New evidence suggests that Neanderthals were making fire in the UK 400,000 years ago. The previous earliest date of human fire-making was a mere 50,000 years ago.
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.
Beloved by 86.47% of the web.
Victorian-Era Mourning Objects From the V&A’s Collection
From the archives of London’s V&A Museum, a selection of items that were used by Victorian-era mourners to remember and pay tribute to loved ones who had died, including jewelry with human hair, black dresses, jet black jewelry, mourning cards, and postmortem photography. Victorian fashion was heavily influenced by Queen Victoria, who mourned the death of her husband for decades and set off a trend in Britain (more here):
Victoria’s grief wasn’t only personal but influenced the entire nation. Her strict adherence to mourning attire and jewelry set the tone for the era. Until around 1880, she mandated that only mourning jewelry could be worn in the court. The Queen’s dedication to mourning created what has been described as “the Cult of Mourning,” where societal conventions, fashion, and daily life were infused with the solemnity of loss.
During the Victorian era, mourning jewelry transformed into sentimental tokens for the departed, featuring symbols like willows, angels, clouds, and initials. Women adhered strictly to mourning dress codes, wearing black for the initial “deep mourning” phase lasting two to three years, later transitioning to darker colors. Incorporating the deceased’s hair was common, using materials like jet, vulcanite, and gutta percha. White enamel symbolized the death of an unmarried female or a child, while pearls represented children, signifying tears. Turquoise conveyed the sentiment of “thinking of you,” and affluent families adorned mourning jewelry with precious stones for their loved ones.
A+ to the curators in the video, who understood the fashion assignment in presenting these objects.
Also, I love every opportunity to share one of my favorite Victorian phrases: “got the morbs”, which is defined as being in a state of temporary melancholia. (via colossal)
The trailer for It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley, a documentary film about the late singer/songwriter.
kdo rolodex · a list of kindred spirits, friends, open web enthusiasts, role models, fellow travelers, and collaborators
-
Gina Trapanihttps://notetoself.studio -
Casey Johnstonhttps://bsky.app/profile/caseyjohnston.bsky.social -
Gristhttps://grist.org -
Swissmisshttps://swiss-miss.com -
Craig Modhttps://craigmod.com
refresh for more
Timothy Snyder: “What comes next? For the Nazis, the deportation and the pogrom of autumn 1938 were steps towards creating a centralised national police agency. In the US, something similar is unfolding with ICE.”
Size of Life, a visual comparison of living things from DNA to a quaking aspen clone. Lovely illustrations.
I hate how good this is: Radiohead sings Santa Claus Is Coming to Town (There I Ruined It).
2000 Words for Japanese Rain
From artist Miya Ando, Water of the Sky, A Dictionary of 2,000 Japanese Rain Words.
Through a collection of 2,000 Japanese words, their English interpretations, and 100 drawings, Ando describes the breadth and diversity of rain’s many expressions: when it falls, how it falls, and how its observer might be transformed physically or emotionally by its presence.
I paged through this at a bookstore recently; it is delightful. From an excerpt of the book, here are a few of Ando’s rain words & phrases:
Tokidoki Niwaka Ame: Sometimes light snow and rain showers
Ama ga Nukeru: The skies open up, it rains like cats and dogs
Shinotsukuame: Intense rain that falls heavily, is very fine and strong like the Bamboo Grove at Shinotake
Giu: False rain
Amadoi: Sliding red beans to resemble the sound of rain
Kōu: Rain that comes exactly when you were waiting for it
Water of the Sky is available at Bookshop, Amazon, and wherever books are sold.
A Charlie Brown Christmas, Live
Listen to jazz trio The Commercialists play Vince Guaraldi’s A Charlie Brown Christmas live in a small club called The Estate in Milwaukee. That’s this afternoon’s chill work music sorted then.
If you’re anywhere near Milwaukee this month, it looks like there are still tickets to some of their Charlie Brown performances left, although the shows at The Estate look like they’re sold out for the month. (thx, than)
We Asked Critics From Authoritarian Regimes What They Wish They’d Known Sooner. “You cannot make authoritarian leaders the center of your narrative. You have to make the people the center of your narrative, and you have to be passionate about it.”
A “particularly inventive” Rube Goldberg marble run maze. Lots of elements doing double duty.
The 2025 Kottke Holiday Gift Guide
Since 2013, I’ve done a holiday gift guide that’s basically a curated roundup of stuff from the best gift guides I can find. I always do it a little bit differently from year to year, and last year I went with a simple list and it worked well. So I’m doing that again this year. Also: this is a little more spare than I’d like, but I wanted to get something up pronto. I will be updating this every few days for the next week-ish, so check back. Ok, let’s a-go!
