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Anbernic | The best retro game console
Anbernic is the Shenzhen company behind a big chunk of the retro handheld craze. Since 2017 it has cranked out a steady stream of pocket consoles built for emulating old games, from cheap Game Boy-style devices to Android handhelds that can handle PS2 and GameCube.
The lineup
- RG35XX family: the budget classics, running Linux, usually somewhere around $35 to $70.
- RG34XX and RG40XX: different screen shapes and layouts in the same affordable range.
- RG406H and RG557: Android handhelds with much more power, roughly $160 to $250 at launch.
- Newer odd ones: a dual-screen RG DS, the rotating-screen RG Rotate and a Vita-style RG VITA.
- Bluetooth controllers too.
Worth knowing
The Linux models are simple and great for 8-bit and 16-bit games, while the Android ones run more demanding systems and apps. A lot of people swap the stock firmware for community builds like muOS, ROCKNIX or ArkOS, which tend to be smoother. New models drop constantly, so it is worth reading a review or two before buying. Orders ship worldwide from China with a 12-month warranty.
Why I saved it: the place to start if you want a cheap handheld for old games.
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Invisible Cities – Wikipedia
Wikipedia’s page on Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino’s strange and beautiful 1972 novel. It is barely a novel at all. Marco Polo sits with the emperor Kublai Khan and describes the cities he has seen across the empire, each one shorter than a page and more like a prose poem than a travel report.
How it is built
- 55 cities, each named after a woman, spread across nine chapters.
- The cities are grouped into 11 themes, like Cities and Memory, Cities and Desire and Thin Cities.
- Short conversations between Polo and the Khan frame each chapter.
- The tight, almost mathematical structure comes from Calvino’s time with the Oulipo group of writers.
Worth knowing
The English translation by William Weaver came out in 1974 and was nominated for a Nebula Award. Late in the book Polo admits that every time he describes a city, he is saying something about Venice, which changes how you read everything before it. Architects and urban planners love it, and it was turned into an opera staged inside Union Station in Los Angeles in 2013.
Why I saved it: a short book you can open to any page, and a good one to read slowly.
Meadow is a small standalone device built for the times you want to leave your phone at home but still need the basics. It has its own phone number, so you can take calls, send texts, and share your location without carrying the thing that pulls you into email and feeds.
What it does
- Calls, texts, and location sharing
- Maps and Uber for getting around
- Spotify and Apple Music, plus a camera
- Strava for runs and rides
Just as important is what it leaves out: no social media, no web browser, and no algorithmic feeds. The pitch is a night out, a hike, or dinner with family where you are reachable but not distracted.
Plans and availability
Meadow runs on T-Mobile’s network and needs one of three monthly plans: $15 for 1GB of data, $25 for 5GB, or $35 for unlimited. The homepage does not list a hardware price, so check the order page before you budget for it. It is only certified for sale in the US for now.
It sits in the same “dumbphone” lane as the Light Phone, but with more practical apps like rideshare and music built in. Worth a look if you keep trying to use your phone less and keep losing.
https://archive.org/download/BBC_Essential_Mix_Collection
This link goes straight to the raw file listing for an Internet Archive collection of BBC Radio 1 Essential Mix recordings, with a heavy lean toward techno. If you want the friendlier page with a built-in player and track details, use the collection’s details page instead. The download view is handy when you just want to grab a specific file.
What the Essential Mix is
The Essential Mix first aired on 30 October 1993 with Pete Tong as host, and he still presents it. Each week a different DJ or artist plays an uninterrupted two-hour set, broadcast in the early hours of Saturday morning UK time. More than 30 years in, it is one of the longest running shows on Radio 1 and a big part of how dance music history got recorded.
Where else to look
- The Archive hosts many single-mix uploads too, like Andrew Weatherall’s 1993 set and Nia Archives’ 2023 mix. Search “Essential Mix” on archive.org.
- New episodes stream officially on BBC Sounds.
One caveat: these are fan uploads of BBC broadcasts. The BBC and the artists own the recordings, so treat the archive as a listening library, not something to repost.