I’m a journalist and I’m changing the way I read news. This is how. “I’ll read news, not other people’s reactions to news.” 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org → | Continue reading
In this video from Pianote, the multi-talented Jon Baptiste hears Green Day’s Holiday for the first time (drum & vocals only) and is challenged to come up with a piano accompaniment for it — and he really really gets into it. (How do you find a song that a musical encyclopedia li … | Continue reading
Oooh, Casey Johnston is coming out with a “memoir and manifesto” about weight lifting: A Physical Education: How I Escaped Diet Culture and Gained the Power of Lifting. (I am inching ever closer to taking up lifting myself…) 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org → | Continue reading
Huge if true: “Triangles were long believed to be related to squares, but genetic analysis proves that they are actually very pointy circles.” 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org → | Continue reading
This is a still frame of a film shot just a few moments after President John F. Kennedy was shot in Dallas, TX in 1963: From a NY Times story back in September: For decades Mr. Carpenter’s 8-millimeter snippets of what transpired in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963, have been a family hei … | Continue reading
Hey, it’s the Microscope Museum, featuring ‘scopes from the early 1800s to the 1980s. “An antique microscope is a work of art as well as science.” 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org → | Continue reading
What Will You Do? “What will you do if men in uniforms arrive in your neighborhood, and an immigrant neighbor gets a knock on the door and is led away in handcuffs? Or if the uniforms are not police uniforms, and there is not even a knock?” | Continue reading
Erin McKean goes down a rabbit hole of WWII resistance diaries, “dipping into the thoughts of people who were also made heartsick and distressed by fascist politics”. 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org → | Continue reading
10,946 is a mesmerizing stop-motion film by Daren Jannace composed of drawings on Post-It notes. He created 30 drawings a day for an entire year and then animated them: “Set at 30 frames a second, each second represents 1 day.” The animation is accompanied by audio Jannace record … | Continue reading
Kenji López-Alt Returns From Beef Dimension With New Sear Method Beyond Human Comprehension. “…he jabbered incoherently about mountains of non-Euclidean tri-tips that needed to be cooked on high for both an instant and a thousand eternities.” 💬 Join the discussion on kott … | Continue reading
Wacław Szpakowski was a Polish architect and engineer who, over the course of his life and in secret, made a series of drawings of mazes from single continuous lines. From The Paris Review: The drawings, he explains, “were experiments with the straight line conducted not in resea … | Continue reading
Journalism’s fight for survival in a postliterate democracy. “The work of obtaining facts has a major economic disadvantage against the production of bullshit, and it’s only getting worse.” | Continue reading
‘I was a fool’: Art Garfunkel describes tearful reunion with Paul Simon. “We’ve made plans to meet again. Will Paul bring his guitar? Who knows.” 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org → | Continue reading
In 2011, Magnum photographer Martin Parr visited the Teddy Grays candy factory near Birmingham, England that makes old-fashioned candy with Wonka-esque names — Mint Humbugs, Nutty Brittles, Spearminties. The result is this ultra-charming 20 minute film profile of the company and … | Continue reading
Words from Toni Morrison, Audre Lorde, and James Baldwin about “the vital role that artists play in society generally, and doubly so in the face of authoritarian regimes”. 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org → | Continue reading
Marine biologist Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson: “Keep showing up. Join something. Find your people. Bring your superpowers. Be a problem solver. Choose your battles. Nourish joy. Love nature.” 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org → | Continue reading
A classic that really made me laugh this morning: Pachelbel’s Canon Played by Train Horns. 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org → | Continue reading
I am predisposed to like videos about meteorite craters but this was even more interesting than I anticipated. A nice example of a crater 2-3 km wide is Rotor Kamm in southern Africa. I should mention that we’re easily into city killer impacts here, in case you’re wondering. You … | Continue reading
The Wired Guide to Protecting Yourself From Government Surveillance. The incoming administration has “vowed to deport millions and jail his enemies. To carry out that agenda, his administration will exploit America’s digital surveillance machine.” 💬 Join the discussion on … | Continue reading
Huh, I didn’t know that the guy who wrote The Curious Garden (one my kids’ favorite books when they were younger) also wrote The Wild Robot — both inspired by the High Line. 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org → | Continue reading
Delete Your Account. For Real This Time. “There’s no need for any Trump opponents now to be on X for the same reasons that they’re not on Gab, Gettr, Truth Social, or wherever else.” | Continue reading
Swifties are leaving toxic Twitter for Bluesky after the election. Lots of energy over on Bluesky right now. And Jesus Christ if you’re still on Twitter, it’s past time to move on and join us on Bluesky. | Continue reading
Andor season two will premiere on Disney+ on April 22, 2025 — 12 episodes that take place over a period of four years that lead right up to the events of Rogue One. May the tale of the radicalization of Cassian Andor be a lesson to us all. 💬 Join the discussion on kottke. … | Continue reading
A lovely piece by John Gruber about his dad, the election, loss, and hope. 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org → | Continue reading
