For the latest episode of Howtown, Adam Cole and Joss Fong look at wildfires and how investigators go about determining and proving how they start. The backdrop of video is the investigation into the Palisades Fire and the related arson trial that just concluded.
What started the Palisades Fire, and why did the LA arson trial fall apart? This Howtown episode investigates the deadly Pacific Palisades wildfire, the smaller New Year’s Eve Lachman Fire, and the federal arson case against Jonathan Rinderknecht. Prosecutors argued that the Lachman Fire became a hidden holdover fire, smoldering in roots and dense vegetation before reigniting during Santa Ana winds and becoming the catastrophic Palisades Fire. We examine how ATF fire investigators determine fire origin and cause using wildfire forensics, burn patterns, fire behavior, wind direction, topography, fuel, surveillance camera footage, ALERTCalifornia cameras, cell phone location data, ignition source testing, and lab experiments.
The episode also looks at competing theories in the Palisades Fire investigation, including fireworks, cigarette ignition, open flame, accidental fire, intentional arson, smoldering roots, and reignition. At trial, prosecutors pointed to Rinderknecht’s location, behavior, searches, messages, 911 calls, and alleged motive, while the defense argued there was no direct evidence, no smoking gun, no recovered ignition source, and serious uncertainty in the wildfire investigation. The LA arson trial ended with a deadlocked jury, a mistrial, and a 10–2 split, raising questions about reasonable doubt, negative corpus, forensic science, ATF methods, LAFD response, the Skull Rock trailhead, the Lachman Fire origin, and why proving wildfire arson is so difficult after the evidence has burned away.
You know sometimes you learn some ancient lore and suddenly some contemporary pop culture thing snaps into place? Anyway, I found out how Isadora Duncan died and now I better understand the “no capes” thing in The Incredibles.
Saya Irie’s Intricate Sculptures Recomposed from Eraser Shavings. “The Japanese artist erases images & then uses those eraser shavings to recompose the images into three-dimensional form, transforming the byproduct of erasure into delicate works of art.”
KDO Rolodex a list of kindred spirits, friends, open web enthusiasts, role models, fellow travelers, and collaborators
The Last Astronomers. “Many fear that if unleashed in all parts of the scientific process, AI tools could lead to nothing less than the death of astrophysics as a human endeavor.”
Idris Elba, knight of the realm and forever Avon Barksdale’s right-hand man in my heart, has been a DJ since he was 14 years old. He recently DJed a house party for Black House Radio and it looks like everyone had a lot of fun.
You can also find this mix on Soundcloud, along with many more of Elba’s mixes.
Playwright Georgica Pettus has written a play called Truck, which is based on the excellent documentary Hands on a Hardbody. “I thought, ‘This is the best premise for a play, because all the attention goes to the dialogue.’”
What is queer typography? “I think that covers a lot of what queerness means: an attitude in the face of conformity, an attitude in the sea of passivity, an attitude to say yes when others say no.”
Great piece by Andrea Pitzer on how lost Ezra Klein is in this current moment, newly relevant because he interviewed fascist activist Christopher Rufo on his NYT podcast (JFC!) “If you don’t know what your core beliefs are, you’re going to get played.”
I found this AI Compass quiz genuinely useful for pinpointing how I actually feel about various aspects of AI. At the same time, I don’t think my result (“The Kontextmaschine”) quite fits…
There’s a Grocery Price Emergency in America. “Our research shows that even relatively well-off families are struggling with high prices… President Trump and Congress are neither investing in long-term solutions nor offering short-term relief.”
A tour of some playgrounds in NYC designed by kids, with features like pollinator gardens, hair-braiding stations, a floor-is-lava obstacle course, and human-sized chess boards. Love it — children should get way more of a say w/ stuff like this.
