30 notable sales of rare books by AbeBooks over the past...
30 notable sales of rare books by AbeBooks over the past 30 years, including first editions of Moby-Dick, Winnie-The-Pooh, and Leaves of Grass.
Culture
Kottke.org.
Jason Kottke's weblog, home of fine hypertext products since 1998.
Recent essays
30 of 19419th Century Japanese Woodblock Prints Creatively...
19th Century Japanese Woodblock Prints Creatively Illustrate the Inner Workings of the Human Body. Love these.
All US Cities Which Used to Have More Than 100,000 People But Don’t Anymore
Here’s a map of the 21 US cities that used to have a population of 100,000 people but don’t anymore. Many of these are Rust Belt cities, in which manufacturing employment fell steeply during the latter part of the 20th century. The thread at Reddit mentions De…
How the Words We Teach English Language Learners...
How the Words We Teach English Language Learners Changed, and What That Says About Us. “The shifts reflect a life that moved further from its own making: less tied to tools, animals, food…; more tied to global institutions, categories, systems…”
Don’t use AI until you’re 40 . “We have been so...
Don’t use AI until you’re 40. “We have been so quick to treat access to new technology as an inevitability that we have failed to question whether every powerful tool should be placed in the hands of every developing mind the moment it becomes available.”
We Used to Be Able to Buy Things in This Country ....
We Used to Be Able to Buy Things in This Country. “Locking up toothpaste was a warning sign that our executive class was crazy.”
A Shortlist of Potential Future Euro Banknote Designs
The European Central Bank is providing a sneak peek at the next design of the Euro banknotes. From a shortlist of 10 designs created by artists and designers from across the EU, one will be selected as the basis of how Euro banknotes from €5 to €200 will look…
“ Datatype is an OpenType variable font that turns...
“Datatype is an OpenType variable font that turns simple text expressions into inline charts. No JavaScript, no images, no rendering library — just type the syntax and Datatype’s ligature substitution does the rest.”
The Batman Effect : people in an experiment acted more...
The Batman Effect: people in an experiment acted more altruisticly when the caped crusader was present.
Once Upon a Time in Space
From the filmmakers who made the excellent Once Upon a Time in Northern Ireland comes a four-part series on space exploration, Once Upon a Time in Space. A short trailer is above; here’s a synopsis: Drawing on intimate, unseen archive and powerful first-hand t…
An Uncomplicated Man , Emily Wilson’s review of Nolan’s...
An Uncomplicated Man, Emily Wilson’s review of Nolan’s The Odyssey. “I would be ashamed to have written any part of this script. Sadly, Damon’s Odysseus isn’t complicated or wily or artful.”
Astronauts returning from long missions report a “jet...
Astronauts returning from long missions report a “jet lag of the self”: “a sense of watching their own lives from a half-step outside the frame”.
Trump’s Assault on Science Continues
I appreciate the plain speech of Science magazine’s Derek Lowe in his recent piece, The Assault On Science Funding Continues. When I talk to people about this subject (and that includes some journalists as well) and say what I’m about to at the end of this par…
Welp, right at the top of the CDC page on autism and...
Welp, right at the top of the CDC page on autism and vaccines: “The claim ‘vaccines do not cause autism’ is not an evidence-based claim because studies have not ruled out the possibility that infant vaccines cause autism.” 🫨
New orca behavior unlocked. They’ve been known to sink...
New orca behavior unlocked. They’ve been known to sink boats and wear salmon for hats; now they’re ramming fish so hard they explode. “Orcas were observed to hold sunfish in their jaws while a second whale smashed into the target at high speed…”
It’s our ethical duty to understand large numbers ....
It’s our ethical duty to understand large numbers. “Our world is increasingly moving towards extreme values: Damages from climate change, deaths due to genocide, wealth that knows no bounds. We can’t tackle them if we can’t wrap our heads around [them].”
A Teen Reporter Searched for His Community in the...
A Teen Reporter Searched for His Community in the Epstein Files. Adults Freaked Out. “Once everyone was back at school on Tuesday, the high schoolers lawyered up during their lunch hour.”
“A beloved, useful, free website, run carefully by...
“A beloved, useful, free website, run carefully by a competent, honest person for nearly thirty years, was crushed between two features of the new AI economy.” (AI bots and prediction market dipshits.)
“In extreme cases, it can create a phantom...
“In extreme cases, it can create a phantom homeland, for the sake of which one is ready to die or kill. Unreflective nostalgia can breed monsters.” On the good and bad types of nostalgia.
Rebecca Solnit on the Tate brothers, The Odyssey, and...
Rebecca Solnit on the Tate brothers, The Odyssey, and the misogyny of classical literature & the contemporary world. “Classical culture is a lot of things including, literally, rape culture.”
What’s On the Sandwich Named After You at the Local Deli?
Following a prompt from Joanna at Cup of Jo… The local deli or sandwich shop names a sandwich after you. What would be on it? Perhaps another way of asking the question: what’s your favorite sandwich that’s a little bit unusual? I love a classic BLT, banh mi,…
Why are American ambulances so expensive? In part...
Why are American ambulances so expensive? In part because Medicare pays only a fraction of the actual cost of an ambulance ride and the uninsured often don’t pay at all, so the privately insured get bills of $13,000 for a $2600 ride.
We’re Squandering LEDs’ Potential to Save Our Night...
We’re Squandering LEDs’ Potential to Save Our Night Skies. “Our main failure isn’t a technical one. It’s that we have yet to revise our thinking about lighting at night. We use LED technology just as we did the old sources of light.”
A Matter of Form (1984)
In addition to leading the animation studio at the National Film Board of Canada, René Jodoin made several animated films that explored geometric forms and motion, including the one above, A Matter of Form from 1984. Set to the rousing notes of Schubert’s Mili…
An online edition of all 85 of the Federalist Papers ,...
An online edition of all 85 of the Federalist Papers, presented as they were originally serialized in newspapers, with on eye on good typography and readability.
“ This map shows the predicted density of...
“This map shows the predicted density of underground networks created by arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi. These networks form one of Earth’s circulatory systems, moving massive amounts of carbon, nutrients, and water across plant communities.”
Oh wow, The Verge made a 70-minute video on how The...
Oh wow, The Verge made a 70-minute video on how The Clapper became a viral sensation. When I was a kid, we didn’t have a Clapper, no one I knew had one, and I couldn’t understand why every single household didn’t have one of these magical devices.
Frozen Polygon Waves
Well, this is just absolutely lovely: photographer and artist Jan Erik Waider shot these videos of cracked-but-unbroken Baltic Sea ice undulating with the gentle motion of the sea. Mesmerizing…I could watch these for hours. Tags: Jan Erik Waider · mesmerizing…
What do America’s earliest restaurant menus teach us...
What do America’s earliest restaurant menus teach us about America? “A menu describes what a restaurant serves — but a menu also describes who is being served. They reflect the class, gender, political, technological, and environmental shifts of history.”
A list of Jurassic Park computers in excruciating detail...
A list of Jurassic Park computers in excruciating detail, including an Apple Powerbook 100, a SGI R4000 Indigo, the Motorola Envoy (PDA), and some Thinking Machines CM-5s. “This is a Unix system, I know this!”