Noticing is a newsletter that goes out every Friday to 15300+ subscribers with a roundup of the most interesting ideas, people, and links of the week, plus some special magic to take you into the weekend.
It's free to sign up, we're not gonna spam you, and you can leave whenever you want. Please, join us.
You can read more about Noticing here, including why we're doing this, how it's a work in progress, and where the name came from.
Kottke.org Is 25 Years Old Today 3/14/2023
Kottke.org is older than Google. Been doing this more than half my life! Ahhh!
Last Chance for Kottke Hypertext Tees, and Mooooore 2/22/2023
Final call! Get your sharp-looking kottke.org hypertext t-shirt today!
Kottke.org Hypertext Tees and a Passel of Links 2/14/2023
Get your sharp-looking kottke.org hypertext t-shirt today!
Sometimes the Dog Won't Hunt 12/15/2022
Don't Call It A Comeback (I've Been Here For Years) 11/21/2022
Serving Up Some Timeless Posts From The Archive 9/16/2022
Heading Out Into Open Water 5/9/2022
"I've been writing here at kottke.org for more than 24 years, nearly half my life – I need a breather."
Earth Clocks, Moon Motorcycles, and Mars Eclipses 4/29/2022
"Just a hunk of space rock passing in front of a massive burning ball of gas recorded by a robot from the surface of an extraterrestrial planet..."
Everything Everywhere All At Once (And More!) 4/8/2022
Plus: the unholy combo of Helvetica & Comic Sans, unskippable opening credits, and Prince as an 11-year-old.
Getting To Be More Of A Rat 3/25/2022
"Certain people were born with the internet inside them and suffered greatly from it."
It Feels Like a Different World Is Coming 3/4/2022
We Live In an Age of Gatorade Bread 2/18/2022
Plus Lego letterpress, measles resets your immune system, and "cancel culture" is a BS moral panic.
Things That Are Broken Can Be Fixed 1/21/2022
Plus Bolivian women skating in traditional dress, fashion for hostile architecture, and imagining a car-free Berlin.
52 Things I Learned Last Year 1/4/2022
There are only 25 blimps in the world?! And only 54% of Americans accept the theory of evolution?
The Great British Bake Off Is Like a Good Agatha Christie Mystery 12/3/2021
Also: meme-able 18th century portraits, the best street photography of the year, eyeball closeups, and you probably don't know how bikes work.
Recycling Inception & Everything (In Its Right Place) 11/12/2021
Also featuring mid-century modern matchbox labels, a superb art history lesson on the Mona Lisa, and birds with people arms.
Ok, How Do I Do This Again? 10/29/2021
The Texas Switch and a Small Dose of the Overview Effect 9/17/2021
Plus free Bourdain travel TV to watch online, stunning photomicrography, and the Black Film Archive.
The Three Types of Fun and Shazam for Birds 8/13/2021
Plus how cast iron pans are made, one woman's mission to get vaccines to her rural Alabama town, and world's most popular psychoactive drug.
Eyes on the Prize. The Sounds of Space 7/30/2021
"If it weren't muted by the vacuum of space, the sound of the Sun burning would be as loud as a jackhammer here on Earth."
Star Wars Too White, America's Abstract Freedom, and Octopus Love 7/17/2021
"Unlearning the things we have learned is deeply important if we ever want to evolve in life."
Dark Fish, Star Trek Design, and Bone Music 6/25/2021
"To love someone long-term is to attend a thousand funerals of the people they used to be."
It's Hot URL Summer 6/11/2021
Friendship. Anthony Bourdain. Simone Biles in slow motion. And more...
It's The 100th Issue Extravaganza!!! 5/28/2021
We've done 100 of these and, well, let's do 100 more.
Pencil Typography, Infinite Hotels, and a Majestic Thundercloud 5/21/2021
"I love to drive 30 minutes to stare at a different computer."
Cheap Renewable Energy and the Otherworldly Sounds of Ice 5/14/2021
"Solar and wind potential is far higher than that of fossil fuels and can meet global energy demand many times over."
