worth reading: february 3-april 2, 2026

looked away for like 2 seconds and it was spring

incredibly belated 2026 winter olympics-themed links that now feel ancient but that I really enjoyed collecting in february:

“Which Other Olympic Mascots Could Italian Stoats Tina And Milo Slaughter In Cold Blood?” by Sabrina Imbler
“Are The Fellas In Sync?” by Sabrina Imbler
“Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier capture bronze in ice dance” @Olympics on YouTube
- probably my favorite skating performance! I may have shed a single tear
“Mikhail Shaidorov Celebrated Gold By Skating In A Panda Suit” by Lauren Theisen
bonus link that is olympics-related but not winter-2026-specific: “The Alternates” by Tim Struby and Eric Petersen
- Victory Journal remains consistently incredible - kind of miraculous they're not paywalled

math stuff:

“Infinite Pancakes, Anyone?” by Siobhan Roberts
“New Strides Made on Deceptively Simple ‘Lonely Runner’ Problem” by Paulina Rowińska
- love how a random undergraduate always pops up and is like "I got this"

really good and specific websites:

Xikipedia by Lyra Rebane
Barry’s Borderpoints by Barry Arnold
Mechanical Pencil by Bryan Macomber (thanks MC!)
The Peppermills of Jens Quistgaard
- yes these are literally pepper mills. yes they are incredible.
Library of Juggling
- kind of reminds me of Ian's Shoelace Site...

china:

“Sinophobic Sinophilia” by the Editors of n+1
“How China Learned to Love the Classics” by Chang Che

personal essays:

“I sell onions on the Internet” by Peter Askew
“My journey from foreign correspondent to Uber driver in Trump's America” by Steve Scherer
“Sucker: My year as a degenerate gambler” by McKay Coppins and Tyler Comrie

browser games:

“List animals until failure”
2025 by Thomas Colthurst (thanks KQ!)
WikiGacha
- kind of obsessed with this. pulled a super super rare card on my first pack just now and it was "Japanese Canadians in British Columbia" 💅

animals:

“Rockhopper Penguins’ Athleticism Makes Them the Daredevils of the Animal World. Will a Warming Climate Slow Them Down?” by Cheryl Katz and Chris Linder
“Meet the Gorgeous Winner of Japan’s Capybara Bath Contest” by Eugenie Shin

really nice data visualizations:

“Where’s My Package?” by Benjamin Y. Fong
“Fit 4 a Teen” by Amanda Sakuma and Jan Diehm

just north american things:

“We Asked The Mayor Of Ottawa Why He Keeps Posting Such Grim Photos” by Barry Petchesky
“SPIRITUALLY DEPRAVED & MISERY-INDUCING LANDSCAPES OF NORTH AMERICA Episode 1” by @Crime Pays But Botany Doesn’t on YouTube
- come on, you know you want to click on this link
A List of Chain Restaurants Whose Names Contain Unusual Structures by Paul Kafasis

web stuff, apps, and gadgets:

“A Website to Destroy All Websites” by Henry Desroches
- somewhat less interesting than the title implies, but the web design of this page (and the author's personal site) is gorgeous
“My perfect Music app doesn’t exist” by Jon Hicks
“I spent a week living with Mario’s Talking Flower and it tormented me nonstop” by Giovanni Colantonio
- so good. read all the way to the end for an anecdote that sticks the landing.

sad things (very much worth reading but very sad):

“Could the Girls of Camp Mystic Have Been Saved?” by Kerry Howley (unpaywalled)
- Kerry Howley is an icon and this a great but quite tough read
“The World Is an Easier Place Without You In It” by Karen Shepard

the misc category:

“Who Sets the Doomsday Clock?” by Emily Strasser
“The century of the maxxer” by Sam Kriss
- obligatory Clavicular discourse piece. send this to someone you want to cause psychic harm to.
“What Not Reading Does to Your Writing” by Lincoln Michel
“The chess bot on Delta Air Lines will destroy you” by @ZachAhern1 on YouTube
- KQ this may be for you specifically
“Aragorn’s Tax Policy and Other Weird Shibboleths” by Liz Bourke
“H-Bomb: A Frank Lloyd Wright Typographic Mystery” by Paul Lukas