Longreads
• Cheri Lucas Rowlands
"Every winter, tens of thousands of Americans migrate to public lands in the Arizona desert. For a growing number, it's not a vacation—it’s the only housing they can afford."
Daring Fireball
• John Gruber
Samsung phones took spots 4, 5, 7, 8, and 9. The one phone not from Apple or Samsung in the top 10 was the Xiaomi Redmi A5 at #10. As I always say, take these numbers with a grain of salt, but according to Counterpoint, the bestselling phones, in order, are:
And Apple’s phone in spot #6 was not the iPhone Air, alas, but the year-old iPhone 16.
Link: appleworld.today/2026/05/apples-iphone-17-was-the-worlds…
In this episode, I react to the NYT music critics defending their terrible list of the 30 greatest living American songwriters. Full NYT Video Here: https://youtu.be/Hc1ARmtVwFg?si=50RWWLYCsNi-J9DZ My Beato Club supporters: Justin Scott Terence Mark Jason Murray Lucienne Kilpatrick Alexander Young Jason Wagner Todd Ladner Rob Kline Nicholas Long Tim Benson Leonardo Martins da Costa Rodrigues Eddie Perez David Solomon MICHAEL JOYCE Stephen Stubbs colin stead Jonathan Wentworth-Linton Patrick Payne MATTHEW KARIS Matthew Barouch Shaun Samuels Danny Kurywchak Gregory Reedy Sean Coleman Alexander Verbitskiy CL Turner Jason Pappafotis John Fulford Margaret Carno Robert C David M Combs Eric Flatt Reto Spoerli Herr Moritz Adam Monte St. Johns Jon Beezley Peter DeVault Eric Nabstedt Eric Beggs Rich Germano Brian Bloom Peter Pillitteri Piush Dahal Toby Guidry
Newest camera doesn't necessarily equal the nicest photo MKBHD Merch: http://shop.MKBHD.com Every iPhone in daylight: https://youtube.com/shorts/jru9Gsz3kJY Every iPhone in low light: https://youtube.com/shorts/pvjivZ6C6CA Every Samsung phone: https://youtube.com/shorts/as_NEJAP8ew Every Google phone: https://youtube.com/shorts/s3DrGkDvgNw Apps with alternate processing: Halide: https://halide.cam/ MotionCam: https://www.motioncamapp.com/ Playlist of MKBHD Intro music: https://goo.gl/B3AWV5 ~ http://twitter.com/MKBHD http://instagram.com/MKBHD http://facebook.com/MKBHD
Seán Doran, who I’ve featured here many times before for his remastered astronomy photos & videos, has taken photographs captured by a Japanese weather satellite of Typhoon Sinlaku in April 2026 and “repaired, remastered and transformed” the images into this breathtaking 4K video.
The beauty of the storm as seen from above belies its fury and destructiveness. Sinlaku was “strongest tropical cyclone in the Northern Hemisphere” since 2021 and the strongest overall storm so far in 2026. The Mariana Islands, Guam, and Micronesia all suffered widespread damage and the storm has claimed 17 lives so far.
Tags: hurricanes · mesmerizing · satellite imagery · Sean Doran · video · weather
Colossal
• Kate Mothes
Along with collaborator Betty Schöner, Brunetti travels around the continent in a firetruck that has been converted to a photo lab.
Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article Markus Brunetti’s Monumental Photos Venerate European Ecclesiastical Landmarks appeared first on Colossal.
Interesting thread about why rural towns don’t vote blue: they don’t have to because small towns “actually operate very similarly to the ‘socialist agenda’ they pretend to be so afraid of” and “they’ve already been having to take of their own…”
Daring Fireball
• John Gruber
Apple stopped selling the Power Mac G5 (with space) in August 2006, so I’m not sure how much they care about Kraft using “PowerMac” (sans space) as a trademark for protein-enhanced macaroni and cheese. (I feel like there’s got to be a joke to be made here about a “cheese grater”...)
Link: kraftheinz.com/kraft-mac-and-cheese/products/00021000086856…
Daring Fireball
• John Gruber
Aardman’s official Wallace & Gromit YouTube channel is livestreaming what appears to be the four shorts featuring the duo: A Grand Day Out, The Wrong Trousers, A Close Shave, and A Matter of Loaf or Death.
I can’t find any further information about the stream — if those are the only animations that are available, if any of the movies are included, how long the stream will be up. But I’m watching The Wrong Trousers right now and eating a bit of cheese, so all is right with the world.
Tags: Aardman Animations · animation · stop motion · video · Wallace and Gromit
People Who Don’t Like People Are Making All of Our Decisions. “We are living in the ultimate revenge of the nerds, driven by a crew of socially awkward tech bros who won’t stop until the society that they never quite fit into is obliterated.”
Anyone of any age can stop by the Grandma Stand in New York’s Central Park to shoot the breeze with a grandmother. The concept has spread around the US and is now the subject of an hour-long documentary on PBS.
At a time when the lack of connection is epidemic, wise witty grandmas sit behind a lemonade-like stand, offering life lessons to passersby in NYC’s Central Park. We see 20 diverse people candidly share their feelings. “Just a little love, a little talking. She’s speaking to my soul,” said a visitor. This film shows how a brief encounter has a strong impact and gives us insight into our own lives.
You can watch the complete documentary on the PBS site (like US-only). (via @prisonculture.bsky.social)
Tags: Grandma Stand · PBS · video
Where are the public benches on the internet? “Like cities that have prioritized cars, visiting the Internet now entails controlled apps and search engines, designed for extraction. There’s nowhere to rest because the benches are covered in spikes.”
Now open in NYC: a pop-up called The Donald J. Trump and Jeffrey Epstein Memorial Reading Room, which consists of “all 3.5 million pages, 3,437 volumes, and 17,000 pounds of the released and partially redacted Epstein files”.
The Hidden Cassettes. “This is going to sound insane, but when I was a kid I found out my dad secretly recorded our phone calls.” (Be sure to read the “What?!” link.)
