EyeQue is a nifty little gadget that lets you test your eyes using your phone, then order lenses with the specs it produces. TK Bay:

This is a budget-friendly stay at home eye exam that you use your smartphone to be able to track and find out what your prescription is. You can use the system astigmatism, near sight, and far sight testing. the app is available on both android Google Play Store in the Apple App Store on your iphone. It can be used to track your vision health and order glasses online all without any insurance or visiting a doctor.

Image: YouTube / TK Bay

From Homer Dudley 1939 VODER device through Dennis Klatt's 1983 Klattalk that later became the DEC voice of Steven Hawking, this is an impressive evolution of human speech synthesis by machines. Posted by Brian Roemmele from and LP record that came with Dennis Klatt's "Review of text-to-speech conversion for English" J. Acous. Soc. Amer. 82, 737-793. (1987)

Photo by Layla Yehia from Pexels

At the start of the pandemic, I thought I'd start using my Instagram more to share some positivity. Cue the creeps. Instagram gives a little more control over comments than more toxic platforms like Twitter.

From the front of your profile, tap the menu icon at top right.

Menu > Settings > Privacy > Comments > Manual Filter

I want everyone to be able to comment, but you can just change that option if all of this is a hassle.

I recommend turning on "Hide Offensive Comments" and adding the word "dm" and variants, too.

Of course, if it really bothers you, your best option is not to use any of it.

As with many culinary origin stories, Buffalo wings as we know them began with a guy who doesn't get much credit. John Young served whole wings with his signature Mambo sauce starting in 1963, but he eventually closed his Buffalo wing emporium and left the state. Buffalo's Anchor Bar revised this delicacy by splitting the wings and serving them with celery and bleu cheese, which John did not approve of.

His family has been working to reclaim John's rightful place in history.

For a deeper dive, check out this great blog entry.

Image: YouTube / WKBV

This 30-minute film about the 2019–20 Hong Kong protests is not for the squeamish, but it's a great on-the-ground view of what it was like to face off against militarized police.

It begins in 2019 as a proposed bill allowing the Chinese government to extradite criminal suspects to mainland China escalated protests throughout Hong Kong. Unfolding across a year, "Do Not Split" captures the determination and sacrifices of the protesters, the government's backlash, and the passage of the new Beijing-backed national security law.

Image: YouTube / Field of Vision

For his new song "OMEGA II," musician Sébastien Guérive enlisted Thomas Blanchard (previously) Note: strobe effects.

To visualize the layers of the music, we worked on a series of macro photos which we edited in throughout the track as 'glitches'. The photos are visually independent of the video but are compatible with the dancer's movements. To capture these varied images, we had to travel to a number of different locations (cities and forests alike). The process was complicated as in editing we had to align the central focus of each photograph in order to create fluidity in the transition between each of the 25 images that appeared per second.

Image: YouTube / Sébastien Guérive

Benjamin Morard and Frederic Siegel's "The Lonely Orbit" features an inattentive satellite technician who crashes global communication. A delightful near-future sci-fi animation.

The directors' notes have a lot of great background on the concept and execution.

Image: YouTube / Short of the Week

In 1994, dozens of children at Ariel School in Ruwa, Zimbabwe said they saw a UFO in broad daylight and communicated with its occupant. UFO expert James Fox tells Joe Rogan how he learned about the incident via Steven Spielberg. Fox says there is an upcoming film about the whole thing.

Image: YouTube / Powerful JRE

Theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli took a break from studying black holes to track animals with the Hazda. Rubberband depicted his musings about the experience in this lovely collage animation.

Image: YouTube / Alexander

Kiwi artist Hannah Jensen paints dozens of layers of acrylic paint on a surface, then uses linoleum carving tools to engrave images onto it. When she cuts deeper, she can expose lower colors of paint.

Here's video of her carving a hummingbird:

This is a nice time-lapse of her technique:

Images: Instagram / hannahjensenart

Filmmaker Roman De Giuli created "Satellike" from local materials for the National Palace Museum of Taipei.

