeting notes that never leave your Mac"
date: 2026-05-13
link: https://www.reddit.com/r/macapps/comments/1t979je/os_steno_the_ai_intelligence_layer_for/
source: "r/macapps"
topics:
- macos-apps
tags: [macos, ai, privacy, meetings]
description: "Privacy-first AI for confidential calls — no bot joining your meeting, no data sent to third-party APIs, transcription on-device."
---
Most AI meeting-note tools work by sending a bot into your call or piping audio to a third-party LLM. Steno does neither: it transcribes locally, processes locally, and is App-Store signed. The audience that earns its place: lawyers, doctors, anyone whose meetings cannot legally land in a vendor's cloud. 720+ GitHub stars and a Mac Store listing.
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---
name: "Swedish Hasbeens"
subtitle: "Heritage-construction Swedish clogs that outlast everything else"
date: 2026-05-13
link: https://www.swedishhasbeens.com
linkText: "swedishhasbeens.com"
source: "r/BuyItForLife"
topics:
- clothing
tags: [bifl, shoes, swedish]
description: "Vegetable-tanned leather over a hand-shaped natural-wood sole — a Swedish clog tradition still made by the same small workshops that have been doing it for decades."
---
Most "Swedish clog" shoes today are mass-market knockoffs. Swedish Hasbeens uses the original Skedevi heritage: vegetable-tanned leather, a single piece of hand-shaped alder wood for the sole, brass nails. The shoes mold to the foot and last for years — the r/BuyItForLife thread is full of 8-15 year reports. Pricing reflects the construction.
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name: "Switch"
subtitle: "⌘-Tab that cycles windows, not apps"
date: 2026-05-13
link: https://github.com/sanyamarya/Switch
linkText: "github.com/sanyamarya/Switch"
source: "r/macapps"
topics:
- macos-apps
tags: [macos, window-management, open-source, keyboard]
description: "Free, source-available alternative to macOS's app-only ⌘-Tab — cycles individual windows instead, with a native look and fewer knobs than AltTab."
---
macOS's built-in ⌘-Tab cycles applications, not windows — with five Chrome windows or three Notes windows open, you can't keyboard-jump straight to one. Switch fixes this with fewer configuration options than AltTab and a more native look. Built by Sanyam, a CS junior at UW Madison; 77 GitHub stars in a week speaks to demand.
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---
name: "Takeaway"
subtitle: "Reduce an 8-letter word to 3 letters, one letter at a time"
date: 2026-05-13
link: https://takeaway-eight.vercel.app/
source: "Web Curios"
topics:
- general-delight
tags: [games, browser, puzzle]
description: "Daily word puzzle: start with an 8-letter word and remove one letter at a time, keeping a valid English word at every step, until you've reduced it to 3 letters."
---
Every step has to leave a real word behind. The puzzle is harder than it sounds — most 8-letter words have a single removable letter at each step, and missing it dead-ends you. Daily puzzle, no app, no account. The kind of game that fits a coffee or a subway ride.
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name: "Teenage Engineering EP-136 K.O."
subtitle: "A pocket-sized sidekick sequencer with 16 pads and 14 voices"
date: 2026-05-13
link: https://store.moma.org/products/teenage-engineering-ep-136-k-o-sidekick-sequencer
linkText: "store.moma.org"
source: "MoMA Design Store"
topics:
- gifts
tags: [music, synth, gift, design]
description: "Teenage Engineering's pocket sampler-sequencer follow-up to the cult OP-1 series — 16 pads, 14 voices, sold at the MoMA Design Store."
---
The EP-136 K.O. is built for sketching beats on the train, in a hotel room, anywhere you would not unpack a full controller. 16 velocity-sensitive pads, internal mic for sampling-by-tap, line-in for grabbing audio from a phone or guitar. Battery-powered, USB-C, weighs less than a paperback. MoMA carries it; price is positioned squarely as gift-for-the-musical-friend.
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---
name: "TerminalWidget"
subtitle: "Terminal feedback as a desktop widget"
date: 2026-05-13
link: https://brettterpstra.com/2026/04/20/terminalwidget-terminal-feedback-on-the-desktop/
linkText: "brettterpstra.com"
source: "Brett Terpstra"
topics:
- macos-apps
- apple-tips
tags: [macos, terminal, widget, automation]
description: "Brett Terpstra's project for surfacing command-line output as a desktop widget — quick-glance status without a Terminal window open."
---
Stick the output of any shell command (build status, disk usage, weather, your inbox count) onto the desktop as a small widget. Refreshes on a timer or on demand. The win is reducing the constant context-switch of `cmd-tab to Terminal → run command → cmd-tab back`. Open source from Brett, the author of TextExpander and Marked.
