You can also follow along with the Quick Links on Mastodon and in kottke.org's main RSS feed.
The latest links
A new study shows that "horses were ridden and raised by [North American] Indigenous groups by the early 1600s", much sooner than previous studies have shown and more in line with the oral histories of Indigenous tribes.
"What if the "decline" of men's ambition is just less unquestioned access to power and privilege? [...] Men don't need ambition. They have privilege. They rise unless they work hard at sucking."
A collective of 73 natural history museums in 28 countries has created a vast inventory of the 1.1 billion objects in their collections, in order to answer questions like "how quickly species are becoming extinct and how climate change is altering the natural world".
Donald Trump was indicted by a Manhattan grand jury today. "In the coming days, prosecutors working for the district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, will likely ask Mr. Trump to surrender and to face arraignment."
What if stars had phone-like battery indicators for how much hydrogen fuel they have left? The Sun is at about 50% battery while Betelgeuse is about out of juice and needs to find an outlet.
The Undeniable Street View, a site that shows before-and-after views of civilian areas in Ukrainian cities that have been devastated by the Russian invasion.
If you needed to write a headline summing up contemporary American culture, it might read something like this: People Who Caused Traffic Nightmare At Pretty Tree Festival Complain Of Traffic Nightmare At Pretty Tree Festival.
Not happy with the "insanely broad" language in the RESTRICT bill (aka the TikTok ban bill) - this feels like the Patriot Act all over again. Pass individual privacy protection legislation instead!
Pop-Up Magazine is doing three more live shows for their farewell tour: in Brooklyn, Oakland, and LA.
March 29
The professor of food history at the University of Parma: "the recipe for carbonara is American and the only place in the world to find bona fide parmesan cheese nowadays is Wisconsin". Spicy!
It's Not the Bike Lane's Fault You're a Bad Driver. "Pay attention to the fucking road while you're driving. It's not too much to ask when other people's lives are literally at stake."
Ooh, a new book by Lauren Groff is coming out in the fall: The Vaster Wilds. I loved her previous book, Matrix.
Apple Passwords Deserve An App. Apple has a cross-platform password manager with great features but it's hidden away behind "weird little Settings panels".
The EU all but bans new sales of cars with internal combustion engines by 2035. "Countries in the European Union have approved a landmark law that will ensure all new cars sold from 2035 must have zero emissions."
Fantastic interactive piece on the physics of how bicycles work. You will 100% know what forces and torque are by the end of this.
David Friedman suspects that someone used an AI chat bot to write one of the finalist captions for the New Yorker's cartoon caption contest. "They're not looking for the exit, they're looking for meaning."
March 28
How Two Jewish Kids in 1930s Cleveland Altered the Course of American Pop Culture. "The two spent the whole day — without taking a break, eating sandwiches that Joe brought in — creating Superman."
March 27
Explainer on the "biggest protest movement in Israeli history". The right-wing govt wants "full annexation of the occupied West Bank, a rollback of pro-LGBTQ+ legislation, axing laws protecting women’s rights and minority rights..."
"Why is every action hero named Jack, John, James, or, occasionally, Jason?"
Fantastic edition of Jodi Ettenberg's Curious About Everything newsletter. So happy she's been able to keep this going while confined to bed with a spinal CSF leak.
From 2010 to 2021, the average range of electric vehicles sold globally has almost tripled (from 80 miles to 220 miles).
With three major new rules this year ("the pitch clock, a ban on the infield shift and limits on pickoff throws"), MLB hopes to speed the game up and to showcase the players' athleticism more effectively.
This recently rediscovered and deciphered stone slab is the oldest map of Europe "for which we can identify the territory it depicts". It's around 4000 years old and depicts (in 3D!) an area in Brittany, France.
An old favorite link of mine: "This is my personal account of curing my asthma and hayfever by deliberately infesting myself with the intestinal parasite hookworm."
March 24
Book Publishers Won't Stop Until Libraries Are Dead. In our current world where all views of media must be tracked and paid for, libraries are dangerous and media companies will kill them if we let them.
March 23
From the Brennan Center for Justice, A Proposal to Reduce Unnecessary Incarceration. "The federal government must reorient its grant spending to press states to end punitive policies that fail to deliver public safety."
The origin story of Ted Lasso - the character didn't originate with those NBC commercials in 2013 but much earlier in an Amsterdam comedy club.
An appreciation of the data visualization & information design of the Dark Sky weather app, esp when you compare it to the Apple Weather app.
Legendary record producer Steve Albini on the B-52's 1980 SNL performance of Rock Lobster. "What an incredible band. Everything about them is minimal and immediate." Be sure to watch the video; it's great.
This is unfortunate: a Holocaust-themed video game depicted in Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow includes many similar elements to Brenda Romero's game Train. "A theme in the book is how women struggle to get credit for their work."
For over 100 years, the NY Times' logo included a period - like so: "The New York Times." - until it was dropped in the 60s. "Dropping the period caused much consternation and soul-searching at the Times..."
The Humbling Tyranny Of The Photos Our Kids Take Of Us. "These pictures remind us that while we study our children, they study us back."
March 22
I will also never tire of looking at photos of waves crashing on shore - these from Kevin Krautgartner of O'ahu's Banzai Pipeline just exude power and complexity.
A Map of Places in the US with the Same Name. "We calculated what place someone is most likely referring to, depending on where they are." For instance, in most of the country, when you say "Springfield", people think "Springfield, MA".
Poverty, By America is a new book by Matthew Desmond in which he argues that a major cause of poverty in the US is because "affluent Americans knowingly and unknowingly keep poor people poor". Here's a review in The Atlantic.
A collection of recent photos taken from the International Space Station. I will never get tired of looking at photos of Earth taken from space.
Zoos being closed to visitors during the pandemic gave scientists the opportunity to study how visitor interactions benefitted or harmed the welfare of the animals.
March 21
Oh man, Amazon is shuttering DPReview, effective early next month. I spent a lottttt of time on this site before my phone camera got too good to think about carrying something else.
US maternal mortality is more than 10 times higher than in Australia. "What do we make of a nation that has made giving birth so dangerous - yet forces more and more women to do it?"
How Loneliness Reshapes the Brain. Lonely people "tend to end up with a more negative spin on whatever information they receive — facial expressions, texting, whatever — and that drives them even deeper into this loneliness pit."
Essential Japanese Cinema: A Journey Through 50 of Japan's Beautiful, Often Bizarre Films.
This year in Serious Eats' Starch Madness bracket, rice dishes from around the world go grain-to-grain. Some personal faves: risotto, halal cart chicken & rice, sushi rice, arancini, and broken rice.
Photos of houses completely buried by snow in Mammoth Lakes, CA. If you haven't been following, more than 65 feet of snow has fallen in the area this winter.
Will Sharpe (Ethan from White Lotus s02) will direct the film adaptation of Michelle Zauner's Crying in H Mart, which I read last summer and loved.
The latest IPCC report on the climate crisis says it's the last chance for humanity to keep warming under the critical 1.5°C threshold - "only swift and drastic action can avert irrevocable damage to world".
March 20
Physicist Chien-Shiung Wu produced the first experimental evidence of quantum entanglement in 1949 but faced both sexism and racism in gaining recognition for this and her other achievements. Many scientists believe she should have won a Nobel.
This is lovely: a keyboard visualization of an instrumental piece from Howl's Moving Castle. The piece is instantly recognizable as Studio Ghibli - Joe Hisaishi "composed the music for nearly all of Ghibli's films".
2023 anti-trans bills tracker. "We track legislation that seeks to block trans people from receiving basic healthcare, education, legal recognition, and the right to publicly exist."