Malaria Vaccine Breakthrough. Birbs. Healing Grid Illusion 4/30/2021
Plus restored images of Earth from space, a tiny garage (but even smaller car), and a clever Andre Agassi.
Ted Lasso's Shortbread Recipe & Anthony Bourdain's Final Book 4/23/2021
"What we are nostalgic for is a time that just was not that great for a lot of people."
Solar Eclipse From the Moon. Journey to the Microcosmos 4/16/2021
"In place of any actually ennobling liberty or more fundamental freedom, contemporary American life mostly offers choices."
Eyes on the Prize and an Absurdly Long Walk to Work 4/2/2021
"By blurring the various boundaries, we can find complexity, diversity, and richness of information."
The Invention of a New Pasta Shape. Seal Skin Spacesuit 3/26/2021
I somehow resisted the urge to write about the ship stuck in the Suez Canal.
Smart Whales. Fast Vaccines. Tintype Little Women 3/19/2021
The piece about how sperm whales organized to outsmart whalers in the 19th century was the most interesting thing I read this week.
A New Design, A New Van Gogh, Big Bird Energy 3/12/2021
FUCKETH AROVND AND FINDETH OVT.
Wandavision Cartoons, Letterlocking, and Self-Similar Birds 3/5/2021
"Unless you're actually in there, you have no idea."
I'll Make This Quick 2/27/2021
"Subject lines with fewer than 9 words tend to perform better!"
I'm Slowly Categorizing the Entire Web 2/19/2021
Brought to you by kottke.org, the best Substack for 23 years in a row now.
1000 Fails, 1 Billion Galaxies, 10 Trillion Pixels 2/12/2021
"Hundreds of tries, hundreds of fails. This is the way."
Hello Again! Attempted Reboot 2/5/2021
It's been awhile since the last newsletter. Let's try to get it rolling again.
Announcing the Kottke Ride Home Podcast 8/21/2020
kottke.org has a podcast now! For those of you who prefer audio hypertext?!
Listening to Black Voices Amid Murder, Violence, Protest, and Pandemic. 5/31/2020
"The greatest white privilege is life itself. People of color are being deprived of life."
Stop DoomScrolling You Covidiot and Listen to Prince! 5/15/2020
It's been 60+ straight days in quarantine and we're getting a little punchy.
It's Just All Different and It's Different Forever. 5/7/2020
No shoes, no shirt, no mask, no service.
You Can't Be Neutral During a Moving Pandemic. 4/30/2020
"Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."
The Curve Is Flattening. What Happens Next? 4/19/2020
"I think people haven't understood that this isn't about the next couple of weeks. This is about the next two years."
Pandemic Stories and Diversions 4/11/2020
I'd like all my pandemic news delivered by Lego Justin Trudeau from now on.
What Have You Been Up To? Tell Me a Story 4/5/2020
"Understand that this is a marathon. If you sprint at the beginning, you will vomit on your shoes by the end of the month."
Let's Go for a Long Virtual Stroll 4/1/2020
"It's like a reset, when you turn the machine on and off and on again."
Disasters Bring Out the Best in People 3/29/2020
"The simple truth is we are a fantastically social species and threats only fuel our instinct to pro-social behaviour."
Mind Your Ps & Qs. (P Is for Pandemic, Q is for Quarantine.) 3/24/2020
"Some people are realizing that After will be very different from Before."
How the #@*% Do We Get Out of This Mess? 3/20/2020
An approach called "the Hammer and the Dance" may be the way forward.
On the Surprising Power of the Individual in an Exponential Crisis 3/17/2020
What can a single person do in the face of a pandemic? Plenty.
Let's Take the COVID-19 Pandemic Seriously 3/13/2020
"We're in this together, to do the right things with calm and protect the citizens of the world. It's doable."
Celebrating 15 Years of Professionally Goofing Around on the Web 2/28/2020
Don't call it a comeback, I've been here for almost 22 years!
The Secret to Enjoying a Long Winter 11/15/2019
Is the secret to feeling happy really just to feel happy?
When Life Gives You Lemons, Make Newsletters 9/13/2019
kottke.org has been down for more than 24 hours and I'm not fine.