On decision fatigue: “Why are you so tired? The answer has to do with how many times you’ve had to make a decision throughout the day.” And: “The quality of our decisions deteriorates as we accumulate previous decisions.”
vintage post from Aug 2018
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Bumblebee, honey bee, yellow jacket, paper wasp…what’s the difference? I don’t know if this comprehensive guide to Yellow Stripey Things is entirely truthful or not — a bumblebee is “actually a flying panda” and a yellow jacket “is just an asshole” — but it is pretty entertaining. Has anyone fact-checked this thing?
Ok fine, I’ll do it!1
Carpenter bees are mostly harmless:
Male carpenter bees are quite aggressive, often hovering in front of people who are around the nests. The males are quite harmless, however, since they lack stingers. Female carpenter bees can inflict a painful sting but seldom will unless they are handled or molested.
Honey bees don’t always sting just once:
A honey bee that is away from the hive foraging for nectar or pollen will rarely sting, except when stepped on or roughly handled. Honey bees will actively seek out and sting when they perceive the hive to be threatened, often being alerted to this by the release of attack pheromones (below).
Although it is widely believed that a worker honey bee can sting only once, this is a partial misconception: although the stinger is in fact barbed so that it lodges in the victim’s skin, tearing loose from the bee’s abdomen and leading to its death in minutes, this only happens if the skin of the victim is sufficiently thick, such as a mammal’s.
Bumblebees:
Queen and worker bumblebees can sting. Unlike in honeybees, a bumblebee’s sting lacks barbs, so the bee can sting repeatedly without injuring itself; by the same token, the sting is not left in the wound. Bumblebee species are not normally aggressive, but may sting in defence of their nest, or if harmed.
And yes, you can actually pet a bumblebee:
Hoverflies don’t sting. But paper wasps do and their sting can be deadly:
Unlike yellowjackets and hornets, which can be very aggressive, polistine paper wasps will generally only attack if they themselves or their nest are threatened. Since their territoriality can lead to attacks on people, and because their stings are quite painful and can produce a potentially fatal anaphylactic reaction in some individuals, nests in human-inhabited areas may present an unacceptable hazard
I couldn’t find a good all-in-one source about yellow jackets, but by all accounts, they are aggressive and easily agitated.
The cicada killer wasp look fierce but are generally only dangerous to cicadas:
Solitary wasps (such as the eastern cicada killer) are very different in their behavior from the social wasps such as hornets, yellowjackets, and paper wasps. Cicada killer females use their sting to paralyze their prey (cicadas) rather than to defend their nests; unlike most social wasps and bees, they do not attempt to sting unless handled roughly.
Mud daubers don’t sting people that often and prey on spiders:
Black and yellow mud daubers primarily prey on relatively small, colorful spiders, such as crab spiders (and related groups), orb weavers and some jumping spiders. They usually find them in and around vegetation. Blue mud daubers are the main predator of the black and brown widow spiders.
All in all, this checks out.
Bonus stinging insect fact: There’s a sting pain index that entomologist Justin Schmidt first came up with in the 80s. Schmidt has been stung by almost everything with a stinger and rated the stings on a scale of 1 to 4 (least to most painful). He has also described the stings of individual insects more colorfully:
Western honey bee (level 2) — “Burning, corrosive, but you can handle it. A flaming match head lands on your arm and is quenched first with lye then with sulfuric acid.”
Giant paper wasp (level 3) — “There are gods, and they do throw thunderbolts. Poseidon has rammed his trident into your breast.”
If you’ve never seen it (or even if you have), Christian Marclay’s The Clock will be showing at LACMA from July 26 to August 23, including two 24-hour showings.
vintage post from Sep 2016
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From Mark Forsyth’s The Elements of Eloquence, a reminder of the rules of adjective order that fluent English speakers follow without quite knowing why.
…adjectives in English absolutely have to be in this order: opinion-size-age-shape-colour-origin-material-purpose Noun. So you can have a lovely little old rectangular green French silver whittling knife. But if you mess with that word order in the slightest you’ll sound like a maniac. It’s an odd thing that every English speaker uses that list, but almost none of us could write it out.
