Mastodawn

If anyone finds something cool, screenshot it and share it (with alt-text describing what it is!)

Anne @annevelink_ad Nov 9, 2022

@clive I just saw a cool book on Intlligence. Check my TOOT

che chou

Nov 9, 2022

@clive this is super awesome. i love RNG content.

@chespace Yessss

random is my favorite function in the standard library of literally every computer language

I once wrote an ode to it: https://debugger.medium.com/my-single-favorite-line-of-javascript-304b2e9632ea

My Single Favorite Line Of Javascript - Debugger

The answers were pretty fun, and most were the ones you’d expect (if you’re a developer, anyway). Some folks praised the while and for loops, since they’re cornerstones of how get computers to do…

Debugger

che chou

Nov 9, 2022

@clive I have over 11,000 #retrogames on my handheld device. I love using the RNG function to randomly select a game. it's the discovery that appeals to me most.

@chespace aha, that's a great way to sample old games!!

Bogi Takács Nov 10, 2022

@clive No particular screenshot, but I typed in "telepathy" and it gave me just that! Telepathy - Genuine and Fraudulent by W. W. Baggally. Thank you! :D

Clive Thompson Nov 10, 2022

@bogiperson “genuine and fraudulent”

Love it!

Sam Nov 11, 2022

That's spectacular. 'Trial' got me a history of 'Trial by Combat' and I am now reading it, fascinated.

Clive Thompson Nov 11, 2022

@sam oh wow!

riwoche རི་བོ་ཆེ་Nov 14, 2022

@clive was curious if querying "tiger" it would find the classic "Thirteen Years Among the Wild Beasts of India" (1907) but instead found this oddity "The Tiger's Awakening" (1903) by Fred G. Lunge:

Clive Thompson Nov 14, 2022

@riwoche

That looks cool too!

Searching for all the big game animals would likely turn up wild stuff from the early eras of colonialism for sure

nellie-m Jun 30, 2023

@clive this is utterly delightful. Thank you so much! My first query came up with this book, which I don’t find weird at all, but that is due to the fact that I’m a weird poultry person. I could relate the fascinating story of the Dorking breed in the former GDR, or how, when I came to Dorking, the local museum that exhibits a pair of stuffed birds was closed for the day… but I’m on a 500 characters limit 😉 #chickensofmastodon

Clive Thompson Jun 30, 2023

@nellie_m

Right on!! That’s a terrific find

Michael Slavitch 🍁🇨🇦🇺🇦🍁Jun 30, 2023

@nellie_m @clive Fifth edition?

Clive Thompson Jun 30, 2023

@nellie_m @komputernik

High demand!

Ian Turton Jul 11, 2025

@nellie_m @clive is that why Dorking has a chicken on one of its roundabouts on the A24

Clive Thompson Jul 11, 2025

@nellie_m

Wooo!

Claire Barnes Aug 6, 2023

@clive Fun! 🐸 🐸
'Frogs and their Contributions to Science' by John V. Lansing M.D., 1869
#frog #frogs #WeirdOldBook

Clive Thompson Aug 6, 2023

@ClaireFromClare

Great find!!

Kenneth Oct 16, 2023

@ClaireFromClare
...that croaking army...
I. Am. Delighted!

https://daily.ds106.us/tdc3676/

Alan Levine Jan 21, 2024

@clive I love the weird old book finder, the generative randomness is more enjoyable than the artificially flavored kinds.

We did a #ds106 #dailycreate with it, and before the death knell of the twitter API, there are responses

@cogdog

Omg people found such cool stuff!!!

Your WOBF has the generative value of a divination deck — surprising juxtapositions of things that were actually made by a person with a craft intent. A jambalaya or smorgasbord of the arts.

The modern artificial stuff is more like Soylent (movie or modern version) slurry, made in a factory from ground-up things that might once have been part of a craft intent

@cogdog

Alan Levine Jan 21, 2024

@trochee @clive Well said! Spicy jambalaya over bland mush soup.

