tutorials

A Design Club episode that analyzes how Super Mario Bros. level 1-1 teaches players to play through level design alone, without text tutorials.

Tom Scott explains for Computerphile why handling time and timezones in code is so hard, walking through a simple web app that computes how long ago something happened. It covers the quirks of timezones and calendars and ends in an exasperated rant.

The School of Life sets out principles for making attractive cities, arguing that the art has been lost in the modern world.

Noodle explores how retro pixel art was designed for CRT displays and why games look different on LCDs, with input from pixel artists and CRT researchers.

Aaron Francis walks through how PHP has changed from 2012 to 2023, covering traits, array destructuring, generators, typed properties and more. It is a quick chaptered tour of modern PHP features.

A Wendover Productions video on how the art market works, arguing that prices are driven by wealth, storage and tax mechanics rather than artistic value.

A Vox explainer on how many of the British Museum's treasures were taken during British imperial rule, focusing on the Benin Bronzes and requests for their return.

Half as Interesting explains why the Eiffel Tower's night-time lighting is under copyright, which makes publishing photos of it at night legally problematic.

A look at Le Plessis-Robinson, a French suburb transformed from modernist urbanism into traditional mixed-use fabric with local-style architecture, green space and a more balanced housing supply.

Tom Scott explains why a vivid pink pigment by artist Stuart Semple cannot be fully shown on a screen, and touches on the dispute over exclusive rights to the blackest black pigment. It is a short explainer on color gamuts and pigment politics.