It's Not Really an Issue 9/3/2019
Ceci n'est pas une issue of the newsletter.
Graphics, Mood, and Animation 8/19/2019
As someone who tends to feel doomed when he thinks about the world, it's good to find a resilient sense of play.
Could You Believe? 7/26/2019
The Summer Is For Music 7/12/2019
Maps, Muppets, and Other Good Things 6/28/2019
Clearing the Clutter 6/14/2019
The Way That It Was 6/7/2019
Chernobyl, the High Line (before the High Line), typefaces, how-tos, and the emptiness of space
Rewriting History Is Hard But Not Impossible 5/31/2019
"History has failed us, but no matter."
It's Not Life or Death, It's Just Tacos 5/24/2019
"I think you know how to love better than any of us, that’s why you find it all so painful."
The Right to Choose 5/17/2019
Growing Crystals Is Like Growing Little Cities, and Vice Versa 5/10/2019
Recovering What's Been Lost 5/3/2019
I gather the limbs of Osiris
What Is Really So Different About Us? 4/26/2019
Living in the Future - A Riot of Color 4/12/2019
Bicameral Edition 4/6/2019
Dinosaurs, Star Wars, and Tori Amos
Sharing 10 Good Things on the Internet This Week 3/29/2019
My favorite thing this week was an exponential time lapse that shows how the universe will end.
The Mike Webster Issue 3/22/2019
This is a journey into sound
The Dick Butkus Issue 3/15/2019
This is a Chicago linebackers newsletter from now on.
The Mike Singletary Issue 3/8/2019
Hot Shit Science, Ancient Wisdom, and Pop Stars in New Contexts: This newsletter has it all
We Are Floating In Space 3/1/2019
Also, vegetables aren't real. I know; I'm just as surprised as you are.
The Rose Is Obsolete 2/22/2019
It is at the edge of the / petal that love waits
We Shall Not Cease From Exploration 2/15/2019
And the end of all our exploring / Will be to arrive where we started / And know the place for the first time.
Revisiting History; The Web Is Still Weird; What's Beautiful? 2/8/2019
Look at what we can do, if you give us what we need to thrive, and then get out of our way.
BY THE NUMBERS: Journeys. Explanations. Writers on Writing 2/1/2019
We broke 10,000 subscribers, so this edition will be BY THE NUMBERS.
Collapsing Spacetime and the Human Universe 1/25/2019
Nothing is eternal (except for cheese)
Paying Attention. The Mysteries of the Brain. Throwbacks 1/18/2019
What else have we been doing for the last two hundred years if not perfecting the Jacquard Loom?
The First Anniversary Issue 1/11/2019
How to pay attention, Mongolian heavy metal, and the man who loves sewer diving.
The Best Kottke Posts of 2018, B-Sides Edition 12/21/2018
Our very favorite posts from a year in the site of Kottke.org.
The Best Kottke Posts of 2018, A-Sides Edition 12/20/2018
Art, maps, politics, and all the yellow stripey things you could want
We shall not cease from exploration... 12/14/2018
And the end of all our exploring / Will be to arrive where we started / And know the place for the first time.
The Best of the Best - Notes on Media - Epic Photography 12/7/2018
What if being small and new is the thing that makes these networks fun?
Ask Dr. Time - Outer Space - Humans and Other Animals - Books and Movies 11/30/2018
Forgetting what lies behind, and stretching forward to what lies ahead
All the Pieces Matter 11/16/2018
Nonzero thinking, unlocking the commons, and experimental puzzles
The Heavens Above - The Art of Our Hands - Life in the World. 11/9/2018. 11/9/2018
Election Day never ends
Berlin, Symphony of a Great City - What's Worth Saving? - Get Out And Vote 11/2/2018
"One afternoon with no fixed agenda, I explored by randomly hopping on trams and trains and getting off when things started looking interesting."
Themes in Abstraction - Miyazaki's Cursed Worlds - Words, Words, Words 10/26/2018
"We must live" may be a curse, but it's a charmed one.
