Welcome back and happy new year!
My 2026 has started with a Backstreet Boys concert and getting the flu, so you win some, you lose some. The flu has also made it increasingly harder to get back into work mode.
How is your year kicking off?
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AI has been a big topic on the site lately (and honestly everywhere else). Enjoy this rabbit hole of a viral reddit post from a delivery app whistleblower.
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Stumbled across Renee Vinson, an artist who has recently taken her art in a new direction by creating portraits of drag queens.
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This link comes from Malaraa from the SBTB podcast discord. JSTOR has an article on women game designers of the 19th century.
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Music worlds collide with Daryl Hall and Patrick Stump of Fall Out Boy! Apparently, this clip was from a 2000s web series, where artists would perform with Hall at his home.
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Don’t forget to share what cool or interesting things you’ve seen, read, or listened to this week! And if you have anything you think we’d like to post on a future Wednesday Links, send it my way!
I ended 2026 by singing BSB with some friends if that counts as a concert.
Today I googled to check if the Vattenfall ads with Samuel L. Jackson (promoting offshore wind power) were for real. Because my first reaction—and I’ve been seeing them for weeks…months…what is time?—was how cool. Then today, the recent AI discussion hit me—I’m slow—and I was like motherfucker! But it’s real, not AI. So, cool. Motherfucking Samuel L. Jackson!
And now I want a wind powered seaweed snack. Too bad they’re not for sale. 🙁
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJU3PrHvxn4 (Volvo advertisement, Claude van Damme)
If this advertisement wasn’t as old as it is, I’d feel certain it was AI.
An MCU easter egg snuck into Heated Rivalry: https://gizmodo.com/heated-rivalry-rose-mystique-reference-xmen-lgbtq-2000706335
@ReadKnitSnark, Scotland has been battling Vattenfall for years because the company wants to raze the last habitat of the endangered Scottish Wildcat to build a wind farm. They have been responding to lawsuits meant to stop them by bribing and manipulating British officials and causing credibility and physical damage to the environmentalists and conservationists fighting to save the animals from extinction. JSYK
Fascinating article about women game designers – thanks for that.
@LML, I remember seeing that original ad! Here’s the stunt coordinator talking about how they set it all up…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Q_e2_-eLfU&t=6s