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kottke.org - home of fine hypertext productskottke.org - home of fine hypertext products KOTTKE DOT ORG KOTTKE DOT ORG MENU Member Login Home Membership Newsletter Goods Archive + Tags About/Contact dark mode light mode Advertise here with Carbon Ads Stay Connected Newsletter RSS Feed Threads Mastodon Bluesky Tumblr Facebook This site is made possible by member support. ❤️ Big thanks to Arcustech for hosting the site and offering amazing tech support. When you buy through links on kottke.org, I may earn an affiliate commission. Thanks for supporting the site! kottke.org. home of fine hypertext products since 1998. 🍔  💀  📸  😭  🕳️  🤠  🎬  🥔 Psst! Please refresh for new posts... posted Sep 11 @ 05:18 PM by Jason Kottke  ·  gift link Irving Penn: Small Trades In 1950, master photographer Irving Berlin set up a simple studio in Paris and started to photograph people of all kinds of professions, each wearing their work clothes and carrying the tools of their trade. Working in the tradition of representing the petits métiers, Penn photographed fishmongers, firefighters, butchers, bakers, divers, baseball umpires, chefs, bike messengers, and sellers of goods of all kinds. Penn continued photographing workers in New York and London, collecting the photos into a project called Small Trades. Penn said of the project: Like everyone else who has recorded the look of tradesmen and workers, the author of this book was motivated by the fact that individuality and occupational pride seem on the wane. To a degree everyone has proved right, and since these photographs were made, London chimney sweeps have all but disappeared and in New York horseshoers — hard to find in 1950 — now scarcely exist. A possible companion to Penn’s photographs: Studs Terkel’s Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do. (Fun fact: Terkel and his editor got the idea for Working from Richard Scarry’s children’s book, What Do People Do All Day?) artbooksIrving PennphotographyStuds Terkelworking Reply · 1 Share Active Threads Your Threads Irving Penn: Small Trades 1 comment      Latest: 2024-09-11T21:22:33Z The Lego Great Ball Contraption 1 comment      Latest: 2024-09-11T20:01:50Z Is my date's flat-earth beliefs a dealbreaker? "Our beliefs aren't just a barometer of what we think is true. They're also bound up with... 2 comments      Latest: 2024-09-11T18:38:21Z Gooey-Prickles or Prickly-Goo. "Prickly people are precise, rigorous, logical — they like everything chopped up and clear. Goo people... 1 comment      Latest: 2024-09-11T17:59:29Z Penny Farthing Bike Race (1928) 3 comments      Latest: 2024-09-11T16:59:21Z James Earl Jones Reads Poe's The Raven 1 comment      Latest: 2024-09-11T16:58:24Z 12 principles for building a feminine economy. "Be grateful. Remember, wealth has nothing to do with money. Practice radical self-love.... 1 comment      Latest: 2024-09-11T15:22:00Z The set of all four Neapolitan novels from Elena Ferrante are somehow on sale for only $4.99 for the Kindle. If you've never read these... 5 comments      Latest: 2024-09-11T10:41:32Z My Brilliant Friend Season Four Is Here! 1 comment      Latest: 2024-09-11T04:39:12Z Colonial Williamsburg, a Safe Space for Learning History 4 comments      Latest: 2024-09-11T02:53:18Z Satisfactory Processing Machine 2 comments      Latest: 2024-09-10T23:25:38Z A hand-drawn map by Vladimir Nabokov of the travels of Leopold Bloom & Stephen Dedalus around Dublin in James Joyce's Ulysses. He drew... 1 comment      Latest: 2024-09-10T18:00:04Z Show More   In order to leave comments on posts, you need to be a current kottke.org member. If you'd like to sign up for a membership to support the site and join the conversation, you can explore your options here. Existing members can sign in here. If you're a former member, you can renew your membership. posted Sep 11 @ 04:03 PM by Jason Kottke  ·  gift link Tuneshine is a “lo-fi digital album art display for streaming services”. You just sign it in to Spotify or whatever and it displays the cover of the album currently being played. Tuneshine – Your space, your music · tuneshine.rocks Album art display for tasteful music lovers Reply · 0 Share posted Sep 11 @ 03:11 PM by Jason Kottke  ·  gift link The isolating life of a pro tennis player who is not elite. “Your ranking determined your social status on tour. The guy ranked at number 90 in the world doesn’t get as warm a handshake from the Slam champion as the guy ranked at 20.” ‘I’m good, I promise’: the loneliness of the low-ranking tennis player · theguardian.com The long read: I was once Ireland’s No 1 player, and tried for years to climb the global ranks. But life at the bottom of the top can be brutal Reply · 0 Share posted Sep 11 @ 02:20 PM by Jason Kottke  ·  gift link The Lego Great Ball Contraption The Great Ball Contraption is a class of machines built with Lego that transport small balls from place to place in many different ways. The otherwise pointless handling of balls, and the myriad ways this is accomplished, gives great ball contraptions the impression of a Rube Goldberg machine. These machines can be quite large and elaborate and are