@trochee @cogdog

I like this formulation, yes!

I often find I enjoy tools that marry human intent to just a *small* bit of randomness

Like a psychogeographic walk through culture

Yes, see also @oblique_strategies , which uses randomness to select an "unsticking" strategy

I've even found that "flip a coin" is a helpful decision-unblocker because I can introspect about my sense of disappointment (or relief) that I have in reaction to the arbitrary oracle's decision

@cogdog

@trochee @oblique_strategies @cogdog

super cool

I have a copy of the original reissued oblique strategies deck kicking around here somewhere

Jealous, a little

@trochee @oblique_strategies @cogdog

And I love that coin-flip idea -- as a spur to introspection about how one would feel on either forking path

There's a scene in BATMAN: ARKHAM ASYLUM where they explain that the therapists 've worked Two-Face off his coin, onto dice, and eventually onto a Tarot deck, so that his decision-making can be more nuanced and less destructive

Sometimes I feel like we're all Two-Face, at different points along the scale

(In the comic, though, Dent is completely paralyzed with indecision as a result of this intervention)

https://github.com/cogdog/edtechaphors

Alan Levine Jan 21, 2024

@clive @trochee I've built a fleet of silly generators that have an interesting 2 layers of randomness, one to pull from sets of words, but a second to have random sentence structures.

They are more fun to build than to use ;-)

GitHub - cogdog/edtechaphors: A Mashup generator made for Martin Weller

A Mashup generator made for Martin Weller. Contribute to cogdog/edtechaphors development by creating an account on GitHub.

GitHub

@cogdog @clive

Back in the day I wrote a random haiku detector that scanned Twitter (for consenting accounts) and reposted if it estimated that you'd tweeted a haiku

@trochee @cogdog

Those are super cool, I’m gonna check them all out when I get back to my laptop!

llewelly Jul 11, 2025

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2674496/pdf/rspb20081909.pdf

I searched for "Stegosaurus" and got _Osteology of the Armored Dinosauria_ by Charles Whitney Gilmore , 1914

A link to the internet archive copy, bc reasons:
https://archive.org/details/osteologyofarmor00gilm/page/n6/mode/2up

I think this volume is still referenced by paleontologists working on stegosaurs today; see for example the description of Miragaia

and search for Gilmore

#dinosaurs
#stegosaurs
#fossils
#armoredDinosaurs
#fossilFriday

Osteology of the armored Dinosauria in the United States National Museum, with special reference to the genus Stegosaurus : Gilmore, Charles W. (Charles Whitney), 1874-1945 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Includes bibliographical references (p. 127-130)

Internet Archive

Clive Thompson Jul 11, 2025

@llewelly

Nice!!

Rik Schraag Jul 11, 2025

@clive Shared this on LinkedIn with a mention of your book Coders as way of saying thanks.

Clive Thompson Jul 11, 2025

@rikschraag

Hey, thank you sir!!

Eli the Bearded Aug 5, 2025

Request: can the buy this book option provide more information in the search or is that provided by the google widget? I tried it for one but the search term was a single word which did not have anything old in the first page of results.

Clive Thompson Aug 5, 2025

@elithebearded

Alas, i can't alter the built-in properties of the google widget ...

... but I have been intending to create my own button that will take users directly to the downloadable PDF of the book hosted by google

I need to get my butt in gear on that!

Deborah Rose Nov 9, 2022

@clive I love this. I am a collector of weird old books.

@DebErupts Super! I have a bunch in hard copy too ... they are just delightful. The illustrations are typically *off* the *hook* amazing

Sara Wasson Nov 9, 2022

@clive @DebErupts I love super random illustrations in old books. One of the most startling I remember finding was an early-20th century medical textbook from Vienna that inexplicably decided to include an image of a dead patient arising from the grave

Clive Thompson Nov 29, 2022

@sarawasson @DebErupts

Oh wow, I just saw this now.

That's wild!