Answers to Your Questions - Change Your Perspective - The Robots Are Coming 10/19/2018
We have to keep going, to stay human in the midst of chaos, as well as we can for as long as we can.
Otherworldly Photography – Pantsdrunkenness – The End of All Things 10/12/2018
Art is the canary in society's coal mine
Animal Behavior and Abstract Geometry 10/5/2018
An ecstasy of friction.
Rethinking the Past 9/21/2018
What would a truly representative, deliberative democracy look like?
Make It New 9/14/2018
It's about having a living relationship with the accumulated knowledge of our world and all of its cultures.
Rethinking Freedom - The Best of the Best - High-End Nerdery 8/31/2018
Human greatness is found in the creativity of its communities and their members. It's everywhere if we choose to look.
Truth in Photography - Technological Change - Lost In Translation. 8/17/2018
"Embedded in every technology there is a powerful idea, sometimes two or three powerful ideas."
A Special Offer - Heroes and Villains - Maps and Languages. 8/3/2018
How have we changed our planet? How do we live and make sense of it all?
One Small Step - The End of Middle Children - The Past Isn't Past. 7/20/2018
Go and look at the world again.
The beginning of wisdom - Beautiful collections - Saying goodbye 7/6/2018
Let's begin with what we don't know.
The Big Picture 6/22/2018
Everything looks different from this far away
Intelligence Is All About the Training Data 6/8/2018
Look for the helpers.
At the End of the Dial Tone 6/1/2018
Top 100 lists, and history made visible; another great week in review.
Cheaters' Monopoly Is The Game For Our Time 5/25/2018
R-E-S-P-E-C-T + How to Lose Yourself on Internet Like Odysseus 5/18/2018
Mama says that eating bread crusts will make your hair curly.
Wizards and Prophets and Machines with Voices 5/11/2018
Just what is it that humans need?
Truth In Photography and Conquering the Past 4/27/2018
There's an unbreachable gap between a photograph as an editable document and a guarantor of reality
Pilots, Robots, Anniversaries 4/20/2018
a particular drawl, a particular folksiness, a particular down-home calmness that is so exaggerated it begins to parody itself
The Blogging Is Most Certainly Not Dead Edition 4/13/2018
Are blogs, newsletters, and RSS making a comeback? Definitely maybe!
A Fixation On Trees, Telsa's 1926 Smartphone Prediction 4/8/2018
I highly recommend electricity. It bangs.
Wizards and Prophets and the Right to Bear Arms, Oh My 3/25/2018
If you say "Isle of Dogs" out loud, it sounds like "I love dogs".
The Twentieth Anniversary Issue 3/18/2018
"kottke.org isn’t so much a thing I’m making but a process I’m going through"
The Los Angeles Issue 3/11/2018
It's like Lenin said: you look for the person who will benefit, and, uh, uh, you know...
Every Breath You Take Is Mercy From Me; 3/4/2018
Lobsters Considered, Superteens Against the Autocracy, The Mister Rogers Fan Club 2/25/2018
I believe that children are our future. Teach them well and let them dunk on corrupt politicians on social media.
The World's Wonders Amidst Its Horrors 2/18/2018
We weren't afraid the siren's song would drive us crazy; we seem to be afraid it might strike us sane
Live Memorably, Love Yourself, Endure 2/11/2018
Expand your sense of the possible. Don't trouble yourself with matters you can't truly change.
Nothing Will Keep Us Together, Everything Becomes Its Components 2/2/2018
Humans are depressingly skilled at reconciling themselves to horrible circumstances
Sound and Vision, Imagination and Loss 1/26/2018
"It seemed so silly, so grotesque, that I failed to see that it was also important."
All Things End, But the World Is Still Filled With Wonder 1/19/2018
A quarter century, cut in half again, is not such a very long time
Imaginary Soundscapes, Experiments in Lapsed Time, Naming Moira Donegan's Name 1/12/2018
Time may change me, but I can chase time
The Best of the Best, Necessary Corrections, Beautiful Pictures 1/5/2018
Everything has a beginning. This is ours.
The Best Kottke.org Posts and Links of 2017 1/2/2018
First! A preview issue of the newsletter.