displayed at Lego events around the world. Here’s a recent GBC at an event in Japan: It’s worth watching for a bit for the ingenuity and all of the different mechanisms for moving objects around — plus, it’s mesmerizing. And it obviously reminds me of Chris Burden’s Metropolis II. You can build your own Great Ball Contraption (or team up with others to do so) with the rules & resources listed here. See also 20 Mechanical Principles Combined in a Useless Lego Machine, Treasure Trove of Over 1700 Mechanical Animations, Five Hundred and Seven Mechanical Movements, and Gears and Other Mechanical Things. Legovideo Reply · 1 Share posted Sep 11 @ 01:20 PM by Jason Kottke  ·  gift link Gooey-Prickles or Prickly-Goo. “Prickly people are precise, rigorous, logical — they like everything chopped up and clear. Goo people like it vague, big picture, random, imprecise, incomplete and irrational.” Gooey-Prickles or Prickly-Goo · petafloptimism.com John De La Parra, a food scientist from the Rockerfeller Foundation spoke on the first day of The Conference, after a pretty esoteric (to me) presentation that asked us to participate in a guided m… Reply · 1 Share posted Sep 11 @ 12:39 PM by Jason Kottke  ·  gift link Looks like Francis Ford Coppola finally got US distribution for his self-financed blockbuster, Megalopolis. It’s opening on Sept 27. Here’s the official trailer. Megalopolis - Official Trailer · youtube.com In theaters everywhere on September 27th. Special screenings on 9/23 with Q and A and LIVE experience in 66 select IMAX locations - tickets here: https://www.imax.com/movie/megalopolis Reply · 0 Share posted Sep 11 @ 12:06 PM by Jason Kottke  ·  gift link Penny Farthing Bike Race (1928) From British Pathé, a short film clip from 1928 of men racing on penny farthing bikes. See also clips from 1936 and 1937 races. Most of the crowd seems to have come to see them fall off, but in the end it turns out to be such a great race that when they come round on the third lap, the excitement runs higher than the bicycle. Oh and Penny Farthing Racing is Still a Thing. cyclingsportsvideo Reply · 3 Share posted Sep 11 @ 11:46 AM by Jason Kottke  ·  gift link There’s a store in Tokyo called Guruguru Shakashaka that has 600 different kinds of salt and offers customers the chance to make & purchase their own custom blends. Craft Your Own Salt From Over 600 Varieties at this New Salt Specialist in Tokyo · spoon-tamago.com unless otherwise noted, all photos by Takeshi Shinto This summer, a unique store opened in Tokyo. Located just a few steps away from Tokyo Sky Tree is "Guruguru Shakashaka," a salt specialty store that lets you explore 600 varieties of salt and then blend your own. Equally unique is the name, whi Reply · 0 Share posted Sep 11 @ 10:51 AM by Jason Kottke  ·  gift link 12 principles for building a feminine economy. “Be grateful. Remember, wealth has nothing to do with money. Practice radical self-love. Nourish, nurture, savor. Feel how rich you are already.” 12 Principles — Sister · web.archive.org Create structures that support and nourish your body and all the other bodies you know. Reply · 1 Share posted Sep 10 @ 06:52 PM by Jason Kottke  ·  gift link James Earl Jones Reads Poe’s The Raven James Earl Jones did many things during his long career, including acting as Verizon’s pitchman. As part of a 2005 promotion, Jones recited Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven in that amazing rumbly voice of his, reprising his earlier performance on The Simpsons. Here’s the full version on Soundcloud, including his introduction — “he wrote about murder, torture, and being buried alive”: As part of the same promotion, he also apparently recorded a recitation of the Gettysburg Address, but I cannot locate a copy of that anywhere.1 However, he did recite part of the Gettysburg Address, along with fragments of other Lincoln speeches, in a performance of Aaron Copland’s Lincoln Portrait with the Seattle Symphony Orchestra: Jones also read Frederick Douglass’s speech What to the Slave is 4th of July?: And some Walt Whitman: And excerpts from Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail: And some Othello at the Obama White House: And in 2000, also on behalf of Verizon, he read Dr. Seuss’ Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You? to a group of schoolchildren. I would love to hear that recording.↩ Abraham LincolnEdgar Allan PoeFrederick DouglassJames Earl JonesMartin Luther KingpoetryShakespearevideoWalt Whitman Reply · 1 Share posted Sep 10 @ 05:48 PM by Jason Kottke  ·  gift link Tycho’s Burning Man Sunrise Set for 2024 If you’re in the market for a chill work mix, Tycho has uploaded his annual Burning Man Sunrise Set for 2024 to Soundcloud. See also Tycho’s BM sets from 2023, 2022, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, and 2014. Oh, and he’s got a new album out as well: Infinite Health. musicTycho Reply · 0 Share posted Sep 10 @ 05:15 PM by Jason Kottke  ·  gift link What If Trump Wins? More of: “Fucking kill them all.” “An eye for an eye.” “You just got to kill these people.” “Other countries do it all the time.” Less of: democracy, freedom. What If Trump Wins? · rollingstone.com