October 31
October 29
Just sent out the first @kottke newsletter in awhile. Read it here!
October 28
Fun thread of "you look like Tony Hawk" celebrity encounters. The Dave Matthews fans moving furniture with Dave Matthews & "Kimberly Deal like the Breeders" stories are the best.
Facebook changes its name to Meta. Yep. Meta. So dumb. No one is going to call it that. As for bringing the metaverse to life...good lord.
Maria Popova's Brain Pickings blog just turned 15 and now has a new name: The Marginalian. "A challenge arises when we make something over a long period of time."
October 27
David Grann has adapted his excellent Killers of the Flower Moon for middle grade readers. You can preorder now – it ships in mid-Nov.
A new variant of SARS-CoV-2 has evolved: Delta Plus. It's slightly more transmissible than Delta, "a marginal difference that experts say is more of a headache than a devastating gamechanger in the scope of the pandemic".
Hmmm, new Kindle Paperwhite. Bigger screen, USB-C charging, faster, adjustable light. There's also a "Signature" version that can charge wirelessly.
Wow, Photoshop in a web browser. It's a beta and only works in Chrome, but still.
October 26
FDA advisory panel recommends emergency authorization for the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid vaccine for kids aged 5-11. So many parents I know are waiting for authorization...
MSCHF bought an original Andy Warhol drawing for $20,000, created 999 copies, and sold all of them for $250 each. One lucky buyer will get the original but "any record of which piece within the set is the original has been destroyed".
I've been enjoying dipping into Gastro Obscura, a globetrotting food guide from the folks at @atlasobscura. "Take a whirlwind tour of more than 500 unexpected dishes, unique ingredients, and fascinating culinary traditions from around the world."
October 25
It's the 50th anniversary of the debut of The Electric Company on PBS. Here's a look back on the show's genesis and impact. I *loved* The Electric Company when I was a kid.
Let's get rid of loud & wasteful leaf blowers. "Hydrocarbon emissions from a half-hour of yard work with the two-stroke leaf blower are about the same as a 3,900-mile drive from Texas to Alaska in a [Ford F-150] Raptor."
The original 1851 reviews of Moby-Dick. "This is an ill-compounded mixture of romance and matter-of-fact. The idea of a connected and collected story has obviously visited and abandoned its writer again and again in the course of composition."
Here's how to spot the methods of moral panic journalism. "Thousands upon thousands of words dedicated to the same arguments, the same low-stakes anecdotes, the same tortured historical analogies."
October 21
Parents in Barcelona are cycling with their children to school en masse – they're calling it bicibús (bike bus). "What a simple, light-weight way to convert existing streets into bike infrastructure."
How To Recognize When Tech Is Leading Us Down a 'Slippery Slope'. Such arguments are often BS, but if technology makes something significantly cheaper/faster/easier and incentives for misuse are high, then maybe it's time to pay attention.
How finger counting gives away your nationality. "In parts of the Middle East like Iran, they begin with the pinky, whereas in Japan they start with the fingers extended in an open palm, drawing them in to make a closed fist."
The Art of Not Taking Things Personally. Emotional generosity ("the ability to see past behaviours that we don't understand and proactively look for compassionate ways to explain them") seems difficult to practice these days.
October 20
The Case for Quitting. "There is a significant penalty that comes with staying the course. Powering through is often passive. What you're doing is avoiding the harder thing, which is confronting the uncertainty of change."
The Moon is very slowly ghosting the Earth. "About 600 million years from now, the moon will orbit far enough away that humankind will lose one of its oldest cosmic sights: total solar eclipses."
Visualization of how the longest running TV shows were rated by viewers over time. IMDB rankings are notoriously inconsistent, but this is still interesting.
An interesting look by @zeynep of the unvaccinated in the US. A leading indicator is not politics or conspiracy thinking but regular access to healthcare and health insurance. For 65+ folks, Medicare access beats Fox News scaremongering.
In-N-Out is pushing back on SF's vaccine mandate for indoor dining. "We refuse to become the vaccination police for any government." Oh please...businesses enforce all sorts of govt rules related to customers – over 21 for alcohol, etc.
Ricky Jay's collection of magical memorabilia is going up for auction later this month. "In keeping with his interest in fraud, for example, Jay also collected spirit photographs..."
"Facebook is planning to change its company name next week to reflect its focus on building the metaverse..." Metaverse? In this economy? Did they move April Fools to mid October?
The 75 Best Movies of the 1920s. Buster Keaton, Luis Buñuel, Fritz Lang, and Teinosuke Kinugasa all figure in the top 20.
October 19
The Calm Line. "A new hotline in Bogotá takes calls from men struggling with jealousy, control and fear – and challenges long-held assumptions about masculinity."
October 18
Some of the oddest and most interesting electric vehicles for sale on Alibaba, including a fake Lamborghini, a 60mph standing scooter (of death!), a duck boat, a mobile house, and a submarine.