1. The guide always starts with charitable giving and so should you. If you can, give cash to your local food bank (and kick in extra around the holiday time). Volunteer. Start with GiveWell’s list of “high-impact, cost-effective charities”. Here are Vox’s 10 guidelines for giving effectively. I personally give to the National Network of Abortion Funds.
2. The Kid Should See This Gift Guide is my #1 source for kids’ gifts. What caught my eye this year: The Atlas Obscura Explorer’s Guide to Inventing the World (Bookshop, Amazon), Kinderfeets multi-use balance board, this portable 1080p video projector for under $90, Teenage Engineering’s pocket operators (Amazon), a set of French, hand-painted, space-themed marbles, and a graphic novel adaptation of The Hidden Life of Trees (Bookshop, Amazon). [via The Kid Should See This Gift Guide]
3. You can give the gift of Kottke! *cringe* There’s The Kottke Hypertext Tee and The Process Tee in light & dark colors. There are kottke.org gift memberships as well starting at $30/yr; check the FAQ on the membership page for more options and details.
π. I love this one: gift audiobooks from Libro.fm (my audiobook store of choice). “You choose the number of credits and your recipient picks their audiobook — all in support of local bookstores.” (And they’re 10% off until Dec 11.)
4. The most popular item by far from the past two gift guides: this Japanese nail clipper. I have one of these and it’s *great*. A significant upgrade from even the Tweezerman ones. Good stocking stuffer!
5. The staples. I upgraded to the 3rd-gen Apple AirPods Pro this year and I use them almost daily; they are comfier with better noise-cancelling than the 2nd-gen ones, which I loved. Almost every book I read, I read on the Kindle Paperwhite — it’s light, waterproof, and very travel-friendly. (Though I am still eyeing the Colorsoft Kindle.)
6. My friend Caroline hiked Vermont’s Long Trail last summer and compiled a small list of outdoors supplies for the gift guide: ThermoDrop Zipper-Pull Thermometer, Opinel wood-handled stainless steel folding knives, Kahtoola MICROspikes, and Smartwool’s Thermal Merino Reversible Cuffed Beanie. And the Cotopaxi Bataan fanny pack, about which she said: “The MVP of my hiking trip. No more fiddling around with side pockets or opening your pack any time you need a snack, to find your your phone or to look at the map.”
7. For the last few years, The Verge editor-in-chief Nilay Patel has recommended the same printer as the printer of the year: whatever HL-L2xxx-series Brother laser printer is on sale. So, here you go: Brother HL-L2405W Wireless Compact Monochrome Laser Printer. (Technically not on sale right now, but at $135 for a rock-solid laser printer, it doesn’t really need to be.)
8. Kelli Anderson’s new popup book, Alphabet in Motion, is completely and utterly ridiculously amazing. When I opened my copy, my jaw dropped lower and lower to the floor as I looked & played through it and that’s been pretty much the reaction of everyone else who has a copy of this. The must-give gift of the season for book, type, and design nerds. (Bookshop, Amazon)
IX. My daughter got me this jar of truffle butter as a gift a few years ago and it’s so good (and it lasts forever in the fridge). Perfect for putting into white, creamy pasta sauces or as a finishing element for a grilled cheese. (Also, you can buy white truffles on Amazon but I wouldn’t?)
10. Richard Scarry-themed temporary tattoos from Tattly. Lowly Worm, Huckle Cat, the Apple Car, Goldbug, and many more of your favorites. (Tattly is shutting down, so get ‘em while you can…)
10.5. Let’s destigmatize the gift card: there is no shame in not knowing what to get someone for a gift, even if you know them really well. This is actually the gift of getting someone exactly what they want. There’s the obvious Amazon gift card but you can also get cards for Apple (use it for Fitness+ or Apple TV+?), Audible, Fortnite, Snapchat, Airbnb, Disney+, Netflix, and Roblox.
10.6. Sometimes people ask me where to buy art online and I always direct them to 20x200. For instance, just take a look at Harold Fisk’s Mississippi River meander maps.
11. kottke.org guest editor Aaron Cohen owns an ice cream shop in the Boston area and they take their merch very seriously. So many t-shirts! Oh and you can find pints of Gracie’s ice cream all over the Boston metro area…as far away as Concord and Beverly.