The chaos and lawlessness of the first term could pale in comparison to what comes next. Share posted Sep 10 @ 02:45 PM by Jason Kottke  ·  gift link My Brilliant Friend Season Four Is Here! Well, I don’t know how I missed this, but the fantastic HBO series My Brilliant Friend is back for its fourth and final season. The series is based on Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels and this season covers the events of the fourth book, The Story of the Lost Child. I love My Brilliant Friend — it’s one of my all-time favorites and might be the best show you’re not watching. I agree completely with Clare Thorp’s description of it as “criminally underrated”. As the trailer above shows, the previous two lead actors (who were excellent) have been replaced by older ones, a change I’m a little apprehensive about, but everything else about the show has been pitch perfect so I’m gonna trust the process. From an NPR piece on the new season: “This child is you, when you were a child,” Maiorino recalled her friend Alessia saying about the novel’s titular protagonist and sometimes antagonist Lila. Like Lila and her friend Lenù, Maiorino is from Naples and stayed in the south, while her friend left to study in the north of the country, get married and have children. Art has now truly imitated life for Maiorino, who plays Lila in the fourth season of the series. New episodes of My Brilliant Friend started airing on HBO last night and will drop every Monday for the next 10 weeks. Go check it out! booksElena FerranteHBOMy Brilliant FriendtrailersTVvideo Reply · 1 Share posted Sep 10 @ 01:53 PM by Jason Kottke  ·  gift link  ·  via petafloptimism.com A long essay from 2007 that compares the cultural and political perceptions & impacts of The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. “During the watershed summer of 1968, the Beatles/Stones debate suddenly became a contest of political ideologies…” Beatles or Stones? - Believer Magazine · thebeliever.net Lovable Mop-top Orgy Participants On July 26, 1968, Mick Jagger flew from Los Angeles to London for a birthday party thrown in his honor at a hip new Moroccan-style bar called the Vesuvio Club—“one of the best clubs London has ever seen,” remembered proprietor Tony Sanchez. Under black lights and be Reply · 0 Share posted Sep 10 @ 01:00 PM by Jason Kottke  ·  gift link The set of all four Neapolitan novels from Elena Ferrante are somehow on sale for only $4.99 for the Kindle. If you’ve never read these amazing books, now’s your chance. The Neapolitan Novels Boxed Set · amazon.com Reply · 5 Share posted Sep 10 @ 12:38 PM by Jason Kottke  ·  gift link The Mainstream Press Has Failed to Meet This Political Moment Rebecca Solnit writes about how the mainstream political press is failing the American public they claim to serve. These critics are responding to how the behemoths of the industry seem intent on bending the facts to fit their frameworks and agendas. In pursuit of clickbait content centered on conflicts and personalities, they follow each other into informational stampedes and confirmation bubbles. They pursue the appearance of fairness and balance by treating the true and the false, the normal and the outrageous, as equally valid and by normalizing Republicans, especially Donald Trump, whose gibberish gets translated into English and whose past crimes and present-day lies and threats get glossed over. They neglect, again and again, important stories with real consequences. This is not entirely new — in a scathing analysis of 2016 election coverage, the Columbia Journalism Review noted that “in just six days, The New York Times ran as many cover stories about Hillary Clinton’s emails as they did about all policy issues combined in the 69 days leading up to the election” — but it’s gotten worse, and a lot of insiders have gotten sick of it. It’s really disheartening and maddening to witness how the press has failed to meet this important moment in history. See also Jamelle Bouie’s NY Times piece this morning, straining against the normalizing currents at his own publication to actually call out Trump’s “incoherence” and “gibberish” and parse out what he’s actually trying to tell us about his plans for a second term: Trump, in his usual, deranged way, is elaborating on one of the key promises of his campaign: retribution against his political enemies. Elect Trump in November, and he will try to use the power of the federal government to threaten, harass and even arrest his opponents. If his promise to deport more than 20 million people from the United State is his policy for rooting out supposedly “foreign” enemies in the body politic, then this promise to prosecute his opponents is his corresponding plan to handle the nation’s domestic foes, as he sees them. Or, as he said last year in New Hampshire, “We pledge to you that we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country.” Donald TrumpJamelle BouiejournalismpoliticsRebecca Solnit Share posted Sep 10 @ 11:59 AM by Jason Kottke  ·  gift link More Than Friends. “How do you define a relationship? What is required for it to be ‘serious?’ Sex? Love? The threat of heartbreak? Is a relationship something you do or something you have? It is something that changes you? Teaches you who you are?” More Than Friends · aubreyhirsch.substack.com on the relationships that are difficult to classify Reply · 0 Share posted Sep 10 @ 11:15 AM by Jason Kottke  ·  gift link A hand-drawn map by Vladimir Nabokov of the travels of Leopold Bloom & Stephen Dedalus around Dublin in James Joyce’s Ulysses. He drew the map for his college course on Masters of European Fiction. Vladimir Nabokov · themorgan.org Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977), Map of Leopold Bloom’s and Stephen Dedalus’s travels through Dublin, ca. 1948–58, Graphite and colored pencil, The Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations © Vladimir Nabo Reply · 1 Share posted Sep 10 @ 10:33 AM by Jason Kottke  ·  gift link Colonial Williamsburg, a Safe Space for Learning History When you woke up this morning, you probably didn’t think the most interesting & thought-provoking thing you’d read today was about Colonial Williamsburg. Laura Jedeed’s piece for Politico, Where MAGA Granddads and Resistance Moms Go to Learn America’s Most Painful History Lessons, is about how folks at the living museum strive to accurately interpret the past while remaining accessible to those who might feel challenged by those truths. In this excerpt, Jedeed describes how long-time museum interpreter Stephen Seals approaches portraying James Armistead Lafayette, an enslaved man who served as a spy for the American forces during the Revolution: James Armistead Lafayette’s story encapsulates the paradox at the heart of America’s founding; enslavers who founded a nation to preserve liberty from tyrants. “To get a guest to understand that — to many of them it completely destroys their self-worth,” Seals said. “My job is to minimize their feelings of that destruction.” That job can require a deft hand and emotional control, as when an older Southern man visiting Colonial Williamsburg with his granddaughter complained about what he saw as the museum’s hyperfocus on American chattel slavery when slavery has existed for millennia. “He’s like, ‘I’m kind of an expert in that sort of thing,’” Seals recalls. “My mind went, ding ding ding! Because that’s also something that I’ve read a lot about as well, which means I can have a conversation.” Seals asked the guest about the realities of enslavement in Greece and Rome, and how those institutions differed from slavery in Colonial America. The differences quickly became apparent. Classical slavery was not hereditary or explicitly based on theories of superior and inferior races, and enslaved people in Greece and Rome had many avenues to attain freedom and become full citizens. “He actually said to me, ‘I never thought of it that way,’” Seals said. “I didn’t have to embarrass him in front of his granddaughter, which would have completely shut him down.” In some ways, this was the exchange between two equals that it appeared to be on the surface. But Seals had to do most of the emotional and intellectual work to bridge that divide. At bottom, interpretation is a customer service job, and the power imbalance in favor of the guests is baked in. “Sometimes I’ve got to put myself to the side — actually, most of the time I have to put myself to the side — to think about where [the guests] are and what they need,” Seals remarked. Read the whole thing, it’s interesting throughout. Colonial WilliamsburgJames Armistead LafayetteLaura JedeedpoliticsRevolutionary Warslavery Reply · 4 Share   vintage post from Sep 2013  ·  gift link On the Regular Former NY Times restaurant critic Frank Bruni writes about the joys of being a regular at your neighborhood restaurant. What you have with a restaurant that you visit once or twice is a transaction. What you have with a restaurant that you visit over and over is a relationship. My wife and I eat out at least once a week and we used to travel all over the city to try all sorts of different places, just-opened hot spots and old favorites alike. It was great. But now we mostly go to a bar/restaurant1 around the corner from where we live and that’s even better. Bruni covers the experience pretty well, but I just wanted to share a couple of seemingly small aspects of being a regular: 1. Our local is popular and always crowded, especially during the dreaded 7-10pm hours and double especially Thu-Sat nights. But even when I go in by myself at a peak time, when the bar’s jam-packed, there’s always a seat for me. It might take a bit, but something opens up and they slot me in, even if I’m only stopping in for a drink and they could seat a two-top for dinner at the bar. (A regular in the hand is worth two in the rush.) 2. This is a totally minor thing but I love it: more than once, I’ve come in early in the evening, had a drink, left without paying to go run an errand or meet someone somewhere else, and then come back later for another drink or dinner and then settle my bill. It’s like having a house account without the house account. 