The Cambridge Dictionary lists a slightly different order: opinion, size, physical quality, shape, age, colour, origin, material, type, purpose. A poem by Alexandra Teague explores the topic in a creative way:
That summer, she had a student who was obsessed
with the order of adjectives. A soldier in the South
Vietnamese army, he had been taken prisoner when
Saigon fell. He wanted to know why the order
could not be altered. The sweltering city streets shook
with rockets and helicopters. The city sweltering
streets.
Did anyone learn this in school? I sure didn’t. How do we all know then? My daughter’s kindergarten teacher had a great phrase she used when things got a bit tricky as her students learned to read: “the English language is a rascal”. (via @MattAndersonBBC)
Update: Language Log’s post on adjective order is worth reading. (thx, stephen & margaret)
Senior living communities generally don’t go viral or gain media attention for positive reasons, so it’s nice to see this story about the University Village Retirement Community in Tulsa, Oklahoma and their champion Wii bowling team.
On this recent Thursday in June, their hopes are pinned on Phyllis Wimer, known as Phyllis Killer or Phyllis the GOAT for the many strikes she bowls; Charlene “the Grasshopper” Giles, whose hop gives her some extra oomph as she releases the ball; “Marvelous” Marcia Ness, who describes herself as a “tough old broad,” ready to bowl after recovering from a broken wrist and back; and “Rollin’” Ron Demaree, who grips the lower-left handlebar on his motorized wheelchair to propel himself upward and forward for more power in his roll.
Phyllis the GOAT is 95 years old and rolls 300s in practice sessions like it’s nothing. Here’s a local news segment on the team from a few months ago:
I was very into Wii Sports 20 years ago (!!!) and still occasionally play Switch Sports with the kids (golf, bowling, and tennis mostly). They’re great party/gathering games and evidently also great for staying active and sharp in your 90s.
A Retro 70s TV Intro for Andor. “Get ready to travel to a far away galaxy that existed a long, long time ago. It’s the science fiction spectacular…ANDOR.”
On Friday, I got a bee in my bonnet that this t-shirt should exist and so I made it and now you can buy it. The shirt is simple, straightforward, $25 (+s&h), and ships all over the world.
A promotion. Making a new friend. Or the big cork-popping event; you know the one. Today could be the day!
Maybe it’ll even happen before the shirt reaches your mailbox! We should be so lucky.
Thanks to Dan Cederholm at SimpleBits for his Free Lunch font and to Fourthwall for handling the shopping, printing, and fulfillment.
Oh, and I also zhuzhed up the Goods page, where you can still get the Hypertext, Process, and Choppke’s tees. More fine not-hypertext products to come soon.
The Writers Who Wrote The Most in History. “Corin Tellado published more than 4,000 novels, mostly under a contract with Spanish publisher Bruguera, which obligated her to deliver a 76-page novel every single week for years.”
Who wins the 2026 World Cup if “not football” decides? This starts with the same 64-team bracket as the actual WC but uses metrics like life expectancy & CO2 per capita to decide matches.
vintage post from Aug 2016
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Speaking of DJ Shadow, his 2-hour Essential Mix that aired in early July is really hitting the spot right now.
A story about what being neighborly is all about. “I reported back to the neighborhood text thread, and I wasn’t sure what to expect. What came back, from one neighbor after another, was the same question: what can we do to help?”
The Boeing 747 Begins Its Final Descent. The 747 is being phased out for newer and more efficient jets. Ian Bogost takes a look at how the massive plane, which took flight only 5 months before “Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon”, came to be.
It’s America’s Birthday. What Are We Celebrating? Some good thoughts in here from Tressie McMillan Cottom, Jamelle Bouie, M. Gessen, and Lydia Polgreen.
A Bob Ross painting of a mountain summit is being auctioned off soon. “Sale proceeds will benefit Ball State University. Ball State University owns WIPB, the PBS station where Bob Ross filmed thirty seasons of The Joy of Painting.” $50-70K estimate.
