Time to Kill
Hi everyone, happy Wednesday! After the deluge of brands hounding you over Black Friday and Cyber Monday, I’m sure none of you want to see another email in your inbox telling you what to buy. Personally, after four straight days of feverishly flipping through sales, deals, and discounts, I’m all shopped out, and I only ended up buying a few things! So for today, here are three things I’m consuming right now that don’t require your credit card digits. Don’t worry, I’ll be back to browsing by next week.
Fetch a Sketch
What’s something that you’d never thought of before but seemed obvious once you knew it? For me, it was the fact that different Google Doodles are rolled out for different countries. I mean, duh! I adore Google’s little embellished logos celebrating notable occasions, so once I realized that I’d only ever seen probably < 10% of them, I went and combed through their Doodle archive, which keeps a record of every single doodle ever created. They’re also occasionally interactive, and some expand into fun mini-games (I’m particularly fond of the ones around Halloween.) Happy Doodling!
Tune In, Tune Out
The one good thing about this pandemic is that working remotely has eliminated my commute. I don’t miss driving at all, but I do miss turning on the radio and listening to a medley of songs that I have zero control over. A Spotify playlist curated by the algorithm just doesn’t hit the same, you know? That’s why I’m so happy to have found Radio Garden, a Dutch non-profit project that allows you to listen to thousands of radio stations all over the globe. I’ve tuned in to Japanese soft pop, German talk shows, and Swedish jazz. There’s a search function if you’re looking for something specific, but I highly suggest giving some of the categories organized by Radio Garden a try: “Time Travel” for nostalgic tunes, “Weird Frequencies” for fun/unusual stations, or “Ends of the Earth,” broadcast from the most far-flung corners of the world.
Clips At All Cost
At first glance, “Universal Paperclips” seems like a straightforward, barebones game. There’s no graphics, no backstory, nothing but buttons to click and counters ticking up. You are an AI, and your only goal is to produce as many paperclips as your resources allow. As you progress, however, and the scale of your operation expands, things start getting increasingly sinister. A word of warning: make sure you have a long stretch of uninterrupted free time ahead of you before you click “Make Paperclip.” I started the game, and by the time I resurfaced 3 hours had passed in the blink of an eye.