Blog

‘This extraordinary story never goes out of fashion’: 30 authors on the books they give to everyone | Books

‘This extraordinary story never goes out of fashion’: 30 authors on the books they give to everyone | Books

🔥 Check out this trending post from Culture | The Guardian 📖 📂 Category: Books,Culture,Fiction,Poetry,Christmas,Robert Macfarlane,Elif Shafak,Colm Tóibín,Jeanette Winterson,Michael Rosen,Katherine Rundell,Max Porter,Kamila Shamsie,Ali Smith,Diana Evans,Tessa Hadley,Nina Stibbe,Sarah Moss,Nikesh Shukla,William Boyd,Jonathan Coe,Science and nature books,Children and teenagers 💡 Main takeaway: I love giving books as presents. I rarely give anything else. I strongly approve of the Icelandic tradition of the Jólabókaflóðið (Yule book flood), whereby books are given (and, crucially, read) on Christmas Eve. Nan Shepherd’s The Living Mountain is the one I’ve given more often than any other; so much so that I keep a stack of four or five to…
Read More
The Instagram-fueled boom in replica vintage car body shells

The Instagram-fueled boom in replica vintage car body shells

✨ Read this trending post from WIRED 📖 📂 Category: Gear,Gear / Gear News and Events,Pressing Matters 📌 Key idea: Not surprising That in an electric world where Jell-O-mold cars are designed to create minimal drag, many car heads yearn for the automotive aesthetics of yesteryear. After all, classic cars from the 1970s and earlier had undeniable style — the problem is, car companies don't make them anymore.This is a sales boon for restoration shops, but despite barn finds, the supply of vintage vehicles is inevitably limited. But this rarity has created an opportunity for an Indonesian company, which, in…
Read More
The Coming Need for Formal Specification

The Coming Need for Formal Specification

🔥 Check out this insightful post from Hacker News 📖 📂 Category: ✅ Here’s what you’ll learn: In late 2022, I had a conversation with a senior engineer on the coming problem of “what to do when AI is writing most of the code”. His opinion, which I found striking at the time, was that engineers would transition from writing mostly “implementation” code, to mostly writing tests and specifications. I remember thinking at the time that this was prescient. With three years of hindsight, it seems like things are trending in a different direction. I thought that the reason that…
Read More
Amadeus returns: Can Sky’s miniseries attract a new generation to Mozart? | classical music

Amadeus returns: Can Sky’s miniseries attract a new generation to Mozart? | classical music

✨ Discover this insightful post from Culture | The Guardian 📖 📂 Category: Classical music,Culture,Music,Television,Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart,Paul Bettany,Sky Atlantic,Television & radio 💡 Key idea: FForty years ago, Amadeus won eight Academy Awards, four BAFTA Awards and four Golden Globe Awards – and introduced a new generation to eighteenth-century music. Millions bought the soundtrack to the film Mozart, and it remains one of the best-selling classical music albums of all time, with over 6.5 million copies sold worldwide, and achieving 13 gold discs.It even inspired a new hit when Falco mixed Europop with rap in Rock Me Amadeus – the first…
Read More
People are already taking this new, unapproved drug to lose weight

People are already taking this new, unapproved drug to lose weight

✨ Discover this awesome post from WIRED 📖 📂 Category: Science,Science / Health,Triple G 💡 Here’s what you’ll learn: Such endorsements abound online. Other Rita boosters also point to its purported ability to reduce cravings for drugs and alcohol. (Some clinical literature has suggested the potential of GLP-1 drugs in treating addiction, due to their ability to rewire dopamine signals in the brain.) Less desirable side effects, in trials and anecdotally, include low energy, dizziness, skin hypersensitivity (a form of extreme sensitivity to touch), and decreased libido.Eli Lilly, the drug's manufacturer, is currently completing phase III trials. If all goes…
Read More
Google Removes Sci-Hub Domains from U.S. Search Results Due to Dated Court Order * TorrentFreak

Google Removes Sci-Hub Domains from U.S. Search Results Due to Dated Court Order * TorrentFreak

💥 Read this must-read post from Hacker News 📖 📂 Category: 📌 Here’s what you’ll learn: Home > Anti-Piracy > Site Blocking > Google has removed dozens of new Sci-Hub domain names from its search results in the United States. Unlike typical DMCA takedowns, the removals were triggered by a dated court order that was not enforced for several years. This appears to be one of the first times Google has deindexed an entire pirate site in the U.S. based on a 'site blocking' style injunction. In 2017, American Chemical Society (ACS), a leading source of academic publications in the…
Read More
Into the Woods review – The Brothers Grimm exquisitely mashed up by Sondheim | stage

Into the Woods review – The Brothers Grimm exquisitely mashed up by Sondheim | stage

🚀 Check out this insightful post from Culture | The Guardian 📖 📂 Category: Theatre,Musicals,Stephen Sondheim,Bridge theatre,Stage,Culture,Fairytales,Books,Tom Scutt ✅ Here’s what you’ll learn: CDoes the always imaginative Brothers Grimm mash-up of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine disappoint, when his book is so clever and driven by the most wonderful (if difficult) music? Jordan Finn's production sparkles and sparkles with all the humor and pathos of these wayward fairytale characters having a misadventure in the woods, their rearranged stories wrapping around each other.The show starts with brisk efficiency, racing along with some early songs, but it packs in the emotion and…
Read More
Baseus Inspire XH1 headphones review: Excellence at affordable prices

Baseus Inspire XH1 headphones review: Excellence at affordable prices

🚀 Read this must-read post from WIRED 📖 📂 Category: Gear,Gear / Products,Gear / Reviews,Gear / Products / Audio,Gear / Products / Headphones,Product Review 💡 Here’s what you’ll learn: Transparency is very good, and I'm really annoyed that it doesn't work when I'm on a call. If so, these cans would be great for long calls and meetings. Microphones are remarkably adept at keeping background noise invisible to callers. When that noise was particularly loud, my voice faded somewhat, but only the high-pitched wail of a siren managed to break through. When my environment was quieter, the XH1 maintained my…
Read More
Poor Johnny still won’t encrypt – by JP Aumasson

Poor Johnny still won’t encrypt – by JP Aumasson

💥 Check out this awesome post from Hacker News 📖 📂 Category: ✅ Here’s what you’ll learn: This title is an obvious nod toTo encrypt email in 1998 you’d run GnuPG from a terminal, importing the recipient’s public key into your local keyring then copying your email text into a file then encrypting the file for that public key: gpg -e -r alice file. Finally you’d copy the encrypted message into your email client and send it out.In 2025, it’s pretty much the same. In some respects, it’s worse:It feels like fewer people care about email encryption today than they…
Read More
Flexible limbs, fantasy accents, and crackling sexual chemistry: Dick Van Dyke turns 100 | Dick Van Dyke

Flexible limbs, fantasy accents, and crackling sexual chemistry: Dick Van Dyke turns 100 | Dick Van Dyke

💥 Check out this trending post from Culture | The Guardian 📖 📂 Category: Dick Van Dyke,Film,Culture,Mary Poppins,Chitty Chitty Bang Bang,Television,Julie Andrews ✅ Main takeaway: AAll Hollywood stars grow old and die, except perhaps for one of them - Dick Van Dyke - who turns 100 today. The real world Peter Pan who used to stumble upon the ottoman on The Dick Van Dyke Show is still standing. The man who impersonated the wind-up toy in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang hasn't given up yet. He has outlived mentors, co-stars, romantic partners, and many studios. He has outlived the jokes about…
Read More