Jesus, this story about an IVF clinic mix-up… “Two couples in California discovered they were raising each other’s genetic children. Should they switch their girls?”
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Entries for December 2024
The 2024 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 this year I’m going with a simple list. It’s gonna be dense…let’s go!
1. Charitable giving. If you can, give cash to your local food bank. 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 the GOAT for kids’ gifts. Every dang year they hit it out of the park. What caught my eye this year: Wyrmspan is a dragon-themed “sequel” to Wingspan by Elizabeth Hargrave; Yoto Player Bluetooth Speaker for Kids (I have friend who swear by these for their kids); Cloudspotting for Beginners (Bookshop); and the Thames & Kosmos Roller Coaster Engineering STEM Kit (omg, I would have loved loved loved this as a kid…and this Nat Geo magnetic marble run). [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.
4. Wahhhhh, I love these spring bowls & sun bowls from Studio Arhoj. Oh and The Complete Calvin and Hobbes (Bookshop) and The Complete Far Side (Bookshop). [via The Atlantic’s 2024 Gift Guide]
5. 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. Oooh, there’s a new addition to the Sushi Go! family of games: Spin Some for Dim Sum. I reget to admit I am a tiny bit curious about Meta’s Ray-Ban Smart Glasses. [via The Verge’s 2024 holiday gift guide]
6. You know her, you love her: Edith Zimmerman. Her Etsy shop is chock full of prints, cards, and even original watercolor paintings. Go get ‘em.
7. Verbatim from last year: You’re probably getting tired of me talking about the 2nd-gen Apple AirPods Pro but I use mine every day and they are great. 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.)
8. You’ve still got a chance to buy the fine-art edition of Craig Mod’s Things Become Other Things before it sells out forever. I just finished reading it a few days ago and I regret to inform you that it is infuriatingly good, the bastard.
9. Tinned fish! I have my eye on the Fishwife Smoky Trio 3-Pack (Smoked Rainbow Trout, Smoked Salmon, Smoked Mackerel). [via The Amateur Gourmet Gift Guide 2024]
10. Uniqlo’s HEATTECH Ultra Warm T-Shirt is one of the warmest and comfiest shirts I’ve ever owned. I picked one up when I was in NYC a couple of months ago and I loved it so much I just ordered two more the other day. On sale right now for $20! Men’s. Women’s.
11. Dozens of puzzles of New Yorker covers. [via Cup of Jo’s Best Gifts for Dads]
12. A handmade crokinole board from Muzzies. And a budget-friendly option. (If you’re wondering what crokinole is.)
14. {I asked Edith for a gift suggestion and here’s what she sent me. Thanks, Edith! -j} I’d like to recommend these cute, fleece-lined “Antura” baby booties from Reima. I felt a little silly getting them for my first daughter (surely there’s a hand-me-down option?), but they’re still going strong on baby no. 2, they stay put, we get compliments wherever we go, and they work well, warmth-wise. They don’t seem to be available in the “Cinnamon” color I ordered in 2022, but Red Violet and Navy are great, too.
15. My friend Caroline hiked Vermont’s Long Trail this 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.”
16. My friends at Colossal recently-ish reopened their shop and I love these Cyanometer Postcards (for measuring the blueness of the sky and the orangeness of the sunset). [via The Colossal Gift Guide]
17. I like getting The Giant Jam Sandwich (Bookshop) as a gift for the little readers in my life. [via The Strategist’s What’s Your Go-to Book to Gift Little Kids?]
18. Come on, someone has to buy this 55-gallon drum of personal lubricant this year. We need this to save 2024.
19. Richard Scarry-themed temporary tattoos from Tattly. Lowly Worm, Huckle Cat, the Apple Car, Goldbug, and many more of your favorites.
20. My daughter got me this jar of truffle butter as a gift last year 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 I just learned you can buy white truffles on Amazon but I wouldn’t?)
21. kottke.org guest editor Aaron Cohen owns a pair of ice cream shops 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.
22. Did you know that you can commission a portrait from one of the artists belonging to the Royal Society of Portrait Painters?
23. Pal Austin Kleon’s book, Keep Going: 10 Ways to Stay Creative in Good Times and Bad (Bookshop), seems like a good thing to be reading these days. [via The 2024 Kleon Studios Gift Guide]
24. I love this one: gift audiobooks from Libro.fm. “You choose the credit bundle, your gift recipient picks their own audiobooks, and your local bookstore is supported by your purchase!” Two credits (for two books) for $30, 3 for $45, 6 for $90, etc.
