Grokkist Press
Reading Room
Snackables
Things we found elsewhere and pass on: a film, a tool, an essay, a corner of the old internet. A few lines on why, then off you go. New ones join the shelf as we find them, newest first.
10 Mar 2025
ToS;DR (Terms of Service; Didn't Read) is a crowdsourced project that deciphers the fine print of online terms and conditions, grading services A to E on fairness, transparency and respect for user rights. It shines a light on the hidden clauses that let companies track you, delete your ac
Read the note ↗10 Mar 2025
Joyce Lin's Material Autopsy series dissects everyday objects — chairs, tables, lamps — revealing their inner workings as if mid-explosion. Part sculpture, part furniture, her work explores materiality, impermanence and the invisible structures that hold things (and us) together. With a ba
Read the note ↗23 Feb 2025
Calculating Empires is a large-scale research visualisation exploring how technical and social structures co-evolved over five centuries — mapping the technological patterns of colonialism, militarisation, automation and enclosure through a systems lens, complex and hypnotic in its stark b
Read the note ↗23 Feb 2025
The Magnolia chord progression is a satisfying, bittersweet loop built on subtle shifts from major to minor, with roots tracing back to the 1928 jazz tune 'Magnolia's Wedding Day.' Pianist David Bennett explores the enduring appeal of this simple sequence — why it feels so emotionally reso
Read the note ↗23 Feb 2025
A story without clear heroes or villains — just layers of human ambition, desperation and the messy entanglements of good intentions. King of the Dump follows Fred Stockwell, an Englishman running a grassroots aid organisation on a Thai landfill; what begins as an earnest effort to help mi
Read the note ↗23 Feb 2025
Tim Brierley's comics blend dry, deadpan humour with moments of emotional clarity that explore the quiet weight of everyday heartbreaks. 'Grief' captures the unspoken heaviness that lingers after loss — 'love that just lost its anchor' — as a gentle, looming presence that follows you aroun
Read the note ↗23 Feb 2025
Melissa Cody's work brings Navajo weaving into unexpected, electric territory. A fourth-generation weaver, she pulls from her cultural roots while infusing them with the energetic pulse of video games — Mario Kart, Pac-Man, Contra — stitched into sophisticated geometric overlays. In this s
Read the note ↗9 Feb 2025
What happens when someone puts real effort into something deeply misguided? Venkatesh Rao examines the pattern through the lens of 'intellectual menopause' — ideological stagnation, the impulse to double down on fading ideals rather than engage with a changing world. Once you see it, you s
Read the note ↗9 Feb 2025
Recognising change isn't the same as surviving it. Kodak didn't fail because it ignored digital — it saw the shift coming and even became a market leader in digital cameras. It failed because digital imaging was a low-margin commodity business and its legacy costs meant it couldn't compete
Read the note ↗9 Feb 2025
Why do Japanese phones still force a loud shutter sound every time you take a photo? It's not a technical oversight but a deliberate choice, rooted in a cultural emphasis on privacy and social trust. In the early 2000s, camera phones and creeping concerns about voyeurism collided, leading
Read the note ↗9 Feb 2025
From emperor penguin chicks leaping off Antarctic cliffs to the Sun's corona glowing during a total eclipse, Nature's visual editors curate a gallery of the year's most striking science photos — stories of awe, resilience and discovery spanning the microscopic and the cosmic: volcanic 'smo
Read the note ↗9 Feb 2025
Cities don't have to sound like stress. In this short film, a professional sound recordist captures the transformed tranquillity of Carrer Consell de Cent in Barcelona — a former road, now a green space — a 15-decibel drop that reshapes not just the soundscape but the entire feel of the ne
Read the note ↗