More online showings of Eno coming up (March 27-30). “You must be watching on the date and time specified for each livestream. There is no delayed viewing. These versions of the film will never be shown again.”
Advertise here with Carbon Ads
This site is made possible by member support. 💞
Big thanks to Arcustech for hosting the site and offering amazing tech support.
When you buy through links on kottke.org, I may earn an affiliate commission. Thanks for supporting the site!
kottke.org. home of fine hypertext products since 1998.
The editor in chief at Science: I Was Diagnosed With Autism at 53. I Know Why Rates Are Rising. “The rise in diagnoses is the result of greater awareness, better identification (especially among women and girls) and a broader definition…”
What is the opposite of fascism? Living freely, colorfully, openly. Humanizing. Connecting with others. Gathering. Hoping. Following your dreams. Communing. Nurturing. Refusing despair. Laughing loudly.
Coco 2? Pixar will produce a sequel to Coco, set to come out in 2029. It joins Incredibles 3 and Toy Story 5 in development at the studio.
New issue of The HTML Review, “an annual journal of literature made to exist on the web”. Love the TOC interface — the web can still be fun!
Sally Rooney on Snooker and the Mystery of Athletic Genius
Writing for the New York Review (archive), Sally Rooney profiles “genius” snooker player Ronnie O’Sullivan. But much of the piece is spent on the mystery of how O’Sullivan and other athletes are able to do what they do without thinking.
Take the last frame of the 2014 Welsh Open final. The footage is available online, courtesy of Eurosport Snooker: if you like, you can watch O’Sullivan, then in his late thirties, circling the table, chalking his cue without taking his eyes from the baize. He’s leading his opponent, Ding Junhui — then at number three in the world snooker rankings — by eight frames to three, needing only one more to win the match and take home the title. He pots a red, then the black, then another red, and everything lands precisely the way he wants it: immaculate, mesmerizing, miraculously controlled.
The last remaining red ball is stranded up by the cushion on the right-hand side, and the cue ball rolls to a halt just left of the middle right-hand pocket. The angle is tight, awkward, both white and red lined up inches away from the cushion. O’Sullivan surveys the position, nonchalantly switches hands, and pots the red ball left-handed. The cue ball hits the top cushion, rolls back down over the table, and comes to a stop, as if on command, to line up the next shot on the black. O’Sullivan could scarcely have chosen a better spot if he had picked the cue ball up in his hand and put it there. The crowd erupts: elation mingled with disbelief. At the end of the frame, when only the black remains on the table, he switches hands again, seemingly just for fun, and makes the final shot with his left. The black drops down into the pocket, completing what is known in snooker as a maximum break: the feat of potting every ball on the table in perfect order to attain the highest possible total of 147 points.
Watch a little of this sort of thing and it’s hugely entertaining. Watch a lot and you might start to ask yourself strange questions. For instance: In that particular frame, after potting that last red, how did O’Sullivan know that the cue ball would come back down the table that way and land precisely where he wanted it? Of course it was only obeying the laws of physics. But if you wanted to calculate the trajectory of a cue ball coming off an object ball and then a cushion using Newtonian physics, you’d need an accurate measurement of every variable, some pretty complex differential equations, and a lot of calculating time. O’Sullivan lines up that shot and plays it in the space of about six seconds. A lucky guess? It would be lucky to make a guess like that once in a lifetime. He’s been doing this sort of thing for thirty years.
What then? If he’s not calculating, and he’s not guessing, what is Ronnie O’Sullivan doing? Why does the question seem so strange? And why doesn’t anybody know the answer?
You can watch that final frame on YouTube:
There’s also a short interview with Rooney about the piece and other things.
I also mention that frames of snooker are expected to continue even after competitive play has concluded. Players don’t just get to a certain number of points and then stop because they’ve won the frame; they continue until the break imposes its own conclusion. There’s something so strange and excessive about that—it seems to belong to the realm of aesthetics rather than sport.
I used to write a lot about what Rooney examines in her essay — the effortless brilliance of top performers — under the subject of relaxed concentration. Still as fascinating as ever.
Shopping for Superman
Here’s the trailer for Shopping for Superman, a crowdfunded documentary on the 50-year history of local comic book stores — as well as their shaky future.
Shopping for Superman, guides viewers through a 50-year journey revealing the origin story of their friendly neighborhood comic shops and the people fighting to keep their doors open.
Since it began, the retail comics industry has contracted by over 75% with more shops closing every month.
After five years of diminished sales, a global pandemic, and the digitization of retail shopping dominating most markets, Shopping for Superman asks the question, “Can our local comic shops be saved?”
Shopping for Superman, does more than explain the history of retail comic book shops. Its underlying narrative reveals how shops directly influenced comic book publishing to cultivate some of the most daring and controversial materials ever committed to print.
