Issue 80
Listening to podcasts can have the same impact on your brain as reading. Trying to balance the cognitive load.
🔐 THE BEST VPNS COMPARED. PLUS, WEB COMICS, ROBO-SHORTS, AND MARS
Heya,
It's been a big week for sending stuff to Mars: nukes or your name? Seems like the kind of dodgy personality test that belongs on Facebook. You can read the articles and make your own decision about which would be best.
In other news, nothing is more weird and/or wonderful as developments in robots. This week, it's shorts that help you run faster and humanoid eyes in robot dogs. Good thing we got the shorts, huh?
To fill the issue out, I've also got a few cool tools, a brilliant guide to typography, and Minecraft clones.
Enjoy,
Chris.
📰 From the Newsroom
Listening to podcasts can have the same impact on your brain as reading.
Great news if you prefer Ron Burgandy to Tolstoy. It's all the same. Podcasting is enjoying an interesting moment right now, but I do feel it is getting ready to jump the shark.
But, if MickyD's can have a popular podcast [PW], then the hunger for podcasts might be impossible to satisfy.
futurity.org
Trying to balance the cognitive load.
Like anyone who embarks on digital minimalism, I am going to be very judgy.
I have started using my phone less and less. Largely, because none of those Reddit memes are useful on a daily basis. I think if you are regularly creating memes or gifs, then the phone addiction is less cognitively damaging. But for scrollers, like myself, it was just clutter.
futurity.org
Live fast, die never: A deep dive into the technology behind anti-aging life extension science.
Depending on your age, this is either exciting news or rather mundane. The good news is that you will now have hundreds of years to service your student loan.
The developments aren't unexpected, everyone's favorite futurist, Ray K said we'll start beating death by 2029. Dude is eerily accurate about the future, so think about a new name for your bucket list.
technologyreview.com
🕸️ The Cool Side of the Web
How do you solve a problem like Mars? With nukes and swag.
Smokin' Elon said we should nuke Mars as part of a terraforming plan. He made similar claims a few years back, but he learned from that mistake and decided to offer t-shirts this time. The article digs into the potential of nukes for creating a beautiful home.
In other Mars related news, you can send your name to Mars when NASA heads there in 2020.
space.com
DR.ME has finally added The Simpsons to the Renaissance. 🎭
Some nice collages combining The Simpsons with various art-things. The one that got me was the Picture Book of Scotland. You can go straight to the Kickstarter here.
itsnicethat.com
A weird animation about IKEA and parenthood. It's a Greek Tragedy in French.
But the subtitles are in English.
vimeo.com
Our latest batch of web comics on tech, WordPress, and more. 🎨
codeinwp.com
🤖 Robots et. al.
Who likes robo-shorts? We like robo-shorts!
The headline is misleading because they are closer to an exoskeleton than short-shorts. As an investment, the $30,000 price-tag makes them more attractive than a pair of Yezzys. As a modern fashion statement, they are better than janties.
afp.com
Boston Dynamics give you the nightmare hound you never wanted to see. 🐕
This robodog is not terrifying until you see the eyes. Why does it have human eyes? But, I would still prefer to have it chase me than a German Shepherd any day of the week.
futurism.com
⚒️ Tools and Resources
VPN comparison.
I came across this because my torrent software kept telling me to "Get a bloody VPN". I started looking into VPNs because paranoia. Pretty sure I will go with Nord, but this list is a good comparison of the big guns.
themeisle.com
Sketchy charts you can trust. 📈
A pretty cool tool for adding a different style to your charts and graphs. The hand-drawn style definitely feels out of place for Serious graphs and charts, but I still think they look really cool.
github.com
Waves in web design managed to become bigger than gradients.
At the start of the year, it was all about gradients, no one wanted to talk about anything else. But really, they were hiding the truth: waves. It was going to be all about waves. This is a great tool for generating different waves in SVG.
getwaves.io
🕷️ Design & Development Arena
Climate Change article of the week: What are your responsibilities as a web developer?
Language warning. He gets a little frustrated at times which sometimes masks the fact that working for the environment can actually bring a number of other great changes: improved productivity, performance, and education.
m7w3.de
The ultimate guide to basic typography. 🔤
Usually, I shy away from anything "ultimate", except frisbee, but this is actually a really good guide for all levels. If you need a go-to resource, or something to learn from, then this is the ultimate guide for you.
tutsplus.com
🧠 Tech Minded
Quick promo video proving that Chinese scientists can turn sand into soil. 🏝️
I included this because it is kind of cool given, you know, stuff. It might not be water into wine, but that's a whole 'nother problem anyway.
youtube.com
🎮 Fun & Games
iCraft is a simple clone of Minecraft based on the original. Like, the original original.
If you'd like something a little fancier this version of Minecraft was made with ThreeJS, ReactJS, GraphQL, and NodeJS.
codepen.io
Outro
That's it for the week.
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See you next week,
Chris.
