Seven Square Miles

Over at In Focus, still the world's best photoblog (remember those!?), Alan Taylor is looking at different parts of the worl | Continue reading


@kottke.org | 6 years ago

Take the Ball, Pass the Ball

In his four seasons as manager for FC Barcelona, Pep Guardiola led the club to 14 trophies, including winning the Champions Leag | Continue reading


@kottke.org | 6 years ago

Embroidery that Breaks the Fourth Wall

Oh, I love this embroidery art by Sheena Liam that leaps off of the fabric and out of the hoop. Great name too: Times New Roma | Continue reading


@kottke.org | 6 years ago

RIP Paul Allen

Tech titan Paul Allen died yesterday at the age of 65 of complications from non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. His Microsoft co-founder Bill | Continue reading


@kottke.org | 6 years ago

The Wrong Color Subway Map

From the orange 123 line to the green ACE to the purple 456, the color designations on the NYC subway lines on the Wrong Color S | Continue reading


@kottke.org | 6 years ago

The Death of a Loved One from Opiate Addiction, Plainly & Honestly Told

From an independent newspaper here in Vermont, the heartbreaking and brutally honest obituary of Madelyn Linsenmeir, a 30-year-old | Continue reading


@kottke.org | 6 years ago

The Twerking Robot

Hot off the heels of their video showing a humanoid robot casually doing parkour, Boston Dynamics has made a clip of their robot d | Continue reading


@kottke.org | 6 years ago

The Gerontocracy is Driving America into the Ditch

As Eric Levitz writes in a piece called Millennials Need to Start Voting Before the Gerontocracy Kills Us All, younger Americans a | Continue reading


@kottke.org | 6 years ago

How the Sears Catalog Undermined White Supremacy in the Jim Crow South

Sears has filed for bankruptcy protection and plans to close hundreds of stores in an effort to keep the company afloat. The Sea | Continue reading


@kottke.org | 6 years ago

The Microscopic Fabric of Butterfly Wings

Chris Perani takes macro photographs of the delicate microscopic makeup of butterfly wings. When you look at the thumbnails on | Continue reading


@kottke.org | 6 years ago

Keep Going, a Guide to Staying Creative in Chaotic Times

Austin Kleon, whose previous books Steal Like an Artist and Show Your Work you may have seen prominently displayed in book shops | Continue reading


@kottke.org | 6 years ago

How the Mercator Projection Distorts the True Sizes of Countries on Maps

Data scientist Neil Kaye made this map to show how much the popular Mercator projection distorts the sizes of many countries, part | Continue reading


@kottke.org | 6 years ago

Nationalism Isn’t Patriotism

At a time when fascism & authoritarianism are creeping into the global politics of the developed world, it's useful for us t | Continue reading


@kottke.org | 6 years ago

The Bounty of the Public Library

Wonderful writer Susan Orlean1 is out with a new book called The Library Book, which is specifically about a 1986 fire at the Los | Continue reading


@kottke.org | 6 years ago

Ikea’s “Cook This Page” Posters (2017)

For a promotion in a Canadian store, Ikea developed a series of posters that help you cook dinner. You lay the poster down, plac | Continue reading


@kottke.org | 6 years ago

Two Great Podcasts About Inanimate Objects

I love things, material objects in all their haecceity, or irreducible thingness. I also love how inanimate things can unspool w | Continue reading


@kottke.org | 6 years ago

How A 1979 Email Chain Letter Helped Give Birth to Our Social Internet

The Internet connects various bodies of knowledge and enables all sorts of private communication and coordination. It's also cle | Continue reading


@kottke.org | 6 years ago

Contemporary Versions of WPA Public Service Announcement Posters

For Topic, MGMT. Design created a series of 2018 updates to the iconic WPA public service announcement posters from the 1930s and | Continue reading


@kottke.org | 6 years ago

Jackson Pollock 51

In 1950, Swiss photographer Hans Namuth took some photos of Jackson Pollock painting some of his drip paintings, which were used t | Continue reading


@kottke.org | 6 years ago

Oh, the Boston Dynamics Robot Can Do Parkour Now

I've watched this a dozen times now and it looks fake and I can't figure out quite why. Is it the uncanny valley at work? This t | Continue reading


@kottke.org | 6 years ago

A Brief History of America’s Shameful Inaction on Climate Change

Vox has updated their video on how US politicians talked about climate change over the past 12 years. Until recently, climate ch | Continue reading


@kottke.org | 6 years ago

Trippy Geometric Illustrations by Andy Gilmore

The NY Times article about the Event Horizon Telescope that I wrote about here introduced me to Andy Gilmore's geometric illustrat | Continue reading


@kottke.org | 6 years ago

Kurt Vonnegut on the Role of Artists in Society

In times of turmoil, it can be tough to feel like the work you do to support you and your family is also nourishing to society, if | Continue reading


@kottke.org | 6 years ago

Fly Me to the Moonmoon

In a paper called "Can Moons Have Moons?", a pair of astronomers says that some of the solar system's moons, including | Continue reading


@kottke.org | 6 years ago

Miniature Replicas of Japanese Kodokushi (“Lonely Deaths”)

Dying alone in Japan is so common that they have a term for it: kodokushi ("lonely death"). Miyu Kojima works for a comp | Continue reading


@kottke.org | 6 years ago

Pantsdrunk, the Finnish Art of Relaxation

You've likely heard of hygge, the Danish word for a special feeling of coziness that's been productized on Instagram and elsewhe | Continue reading


@kottke.org | 6 years ago

The Best Obituary Ever?

