FeedCity

This is a 1930 short film from avant-garde filmmaker Ralph Steiner that shows dozens of gears and other machinery at work.

(thx, matthew)

[This is a vintage post originally from Feb 2012.]

Tags: mesmerizing · Ralph Steiner · timeless posts · video

Kyle Orland, reporting for Ars Technica last week: Vox Media has sold video game specialist website Polygon to Internet brand aggregator Valnet, the publisher of content-churning sites including Game Rant, OpenCritic, Android Police, and Comic Book Resources. The move co...

Some of the cardinals tasked with choosing a replacement for Pope Francis have watched the Hollywood movie Conclave in preparation for the real-life process. “So many of the conclave participants have little experience of Vatican politics and protocol.”

💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org →

McMansion Hell on Trump’s gaudy “dictator chic”. “This ruling class nostalgia for times of absolute domination over the populace and its use as a conservative signifier is a defining characteristic of Rococo Revivalism…”

Tears for Fears is a duo formed in 1981 in Bath, England by Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith. They’ve sold over 30 million albums, starting with their first, The Hurting, which went to number one in the UK. But it was their second album, Songs from the Big Chair, that made them international stars. It came out in 1985, and had huge singles like “Shout” and "Head Over Heels.” But their biggest hit is “Everybody Wants to Rule the World.” It won Best Single at the BRIT Awards in 1986, and it’s been streamed over 2 billion times. So I talked to the two of them about how they, along with their producer Chris Hughes and keyboard player Ian Stanley, made a song that would help define the sound of the 80s.

Thanks to Sonos for their support of the podcast. Check out sonos.com.

For more, visit songexploder.net/tears-for-fears.

The life and work of photographic pioneer Eadweard Muybridge is the subject of a new graphic novel called Muybridge by Guy Delisle. Sacramento, California, 1870. Pioneer photographer Eadweard Muybridge becomes entangled in railroad robber baron Leland Stanford’s delusions of grandeur. Tasked with proving Stanford’s belief that a horse’s hooves do not touch the ground while galloping at full speed, Muybridge gets to work with his camera. In doing so, he inadvertently creates one of the single most important technological advancements of our age—the invention of time-lapse photography and the mechanical ability to capture motion. You can find Muybridge at Drawn & Quarterly, Amazon, or Bookshop. Tags: books · Eadweard Muybridge · graphic novels · Guy Delisle · Muybridge · photography 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org →

Phew, for a Minute There, I Thought the Arts Were Going to Get Too Much Funding. “I mean, what were we thinking…handing out grants to novelists with weird names like Marisol or Devin? Some of them were using metaphors. OPENLY.”

A guide to staying safe during civil unrest. “Know who you can call on for help. Even if the threat isn’t right on your doorstep, it can be a relief to just let someone else watch the news for a while so you can put your phone down and get some rest.”

💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org →

After four days of events, I’m feeling energized and exhausted at the same time. Had lots of great conversations and a fantastic time at both IndieWebCamp and Beyond Tellerrand! 👉 Florian’s photos: Monday, Tuesday. 👈

Andrew Liszewski, The Verge: Contrary to prior limitations, there is now a prominent orange “Get book” button on Kindle app’s book listings. [...] Before today’s updates, buying books wasn’t a feature you’d find in the Kindle mobile app following app store rule changes ...

Emma Roth, reporting for The Verge: Representative Kat Cammack (R-FL) introduced a bill Tuesday that would require “large app store operators” like Apple to let users install third-party app stores and set them as their default. The bill, called the App Store Freedom Act...

Altair at 50: Remembering the First Personal Computer. “The Altair didn’t survive for very long, but essentially being responsible for the creation of Microsoft is a pretty Big Deal. It also inspired Steve Wozniak to create the first Apple computer…”

💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org →

HuffPost gathered a diverse group of girls and women for this video on the sexist things that they hear throughout their lives that men don’t.

Don’t be so bossy. Why are you getting so emotional? You’d be much prettier if you smiled. I was just trying to give you a compliment.

See also 48 Things Men Hear In A Lifetime (That Are Bad For Everyone):

Tags: sexism · video

The invention of the transformer (and LLMs) has upended the field of natural language processing. John Pavlus interviewed NLP researchers about the breakthrough. “Look how absurd this is, but look how well it works.”

💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org →

Already made the mistake of accidentally keeping the sign-up form for FeedCity live for a little too long without sufficient spam protection. Emails getting delivered to spam folders now. grrrr

There’s something a little bit mesmerizing about Aled Thompson’s illustrations of birds. They are at once highly detailed and also slightly vectorish — and it shifts back and forth while I’m looking at them, like one of those young woman/old woman optical illusions. You can find more of Thompson’s work on Instagram and Bluesky and can purchase prints here. (via @mims.bsky.social) Tags: Aled Thompson · art · birds · illustration 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org →

Pre-show: Chromebook-block evasions Follow-up: At least one person did miss our WWDC sale. 🙁 Vision Pro Corner: StagePlay Blue Man Group Epic vs. Apple The Verge on Apple’s decision making Apple’s Response Apple Appeals App Store rules have been changed MJ Tsai’s R...

Modern authentication should be seamless and secure. WorkOS makes it easy to integrate features like MFA, SSO, and RBAC.

Whether you’re replacing passwords, stopping fraud, or adding enterprise auth, WorkOS can help you build frictionless auth that scales.

Future-proof your authentication stack with the identity layer trusted by OpenAI, Cursor, Perplexity, and Vercel.

Upgrade your auth today.

Link: workos.com/?utm_source=daringfireball&utm_medium=RSS&utm…

About 16 minutes into the podcast (the whole thing is a great succinct interview): Kafka: You said Fortnite is going to come back to iOS. You guys were kicked off the platform in 2020 for violating Apple’s rules. There’s nothing in the judge’s ruling that says Apple has ...