Through the evolution of comics, bolstered by shop owners, local communities gained access to safe spaces for individuals having a crisis of identity, a place that promoted literacy and critical thinking in areas where those things are scarce.
Audiences will see, first-hand, just how necessary their support will be in keeping these shops open and available for future generations.
Ha, Improved Relative Time lets you ditch BC and AD for designations like ABW (After Barbed Wire), BHCS (Before High Carbon Steel), AIP (After iPhone), and ASCR (After Supersonic Combusting Ramjet). No ATSDB (After Trial-Size Dove Bar) tho…
Beautiful Public Data posts about the mass incarceration of Japanese Americans during WWII using historical documents from the Library of Congress & National Archives, including photos by Ansel Adams and Dorothea Lange.
What does Maga-land look like? Let me show you America’s unbeautiful suburban sprawl. “Somewhere along the line, the American Dream became to live alone, surrounded by all of this, rather than living in connection with other people.”
A History Professor Answers Questions About Dictators
In this video for Wired, historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat, who studies fascism & authoritarianism, answers questions from the internet about dictators.
Why do people support dictators? How do dictators come to power? What’s the difference between a dictatorship, an autocracy, and authoritarianism? What are the most common personality traits found in tyrants and dictators? Is Xi Jinping a dictator? How do dictators amass wealth?
The Sticker Box and the Woodstock Message Tree. “What makes this sticker-covered electrical box even more interesting is its location. It sits right across the road from the former site of the Woodstock Message Tree.”
“Thirty lonely but beautiful actions you can take right now which probably won’t magically catalyze a mass movement against Trump but that are still wildly important.”
We might get to see Coyote vs. Acme after all…Warner Bros. is in the process of selling it.
On Edward Gorey’s Great Simple Theory About Art “Anything that is art…is presumably about some certain thing, but is really always about something else, and it’s no good having one without the other…”
A UN World Meteorological Organization report “lists 151 unprecedented extreme weather events in 2024, meaning they were worse than any ever recorded in the region.” Heat, floods, storms — all made worse by global warming.
Trump Has Gone From Unconstitutional to Anti-Constitutional. “[Anti-Constitutionalism] rejects the premise that sovereignty lies with the people, that ours is a government of limited and enumerated powers and that the officers of that government are bound by law.”
Editorial from Nature magazine: Vaccines save lives. Leaders must champion them. “We urge policymakers to help boost people’s confidence in vaccines, and not to undermine scientific and medical institutions or the process of research.”
Don’t Be a Sucker!
In 1945, the US Department of War (the precursor to the Dept of Defense) produced this educational film on the “destructive effects of racial and religious prejudice” and the use of such prejudice to gain power.
Reel 1 shows a fake wrestling match and “crooked” gambling games. An agitator addresses a street crowd; he almost convinces one man in the audience until the man begins to talk to a Hungarian refugee from Germany. A Nazi speaker harangues a crowd in Germany denouncing Jews, Catholics, and Freemasons. Reel 2, a German unemployed worker joins Hitler’s Storm Troops. SS men attack Jewish and Catholic headquarters in Germany, and beat up a Jewish storekeeper. A German teacher explains Nazi racial theories; the teacher is dragged away by German soldiers.
It’s a good watch, but perhaps keep in mind this was produced at a time when American citizens were imprisoned for being of Japanese descent (among other things…Jim Crow, sexism, discrimination of LGBTQ+ people, etc.)
What Are the Physical Limits of Humanity?
A new video from Kurzgesagt explores the limits of human exploration in the Universe. How far can we venture? Are there limits? Turns out the answer is very much “yes”…with the important caveat “using our current understanding of physics”, which may someday provide a loophole (or wormhole, if you will). Chances are, humans will only be able to explore 0.00000000001% of the observable Universe.
This video is particularly interesting and packed with information, even by Kurzgesagt’s standards. The explanation of the Big Bang, inflation, dark matter, and expansion is concise and informative…the idea that the Universe is slowly erasing its own memory is fascinating.
A 6‑Hour Time-Stretched Version of Brian Eno’s Music For Airports. “The tonal field is the same, but now the notes are no attack, all decay.”
UbuWeb, a pirate library of avant-garde artifacts, closed in 2024. But last month, they started the site back up again. “Archiving reemerges as a strong form of resistance, a way of preserving crucial, subversive, and marginalized forms of expression.”
Bad at Goodbyes is a podcast highlighting a different critically endangered plant or animal on each episode. Recently featured: Vancouver Island Marmot, Dama Gazelle, Koyama’s Spruce, Cuban Crocodile, and Pariette Cactus.
Fooling a Self-Driving Tesla Is Dangerously Easy
In his latest video, Mark Rober shows how easy it is to fool Tesla’s self-driving capability (they use cheaper video cameras) when compared with other self-driving cars (which use lidar). Big Wile E. Coyote energy from the Tesla here.