A fully vaccinated Colin Powell, who had blood cancer, has died of Covid-19. "Powell's death doesn't illustrate the futility of vaccines...but the importance of everyone getting vaccinated to protect society's most vulnerable."
Ibram X. Kendi on The Second Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Ever since his death, King's work has been twisted into justifying actions and agendas he strongly opposed.
October 15
The 200 Best Albums of the Last 25 Years, According to Pitchfork Readers. Radiohead, Kanye, Kendrick, Lorde, LCD Soundsystem, Wilco, and Fiona Apple are all in the top 25.
A series of simulations that show how tiny differences in how women are undervalued in the workplace result in huge disparities in executive representation. It's basically the idea of compounding interest working against them.
Here are the reasons for the "supply chain issues" plaguing the global economy. "A combination of Covid and bad luck has contributed to a complex mess that has no parallel in recent economic history."
October 14
Netflix & David Fincher are releasing a new series of "visual essays for the love of cinema". I'm excited because Tony Zhou & Taylor Ramos of Every Frame a Painting are involved!
On self-managed abortion using mail order medication. "Even in states with the strictest abortion laws, pregnant people have a safe, inexpensive option to terminate their pregnancies. But few know about it."
October 13
Some thoughts from Nick Mohammed, the actor who plays Nathan Shelley on Ted Lasso, on his character's season two arc, which some viewers didn't buy (spoilers). "in my head Nate was transforming into José Mourinho!"
The Great Escape. "Follow Aaron Rolph's 2700km bikepacking trip up the United Kingdom, taking anything but the shortest route."
October 12
Updating Disaster Films to Be More Realistic. Like Independence Day: "Humans continue to fight one another up to the moment that they are annihilated by hostile space aliens."
The 9090-piece Titanic is the largest Lego set ever built (and retails for $630). "You can be blasé about some things, Rose, but not about Titanic. It's over 1500 more pieces than the Millennium Falcon and far more luxurious."
"'Black Lady Therapists' are still a TV trope. But now they have more depth." Thoughts on recent seasons of Ted Lasso, In Treatment, and The White Lotus.
Making various things out of HTML checkboxes, including games, famous logos, animations, and real-time video filters. This is nuts!
Holy crap, Michael Hobbes is leaving You're Wrong About. Epic, epic run...good luck w/ your future endeavors @RottenInDenmark!
October 11
October 8
A NY state drinking law prompted the creation of the world's worst sandwich. "It would be served to a guest with their beer or whiskey, then whisked away and given to someone else. A single Raines Sandwich might last the day, or even the whole week."
October 7
Feeling down in the dumps? Maybe go experience some awe. "Awe can reduce stress, help inflammation, increase creativity and sociability and make you happy."
Pfizer officially asked the FDA to approve the use of their Covid-19 vaccine in kids aged 5-11. Loooottts of parents I know have been waiting impatiently for this.
After 30+ years, legendary ski resort trail map painter James Niehues is retiring. "A good design is relevant for a few years, maybe even a decade. But a well-made map is used for generations."
October 6
Bewilderment is Richard Powers' first book since his Pulitzer-winning The Overstory. "At its heart lies the question: How can we tell our children the truth about this beautiful, imperiled planet?"
The first part of an FT series on "how the electric vehicle market is rapidly taking off" (in Europe). The charging situation in cities is going to need to get a lot better for widespread adoption of non-hybrid EVs.
Incredible photo of the Milky Way shot on an iPhone 13 Pro Max. Indistinguishable from magic, etc.
I am pretty skeptical of this assertion about the pandemic in the US: "Barring something unexpected, I'm of the opinion that this is the last major wave of infection." I hope I'm wrong but the winter could be pretty tough.
Why Are Americans Still – Still! – Wearing Cloth Masks? "Much of our approach to the pandemic has changed in the past 18 months, our approach to masking largely has not. So why are we still strapping pieces of fabric to our face?"
October 5
Pitchfork went back and rescored some of their old reviews. Grimes got bumped down while Rilo Kiley and Daft Punk got bumped up.
A proposed Richter scale for network system outages. "2.0. Facebook down, Gmail down, Apple App Store down, HSBC contactless cards not working on London transport. Duration of shorter than a day."
October 4
How many episodes should you watch of a new TV show before it fully reveals itself? (I've found that some of my favorite shows clicked in the third episode, incl. The Wire & Mad Men.)
On the Internet, We're Always Famous. "Never before in history have so many people been under the gaze of so many strangers."
Live bird migration maps. Love looking at these every year.
What's the weirdest question someone's ever asked you? "A guy once emailed me about how hard you'd have to fan a tornado to make it start spinning in the other direction..."
During WWII, the staff at the National Archaeological Museum in Athens buried all of their statues and other antiquities. When the Nazis arrived to loot their treasure, they were greeted by an empty museum.