Lin-Manuel Miranda recently released the early drafts of eight Hamilton songs on Soundcloud. Miranda sings all the parts himself and they’re a lot less showtuney and more hip-hoppy than the finished product. Worth a listen for fans of process.

Why would you sharpen a carrot, I hear you asking? At $3.77, why wouldn't you? (more…)

Cocktail Chemistry explains the drink's mechanics: you create an iceball using a cheap latex ice-sphere mold, melt a hole in the top with a soldering iron and extract the water from inside with a syringe. Freeze the ball in a tub until you're ready to serve, fill it using a funnel, and garnish with citrus peel -- serve in a rocks glass and smash with a small mallet. (via Neatorama)

A tape has emerged of David Bowie doing impressions of other singers, apparently on-demand.

Slate made a playlist.

Here’s the order of the impressions, as best as we can tell:

0:00 Bruce Springsteen
0:49 Bob Dylan or Marc Bolan?
1:45 Tom Waits
2:29 Lou Reed
3:25 Anthony Newley
4:13 Iggy Pop
5:14 Neil Young

"I'm just fuckin' about now."

They're pretty good, but they're all David!

Using Neil Freeman's maps at Fake is the New Real, the Guardian created a quiz: Can you identify the world cities from their 'naked' metro maps? As interested as I am in both maps and subways, I did shockingly bad on this quiz. (via @daveg)

Update: Here's a similar quiz using unlabeled street maps. See also Smarty Pins and GeoGuessr for more geography quiz fun.