12. The Colossal Shop is full of “fun things for creative people”, including this beaver embroidery kit, a buttons puzzle, and a ceramic toast candle holder. [via The Colossal Shop’s 2025 Gift Guide]
14. I like getting The Giant Jam Sandwich (Bookshop) as a gift for the little readers in my life.
15. Friends & readers of the site who sell cool shit: Simplebits (shirts, fonts, and more), Wondermade marshmallows, Hella Cocktail Co. (bitters, mixers, canned margs), This is a MomBod (feminist apparel), Jodi Ettenberg’s Legal Nomads shop (food art, totes, shirts) and gluten free translation cards and celiac travel guides, Yen Ha (prints), Spoon & Tamago (Family Mart socks!), Fitz (custom fitted eyeglasses), Field Notes, Pink Tiger Games (“sweet, kind” tabletop games), Storyworth (keepsake books), Christoph Niemann (prints & books), Noah Kalina (photographic prints & books), Jessica Hische (prints, apparel, fonts, etc.), Mike Monteiro (paintings), and Cotton Bureau (t-shirts and more).
16. Twelve South AirFly Duo is a Bluetooth transmitter that you can plug into the jack on your seatback TV on the airplane and then use your Bluetooth headphones to listen to your movie. I have one of these; it works great. Apple AirTags are essential travel infrastructure these days.
Q. Pal Robin Sloan and his partner Kathryn Tomajan run a tiny olive oil producer called Fat Gold. This year they’re offering a Fat Gold Gift Set of two different extra virgin olive oils and a copy of a “32-page zine that provides a brisk introduction to extra virgin olive oil alongside a stockpile of delicious applications”. Fun! He also recommends Daybreak’s seaweed salt (for extra umami!) and these gorgeous tidelogs. [via Robin’s 2025 Gift Guide]
18. Another great gift list for kids’ stuff: Purdue University’s 2025 Engineering Gift Guide, which is focused on microelectronics gifts (circuitry, robotics, coding & programming) this year. [via Purdue University’s 2025 Engineering Gift Guide]
19. Food/kitchen things that I can vouch for: Xi’an Famous Foods meal kits, pastrami from Katz’s Delicatessen, Ernest Wright’s kitchen scissors, the Ooni Volt electric pizza oven, Headley & Bennett’s crossback apron, and this Zojirushi rice cooker (Neuro Fuzzy!).
20. The end of an era! Almost every year since I started doing a gift guide, I’ve featured this 55-gallon drum of personal lubricant. But Amazon doesn’t sell it anymore. I blame all of you for never buying one!
Twenty one. You know her, you love her: Edith Zimmerman. Her Etsy shop is chock full of prints, cards, and apparel.
22. Stuff from past gift guides: the Keap Wood Cabin candle is my favorite candle, Crayola Palm-Grip Crayons, this cute whale butter dish, and a leather floppy disk wallet.
23. Made right here in VT, Darn Tough socks (Amazon) are the best socks. For one thing, they have an Unconditional Lifetime Guarantee.
24. Tinned fish! I have my eye on the Fishwife Smoky Trio 3-Pack (Smoked Rainbow Trout, Smoked Salmon, Smoked Mackerel).
67. Teens are impossible to shop for. The Strategist always has good gift guides: The Best Gifts for Teenage Girls, According to Teenage Girls; The Best Gifts for Teenage Boys, According to Teenage Boys. The Spikeball set, disco ball, and this Brooklinen robe look promising. And I can recommend the tortilla blanket for ages 0 to 120…everyone loves this thing.
26. Last year, I asked readers for gift suggestions and IMO the resulting thread is even better than the gift guide I put together. There’s some great stuff here: wooden puzzles; colorful, design-y charging stands for Apple things; leather bound notebooks; box cutters; and this vintage shop on Etsy. Go check out the rest here.
This is a living document — I’ll be updating this list with more stuff over the next few days, and I’ll let you know when to check back! To be continued…
When you buy through links on kottke.org, I may earn an affiliate commission. Thanks for supporting the site!
Colin Furze built a full-suspension bike using powerful magnets instead of shocks or springs.
Looks Like the Supreme Court Will Continue to Overturn the 20th Century. But: “It’s amazing how many of our problems today could be solved by a Congress that was willing and able to legislate in response to national problems.”
Jiggle Cat
This is a pretty good optical illusion. If you’re not on your phone, it also works if you shake your head a little. (thx, caroline)
A guide on how (and why) to quit Spotify. “I am extremely glad I [switched away from Spotify]; it’s been a minute since I’ve felt something approaching genuine delight in discovering a new tech service.”
Huge Collection of Laptop Sticker Art
Stickertop.art is a massive collection of the tops of laptop computers adorned with stickers.