“The Quilt Index, originally launched in 2003, is an open access, digital repository of thousands of images, stories and information about quilts and their makers drawn from hundreds of public and private collections around the world.” 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org … | Continue reading
Artist and “pixel pusher” Niall Staines creates these slightly surreal scenes by pulling a 1-px slices to the edge of his images. I’ve used this technique myself but Staines deploys it to great effect here. I love these. You can find more of his work on his website and Instagram. … | Continue reading
Climate scientists say we will exceed the 1.5°C temperature threshold for the first time in 2024. “The limits that were set in the Paris agreement are starting to crumble given the too-slow pace of climate action across the world.” A grim milestone. 💬 Join the discussion … | Continue reading
Why the Work Still Matters. In the face of a “larger-than-normal number of people canceling their subscriptions”, 404 Media explains why their “local reporting from the internet” is more important than ever. 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org → | Continue reading
The Big Wait is a lovely short documentary about a couple who live alone in the middle of nowhere in Western Australia, managing an emergency airport and a small row of guest cottages that are rarely occupied. I got this from Colossal, which calls the film “poetic and dryly humor … | Continue reading
Laura Hazard Owen: We need a Wirecutter for groceries. “What if local news organizations around the country made it part of their mission to help readers compare grocery prices around town?” 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org → | Continue reading
Focus on the ball. Mesmerizing. 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org → | Continue reading
In 2015, the BBC & PBS adapted the first two books of Hilary Mantel’s excellent Wolf Hall trilogy into a six-episode miniseries called Wolf Hall, starring Mark Rylance as Thomas Cromwell and Damian Lewis as Henry VIII. Now they’ve made a second miniseries that covers the events o … | Continue reading
I missed this back in May: the Boy Scouts of America is changing its name to Scouting America “in an effort to emphasize inclusion”. 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org → | Continue reading
In the three years since its launch, the JW Space Telescope has proven to be wildly popular with astronomers. “Demand for observing time on Webb outpaces supply by a factor of nine.” 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org → | Continue reading
An interview with Ridley Scott about Gladiator II, the challenges of working with Denzel Washington & Joaquin Phoenix, Palme d’Or bribery, and AI. 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org → | Continue reading
“A Soft Murmur is an online background noise generator designed to help you relax, focus, and tune out unpleasant sounds from your environment.” 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org → | Continue reading
I think I might take some time today to read Pema Chodron’s When Things Fall Apart. “How can we live our lives when everything seems to fall apart - when we are continually overcome by fear, anxiety, and pain?” 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org → | Continue reading
If you can’t wait until Nov 15, Apple TV+ has uploaded the first five minutes of season two of Silo to YouTube. “Juliette lives.” 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org → | Continue reading
Election Grief Is Real. Here’s How to Cope. “You need to be patient with yourself if you’re feeling angry, sad, grieving right now. That’s a normal reaction to a surprising outcome and an outcome that…is going backward and not forward.” 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org … | Continue reading
Ran across a song with “741 Hz” in the title and there’s a whole Spotify playlist of similar songs (“a soothing solfeggio frequency that is used by many to let go of negativity and toxic energy”) and ngl they are relaxing. 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org → | Continue reading
Laura Olin’s newsletter of “art, internet, and ideas” is a favorite of mine (subscribe here), and I appreciated her comments from this morning on why sci-fi and fantasy movies work for moments like these. I’ve never thought of myself as a person who’s particularly into sci fi or … | Continue reading
For the last 18 years, Adam Smith has spoken to every Nobel laureate just after they’ve heard the news. “They are genuinely amazed. It takes their breath away, I suppose, in almost all cases.” But sometimes: “I’m kind of busy.” 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org → | Continue reading
Hey everyone. I don’t have a whole lot to say about the election results and probably won’t talk about it too much here over the coming days. I don’t know what kottke.org’s “role” will be in this altered world we awoke to on Wednesday, but for my own sanity, I need to get back to … | Continue reading
If you need some last minute cajoling to not sit out this election, consider these words of warning about abstention in 1968. “Nixon prevailed, thus paving the way for the modern right-wing shift in US domestic and foreign policy.” | Continue reading
Sometimes a post title just reaches right into your introverted soul: The Pleasure of Being Left Alone. 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org → | Continue reading
How ill-advised guidelines created a peanut allergy epidemic in the US. “The more prevalent peanut allergies became, the more people avoided peanuts for young children. This, in turn, caused more peanut allergies.” 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org → | Continue reading
Tony Hawk posted a photo from the 70s of a girl skateboarding in the rain to his Instagram: “New fav mystery skater unlocked.” Jeremy Markovich tracked down who she was. 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org → | Continue reading
Trials rider Danny MacAskill finally got the chance to ride the angularly futuristic Adidas campus in Herzogenaurach, Germany. The first time I got the invite to campus I immediately started riding the place in my mind. Riding all the rooftops, riding all the railings, you know, … | Continue reading