3. Another nice thing about being a regular at a place that values regulars is that you meet the other regulars. This summer I was often left to my own devices for dinner and a couple times a week, I ended up at my local. And almost without exception, I ended up having dinner with someone I’d previously met at the bar. Routinely turning a solo dining experience into dinner with a friend is an amazing accomplishment for a restaurant. Something I read in one of food writer Jeffrey Steingarten’s books has always stuck with me. He said there are certain restaurants he frequents that he never writes about critically. Those places are just for him and he would never recommend them to his readers. Having written for so long here on kottke.org, there are certain things I hold back, that are just for me. Having a public opinion on absolutely everything you love is no way to live. So, no, I’m not going to tell you what restaurant I’m talking about. It’s beside the point anyway…Bruni’s not trying to persuade you to try Barbuto or Charlie Bird, it’s about you finding your own local.↩ foodFrank BruniNYCrestaurantstimeless posts Share posted Sep 9 @ 05:24 PM by Jason Kottke  ·  gift link James Earl Jones has died at the age of 93. I loved him in Dr. Strangelove, The Hunt for Red October, and of course all the Star Warses. James Earl Jones Dies: Revered ‘Field Of Dreams’ Star, Darth Vader Voice & Broadway Regular Was 93 · deadline.com James Earl Jones, revered actor who voiced Darth Vader in Star Wars, starred in Field of Dreams' died September 9 at his home in Dutchess County, NY. He was 93. Reply · 2 Share posted Sep 9 @ 04:58 PM by Jason Kottke  ·  gift link A Math Exam, but Obviously Some Stuff Has Happened over the Summer in the Teacher’s Personal Life. “Do you think if Evelyn saw on Instagram that the math teacher was now taller than Mark and hand-in-hand with a beautiful woman like Jane…” A Math Exam, but Obviously Some Stuff Has Happened over the Summer in the Teacher’s Personal Life · mcsweeneys.net 1. Two trains are heading toward each other. Jane’s train left the station in Atlanta at 5 a.m., traveling north at 60 miles per hour. 1,124 miles ... Reply · 0 Share posted Sep 9 @ 04:15 PM by Jason Kottke  ·  gift link Satisfactory Processing Machine For some reason, this is a full-length version of Radiohead’s OK Computer by @shonkywonkydonkey that uses his voice for everything (vocals, drums, guitar, etc.) I don’t exactly know if I like this, but it is interesting. (via sippey) musicRadioheadremixvideo Reply · 2 Share posted Sep 9 @ 03:48 PM by Jason Kottke  ·  gift link Apple just announced a number of hearing health features for AirPods Pro 2, including the ability to use them as over-the-counter hearing aids. (Oh and sleep apnea detection for the new Apple Watch.) Apple introduces groundbreaking health features · apple.com Apple today unveiled breakthrough health features coming to Apple Watch and AirPods Pro 2 to help users better manage their sleep and hearing health. Reply · 2 Share posted Sep 9 @ 03:19 PM by Jason Kottke  ·  gift link The neolithic dad guide to what time to leave for the airport. “The airport. We need to get there by 8 so we should probably leave about 6. / What’s an airport? What’s 8? What’s 6?” The neolithic dad guide to what time to leave for the airport – Stephen Collins cartoon · theguardian.com If you want a stress-free trip to the Heathrow, you’d better leave before it’s been built Reply · 0 Share posted Sep 9 @ 02:47 PM by Jason Kottke  ·  gift link Is my date’s flat-earth beliefs a dealbreaker? “Our beliefs aren’t just a barometer of what we think is true. They’re also bound up with what we value; our attitude to how thinking itself should work. When will you count something as true?” I am falling for an amazing woman who is a flat-earther. Can I reconcile my diminishing respect? | Leading questions · theguardian.com Disagreements about our beliefs are one thing, writes advice columnist Eleanor Gordon-Smith, but our beliefs are also bound up with what we value Reply · 2 Share posted Sep 9 @ 02:02 PM by Jason Kottke  ·  gift link 404 Media on The Rise of DIY, Pirated Medicine (to get around prohibitively high drug costs). For instance, Sovaldi cures hepatitis C and costs $84,000…but you can make it at home for about $70. ‘Right to Repair for Your Body’: The Rise of DIY, Pirated Medicine · 404media.co Four Thieves Vinegar Collective has made DIY medicine cheaper and more accessible to the masses. Reply · 1 Share posted Sep 9 @ 01:22 PM by Jason Kottke  ·  gift link Playground by Richard Powers Richard Powers (author of the wonderful The Overstory) is coming out with a new book later this month called Playground. I found out via this New Yorker profile of Powers by Hua Hsu, which describes the new book like so: This month, Powers will publish his fourteenth novel, “Playground,” a book that initially seems like a way for him to add “ocean guy” to his C.V. It essentially comprises three story lines. The first is about Todd Keane, an all-conquering tech giant. The onset of dementia has compelled him to revisit his happiest memories, which involve Rafi Young, a close friend of his teens and twenties from whom he is now estranged. A second story line concerns a close-knit, dwindling community on Makatea, an island in French Polynesia, that must decide how to respond