The museum ran an exhibition on culture treasures of the history of Taiwan in 2020. I was hired to create fluid and abstract interpretations of some iconic items, a collection of several drawings and artworks. I decided to develop my existing methods further, stepping away from stock paints and ink and creating most of the paints myself. One important aspect was to implement natural colors and realistic earth tones to the color palette and focus more on details than on a commercial look with punchy color and contrast. Over a period of 4 months, I experimented with natural substances like sand, stone powder and historic pigments. Some of these supplies are rare and expensive, for example jade and malachite powder.

Image: YouTube / Roman De Giuli

For his innovative hip-hop odyssey "Enough," Nathan Nzanga spent ten years filming his thoughts and experiences Congolese-American coming of age in the United States. It's pretty amazing to watch someone grow up over the course of a short film, reminiscent of Boyhood.

Image: YouTube / Nathan Nzanga

The shoppers from the grocery app I use sometimes got the wrong produce. This guide to PLU codes helped me make sure I get a tasty Honeycrisp (3283) and not a disgusting Red Delicious (3284).

This is the most first-world problem I have had in some time, but I added these PLUs to Instacart's instructions for the shoppers, and the errors went way down. You can also put them in your phone if you still go to the store in person. You can search by word, item, or number.

• 3000 APPLES Alkmene
• 3001 APPLES Aurora/Southern Rose
• 3002 APPLES Cantared
• 3003 APPLES D'Estivale
• 3004 APPLES Discovery
• 3005 APPLES Golden Delicious Blush
• 3006 APPLES Ingrid Marie
• 3007 APPLES Lochbuie
• 3008 APPLES Rubinette
• 3009 APPLES Russet

Fun fact: organic items have the prefix of '9' inserted in front of the 4-digit conventional PLU code.

Photo by Susanne Jutzeler from Pexels

YouTuber Contrapoints spends 90 minutes going over not just how J.K. Rowling got lured into the anti-trans movement, but also the tactics they use to present trans people as a threat to women, free speech, society, and so on.

J.K. Rowling could have spent the rest of her life counting her money and enjoying the perks of being a beloved children's author. Instead, she decided to seal her historic legacy as a leading voice in the so-called "gender critical" movement, an unholy alliance of right-wing and left-leaning folks united by anti-trans bigotry.

Image: YouTube / Contrapoints

Makeup artist Kazu Hiro also creates larger-than-life sculptures of notable people. Each one is very realistic. YouTuber NAKIzm stopped by his exhibit at last year's LA Art Show

Hiro won the Academy Award for Best Makeup and Hairstyling for Darkest Hour (2017) and Bombshell (2019).

Image: YouTube / NAKIzm

The Bay of Fundy in Saint John, New Brunswick, has areas with extreme tides. Artist Hula painted a four-story mural during low tide, and completed the top during high tide.

Image: YouTube / Kapu Collective

Andrew Callaghan travels the United States for his All Gas No Brakes YouTube Channel. VICE has a great profile about his approach to covering the high weirdness that is America.

Here's his coverage of the pandemic year's Independence Day celebrations:

Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim's Abso Lutely Productions is reportedly developing a series with Callaghan.

Image: YouTube / VICE

The fine folks at powerwashing firm Blast Away also offer a cool stenciling option where they will powerwash your logo or other stencil onto the sidewalk. So satisfying, and perhaps not technically illegal, since there is probably no law against partially cleaning something.

Image: YouTube / Blast Away

Filipe Miranda makes all sorts of cool little miniatures, like this Twister, Jenga, and beer pong set for an upcoming model.

This mini Nirvana vinyl is pretty sweet and can play on his old-timey stereo console:

Image: Instagram / filipemiranda_design

Tattoo artist Jason Stieva has an amazing related hobby creating remarkably ornate skulls and ghost ships.

Images: Instagram / shallowgravestudios