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name: "What Would J.R.R. Tolkien Think of Palantir?"
subtitle: "A video essay on a defense contractor named after Tolkien's corrupt magical objects"
date: 2026-05-13
link: https://kottke.org/26/05/what-would-jrr-tolkien-think-of-palantir
linkText: "kottke.org"
source: "Kottke.org"
topics:
- general-delight
tags: [video-essay, literature, ethics]
description: "Video essay surfaced via Kottke unpacking the irony of a defense contractor named after Tolkien's most corrupting magical objects."
---
In the Lord of the Rings, the palantíri are seeing-stones that show you exactly what someone with stronger will wants you to see — they corrupt every user except the one with the strongest hand on them. Naming a real-world surveillance company Palantir is either a deliberate provocation or a quiet admission. The essay is sharp on the literary point and patient with the political one.
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name: "Mesmerizing 4K Video of Cat-5 Typhoon Sinlaku"
subtitle: "Remastered satellite footage of a 2008 super-typhoon"
date: 2026-05-13
link: https://kottke.org/26/05/mesmerizing-4k-video-of-a-cat-5-super-typhoon
linkText: "kottke.org"
source: "Kottke.org"
topics:
- general-delight
tags: [video, weather, satellite]
description: "4K-remastered satellite footage of Category-5 Typhoon Sinlaku, surfaced by Kottke — six hours of churn condensed to four hypnotic minutes."
---
The Sinlaku footage was originally captured by Japan's Himawari-9 satellite in 2008. The remaster takes the source frames, upscales them, and corrects color for the curvature of the spinning eye. The eye holds steady; the rest of the storm rotates around it like a coiled spring. The kind of video that earns its "mesmerizing" adjective rather than the marketing one.
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---
name: "US Regional Map by Reddit Vote"
subtitle: "What 'the Midwest' means, settled by crowdsourced poll"
date: 2026-05-13
link: https://brilliantmaps.com/regions-of-the-united-states/
linkText: "brilliantmaps.com"
source: "Kottke.org"
topics:
- general-delight
tags: [maps, data, us-culture]
description: "A crowdsourced map of how Reddit-using Americans actually divide their country into regions — surfaced via Kottke."
---
The official Census Bureau regions are four blocks; everyone knows they're wrong. This map was built by letting Reddit users vote on which region each state belongs to, then drawing boundaries by majority. The South splits cleanly (Texas is its own thing); the Midwest is bigger than the Northeast wants to admit; Florida quietly secedes from everywhere. A small data project that settles a small argument.
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---
name: "Versatility"
subtitle: "Preserve macOS file versions across iCloud and create versioned PDFs"
date: 2026-05-13
link: https://eclecticlight.co/2026/05/13/how-to-preserve-versions-and-how-to-create-versioned-pdfs/
linkText: "eclecticlight.co"
source: "The Eclectic Light Company"
topics:
- apple-tips
- macos-apps
tags: [macos, versions, icloud, pdf]
description: "Howard Oakley's tool for preserving the macOS Versions database across iCloud syncs and backups — and for stamping PDFs with embedded version history."
---
macOS's per-file Versions feature is one of the OS's quietest powerful tricks (cmd-S writes a version every time), but iCloud Drive often strips the version metadata when files move between devices. Versatility keeps the version history intact and adds the ability to create PDFs with the full version timeline embedded as metadata, so audit trails survive the document leaving your Mac.
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name: "The Vietage by Anantara"
subtitle: "A boutique luxury train carriage along Vietnam's central coast"
date: 2026-05-13
link: https://www.afar.com/magazine/this-luxury-train-is-the-best-way-to-travel-in-vietnam
linkText: "afar.com"
source: "AFAR"
topics:
- travel
tags: [train, vietnam, luxury, experience]
description: "Two private carriages bolted onto regular Vietnam Railways trains running the DanangQuy Nhon coast — six-hour journey with onboard spa treatments and full meals."
---
The Vietage isn't a stand-alone train — it's two refurbished 1900s-style carriages that get hooked onto regular VN-Railways routes, so the train uses ordinary infrastructure but the experience is private. Six-hour scenic run down (or up) the central coast through fishing villages and rice terraces, with onboard spa rooms, a chef-prepared meal, and a guaranteed window seat. Memorable for any visitor — exactly the kind of distinctive experience that beats another beach day.
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name: "Wax Letter"
subtitle: "Send a real physical letter with a custom wax seal"
date: 2026-05-13
link: https://waxletter.com/
source: "Web Curios"
topics:
- gifts
- general-delight
tags: [mail, stationery, gift]
description: "Upload a design, write a letter, they print, fold, seal with a real wax seal of your monogram, and post it — physical mail with the gravitas of correspondence."