to an offer from wealthy American investors who want to launch a libertarian seasteading enclave nearby. The third follows Evelyne Beaulieu, a famous oceanographer, as she reflects on her life’s work and all the destruction she has witnessed: the collapse of fisheries and the disappearance of various species; the acidification of the seas; the dredging, in a single afternoon, of entire “coral cities that had taken ten thousand years to grow.” There’s also a Silicon Valley-inspired twist, involving Todd’s investments in social networking and artificial intelligence, that brings these narrative threads together. Powers was a participant in the personal-computing revolution of the seventies and the rise of the Internet in the nineties, and he is deeply attuned to the potential cataclysms that technological innovation could invite. “I had this sense that we were living through this ethical moment again,” he said, of the inspiration for the new book. You can preorder Playground on Amazon or at Bookshop.org. booksHua HsuPlaygroundRichard Powers Reply · 0 Share posted Sep 9 @ 12:39 PM by Jason Kottke  ·  gift link This extensive list of pangrams (e.g. “the quick brown fox…”) also contains a list of phonetic pangrams, which use all the phonemes of English, like: “Are those shy Eurasian footwear, cowboy chaps, or jolly earthmoving headgear?” List of pangrams · clagnut.com There used to be a page on Wikipedia listing pangrams in various languages. This was deleted yesterday. Pangrams can be occasioanlly useful for designers, so I’ve resurrected the page of here, pretty much as it was in Wikipedia. Reply · 0 Share posted Sep 9 @ 12:04 PM by Jason Kottke  ·  gift link  ·  via world.hey.com TIL that bananas emit antimatter (because they are slightly radioactive). Something in Your Kitchen Emits Antimatter · youtube.com There is a mysterious source of antimatter in your kitchen! One can only wonder what that source is... Reply · 2 Share posted Sep 9 @ 11:25 AM by Jason Kottke  ·  gift link The Prince Documentary You Might Never See Ezra Edelman’s OJ: Made in America is probably the best documentary I’ve ever watched — it’s a powerful and illuminating work. For the past five years, Edelman has been working on a documentary about Prince for Netflix that aimed to understand an artist who resisted being known for much of his life and career. Edelman got access to Prince’s archive and talked to many of the people closest to him. But now Prince’s estate is objecting to the portrait of Prince painted by the film: a man of “multiplying paradoxes” who was a “creature of pure sex and mischief and silky ambiguity [but] also dark, vindictive and sad”. Sasha Weiss wrote a fantastic article about the documentary, Edelman, and Prince for the New York Times Magazine. When the screening ended, after midnight, Questlove was shaken. Since he was 7 years old, he said, he had modeled himself on Prince — his fashion, his overflowing creativity, his musical rule-breaking. So “it was a heavy pill to swallow when someone that you put on a pedestal is normal.” That was the bottom line for him: that Prince was both extraordinary and a regular human being who struggled with self-destructiveness and rage. “Everything’s here: He’s a genius, he’s majestical, he’s sexual, he’s flawed, he’s trash, he’s divine, he’s all those things. And, man. Wow.” I called Questlove a few months later, to see how it had all settled in his mind. He said he went home that night and spoke to his therapist until 3 a.m. He cried so hard he couldn’t see. Watching the film forced him to confront the consequences of putting on a mask of invincibility — a burden that he feels has been imposed on Black people for generations. “A certain level of shield — we could call it masculinity, or coolness: the idea of cool, the mere ideal of cool was invented by Black people to protect themselves in this country,” he said. “But we made it sexy. … We can take dark emotion and make that cool, too.” The night of the screening, he said he told his therapist, was a wake-up call: “I don’t want my life to be what I just saw there.” It was painful, he said, to “take your hero and subject him to the one thing that he detests more than life, which is to show his heart, show his emotion.” Ever if you’re not a particular fan of Prince, it’s worth reading the whole thing. Ezra EdelmanmoviesmusicPrince Reply · 4 Share posted Sep 9 @ 10:47 AM by Jason Kottke  ·  gift link John McFall is the first physically disabled astronaut. “Paralympian and surgeon John McFall is redefining the astronaut image and proving that space travel is achievable for people with physical disabilities.” John McFall Is Breaking Barriers as the World’s First Parastronaut · scientificamerican.com Paralympian and surgeon John McFall is redefining the astronaut image and proving that space travel is achievable for people with physical disabilities Reply · 0 Share posted Sep 6 @ 05:43 PM by Jason Kottke  ·  gift link  ·  via buttondown.com Tom Gauld (and Richard Scarry) on cars of the future. Tom Gauld on cars of the future · newscientist.com Tom Gauld's weekly cartoon Reply · 4 Share posted Sep 6 @ 03:33 PM by Jason Kottke  ·  gift link