May 31
Naomi Osaka has withdrawn from the French Open. This sucks – she was very clear about her mental health needs and WTA officials fined her and basically said "fuck you". Do they care about the wellbeing of their players or no?
May 29
May 28
Sky Pool. Yikes!
For £50, you get 15 minutes to fill your car up with as many mannequin body parts as you can carry. "Under no circumstances whatsoever will you be able to fill your car boot with hands. Please don't ask."
A visually impaired person shares how she uses her iPhone. I hadn't seen the Braille keyboard option in action before – amazing!
Some literary collective nouns. My favorite by far is "a gruop of proofreaders".
Political scientist David Faris on the dangers of the Republican revolt against American democracy. "My current level of concern is exploring countries to move to after 2024."
Inside Citizen's Dangerous Effort to Cash In On Vigilantism. This is just evil, deeply immoral stuff that is making society more dangerous to live in.
May 27
Interesting fact about the 1918 pandemic: "Doctors then hadn't even figured out that influenza was caused by a virus." That discovery didn't happen until the 1930s.
May 26
"Immunity to the coronavirus lasts at least a year, possibly a lifetime, improving over time especially after vaccination, according to two new studies." What amazing news this would be if these studies prove true.
Facebook is not listening to your offline conversations with friends, but here's how it knows to show you ads about those convos. "If my phone is regularly in the same GPS location as another phone, they take note of that."
What If We Just Stopped Calling the Cops? "For decades, the solution to Black Americans' distrust of cops has often been to not call them. Now white people are catching on too."
George Floyd Is Dead Because America Is a Racist Country. "For 46 years, he had managed to survive the pillaging of his family's wealth. He outlasted a racist education system. He withstood the prejudice of the criminal justice system."
This Chemistry Nobel Prize winner was very vocal about Covid-19 – and very wrong, even dangerously wrong. And he wasn't the only one. How should society & the scientific community react to this sort of thing?
May 25
The housing market in the US right now is bonkers. "There are now more Realtors than listings."
For those who are not vaccinated, Covid-19 case/hosp./death levels are still relatively high in many parts of the US. Something to keep in mind that the state and national averages we're seeing don't reflect.
May 24
An update on the support for Black Lives Matter in the US. "Republicans and white people have actually become less supportive of Black Lives Matter than they were before the death of George Floyd."
May 21
The evolution of butts. "Gently turn that blobby body around, and gaze deep into its marvelous, multifunctional anus."
A profile of Vermont governor Phil Scott, who is a Republican thriving in the most liberal state in the US. As a Vermonter, I can say his handling of the pandemic was very good, conservative in the best sense.
A possibly novel coronavirus that may have jumped from dogs into humans has been detected in samples taken in Malaysia in 2017/18. NOT NOW JESUS CHRIST.
Just sent out this week's @kottke newsletter. It features pencil typography, an infinite hotel, and a majestic thundercloud.
May 20
Documentary filmmaker Tim Wardle shares 15 things he wished he'd known about documentary filmmaking when he started out. "6. Embrace the nuance and psychological complexity/messiness of real people."
May 19
May 18
Why Confederate Lies Live On. "Confederate history is family history, history as eulogy, in which loyalty takes precedence over truth."
Novelty is the key to understanding the pandemic. "SARS-CoV-2 is new to our immune systems. That makes it very dangerous. Viruses that are new to us spread faster and are more lethal than old familiar ones."
A profile of Shayne Bushfield and the relatively small online community he runs, LearnedLeague. "What Bushfield wants is to re-create, over and over, the experience of playing trivia with his friends at the office."
May 17
TIL that my home internet service (that I use for producing @kottke) is not actually "broadband". No wonder my kids complain about Fortnite lagging.
May 14
Lovely and insightful reflections on 20 years of blogging from Cory Doctorow. I nodded along to almost all of this.
CDC says vaccinated Americans can go maskless outdoors and indoors in most situations. I worry this is premature.
May 13
Recent studies found that men who had Covid-19 were more likely to have severe erectile dysfunction, lower sperm counts, and decreased genital size. So...get vaccinated maybe, hesitant gents?
May 12
A high-level report concludes that the WHO and national leaders should have acted faster and more decisively to try to curb the pandemic. "It is glaringly obvious that February 2020 was a lost month."
The Emerging Movement for Police and Prison Abolition. "I want [to] build up another world that is rooted in collective wellness, safety, and investment in the things that would actually bring those things about."
May 11
Health Conspiracy Theorists Hate Living in the World They Helped Create. "By fighting the most commonsense public health measures at every turn, the health conspiracy theorists helped create a climate where more restrictive ones are looking...necessary."
On Monday, England, Scotland, and Northern Ireland recorded zero deaths from Covid-19. Lockdown + strong vaccine rollout saved thousands of lives.
May 10
Vaccine Side Effect, or Have You Just Been Alive for 40 Years? "Q: Are you experiencing unusual nausea? A: I am nauseous, but it could be because I ate some fried food yesterday. Fried food upsets my stomach. So does spicy food. So does too much fiber."
It seems that con man Frank Abagnale, the basis of Spielberg's 'Catch Me if You Can', made up many of his criminal exploits. We really should have seen this coming...
May 5
A list of the 100 best sitcoms of all time. Frasier over Fleabag? No thank you.
May 4
May 3
When NYC's Eleven Madison Park restaurant reopens, they will no longer serve meat or seafood due to environmental concerns. "What at first felt limiting began to feel freeing, and we are only scratching the surface."
Post-vaccination Inertia Is Real. "Readjusting our ideas about what's safe is going to take time."
Reaching 'Herd Immunity' Is Unlikely in the U.S., Experts Now Believe. This has seemed the likely outcome for months now – simply not enough people are interested in the vaccine to get us there.