25. A levitating Moon lamp, anyone? Or a Bluetooth cassette player? [via the New Yorker’s Little Treats Galore: A Holiday Gift Guide]
26. Pal Robin Sloan and his partner Kathryn Tomajan run a tiny olive oil producer called Fat Gold. This year they’re offering a Super Fresh Gift Set of olive oil produced just a few months ago. I can also recommend Sloan’s latest novel, Moonbound (Bookshop) — I’m eagerly awaiting the second installment. [via Robin’s 2024 gift guide]
27. Another great gift list for kids’ stuff: Purdue University’s 2024 Engineering Gift Guide. Some of their picks: Mochi Robotics Kit: Screenless Coding for Ages 3-9; Snap Circuits “Arcade” Electronics Exploration Kit; and Smartivity’s Robotic Mechanical Hand. [via Purdue University’s 2024 Engineering Gift Guide]
28. Do you want a tiny little TV with a miniature remote? You can load your own videos on here for some reason… What about Teenage Engineering’s completely unhinged medieval sampler, drum machine and sequencer? [via Gizmodo’s Best Tech Gifts of 2024]
29. 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!).
30. Also Verbatim from last year: 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+, Spotify, Netflix, and Roblox.
Ok, that’s what I have for now…I just need to get this out there. I’ll be updating this list with more stuff over the next few days — I’ll let you know when to check back! To be continued…
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Bloomberg Businessweek’s Jealousy List for 2024, “We’ve asked our editors & contributors to identify that one story in 2024 that filled them with the kind of indescribable resentment that theologians once thought was a dangerous gateway to other sins.”
A universal “Plug and Charge” framework for EV charging is rolling out next year. The goal is this: “You just go anywhere you want, boom, you plug in, it accounts for everything in the cloud, charges your card, and you walk away.”
Trippy Extreme Close-Ups of Everyday Objects
It is difficult to categorize the kinds of videos that Posy makes — they are part science demo and part visual art. His latest video, Household Objects (But Extremely Close), uses a powerful macro lens to look at everyday objects like toothbrushes, sponges, and pencils, turning them into swirling abstract films. His music is lovely too — you can find it on Bandcamp.
See also Motion Extraction.
How to Win Connect 4 Every Time. “Ever thought Connect 4 was a simple game of luck and chance? I will explain why Connect 4 is way harder than you think.”
Werner Herzog’s Nihilist Penguin
In this clip from my favorite Werner Herzog film, Encounters at the End of the World, the director muses about the mental health of penguins and observes a lone penguin heading in the wrong direction. From an appreciation of this penguin scene written by Tim Cooke for Little White Lies:
Herzog proceeds to explain that the penguin will not go to the feeding grounds at the edge of the ice, nor will he return to the colony; instead he heads straight for the mountains, “some 70 kilometres away”. Catching him and bringing him back will make no difference — he’ll simply turn around and head again for the interior. “But why?” Herzog asks. We then see footage of another of these “deranged” penguins, 80 kilometres off course, sliding on its belly towards certain death. These shots of the solitary birds marching to their demise, mere black dots against the white expanse, are perfect in their portrayal of loneliness and desolation.
The scene, then, is a splendid tragicomedy, serving as a sour antidote to the fluffy charm of films like the The March of the Penguins, which arrived two years earlier. It’s a play within a play; masterfully constructed, it delivers a hefty emotional blow. It’s in this construction, and self-reflexive style, that truth and revelation can be found — Herzog’s ecstatic truth, that is. The natural world, as we learnt from the horrors of Grizzly Man, is not easily compared with ours. The structures we adopt for our stories — be they tragic, romantic or comedic — do not fit nature quite so tightly, and Herzog knows this. Any facts about the penguins’ motivations and thought processes remain unobtainable. We view the narrative as the filmmaker builds it: through an exclusively human lens.
Roku offers a PBS Retro channel where you can watch old episodes of shows like Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, Reading Rainbow, and Thomas & Friends.
Here’s how the Sun will end all life on Earth. “Let me start by reassuring you that the Sun isn’t going to explode.” The Sun, Earth’s ultimate frenemy.
The Best Goals in Football for 2024
I just spent my lunch hour watching the 22 nominated goals for the 2024 Puskas & Marta Awards, given to the most spectacular goals scored by men’s & women’s footballers last season.
The Marta Award is new this year; here’s a playlist of the 11 nominees. Fun fact: one of the nominees is Brazilian legend Marta, after whom the award is named. She was 37 when she fizzed this goal in against Jamaica.
Here’s a playlist of the nominees for the Puskas Award. Generally, I prefer goals with a bit of buildup to bicycle kicks or rockets from outside the 18-yard box, but these were all fun to watch.
On Standby is a piece of sound art “based on data collected by seven different people in Malmö, Sweden. Each of those people used a smart plug to collect data on the energy consumption of a device in their home over the course of a single night”.
