“You’re thinking…what do I want? What happens if I don’t get it? And Milhouse has to think a lot about what happens if he doesn’t get it, because he hardly ever does.” Pamela Hayden, the voice of several Simpsons characters, retires after 35 years. 💬 Join the discussion o … | Continue reading
A great remembrance of Rafael Nadal’s tennis career. “Nadal was the destroyer of context, the man who played every point in vacuum, through comebacks and blowouts with the same equanimous mind and full effort.” 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org → | Continue reading
Meteorite hunter Roberto Vargas tracks fireballs on the internet and then goes to see if he can find them. Usually I’m alerted that something has fallen or that people have seen a fireball through the American Meteor Society I book a flight, go to wherever it is, and then I start … | Continue reading
Soccer reporter Rory Smith on what he’s learned coaching his son’s under-7s soccer team. “They are not there to win. They are not there to fulfill your dreams. They are there to feel the joy of playing, to love the game…” 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org → | Continue reading
Every Movement In Man’s Burrito-Eating Technique Informed By Past Burrito Tragedies. “Just look at that grip, perfectly spaced and easy to shift on the fly.” 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org → | Continue reading
I may have shared this before, but here it is again in case it helps someone. A couple of years ago, I was telling my therapist about some crisis I was going through and she told me something that’s had a profound effect on my life ever since: “Jason, what you’re feeling is appro … | Continue reading
The trailer for an animated movie called Flow, which currently has a rating of 98% on Rotten Tomatoes. Looks gorgeous. Opens nationally in the US in early December. 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org → | Continue reading
FINALLY. Threads will finally let you set the following feed as your default. 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org → | Continue reading
When you’ve been seriously wronged by someone, what’s the best drink to throw at them? “Bloody Mary because it’ll stain clothes and get pepper in their eyes.” 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org → | Continue reading
In 2020, Stéphanie Colaux discovered an album of photos of Nazi-occupied Paris at a French flea market. “As I flipped through the pages I realized, my God, it’s all scenes of [Nazi] occupied Paris. And I knew I’d found a treasure,” she says. “And then I read the little note in th … | Continue reading
The 3rd most-worn shoe by NBA players this season is Sabrina Ionescu’s signature shoe. “You read that right: the most worn NBA shoe created by a living athlete is a WNBA player’s signature shoe.” 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org → | Continue reading
A list of books read by Prairie Dawn on Sesame Street, including The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, I know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou, and The Handmaiden’s Tale (sic) by Margaret Atwood. 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org → | Continue reading
Really interesting piece about the economics and “premiumization” of airlines. “The front of the plane is now a haven of luxury, while coach has turned into a low-cost shakedown.” (But it’s a bit more complicated than that.) 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org → | Continue reading
“The…icon who inspired folk singer Arlo Guthrie’s epic, anti-establishment song “Alice’s Restaurant” has died. Alice Brock…was 83.” Radio stations traditionally play Alice’s Restaurant on Thanksgiving. 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org → | Continue reading
Why do the credits at the end of every movie say: “Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events, is purely coincidental”? Because of Rasputin. 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org → | Continue reading
According to this chart, I’ve only ever been boomer successful, but for 15 years, my boss has been a very handsome dumb idiot, my ice cream shop is 10 years old this month, and I’ve got two lovely kids who are mean to me. Feels like a success to me. 💬 Join the discussion … | Continue reading
In ancient Mesopotamia, people rarely wrote about preparing food… “Out of hundreds of thousands of cuneiform documents, they are the only food recipes that exist. We don’t have an explanation.” 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org → | Continue reading
“Small patches of wildflowers sown in cities can be a good substitute for a natural meadow, according to a study which showed butterflies, bees and hoverflies like them just as much.” I love wildlflowers, that’s the post. 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org → | Continue reading
Foursquare is open-sourcing a database of 100+ million “places of interest”. 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org → | Continue reading
Johanna Nordblad is a free diver who specializes in cold water dives. After being injured in a biking accident, her recovery involved ice water baths and she developed an interest in cold water. Ian Derry filmed Nordblad doing a dive for this gorgeous short video. There is no pla … | Continue reading
Not normal: Lions are climbing trees in Botswana. “It appears that climbing trees can be a big advantage for hunting, resting, and beating the heat.” 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org → | Continue reading
My friend Josh LaFayette spends the very last part of the year making fan art for his favorite albums of the year and despite all the pieces being visually different there’s a through line which make all of them immediately recognizable to me as his art. He’s putting out a few a … | Continue reading
Animator & filmmaker Don Hertzfeldt on the difference between crate digging & streaming from a recent interview: Not to sound like a curmudgeon, but when I was a teenager, I took the train to go to the record store to find rare stuff. Spotify is way more convenient, but that wasn … | Continue reading
Tetris Forever is, well, kind of hard to explain. It’s a documentary about the history of Tetris but also a collection of playable historical Tetris games, from the very first Soviet-era version to a new multiplayer version called Tetris Time Warp. 💬 Join the discussion o … | Continue reading