Hokusai’s The Great Wave Now on Display at the Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago has three copies of Katsushika Hokusai’s iconic work The Great Wave Off Kanagawa in its collection and one of them has been removed from storage and is back on display in the museum until Jan 6, 2025. The Great Wave has not been on view in the Art Institute galleries for five years because, like all prints, it is susceptible to light damage and must rest a minimum of five years between showings to preserve its colors and vibrance. Here’s a video of the print being removed from storage as well as a brief comparison of their three prints: For other places you can see The Great Wave on display, check out Great Wave Today. artArt Institute of ChicagoKatsushika Hokusaimuseumsvideo Reply · 0 Share posted Sep 6 @ 02:56 PM by Jason Kottke  ·  gift link The Open Book in Wigtown, Scotland is a rental place (available on Airbnb) where you can stay and help run the bookstore downstairs. “There’s no better feeling than somebody buying a book that you put on display.” Wigtown's Open Book: The holiday that's a 'book lover's dream' · bbc.com There is a two-year waiting list to rent and run The Open Book in Scotland's national book town. Reply · 0 Share posted Sep 6 @ 02:17 PM by Jason Kottke  ·  gift link “Harris and Walz, intentionally or not, are projecting something different: a sitcom vibe. And not just any sitcom — the multi-camera family shows of the 1980s.” Blended families, cool woman/dorky guy, and woman in charge were all 80s sitcom staples. The Kamala and Tim Show · politico.com Does the Democratic ticket’s buddy-comedy act feel familiar? Here’s where you might have seen it before. Reply · 0 Share posted Sep 6 @ 01:35 PM by Jason Kottke  ·  gift link I know some of you are K-12 educators — the excellent The Kid Should See This is holding a free virtual workshop on how to integrate their library of 7000+ engaging and educational videos into your lesson plans. 📣 TKSST'S 2nd Event for Educators · tksst.beehiiv.com Create lesson plans for your Substitute Folder... Reply · 0 Share posted Sep 6 @ 12:47 PM by Jason Kottke  ·  gift link Big Hockey Players, Itty-Bitty Rink For his 2012-13 piece The Obstruction of Action by the Existence of Form, artist R. Eric McMaster built a hockey rink less than 1/10th the size of a regulation rink and had two full hockey teams play what has to be the most frustrating game of hockey ever. This is definitely a metaphor for something but I don’t quite know what. arthockeyR. Eric McMastersportsthis is a metaphor for somethingvideo Reply · 4 Share posted Sep 6 @ 11:56 AM by Jason Kottke  ·  gift link “Dark energy, which most physicists have long held to be unchanging, may in fact be weakening.” And now cosmologists are trying to figure out what this means for our conceptions of the universe. Waning Dark Energy May Evade ‘Swampland’ of Impossible Universes | Quanta Magazine · quantamagazine.org The largest-ever 3D map of the cosmos hints that the dark energy that’s fueling the universe’s expansion may be weakening. One community of theoretical physicists expected as much. Reply · 3 Share posted Sep 6 @ 11:22 AM by Jason Kottke  ·  gift link Elite athletes are using a new baking soda formulation to boost athletic performance. A recent study showed “a 1.4% boost for cyclists in a 40-km time trial, which works out to a gain of roughly a minute over the course of an event lasting an hour”. Top Athletes Are Using This Simple Kitchen Staple to Boost Performance · outsideonline.com A Swedish company’s baking soda formula was the hottest supplement at the Olympics. And now a new study finds that it really works. Reply · 0 Share posted Sep 6 @ 10:53 AM by Jason Kottke  ·  gift link The Harris campaign posted a TikTok of Donald Trump talking about his stance on abortion in a split-screen next to a gameplay clip of Subway Surfer for low-attention-span viewers. This is genius. “Top-tier information conveyance.” Harris drops Subway Surfer-Trump's abortion TikTok · dailydot.com The video shows Trump and the game Subway Surfer. Reply · 5 Share posted Sep 6 @ 10:15 AM by Jason Kottke  ·  gift link Detailed Miniature “Sculptures of Urban Decay” Australian artist Joshua Smith makes extremely detailed and realistic miniatures of grimy, graffitied buildings — he calls them “sculptures of Urban Decay”. See also Gritty Miniatures of Classic NYC Street Objects. artJoshua Smith Reply · 0 Share posted Sep 5 @ 06:48 PM by Jason Kottke  ·  gift link An introduction to the latest iteration of Dynamicland’s Realtalk, a prototype of a communal computing environment that makes use of physical materials to make collaboration easier & more powerful. (Hard to explain, just watch the video..) Dynamicland intro · dynamicland.org Chapters — Intro — Real world, Communal computer, Authoring — Realtalk, Dynamicland, Communal science — Agency, Literacy Reply · 2 Share posted Sep 5 @ 05:56 PM by Jason Kottke  ·  gift link  ·  via thewaroncars.org Cars Have Fucked Up This Country Bad. “On average, America is an ugly country. The median American scene…would be an exhaust-choked roadway flanked on both sides by fast food restaurants and big