Maybe you’d like to read Patricia Lockwood on the X-Files? “So then the show becomes about something else, something deep and dark as water, it is carried rapidly past all other unsolved mysteries to ask: what if a woman were irreplaceable?”
Does Every Species Get a Billion Heartbeats Per Lifetime?
There’s an assumption that because of the relationship between metabolic rates, volume, and surface area, animals get an average of one billion heartbeats out of their bodies before they expire. Turns out there’s some truth to it.
As animals get bigger, from tiny shrew to huge blue whale, pulse rates slow down and life spans stretch out longer, conspiring so that the number of heartbeats during an average stay on Earth tends to be roughly the same, around a billion.
Mysteriously, these and a large variety of other phenomena change with body size according to a precise mathematical principle called “quarter-power scaling”.
It might seem that because a cat is a hundred times more massive than a mouse, its metabolic rate, the intensity with which it burns energy, would be a hundred times greater. After all, the cat has a hundred times more cells to feed.
But if this were so, the animal would quickly be consumed by a fit of spontaneous feline combustion, or at least a very bad fever. The reason: the surface area a creature uses to dissipate the heat of the metabolic fires does not grow as fast as its body mass.
To see this, consider a mouse as an approximation of a small sphere. As the sphere grows larger, to cat size, the surface area increases along two dimensions but the volume increases along three dimensions. The size of the biological radiator cannot possibly keep up with the size of the metabolic engine.
Humans and chickens are both outliers in this respect…they both live more than twice as long as their heart rates would indicate. Small dogs live about half as long.
Merve Emre converses with Sally Rooney about novels, Intermezzo, games, and religion. “Throughout my work, rather than writing about characters, I write about dynamics.” (That’s why I love her books.)
Libertarian Reluctantly Calls Fire Department. “Although the community would do better to rely on an efficient, free-market fire-fighting service…”
Musical Skiers
Icelandic photographer Haukur Sigurdsson captured this aerial image of Nordic skiers looking like musical notes on a staff. Someone on YouTube played the tune:
My friend Youngna is a wonderful writer and observer and I loved these vignettes about “how kids understand power, social dynamics, hierarchy, control, and influence, all topics that swirl around whose voices are dominant voices in our world”.
When a Telescope Is a National-Security Risk. The Vera Rubin Observatory is a new telescope that the US built in Chile and they had to jump through some hoops to ensure it’s not going to see anything top secret (like US spy satellites).
Playing Music With Barcode Scanners
A Japanese group called Electronicos Fantasticos! figured out that by connecting a supermarket barcode scanner to a powered speaker and rhythmically scanning barcode-like patterns with it, you can make music. This is so fun!
Madeleine Riffaud, hero of the French Resistance, has died at the age of 100. “The essential was not to give in. When you resisted, you were already a victor. You had already won.”
(Metaphorical) lessons learned from building wood fires, including “the most important ingredient is invisible” and “you’re designing an airflow system with fuel attached”.
After 37 years, the 80s fashion trend of wearing salmon as hats is back in style among orcas. “Maybe it’s less of a salmon hat trend, and more a case of using their head as a lunchbox.”
Always Interesting: “52 Things I Learned in 2024”
Tom Whitwell just sent along his annual list of the 52 things he’s learned in the past year. As usual, there’s lots of fascinating things in there…here are some of my favorites:
3. There are just 16 trademarked scents in the US, including Crayola crayons, Playdoh, an ocean-scented soft play in Indiana and a type of gun cleaner that smells of ammonium and kerosene. [Via Gabrielle E. Brill]
9. Medellin in Colombia has cut urban temperatures by 2°C in three years by planting trees. [Peter Yeung]
14. In early 1980s San Francisco, several seat-slashing gangs operated on the BART transit system, deliberately generating extra fees and overtime payments for repairs. They’d use specific cutting patterns so the repair teams would know who to pay for the favour. [Dianne de Guzman, via Russell Davies]
24. If you drop a normal hair dryer into a fish tank full of tap water, it will carry on working, gently warming up the water. (NB Please do not try this.) [JD Stillwater]
38. Between 1926 and 1934, the average life-span of a light bulb fell from 1,800 hours to 1,200 hours, because a global cartel of lightbulb manufacturers fined anyone who made a longer-lasting bulb. [Markus Krajewski]
49. To avoid radio jamming, some Russian drones in Ukraine now trail a 10km long spool of super fine fibre optic cable behind them for steering and communication. [David Hambling]
Best TV Shows of 2024. Shogun, My Brilliant Friend, The Day of the Jackal, and What We Do in the Shadows all make the list. (Shogun would be my top pick.)
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