Detour Through The Junk Drawer

YouTube Links to the 100 Greatest Songs of the 1960s

Al Sweigart — Thu, 01 Oct 2026 11:00:00 -0400

A list of links to the 100 greatest songs of the 1960s according to Paste Magazine.

YouTube Links to the 100 Greatest Songs of the 1970s

Al Sweigart — Thu, 01 Oct 2026 11:00:00 -0400

A list of links to the 100 greatest songs of the 1970s according to Paste Magazine.

YouTube Links to the 100 Greatest Songs of the 1980s

Al Sweigart — Thu, 01 Oct 2026 11:00:00 -0400

A list of links to the 100 greatest songs of the 1980s according to Paste Magazine.

11 Japanese Decluttering Lessons that Almost Everyone Learns Far Too Late

Al Sweigart — Thu, 01 Oct 2026 11:00:00 -0400

A bullet list summary of decluttering advice.

Book Reviews of "Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents"

Al Sweigart — Thu, 01 Oct 2026 11:00:00 -0400

A list of book reviews for "Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents" by Lindsay C Gibson (2015).

Amazon's Profits by Year

Al Sweigart — Thu, 01 Oct 2026 11:00:00 -0400

Amazon's profits by year according to macrotrends.net

News Articles About the Athens Olympic Meteor Art Installation

Al Sweigart — Thu, 01 Oct 2026 11:00:00 -0400

A list of news articles about the Athens Olympic Meteor art installation in 2004.

Battery Status Commands on Windows, macOS, and Linux

Al Sweigart — Thu, 01 Oct 2026 11:00:00 -0400

Terminal commands for finding battery status information on Windows, macOS, and Linux.

Books About the Dotcom, NFT, and Crypto Bubbles

Al Sweigart — Thu, 01 Oct 2026 11:00:00 -0400

A list of books about the dotcom, NFT, and crypto bubles that I'd like to get around to one day.

Books on User Interface Design

Al Sweigart — Thu, 01 Oct 2026 11:00:00 -0400

A list of books about user interface design.

Checkers/Draughts Variants

Al Sweigart — Thu, 01 Oct 2026 11:00:00 -0400

A comparison of American/English, Brazilian, and International checkers/draughts rules.

Chess Sprite Packs and JavaScript Chess Engines

Al Sweigart — Thu, 01 Oct 2026 11:00:00 -0400

A list of image files ("sprites") of chess pieces, along with a list of JavaScript chess engines.

Free Comic Reader Apps for macOS

Al Sweigart — Thu, 01 Oct 2026 11:00:00 -0400

A list of apps for reading comic book files on a Macbook. The recommended one is YACReader which is also available for Windows and Linux.

List of Common YouTuber Mistakes

Al Sweigart — Thu, 01 Oct 2026 11:00:00 -0400

A list of common YouTuber mistakes. I compiled this list because I want to return to making videos, but needed to keep these issues in mind to avoid making basic mistakes and looking like an amateur.

What does “counting ears in hamlet” refer to?

Al Sweigart — Thu, 01 Oct 2026 11:00:00 -0400

“Counting ears in Hamlet” usually refers to a literary-analysis exercise: tracking how often Shakespeare uses the words “ear,” “ears,” hearing, listening, and related imagery throughout the play. It matters because the ear is a major motif in Hamlet. King Hamlet is murdered by poison poured into his ear, while Denmark itself is metaphorically “poisoned” by Claudius’s lies—“the whole ear of Denmark” is deceived. Throughout the play, words, rumors, spying, overhearing, and deceptive speech repeatedly enter through people’s ears.

List of Books on LLMs for Beginners

Al Sweigart — Thu, 01 Oct 2026 11:00:00 -0400

The ChatGPT response to, "A list of books that teach programming to beginners but also teach what LLMs are and how to integrate LLMs with your code." However, I'm not quite sure how good this list actually is. I've decided to post it anyway.

List of Jokes Misinterpreted by LLMs as Real

Al Sweigart — Thu, 01 Oct 2026 11:00:00 -0400

A list of news articles discusses occassions where LLMs reported jokes as real.

More Recent Computer Science Books

Al Sweigart — Thu, 01 Oct 2026 11:00:00 -0400

Computer science is young compared to other sciences, but at this point many "classic" CS textbooks are over a quarter century old. Here is a list of general computer science books from the last 15 years.

List of Perennial, Generic News Stories

Al Sweigart — Thu, 01 Oct 2026 11:00:00 -0400

I was thinking of that Simpsons gag in the episode Bart Gets an Elephant where the radio station manager threatens the DJs with replacement by an automated DJ machine. The electronic DJ quips, "Looks like those clowns in Congress did it again. What a bunch of clowns." and the credulous human DJ says, "How does he keep up with the news like that?" It made me want to compile a list of perennial, evergreen news stories.

List of Period Tracker Apps with End-to-End Encryption

Al Sweigart — Thu, 01 Oct 2026 11:00:00 -0400

A list of period tracker mobile apps that offer end-to-end encryption so that even the cloud storage host cannot access your data.

Python Language News Sources

Al Sweigart — Thu, 01 Oct 2026 11:00:00 -0400

A list of news sources for the Python programming language.

Republicans Love Child Marriage

Al Sweigart — Thu, 01 Oct 2026 11:00:00 -0400

A list of news articles where Republicans defend and endorse child marriage.

Signage Strategies

Al Sweigart — Thu, 01 Oct 2026 11:00:00 -0400

Books on signage strategies for events and locations, as well as official guidance from various Departments of Transportation. I wanted to know what kinds of signs are helpful, unhelpful, and what the appropriate amount of signage is.

South Park is a Safe Space

Al Sweigart — Thu, 01 Oct 2026 11:00:00 -0400

The "everything liberals want annoys me" attitude reminds me: I have a screenshot saved of a Reddit comment from a deleted user that I think was posted in 2014/2015ish about South Park:

Toilet Paper Tube Face Sculptures

Al Sweigart — Thu, 01 Oct 2026 11:00:00 -0400

I thought it was neat how artists made faces out of cardboard toilet paper tubes, so I compiled a list of links about how to make them.

Things Trump Joked About That He Actually Did

Al Sweigart — Thu, 01 Oct 2026 11:00:00 -0400

A list of things Trump joked about that he later actually did.

Reddit Recommended VPN Services

Al Sweigart — Thu, 01 Oct 2026 11:00:00 -0400

A list of VPN services recommended by Redditors.

Why is Wednesday Spelled Like That?

Al Sweigart — Thu, 01 Oct 2026 11:00:00 -0400

Because Wednesday preserves an old spelling even though its pronunciation changed. It comes from Old English Wōdnesdæg, meaning “Woden’s day”—the day named after the Germanic god Woden (Odin). Over centuries: Wōdnesdæg → Wednesday → “Wenzday”. The spelling kept the historical d, but everyday pronunciation dropped that sound. English spelling often preserves these older forms even after pronunciation changes.

Who Coined "Turing Test"?

Al Sweigart — Thu, 01 Oct 2026 11:00:00 -0400

Who coined the term "Turing Test"? Did Alan Turing call his "imitation game" that? (Apparently not, and there's some popular misconceptions about these terms.)

Wizard School Management Games on Steam

Al Sweigart — Thu, 01 Oct 2026 11:00:00 -0400

A list of wizard school management games on Steam: Spellcaster University, Wizdom Academy, Mind Over Magic, Songs of Glimmerwick, Witchbrook