---
The wax seal is the unsung detail: a real molten-wax impression of whatever monogram you upload, applied to a folded letter that gets dropped into the postal system. Recipients open something that feels like a piece of history. Pricing scales with letter length; international shipping available. A gift for the friend who's planning a milestone announcement and doesn't want to text it.
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---
name: "Whitman: \"I felt down in my soul the clear and unmistakable conviction to disobey all\""
date: 2026-05-13
link: https://www.themarginalian.org/2026/05/13/whitman-emerson-criticism/
linkText: "themarginalian.org"
source: "The Marginalian"
topics:
- quotes
tags: [quote, whitman, creativity]
description: "Whitman's resolve in the face of Emerson's critique of Leaves of Grass — surfaced in a Maria Popova essay on creative confidence."
---
> I felt down in my soul the clear and unmistakable conviction to disobey all, and pursue my own way.
— Walt Whitman, recalling his response to Ralph Waldo Emerson's attempt (during a long Boston Common walk in 1860) to convince him to soften the "Children of Adam" poems. Whitman didn't. Cited by Popova in a piece on how to receive criticism from people you admire.
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---
name: "WKRP in Cincinnati Becomes a Real Station"
subtitle: "The fictional 1978 sitcom call letters are finally on the air"
date: 2026-05-13
link: https://www.openculture.com/2026/05/nearly-50-years-later-wkrp-in-cincinnati-becomes-a-real-radio-station.html
linkText: "openculture.com"
source: "Open Culture"
topics:
- general-delight
tags: [radio, tv, americana]
description: "Nearly 50 years after the sitcom premiered, an actual Cincinnati station has acquired the WKRP call letters and is playing classic rock — Les Nessman would approve."
---
WKRP in Cincinnati ran from 1978 to 1982. The call letters were fictional — they had to be, because the FCC reserves W-letters for stations east of the Mississippi but the show used a then-unassigned combination. In 2026, a Cincinnati classic-rock station applied for and received the letters. They play a "Turkeys Away" commemorative loop every Thanksgiving.
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---
name: "Woodpecker Garden Shears"
subtitle: "Bird-shaped pruning shears"
date: 2026-05-13
link: https://kikkerland.com/products/woodpecker-garden-shears
linkText: "kikkerland.com"
source: "Kikkerland"
topics:
- gifts
tags: [garden, gift, kikkerland]
description: "Pruning shears shaped like a woodpecker — the bird's beak is the blade — $10 at Kikkerland."
---
Genuinely useful tiny pruners (deadheading, herb-trimming, indoor plants), with the playful detail that the bird's beak does the cutting and the body fits a hand. Carbon steel blade, spring return. \$10. The gift you give to anyone who has just gotten into houseplants and is using kitchen scissors out of inertia.
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---
name: "Zenteek"
subtitle: "A native Mac music player for collectors and DAC owners"
date: 2026-05-13
link: https://www.reddit.com/r/macapps/comments/1t8fw36/zenteek_a_modern_libraryfocused_music_player_for/
source: "r/macapps"
topics:
- macos-apps
tags: [macos, music, audio, indie]
description: "Library-focused Mac music player inspired by iTunes — built for large local collections, all major audio formats, and external DAC users."
---
Most modern music players are optimized for streaming a single track at a time, with library views relegated to an afterthought. Zenteek inverts that: the library is the app, with iTunes-style smart playlists, robust format support (FLAC, ALAC, DSD), and first-class handling of external DACs that audiophile-grade apps usually fumble. Years in development, finally public.
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---
name: "The Subway, Zion (Bottom Up)"
subtitle: "Zion's slot-canyon subway hiked the non-technical way"
date: 2026-05-13
link: https://www.theoutbound.com/utah/hiking/hike-the-zion-subway-bottom-up
linkText: "theoutbound.com"
source: "The Outbound Collective"
topics:
- travel
tags: [hiking, utah, zion, national-park]
description: "The non-technical (no ropes, no rappelling) approach to Zion's famous Subway slot canyon — walk in the river, turn around when you've seen it."
---
Zion's Subway is one of the most photographed slot canyons in Utah, and most accounts treat the top-down route as the only real way to do it. The bottom-up approach trades the technical descent for an out-and-back river walk: you wade upstream through The Left Fork of North Creek, reach the iconic subway-shaped tunnel, photograph it, and walk back. No canyoneering permit needed, no rappel skills. 9 miles round trip, wet feet guaranteed.