Link About It: This Week’s Picks

Manhattan's "Phallus Palace," Oslo's move become car-free, snow season apps and more in our journey through the internet

Oslo Moves to Become a Car-Free City In an effort to make its downtown more pedestrian- and cyclist-friendly, Oslo will remove the couple hundred remaining parking spots left in its city center. The development aims to turn the most heavily trafficked areas into to car free zones to limit congestion, reduce pollution and make the city more walkable. Other cities have launched similar initiatives with slight …

The Careful Restoration of Miniature Hollywood

A $250,000 miniature project from the ’30s, helmed by a cabinetmaker and his team, is being carefully restored solely by conservator Donna Williams. Williams, who specializes in architectural materials, is carefully cleaning the 450 to scale buildings, on a plot which measures out at 11 by 12 feet. What was once a 25 person project—accompanied by a nationwide tour that left some of the buildings destroyed, mangled and even …

2018 Welcomed a New Fleet of Internet Pop Stars

Forget the pop stars of years past, because 2018’s class of chart-toppers is more diverse, based in subculture and digitally inclined than ever before. Partly because of the new rules on streams counting in chart calculations, many newer musical artists are being born from internet followings and Soundcloud pages. Not only that, but the sound of pop is changing—using more and more elements from various …