“Turn your site into a place people can bump into each other.” Cool feature where people visiting this website can chat in a virtual Town Square: “a small strip populated by stick figures…at the bottom of every page”. See you there?
Sad news: long-time tech journalist, blogger, and entrepreneur Om Malik passed away yesterday aged 59.
“Although fleeting, [sports] have the enduring power to inspire. For a few moments or a few days, divisions crumble, replaced by the beauty of kinship.”
Good god, The Complete Kubrick from Criterion.
Collected here for the first time are Kubrick’s thirteen features and three shorts, all restored in 4K, with their original soundtracks alongside the 5.1 mixes, restored and remastered; over twenty-five hours of interviews, documentaries, and behind-the-scenes materials; and deluxe packaging illustrated with rare photographs, artwork, and documents annotated by Kubrick himself, all housed in a singular box inspired by the director’s legendary archive.
Altogether it’s 30 discs, $480 if you pre-order, and it’ll be out in mid-October.
P.S. While it’s not a fancypants box set, the KDO tag page for Stanley Kubrick functions pretty well as “DVD extras” — and it’s free. (via df)
Apple raised their prices on their laptops, iMacs, and iPads today due to the high cost of memory (driven by AI demand). The Macbook Neo’s price went up $100 with most other machines getting a $200-500 bump.
But those prices have yet to take effect at Amazon, where Apple computers are still cheaper than the old prices. Macbook Neo for $590, MacBook Air M5 for $1150, and the M4 iMac for $1150. You can check other models (MacBook Pros, etc.) and their pricing here. Not sure when RAM costs are going to come down…these might be the lowest prices you see on Apple machines for quite awhile.
Update: looks like the Amazon prices have gone up. Oh well.
Fulfilling the purpose for which it was built almost 2000 years ago, football fans packed the Roman Theatre of Amman to watch the Jordan v Algeria World Cup match. I don’t know whether Roman rulers, builders, and architects envisioned their works would remain standing & useful millennia after their construction, but longevity is certainly not a priority these days.
Here’s a video of Jordan fans watching their opener vs Austria in the theater:
Update: I’ve learned something today: a theater and an amphitheater are two different things. I’ve corrected my post. (thx, francesca)
vintage post from Jul 2012
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This is a five-minute video of Andy Warhol eating a Burger King hamburger accompanied by Heinz ketchup.
The scene is part of a film done by Jorgen Leth called 66 Scenes from America.
Leth had his assistant buy some burgers and directly advised him to buy some in halfway neutral packaging as Leth was afraid that Warhol might reject some brands (Warhol always had an obsession with some of his favorite brands).
So Andy Warhol finally did arrive at the studio, of course along with his bodyguards, and when he saw the selection of burgers the assistant had brought he asked “Where is the McDonald’s?” and Leth — slightly in panic — was immediately like “I thought you would maybe not like to identify…” and Warhol answered “no that is the most beautiful”. Leth offered to let his assistant quickly run to McDonald’s but Warhol refused like “No, never mind, I will take the Burger King.”
(via bon appetit)
Mentioned this in passing a few months ago, but wanted to remind you that The Art of Star Wars: Andor is coming out in about a week. Looks great.
Did a medieval flying monk spot Halley’s comet, twice? It’s complicated. Halley’s Comet came around in 1066 and it’s likely Eilmer of Malmesbury saw a different comet in 1018, not Halley’s in 989.
How The New York Times Changed Its Coverage of Trans People. No surprise: it became much more negative, less affirming/protective and more skeptical/restrictive.
Lifts in Film: a collection of movie & TV scenes featuring elevators, including Speed, The Shining, Drive, Mad Men, Die Hard, Pulp Fiction, The Silence of the Lambs, and many more.
Gerrymandle is a daily game where you “draw electoral district lines to win more seats than your opponents and win the election”.
