Quantum Leap was a TV series starring Scott Bakula as Dr. Sam Beckett, a physicist who jumped back and forth through time and reappearing in the body of someone else, righting the wrongs of their present (but always in the past).
It aired on NBC from 1989–1993 but caused a lot of frustration for its fans due to constant schedule changes and a less-than-satisfying ending. Dan Larson discussed the show’s history and touched on the sequel series that didn’t answer any questions to the mysterious actual ending.Oh boy.
A blend of vague and Facebooking, vaguebooking is the practice of making a post on social media, primarily Facebook, that is intentionally vague but highly personal and emotional. Designed to elicit concerned responses from friends and family, it’s often looked down upon as a desperate call for attention or need for validation.
Apparently this was added to Dictionary.com’s slang dictionary in 2019 and while I totally understand what it means, I hadn’t heard it until now. A good example of this is the stereotypical vague but overly emotional post like “you really find out who your friends are when times get tough x”, followed by a response like “are you ok hun? x”, and a final retort of “i’m fine, just thinking out loud x” or perhaps an unannounced DM explaining what happened (if anything).
It’s fascinating how modern portmanteaus get formed, especially considering how marginalised cultures and online phenomena intersect.
SkatePal is a really cool organisation that helps Palestinian kids by promoting the social, health and wellbeing benefits of skateboarding.
How Bricks Made From Invasive Seaweed Clean Mexico's Beaches | World Wide Waste | Business Insider
In North America, millions of tons of a type of seaweed called sargassum washes up on beaches every year. The bad news is that it contributes to beach erosion and disrupts the ecosystems making it an invasive species but in Mexico, a businessman called Omar Vazquez found an opportunity to put that waste to use.
His “Sargablocks” turns the seaweed into bricks for use in low-cost sustainable construction.
Between me and sargassum, there was love at first sight.
Your smile’s like an email from grandma: all caps.
Jiminy Glick to Bill Maher
For JSTOR Daily, Waiyee Loh explored the West’s perspective of postwar Japanese culture and why it’s so adored: Observers have long hailed Japan’s aptitude for cultural synthesis. Is this characterization warranted, or does it reflect a collective fantasy about exceptionalism?
Ireland gets a lot of support and a lot of love from the international and Palestinian communities for our support for a Free Palestine. Unlike most countries, in Ireland the need for a liberated Palestine is a given, the default, and we are deeply pro-liberation and anti-genocide, having endured hundreds of years of occupation ourselves. We have turned out for protests in large numbers, and we have had numerous politicians take active and early stances.
That said, I truly believe that Ireland is failing Palestine.
Our convictions are high, but our actions are absent. We hold the right beliefs, and we are doing absolutely nothing with them.
It’s well worth a read as Biggar touches on government policies, Big tech operating in Ireland without reproach, and what direct action would look like to counteract the government’s “complicity”.
Harris Alterman is a comedian and he made a hilarious TikTok about “woke architecture” that is absurd but also not completely far from what we see from the right these days. This has to be one of my favourite pieces of satire all year. (h/t Sam Thielman on Bluesky)
One of the most ubiquitous sounds from the 90s was Tim Allen’s grunt in Home Improvement. But he didn’t just do the one from the theme song and the above video shows the wide gamut of his vocabulary.
Thibault Drutel is a French photographer and his “syMMetric subWay” photo series captures the architecture of a variety of underground train stations in Europe, including Germany (Hamburg, Berlin, and Munich), Belgium (Brussels), and Sweden (Stockholm).
Resizabill lets you resize a $100 bill into something vertical via the browser window.
That’s how regular money goes digital! A dollar bill that resizes with your screen, warping familiar proportions. An adaptive design, digital currency, and inflation—all in one package.
I will say resizing your window horizontally (up and down) doesn’t work properly.
Lifta is a bold protest typeface available in black and stencil versions […] it is a typeface that protests the erasure of Palestinian identity and the subjugation of their rights as they live under occupation. It is designed by Omaima Dajani who is from East Jerusalem and living under occupation today. The design above is dedicated to Palestinian refugees around the world […]
If you’re looking to make any protest posters in Arabic, this could be a cost-effective typeface to use.
Atlas Obscura covered a strange example of collective behaviour—thousands of people left dirty shoe prints in Vegas parking lots: Theories regarding the shoe mark tradition abound; some believe it brings good luck to casino-goers, while others attribute it to intoxicated patrons en route to their cars.
