No Warmth Edition

Hello internet stranger,

The Weekly Click is a weekly (shocking, I know) updated list of interesting bits on the internet that I thought I’d share.

Happy clicking!

1. Terrence Shannon Jr. has been granted an injunction against the University of Illinois by a federal judge, lifting his suspension from the Fighting Illini Basketball team. This is massive. The News-Gazette story. The Illini Inquirer story.

2. All the garbage I found on Substack in 1 hour. Josh Drummond very easily found all sorts of monetized anti-vax, anti-science, Nazi, anti-trans, and antisemitic newsletters on Substack. This is frightening. I wish Ghost had a free tier.

3. Star Wars started 2024 with a big announcement: a Mandalorian movie called The Mandalorian & Grogu will be the next franchise entry to hit theaters. I hate that title with a thousand suns, but at least it’ll be directed by Jon Favreau. Also, who’s going to be the bad guy?

4. Indiana Jones voice actor Troy Baker does his best Harrison Ford impression for Indiana Jones and the Great Circle video game trailer.

5. Engineer Erkam Seker created “Drive & Listen”, a website that lets users virtually drive around different cities in the world while listening to their local radio stations.

6. AI can do your homework. Now what?

7. Auralnauts has redone the first Star Wars movie, now known as A New Hope, as if Zack Snyder had been at the helm. The story is familiar but is now chock full of Snyderesque touches, like the overuse of his signature slow-motion shift for dramatic emphasis (executed appropriately and perfectly at 8:50), the camera lingering unnecessarily on the most gory details, and too much nonsensical exposition in the dialogue.

8. Forbes has a two-part interview with Paul Stanley. It’s nice and easy. Part 1 and Part 2.

9. Three Body Problem trailer. Netflix has posted a longer trailer for their upcoming series, adapted from Liu Cixin's novel.

10. The Curious Case of the Pearl Jam Posters. A story about art and what it’s worth.

11. A few years ago, animation voice actor John DiMaggio and a bunch of his friends made a documentary on a bunch of his friends. I Know That Voice is all about folks who speak for cartoon characters, and there are an awful lot of them in the film.

12. All the Types of Science Fiction.

13. Watch how fast CyberRunner can run a marble through this wooden labyrinth maze.

14. 180 Songs That Turn 40 Years Old in 2024. All these songs are in my wheelhouse. I was 16 and at the peak of listening to music.

15. The history of the US government's comic books runs the gamut from educating Americans on safety to pushing all-out propaganda.

16. Tom Hodgkinson on how to sleep well.

17. A mouse has been filmed secretly tidying up a man's shed almost every night for two months.

18. When Superman and Batman Copyrights Expire in a Decade, Will It Be Kryptonite for DC? The legal team can’t wait to get started.

19. The art of sentence length by Gary Provost.

20. Why Does Superman Need to Save the Cat?

21. Andy Baio writes about the failure of a social network. Social Networking site Ello, is no more.

22. An actor cut together a compilation of his background work, and it's hilarious.

23. Jack Cheng writes about his daily Daily Routine. These are fascinating to me. I should write up my routine… and then stick to it.

24. Some big retailers are reversing course on self-checkout kiosks.

25. A dialect group selects "enshittification" as 2023's word of the year.

26. How much do you like Jimmy Carr? Here’s Every Single Jimmy Carr Stand-Up Comedy Special - PART 1 [5h30m] and Every Single Jimmy Carr Stand-Up Comedy Special - PART 2 [6h30m].

27. Snowfall in New Hampshire. Two hours of calm and peaceful snow in trees. It makes me wish I had a second monitor to run this on.

28. The Artifact news app is shutting down because “the market opportunity isn’t big enough to warrant continued investment”. I’m so glad I did not move to this app.

29. Seven Steps to Monday Ramp

30. Take A Tour Of One Of The Last Homes Frank Lloyd Wright Ever Designed. I like Tirrana more than Falling Water.

31. Robin Wright in The New Yorker: How Ten Middle East Conflicts Are Converging Into One Big War. This is not good.

32. The Meaning Behind the Songs on Doctor Who’s TARDIS Jukebox.

33. Green Day And Jimmy Fallon Play An Impromptu Gig In A New York City Subway Station. So much fun.

34. Fruit Stripe Gum, disappointing children for fifty years, is to be discontinued.

35. Cindy Morgan, the actress best known for her roles in films like Caddyshack and Tron, died at the age of 69.

36. Tom Scocca’s piece in New York about his sudden, unsolved medical mystery is the best thing you’ll read all week.

37. The science is clear: Masks work to reduce the spread of COVID-19 and similar viruses, no matter what the misinformation merchants tell you.

38. A list of all 673 books removed from classrooms in Orange County, Florida. I hate this.

39. The seams on a baseball have a higher-than-expected effect on the trajectory of the ball in flight.

40. Magazines are in trouble: Condé Nast is folding Pitchfork into GQ, with layoffs (Pitchfork is done) and Sports Illustrated lays off most of its staff, threatening the brand’s future. (It’s also done and going to be a shell of its former self).

41. Interesting. Canceled MouseGuard Movie Test DEMO FOOTAGE.

42. How to Pizza

Thanks for reading. If you like this potpourri of internet mélange and want to support it, forward it to someone who might like it, buy my books, or at the very least, let me know what you think. It is my hope you are enjoying my six-word stories or haiku here at the end.

Be seeing you.