Kelly Hayes interviews Rebecca Solnit. “There is no rewind button on history. Once people have power & agency, and have seen what it’s like to have rights, voting rights, reproductive rights, they’re not interested in going back. And we’re the majority.”
This is one of those videos that you start watching and then can’t really stop until you’ve finished. Cow Trip tells the story of an effort to save a baby cow by driving it (and another baby cow rescue) in a not-huge SUV 600 miles from Vermont to a sanctuary in Maryland.
A calf in Vermont hits the lottery when a farmer decides to save him. But someone has to drive the baby cow 600 miles to his new home. A freshly retired doctor and his filmmaker daughter volunteer for the job, but nothing goes as planned. What emerges is an unlikely story of a community of people who will do anything to give one calf a real home.
I think maybe this needs to be a children’s book?
Tesla Launches New Model Of Explosions. “What’s different about the XP is that they’ve actually borrowed some of the same technology used by SpaceX, incorporating it as well as a whole slew of other safety features that are basically non-existent.”
How We’ll Fight the Platform War Against Big AI. “Here are some of the proven tactics that have helped shift the balance of power in prior tech reckonings…”
Not surprising to KDO readers and I don’t really know who still needs to hear this in June 2026 but: the US is in the middle of a “rolling coup” by ultra-conservatives who are “well along the path of destroying our democracy”.
For each of their on-camera interviews with filmmakers, actors, critics, and other film nerds, Criterion records 30 seconds of “room tone” that is used to cut the footage into a seamless video.
When trying to explain what room tone is to someone unfamiliar with the concept, I reach for an architectural metaphor. If words are the bricks of a scene, then surely room tone is the mortar that binds them together. It gives sonic coherence to an edited piece built from different takes within the same location.
Asking a cast and crew to observe a moment of silence is an acknowledgment that room tone cannot be faked. You cannot substitute it with a recording from another production, and you cannot generate it using artificial intelligence. It is something you capture at a specific time and place that has not occurred before and will not occur again. This is our attempt at freezing such fleeting moments — and welcoming those to come.
And then at the end of each year, they cut the room tone recordings into a compilation video; here’s 2025’s video:
As well as 2024’s and 2023’s:
I find these videos equal parts charming and meditative. As movies & TV become ever-more fast-paced and our attention bent to black rectangular pocket casinos, it’s increasingly rare to witness people sitting still with only their thoughts to occupy them. We see Humans Frantically Doing everywhere these days, but these room tone videos are a good reminder that Humans Just Being is an essential part of life as well.
Amazon is doing their Prime Day sale again this summer and for those with Prime memberships, it’s a chance to upgrade some tech items at rarely seen prices. Here are a few items I’ve got my eye on:
- The AirPods Pro 3 are still my daily headphones; I really do love them so much. They’re $180 right now, which I think is the lowest price they’ve been.
- Apple’s AirPods Max 2 headphones are on sale for a ridiculous $400 (27% off)…the lowest price ever.
- I do not have the latest Kindle Paperwhite, but I just now bought one for $125 (22% off). After a long period of foundering, I’ve gotten back into reading again and want an upgrade over the four-year-old Kindle I’m currently using.
- I don’t have one of these and reviews have been mixed (some ppl love them and some are lukewarm on them), but the pocket-sized X4 E-Book Reader is on sale for $55 (20% off). It’s so small you can attach it to the back of your phone.
- My finger is hovered over the “add to cart” button on the 15-inch M5 MacBook Air ($1150, 20% off). I have the 15-inch M4 Air and absolutely love it…but I wouldn’t mind something a little beefier for some of the programming stuff I’ve been doing lately.
- While not exactly “tech”, it is technology: the KitchenAid 5.5 quart stand mixer is 40% off ($300).
Regarding the Apple stuff on the list, it’s helpful to keep in mind that Tim Cook recently said in an interview that Apple is going to be raising their prices “to offset the surging costs of memory and storage chips”. It’s unclear when this will happen, but it makes all the current Apple deals look even better.
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