Oh and he also uses lidar to map out the interior at Disneyland’s Space Mountain ride, which is entirely in the dark.
From The Climate Mental Health Network, a downloadable free zine for youth that “offers a collection of perspectives and tools to support other climate-concerned youth around the emotional impacts of the climate crisis and healthy ways to respond”.
The Women Who Wanted to Leave Their Husbands Over Politics. “This fall, I followed three women who had been thinking about divorce. What happened when Donald Trump won again?” Really interesting and depressing.
Freedom of the Press Foundation: “[Wired] is going to stop paywalling articles that are primarily based on public records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.”
You may have already seen it, but I finally got around to reading this piece: One Word Describes Trump. “Patrimonialism is distinguished by running the state as if it were the leader’s personal property or family business.”
Song Exploder talks to Theodore Shapiro about how he created the main title theme music for Severance.
From One Million Experiments, a printable zine meant to be “used as a template for those seeking to make an activism or organizing plan” with knowledge distilled from seasoned activists.
The Curious 100 from The Eames Institute is, “a celebration of one hundred courageous leaders and creative minds across the United States who are harnessing the transformative power of curiosity to solve today’s most pressing problems”.
Indie game Blobun has a joke setting that eliminates its lesbian content. But the main character is gay “so flipping the so-called ‘lesbian toggle’ in the options menu removes her from the game and renders it totally unplayable”.
If you’re mad as hell, one thing you can do is run for elected office. Run For Something recruits & supports “young, diverse progressives to run for down-ballot races in order to build sustainable power for Democrats in all 50 states”.
A really important point from Masha Gessen about the Trumpist attacks on (and “denationalization” of) trans people: “The reason you should care about this is not that it could happen to you but that it is already happening to others.” 🎯🎯🎯
A good, long piece from Thomas Zimmer about how we “underestimated the Trumpist threat and overestimated how resilient both the political system as well as American civil society would be…that is something we all need to grapple with in earnest.”
Timothy Snyder on the terrifying deportations being undertaken by the Trump regime. This is a prelude to any American being stripped of citizenship and expelled from the country for any reason (protesting, faving the wrong photo, using pronouns).
The World’s Deadliest Infectious Disease Is About to Get Worse. John Green, author of Everything Is Tuberculosis, warns that the Trump regime’s gutting of international aid and scientific funding will result in more death & suffering from tuberculosis.
Canada is so furious at the US right now. “Everything Trump has said and done has led to a level of rage and defiance that I think very few Americans fully appreciate.” And rightly so!
Beginning April 20, Pride & Prejudice (w/ Keira Knightley & Matthew Macfadyen) is heading back to US theaters to mark the 20th anniversary of its release.
Something new from Radiohead on the horizon? Radiohead Members Form New LLP, Historically a Telltale Sign of New Activity. New album? Reissue? Tour?
Ross Andersen writes thoughtfully about LeBron James’ protectiveness of his son Bronny James and accusations of nepotism. “The emotions of parenthood are gigantic. They can knock anyone off their game, even the great LeBron James.”
A bunch of people who have never heard of Radiohead listen to Creep for the first time. Some of them were in tears. It *is* a pretty great song.
The Pudding: How do animals sound across languages? “How can cultures hear the same physical sounds yet translate them into language so differently?”
This One Goes to 27
On this day 27 years ago, on March 14, 1998, I started this here website. I’m not sure what there is to say about the ridiculous length of time that I’ve spent doing this “moderately anachronistic thing” that I haven’t already said before:
A little context for just how long that is: kottke.org is older than Google. 25 years is more than half of my life, spanning four decades (the 90s, 00s, 10s, and 20s) and around 40,000 posts — almost cartoonishly long for a medium optimized for impermanence.
As always, thank you so much for reading and for the membership support. 💞
Wired has a big story (150+ sources) that takes a look Inside Elon Musk’s ‘Digital Coup’. “The next step: Unleash the AI.” 😱
Sarah Wynn-Williams’s memoir about working at Facebook, Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism (Bookshop), is on the bestseller charts after Meta tried to get the book pulled from sale. The Streisand effect strikes again.
Ted Lasso is returning for a fourth season. Not every actor is on board (yet)…it’ll be interesting to see where this goes.
Trailer for season two of Poker Face. If you haven’t seen it, it’s directed by Rian Johnson (Knives Out/Glass Onion) and Natasha Lyonne plays an itinerant Benoit Blanc sort of character. Very good.
Harvey Silikovitz tried 10 times to get on Jeopardy! over 24 years and finally made it. (And won!) “He’s pretty sure he has made history as the first Jeopardy! contestant to play with Parkinson’s.”
Stay Connected