Laptop stickers are more than decoration, they’re a form of self-expression. Each one is a snapshot of a moment, a place, and an attitude. But they’re fleeting; when the technology becomes outdated, the laptops along with the stories stuck to them often end up in the waste pile. I thought it was a shame for something so personal and creative to just disappear, so I created this site to preserve them.
If you’re a laptop decorator, you can upload your sticker collection to the site. (via @juandesant)
Why We Have Two Nostrils Instead of One Big Hole. (Great title!) “The nostrils alternate airflow from one side to the other. This may allow one side of the nose to rest.”
I’m working on the 2025 gift guide right now, but I wanted to separately shout-out my favorite gift recommendation of the year: Kelli Anderson’s incredible popup book about typography & the alphabet, Alphabet in Motion (Amazon).
A video featuring Magnus Carlsen trying to beat a very novice player at chess with increasingly unfair rules (opponent gets two moves per turn, opponent starts with 23 queens, Magnus starts with 1 king and 23 pawns, etc.)
From Nature, a list of 10 people who helped shape science in 2025. “A fired public-health official, a mosquito breeder and a baby with a smile seen around the world. These are just a few of the remarkable people chosen for Nature’s 10.”
The all-out AI race. “They are tearing towards a technology that could, in theory, sweep away millions of white-collar jobs and pose serious risks in bioweapons and cybersecurity. Or it could usher in a new era of abundance, health and wealth.”
Beautiful Drone Videos of Iceland’s Black Sand Beaches
From photographer and videographer Jan Erik Waider, a trio of videos that features the black sand beaches of Iceland from a drone’s vantage point.
Captured on Iceland’s south coast where a glacial river meets the Atlantic Ocean. The camera observes the slow interplay of water, sand, and silt — an abstract rhythm shaped by tides and sediment flow. Amid these shifting textures, a few seals drift, rest, and return to the current, blending seamlessly into the landscape. A quiet study of movement and stillness, captured from above.
The colors are amazing: the rich yellow of the river’s waters & the turquoise of the ocean against the black sand. You can find many more of his videos on YouTube, including this one of mesmerizing lava flows. (via moss & fog)
Narrative String Theory is collection all known instances in film & TV of bulletin boards covered with investigatory items, “walls and floors littered with paperwork by obsessives”, and so on.
Weird Al Yankovic Covers Killing In The Name by Rage Against the Machine
At a recent Portugal. The Man concert in NYC, Weird Al joined the band on stage for a pair of songs, including a cover of Killing In The Name, Rage Against the Machine’s anthem against police brutality and the military industrial complex. Weird Al, welcome to the resistance. (via @erikahall.bsky.social)
For its 50th anniversary, the original theatrical cut of Star Wars will be released in theaters in Feb 2027 (maybe even IMAX). Han shoots first, no weirdly svelte Jabba.
French electronic duo Air performs a Tiny Desk Concert. Setlist: Le Voyage de Pénélope, Cherry Blossom Girl, Highschool Lover, and Dirty Trip.
Fran Sans is a font based on the display type of SF’s MUNI light rail trains. The N-Judah was my train when I lived there, so I’m very familiar with that display typeface. (Great name too.)
The Land of Giants, a conceptual proposal to build power line towers so that they look like people.
The Fascinating Map of Fungi
From Domain of Science, the Fascinating Map of Fungi.
The zombie ant fungus, Ophiocordyceps unilateralis, infects ants by piercing the exoskeleton with enzymes and spreads fungal cells throughout the body. It then secretes special neurological compounds that hijack the ant’s central nervous system, forcing it to climb high into a tree and lock its mandibles onto a leaf with a death grip. This makes a nice stable platform for the fungus to grow a fruiting body to disperse spores in a large area to infect more hosts.
And here’s a video explanation of everything on the map.
See also this Classification of Plants & Fungi poster and its corresponding video explanation.
Bloomberg’s Jealousy List for 2025, a collection of journalism admired by the magazine’s writers and editors.
I’m actually surprised how well Santa answers these difficult questions in the face of a full on press from the New Yorker’s Isaac Chotiner.
Where Did These Famous Hip Hop Screeches Come From?
Two of the most famous screeches in music history are from House of Pain’s Jump Around and Cypress Hill’s Insane in the Brain — you likely heard both of them in your mind just reading the names of the songs. This short video explains where those samples came from and which one of them is a horse (and not Prince).
Dollar stores are overcharging their customers at checkout. “Red Baron frozen pizzas, listed on the shelf at $5, rang up at $7.65. Bounty paper towels, shelf price $10.99, rang up at $15.50.”
