Jan Diehm

A black and white cat starts to roll on a towel while listening and watching a Google Home Screen play Kahey Ravidas | Shabad Gurbani Video Collection on YouTube.

Kahey Ravidas | Shabad Gurbani Video Collection

A black and white cat leans in to listen to a Google home speaker play Cures for Anxiety Disorders - Music to Calm the Mind and Stop Overthinking on YouTube

Cures for Anxiety Disorders - Music to Calm the Mind and Stop Overthinking

A black and white cat leans his head toward a Google home speaker that is playing The White Stripes’ “Fell in Love with a Girl”

The White Stripes, “Fell in Love with a Girl”

A black and white cat sits on a concrete countertop listening to a Google Home Screen play the song “Peaches” by The Presidents of The United States. The cat has a turdy face because he swiped away from CatTV videos and he got stuck with this song.

The Presidents of The United States of America, “Peaches”

A black and white cat rolls joyfully on a concrete countertop while listening to the Violent Femmes’ “Blister in the Sun” on a Google hub screen.

Violent Femmes, “Blister in the Sun”

“Look at Mr. Frog! He’s so grumpy.”

Wait, why are so many frogs boys? @mellymeldubs.bsky.social explores how we gender animals in kids’ stories—and why it matters.

pudding.cool/2025/07/kids...

As a lifelong fan of the @wnba.com I’m stoked to see teams get added in Detroit, Philly, & Cleveland. But as a queer southerner, I wish expansion was happening here too! More LGBTQ+ people live in the South than any other U. S. region. HUGE fan base, but regressive politics keep teams/players away.

A black and white cat on a concrete countertop listens to the Black Eyed Peas, David Guetta, and Shakira’s “Don’t You Worry” on a Google Home Screen

Black Eyed Peas, David Guetta, and Shakira, “Don’t You Worry”

A black and white cat with a stern face wallows on a concrete countertop while listening to Chappell Roan’s “Hot to Go” on a Google Home Screen

In honor of pride month: Chappell Roan, “Hot to Go” 🏳️‍🌈

A black and white cat with a stern face rubs against a wall on a concrete countertop while listening to The Jam’s “In the City” on a Google Home Screen

The Jam, “In the City”

A black and white cat with a stern face rubs against a wall on a concrete countertop while listening to to Green Day’s “Burnout” on a Google Home Screen

Green Day, “Burnout”

A Google Home Screen showing Spotify recommended playlists: anti-war punk, rage mix, punk mix with a black and white cat in the corner

Recommended Playlists: Anti-War Punk, Rage Mix, Punk Mix

A black and white cat sitting on a concrete countertop listening to Green Day’s “Bobby Sox” from a Google Home Screen

Green Day, “Bobby Sox”

A black and white cat on a concrete countertop watching a Google Home Screen play Grease on YouTube

Grease

YouTube video by The Pudding The Loneliness Epidemic, in Data: Who Americans Spend Time With

New video on YouTube (an animated version of one of @alv9n.com's greatest hits): The Loneliness Epidemic, in Data: Who Americans Spend Time With

www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7w3...

A black and white cat on a concrete countertop looking at a Google Home Screen that is playing Today’s Soft Rock on Spotify

Today’s Soft Rock

New project: From stereotypes to breakthroughs, Hollywood's history with Asian and Asian American characters is complicated.

This AAPI Heritage Month, dive into the data that reveals whether that's changed: pudding.cool/2025/05/aapi...

A skinny black and white cat on a concrete countertop looking at a Google Home Screen that is playing Cat Stevens’ “All Nights, All Days.”

Cat Stevens, “All Nights, All Days.” Icky is a big Cat Stevens fan (he probably just swipes through “cat” content, but still).

Also this boss uncle that I found on reddit: www.reddit.com/r/wine/comme...

A wine label with a golden embossed ferret

I'll never look at wine labels the same again after this project, and I bet you won't either! I'll leave you with this cute golden ferret — the only one we found in our dataset — on Vite Colte's Brachetto d'Acqui Il Furetto.

Text on a black background that reads: Animal wines by good deal percentage. Wines at or under the overall median price ($29.99) and at or above the overall median rating (4 stars) 16 wine bottle icons representing the animal groups in order from lowest percentage of deals to highest: amphibian/reptile (5.3%), deer (6%), pachyderm (8.3%), cat (9.6%), canine (10.4%), pig (10.7%), rabbit (12%), bear (13%), cattle (13%), horse (13.9%), mythical creature (15.4%), bird (16.5%), marine invertebrate (18.2%), sheep (19.3%), bug (21.4%), fish (24.2%).

I'll forever be on the lookout for the elusive good red fish wine and that one wine with the fly on it that I can't remember the name of. Both fish and bugs had the highest percentages of good deal (at/under median price * at/over median rating) wines we found.

YouTube video by Silver Moon Design School Part 1: Creating a Wine Bottle and Cork 3D Mockup using Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Dimension

For the spinning wine bottles I opted not to use Three.js (maybe next time) in favor of Illustrator, my comfort zone. I followed this tutorial, exported 8 different views of each bottle, and combined them in an image sprite for the 360° rotation.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0qP...

A white wine label with a cartoon green elephant balancing on a tiny stool.

My favorite it got wrong was Balance's Chenin Blanc - Colombard. The elephant on the label was classified as a "hot air balloon." So close...

A dark wine label with a vintage white drawing of a lake dragon with the text Brunello di Montalcino

A wine label with a vibrant cartoon robot frog and the text Bionic Frog

Some of my favorites that it got correct that didn't make the under $150 cut were Soldera's Brunello di Montalcino Riserva (mythical lake dragon) and Cayuse Vineyards' Bionic Frog.

AI is solid when providing a binary answer, but abysmal when in grey territory. We followed our animal ask with: "On a scale of 0-1, with 0 being 'not certain at all' and 1 being 'very certain', how sure are you?" Only 0.6% had confidence scores other than 0 or 1. 🤔

We identified 1,488 animal wines, or about 1/6 of all the wines we fed to ChatGPT for identification. And then did A BUNCH of manual checks for errors. AI isn't coming for my job, at least not yet!

The aptly named Fox Meyer brought this idea to us about a year ago after hand collecting data in New Zealand supermarkets and noticing some patterns. The trends he saw in a couple hundred wines, bore out when we looked at several thousand.

New project out today! We used ChatGPT vision to help us identify animals on wine labels so we could find the best animal for your price point.

Follow along here for more details: 🧵

A black and white cat on a concrete countertop watches Bad Bunny’s NPR Tiny Desk Concert on a Google Home Screen.

Bad Bunny’s @npr.org Tiny Desk Concert.

New project (with 🔊🎵!) : @luriethereal.bsky.social explores legacies of music dna, such as a 2pac bassline being a sample of sample: two generations of music created by a James Brown riff.