box stores.” Cars Have Fucked Up This Country Bad · hamiltonnolan.com The car-centric age of development is one long mistake. Reply · 13 Share posted Sep 5 @ 05:07 PM by Jason Kottke  ·  gift link A working thumper from Dune built out of Lego. (Working as in it thumps…I have no idea if it actually summons Shai-Hulud.) Reply · 0 Share posted Sep 5 @ 04:34 PM by Jason Kottke  ·  gift link Einstein’s Nuclear Warning Letter to FDR Up For Auction A copy of the letter written and signed by Albert Einstein in 1939 warning President Franklin Roosevelt of the possibility of Nazi Germany building nuclear weapons is up for auction next week at Christie’s. The estimate is $4-6 million. The present letter is based directly on the content that Einstein dictated in German. Leo Szilard then translated the text into English and dictated it in turn to a Columbia University typist. Unsure of the level of detail to present to the chief executive, Szilard also made a longer version that recommended specific administrative steps the President could take to support uranium research. The longer version was the one delivered to the White House. It has rested, since 1945, in the permanent collection of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library at Hyde Park, New York and has been referenced in myriad histories and biographies. It is arguably the single-most influential letter of the twentieth century. Leo Szilard retained the original version of that historic communication and it is offered here, together with Einstein’s handwritten letter to Szilard transmitting both signed letters addressed to the President of the United States. The letter reads in part: Recent work in nuclear physics made it probable that uranium may be turned into a new and important source of energy. New Experiments performed by E. Fermi and L. Szilard, which have been communicated to me in manuscript, make it now appear likely that it will be possible to set up a chain reaction in a large mass of uranium and thereby to liberate considerable quantities of energy. Less certain, but to be kept in mind, is the possibility of making use of such chain reactions for the construction of extremely powerful bombs. Nuclear weapons historian Stephen Schwartz writes more about the letter on Bluesky: On August 15, Szilard mailed the letter to prominent economist Alexander Sachs, who had formerly worked for Roosevelt, after trying and failing (at Sach’s suggestion) to get Charles Lindbergh to personally deliver the letter to the president. Sachs did not immediately reach out to Roosevelt. Then, on September 1, Hitler invaded Poland and Roosevelt became preoccupied with the war. Sachs finally met with Roosevelt on October 11, bringing not only the letter but scientific reports and papers provided by Szilard. The letter is being sold by the estate of late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. The series of Allen auctions also include notable items like an Apple I computer, an Enigma machine, a Cray-1 supercomputer, a NASA flight suit worn by Buzz Aldrin, and a cool-ass meteorite. Albert Einsteinatomic bombFranklin RooseveltLeo SzilardNazisPaul AllenvideowarWorld War II Reply · 0 Share posted Sep 5 @ 03:48 PM by Jason Kottke  ·  gift link This is a website you can only visit once. (I mean, technically you can visit many times. But embracing constraints is worthwhile.) Reply · 0 Share posted Sep 5 @ 03:07 PM by Jason Kottke  ·  gift link Crash Course Art History, a playlist of 22 episodes with topics like What Makes an Artist “Great”?, What’s the Difference Between Art and Design?, and Should We Separate Art from the Artist? Art History · youtube.com Over the course of 22 episodes, we’re going to learn about art history—the study of objects and images to understand their meaning and the people, places, an... Reply · 0 Share posted Sep 5 @ 01:39 PM by Edith Zimmerman  ·  gift link Goodbye for Now! And a Diary Comic Hi, it’s me, Edith, again! I’m back with one more comic before I sign off for a while. I know I haven’t actually been blogging recently, but I wanted to make a more official “goodbye for now” post in case anyone is like, Where did Edith go? Basically I think I bit off a little more than I could chew, blogging-wise. But it meant so much to me that Jason was willing to give it a shot. Thank you for reading, big thanks to Jason for having me, and I hope to be back before too long (especially if Jason goes on vacation again or something 👀). And of course I’m not actually going anywhere, so I’ll see you in the comments! diary comics Show Full Post Reply · 14 Share posted Sep 5 @ 01:15 PM by Jason Kottke  ·  gift link ‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens. 🤬🤬🤬 ‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens · theonion.com WINDER, GA—In the hours following a violent rampage in Georgia in which a lone attacker killed at least four individuals and injured nine others, citizens living in the only country where this kind of mass killing routinely occurs reportedly concluded Wednesday that there was no way to prevent the m Share Older posts  enen1730249461https://kottke.org

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