A Wilmington, Delaware man named Rick Stein recently died and his obituary is one of the most unique and entertaining I have ever | Continue reading


@kottke.org | 6 years ago

Music Can Save Lives: A Playlist for Perfect CPR Chest Compressions

If you're ever called on to perform CPR in an emergency but you don't have training, the American Heart Association recommends per | Continue reading


@kottke.org | 6 years ago

Scuba Diving Magazine’s 2018 Underwater Photo Contest Winners

Scuba Diving magazine has announced the winners of their 2018 Underwater Photo Contest. The whale photo above is by Rodney Bursi | Continue reading


@kottke.org | 6 years ago

Earth-Sized Telescope Aims to Snap a Photo of Our Galactic Black Hole

Astronomers behind the Event Horizon Telescope are building a virtual telescope with a diameter of the Earth to photograph the sup | Continue reading


@kottke.org | 6 years ago

Daniel Radcliffe, Checker of Facts

As research for a role in a Broadway play, Daniel Radcliffe recently did a stint as a fact-checker for the New Yorker. They had hi | Continue reading


@kottke.org | 6 years ago

Joan Jett Rocks “Smells Like Teen Spirit” at Nirvana Reunion

The surviving members of Nirvana (minus Kurt Cobain, of course) held a six-song reunion at the Cal Jam festival with a couple of | Continue reading


@kottke.org | 6 years ago

Time Lapse of a SpaceX Launch Looks Like a UFO

Sunday night, SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket into orbit from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The nighttime launch cr | Continue reading


@kottke.org | 6 years ago

Banksy Painting Shreds Itself After Selling for $1.4 Million

A few years ago, the artist Banksy built a shredder into the frame of one of his paintings "in case it was ever put up for au | Continue reading


@kottke.org | 6 years ago

Climate Scientists: Humans Have Only 12 Years to Limit Devastating Climate Changes

In a 700-page report detailing the latest research on climate change, a UN panel of scientists strongly warns that unless we make | Continue reading


@kottke.org | 6 years ago

Not Voting Doubles the Value of Someone Else’s Vote

In his Rolling Stone article on John McCain's failed campaign for the 2000 Republican nomination for President, David Foster Walla | Continue reading


@kottke.org | 6 years ago

Rethinking American History on Indigenous Peoples’ Day

In most parts of the United States, the holiday listed on the calendar today is Columbus Day, which was designed to celebrate Ital | Continue reading


@kottke.org | 6 years ago

A history of video game speed runs

If you've never seen a video game speed run before, a decent place to start is this computer-assisted Metroid run, completing the | Continue reading


@kottke.org | 6 years ago

The split-second choreography of a long one-shot

The Showtime series Kidding did something quite clever (really, two things): for a scene showing one of its characters' transforma | Continue reading


@kottke.org | 6 years ago

One way the universe might end

My favorite astrophysicist Katie Mack recently reposted a Cosmos article she wrote about a relatively obscure model for the total | Continue reading


@kottke.org | 6 years ago

The Alternative Limb Project

Founded by Sophie Oliveira Barata, The Alternative Limb Project makes stylish & artistic prosthetic limbs for people who w | Continue reading


@kottke.org | 6 years ago

Teenage Dolphins Get High on Puffer Fish Toxin

In 2014, BBC aired a two-part documentary that featured intimate and close-up footage of dolphins using remote-controlled camera | Continue reading


@kottke.org | 6 years ago

Ice Fishers

For a recent project, Aleksey Kondratyev captured the ice fishers of his native Kazakhstan sheltering themselves from the br | Continue reading


@kottke.org | 6 years ago

Remembering Apollo 8’s Iconic Earthrise Photo

In 1968, the crew of Apollo 8 became the first ever humans to leave the cozy confines of Earth orbit. From Wikipedia:The three | Continue reading


@kottke.org | 6 years ago

Lots and Lots of Control Panels

This blog collects examples of control panels, analog and digital. The site's tagline reads "in praise of dials, toggle | Continue reading


@kottke.org | 6 years ago

This Stumbling Deer’s Hooves Sound Like Phil Collins’ Drum Fill on “In the Air Tonight”

This deer stumbling through a children's play set sounds just like the drums in In the Air Tonight (you know the ones).This mi | Continue reading


@kottke.org | 6 years ago

Vice

The trailer for Adam McKay's upcoming movie about Dick Cheney and the Bush administration just came out this morning. The movie | Continue reading


@kottke.org | 6 years ago

The Wes Anderson Collection: Isle of Dogs

From a visual design standpoint, Isle of Dogs might be my favorite Wes Anderson movie yet. Each frame of the film is its own lit | Continue reading


@kottke.org | 6 years ago