NYT asks, “Is the Northeast Entering Its Wildfire Era?” “It might be time to do the kind of fire safety planning in the Northeast that is more common in California.” It’s raining today in Boston, finally, but it’s been droughty. 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org → | Continue reading
I loved this article about NeonWorks which seems to be the last neon artisan in the Bay Area. The owner, Jim Rizzo is a character, and the article is full of nuggets like: “I think the love of neon is still there, but because budgets are tight, people are going to LED fake neon. … | Continue reading
Flush is an app for finding public bathrooms. “Search through over 200,000 public loos all around the world!” Available for iOS and Android. Seems indispensable for parents of young kids. 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org → | Continue reading
I hope this doesn’t ruin your day, but Baker’s Chocolate wasn’t created for bakers, it’s chocolate originally produced in Dorchester, MA by John Hannon with his partner Dr. James Baker. Hannon sailed to the West Indies in 1779 and never came back, so Dr. Baker changed the name to … | Continue reading
A world map of where you don’t need a permit to buy a gun. This belongs to a class of maps in which the US is (inexplicably, infuriatingly) highlighted and almost everywhere else isn’t. 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org → | Continue reading
No one. Absolutely no one. Not one single person. Jason: HEY, AARON, WHAT IF YOU MADE McRIB SAUCE ICE CREAM AT YOUR ICE CREAM SHOP? According to Food & Wine, McDonald’s will be selling half gallon jugs of McRib sauce alongside the annual limited release of the McRib sandwich. The … | Continue reading
Missed the shuttle. “It was night but the tarmac was illuminated with spotlights and lights from vehicles and planes. These giant jets were taking off real close on either side of me. I’ve never seen a plane that big up close at lift off.” 💬 Join the discussion on kottke. … | Continue reading
Back in 2015, Tynan DeBold and Dov Friedman created a series of graphics for the WSJ showing the impact of the introduction of vaccines in the US. Here’s the infographic for measles: And for polio: Vaccines are in the running for the greatest human invention ever. You can see the … | Continue reading
A great idea for a list: The 25 Most Important Recipes of the Past 100 Years. Includes caesar salad, the last word cocktail, Marcella Hazen’s tomato sauce, Julia Child’s beef bourg, no-knead bread, and Kenji’s reverse-sear steak. What’s missing? 💬 Join the discussion on k … | Continue reading
Augusta Britt, secret teenaged muse of a middle-aged Cormac McCarthy, sounds like a fascinating person but this profile of her in Vanity Fair does not do her justice. | Continue reading
The winners of the National Book Awards were announced last night — Percival Everett’s fantastic James deservedly took the prize for fiction. Full list of the winners here. 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org → | Continue reading
People like stealing fontina fortunes worth of cheese because it’s easy to sell on the black market and is hard to track. The mascarpone market probably doesn’t even have to be super dark for creamy criminals to launder their pinched cheese through conventional cheddar channels t … | Continue reading
Cher has a book coming out, Cher, The Memoir, Part One, and Vulture has an excerpt about meeting Sonny Bono. In my mind I was thinking, Yeah, OK, this old line. But I must have had a look on my face because he shook his head and laughed. “Don’t worry, I’ve got twin beds,” he said … | Continue reading
A report from the European championship of tram drivers. This was one of the tests: “Drivers had to come to a stop so gently that water did not slosh out of a bowl that was filled to the brim.” 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org → | Continue reading
Photos by Noah Kalina of the oldest forest in the world (a 385-million-year-old forest in Cairo, New York) and the paleobotanist who discovered it. “Holy cats! These were roots and that’s where a tree stood 385 million years ago.” 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org → | Continue reading
Oh wow, this is cool: an article in Scientific American about the Arecibo message, the first message purposely sent by humanity out into interstellar space. The piece is written by science writer Nadia Drake — the daughter of Frank Drake, who designed the message — and it digs in … | Continue reading
“Dental care supplier Henry Schein advanced in Monday trading as investors bet that RFK, Jr., Trump’s pick for HHS secretary, could recommend removing fluoride from the U.S. water system, a move that would lead to a boom in dental visits.” | Continue reading
A few months ago, I posted about Lane 8’s seasonal mixes and I’m happy to report that the Fall 2024 Mixtape is now out. You can find it on Soundcloud, YouTube, and Apple Music. I’ve been listening for the past few days and it’s 🔥🔥. Tags: Lane 8 · music · video &#x … | Continue reading
Google & the US Forest Service are partnering to use machine learning to detect forest fires. “[FireSat] will provide global high resolution imagery that is updated every 20 minutes, enabling the detection of wildfires roughly the size of a classroom.” 💬 Join the discussi … | Continue reading
Rafael Nadal has officially retired from professional tennis. One of the greatest to ever do it. “I’m not tired of playing tennis but my body doesn’t want to play anymore and you have to accept that.” 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org → | Continue reading
For the love of god, quit calling your newsletter “my Substack”. “You can talk about your work as *your work*. It’s your newsletter, or your email, or your blog. Or just your writing. But it sure as hell isn’t ‘your Substack.’” 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org → | Continue reading
The oarfish is a very long fish people don’t normally see on account of it living deep, deep in the deep water, though three have washed up on the shores of Southern California in the last 3 months. The oarfish is referred to as the Doomsday Fish (a very cool name for a fish imo) … | Continue reading
25 years after the much maligned DK Rap premiered to scorn in Nintendo’s Donkey Kong 64, the composer, Grant Kirkhope, has released a remix with the rapper Substantial that whips. 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org → | Continue reading
Every day, people go out and do the kind of stuff you’ve never imagined being possible, but they imagined it, and that’s what’s important. 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org → | Continue reading