Is Gen X Actually the Greatest Generation? “When you consider all the impressive work Generation X has made, it’s funny that one of the most persistent stereotypes about them is that they’re slackers.”
Gemini and Mercury Remastered is “a collection of hundreds of newly-restored images and untold stories from the NASA archives” about the early manned space programs by the person who did the excellent Apollo Remastered.
Really interesting take on Wake Up Dead Man and the other Knives Out films. Benoit Blanc’s primary motivation is not solving the murder but protecting the innocent from the rich and powerful.
Pantone choosing a shade of white for its color of the year is a little too on the nose, especially when you consider they chose a color called Mocha Mousse last year.
Fritolaysia Cuts Off Chiplomatic Relations With Snakistan. “Relations between the two countries grew stale in 1994, when Fritolaysian rufflelutionaries crossed zestablished borders and forced Snakistan to dispatch cheesekeeping forces.”
“Change starts with smaller actions, with going against the odds. And the strangest possibilities can sometimes lead to the biggest gains. So open every door you can to the future that you want to see.”
“The breakneck speed of New England’s transformation makes it the fastest-heating area of the US, bar the Alaskan Arctic, and the pace of its temperature rise has apparently increased in the past five years.”
What ‘67’ Reveals About Childhood Creativity. “Through these quaint ready-made formulas the ridiculousness of life is underlined, the absurdity of the adult world and their teachers proclaimed…and the curiosity of language itself is savoured.”
How Ferrari’s F1 Team Improved Medical Care for Children
Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children (GOSH) in London improved their surgery-to-ICU handoff process by observing how Ferrari’s F1 team handled pit stops.
GOSH doctors visited and observed the pit crew handoff in Italy. While visiting the Formula One pit crew the GOSH doctors became interested in the way they addressed possible failure. The crew sat around a big table analyzing and reanalyzing, asking, “What could go wrong?” and “What are we going to do if it does go wrong?” and “How important is it if it goes wrong?” Everyone’s ideas were given equal weight until the group ranked them using the failure modes and effect analysis (FMEA).
This anticipatory planning made the pit crew more prepared than the medical team whose strategy tended to be waiting until something went wrong to work out what they should have done. Observing the pit crew, the GOSH doctors noted the value of process mapping, process description, and trying to work out what people’s tasks should be. They learned the keys to a successful pit stop:
– The routine in the pit stop is taken seriously
– What happens in the pit stop is predictable so problems can be anticipated and procedures can be standardized
– Crews practice those procedures until they can perform them perfectly
– Everyone knows their job, but one person is always in charge
Among their findings that led to improvement:
While the main theme changes were more sophisticated procedures and better choreographed teamwork, another aspect of the Formula One handover process easily transferred to the hospital setting. The lollipop man is the one who waves the car in and coordinates the pit stop. He maintains overall situation awareness during the pit stop. In the old hospital handover there was no one like the lollipop man so it was unclear who was in charge. Under the new handover process, the anesthetist was given overall responsibility for coordinating the team until it was transferred to the intensivist at the termination of the handover. These same two individuals were charged with the responsibility of periodically stepping back to look at the big picture and to make safety checks of the handover.
According to this video about the hospital’s study, they were able to reduce the number of errors in the handover by 66%.
(thx, meg)
Really interesting post about Hammersmith Bridge, which has been closed since 2019, a presumed “loss” of 25,000 daily car trips. “The local economy has adapted, air quality has improved, and overall traffic congestion has lessened.”
To Grow, We Must Forget… but Now AI Remembers Everything. “What if human forgetting is not a bug, but a feature? And what happens when we build machines that don’t forget, but are now helping shape the human minds that do?”
Sound Designing a Life
This is a charming short film on how a Foley artist would sound design a day in an ordinary life. Running hands through spaghetti noodles stands in for hair washing, a spray bottle sounds like rustling sheets, that sort of thing.
See also this fascinating short documentary about what a Foley artist does.
Matthew Rhys & Netflix are plotting an adaptation of Robert Caro’s The Power Broker. The consensus is that The Power Broker is unadaptable. But, the consensus also was that a 50-billion-page book about Robert Moses was not going to work but here we are.
How MacKenzie Scott is giving away her billions. “Once you begin to see Scott as [Toni] Morrison’s mentee — rather than as a certain Amazon founder’s ex-wife — you can’t unsee it. She gives more like an artist would.”
An irresistible video title: Army of Crabs Protect Spy Robot From Stingray. “A 4-meter stingray can eat 50 crabs a day.”
Socials & More