The Atlas Obscura Podcast
• SiriusXM Podcasts & Atlas Obscura
Journalist Eliot Stein explores the tradition of the djeli – African storytellers who memorize and pass down oral histories – tracing it all the way back to the Mali Empire. Along the way, he tracked down a modern djeli, who is upholding and remixing the tradition. And he found him in an unexpected place: working in a convenience store.
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Apple Macbook Air M4s are on sale again, somehow even cheaper than over the summer. The 13-inch base model is $749 (25% off) while this 15-inch one is $1,149.00 (-18% off). There are other configurations (more/less RAM/HD) too if you click through. Here’s what I wrote a few months ago about the 13-inch base model when it was $50 more:
This is the 13-inch base model and $800 is an absurdly low price for so much computer, especially in the age of the mad king’s tariff scheme.
I have the 15-inch M4 (typing on it now!) and I could not be happier with it. I had a 13-inch M1 Air before that and getting the faster M4 Air with a larger screen has changed where and I how I work, allowing me to be away from my desk a lot more (e.g. at the Tokyo coffee shop I’m sitting in now) but still be productive.
Benjamin Mayo, on X:
The Tinted glass option generally has a relatively subdued impact inside apps, making bars a bit frostier. But on the lock screen, it transforms all the notifications into grey opaque blobs. I would never choose this mode because that effect is just too ugly.
Now that I think about it, this is almost entirely why I don’t prefer the new “Tinted” option for Liquid Glass in iOS 26.1 — notifications look orthopedic, like an extra-high-contrast accessibility option for the vision impaired. Here’s a good side-by-side comparison in a post on Reddit. But as the top Reddit commenter points out, this severe over-correction from iOS 26.0 (where “Clear” was effectively the only option) is only with Light mode — in Dark mode, notifications in iOS 26.1 look good with the Tinted option.
washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/11/04/democrats-election-wins-trump/
Lego will be releasing a fan-created bowl of ramen as an official set.
New book just out: The Cory Arcangel Hack. “This book explores three dominant arrangements in Arcangel’s work — the flow-break hack, the flow-remix hack, and the flow-parody hack…”
There are some internet projects for which no one is clamoring, but when completed produce a masterpiece of creativity. This Rollercoaster Tycoon video tying the tracks to Defying Gravity (from Wicked) is one such masterpiece.
Speaking of new stamps, these Bruce Lee stamps are pretty great too:
The US Postal Service released a sneak peek at some of the stamps they’re going to release in 2026. Among them are these lowrider stamps:
Five models grace the stamps: a blue 1946 Chevrolet Fleetline named Let the Good Times Roll/Soy Como Soy; a blue 1958 Chevrolet Impala named Eight Figures; a red 1963 Impala named El Rey; an orange 1964 Impala named the Golden Rose; and a green 1987 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme named Pocket Change. The Gothic-style typography and the pinstriping on the stamps and pane evoke the detailed decoration that is a hallmark of the most celebrated lowrider cars.
blog.whatsapp.com/introducing-whatsapp-for-apple-watch?lang=en
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Thing I was not expecting: a 4-star review of Predator: Badlands from Matt Zoller Seitz; he calls it “an exceptional sci-fi action thriller with memorable characters, beautiful and terrifying animals (and plants), a structurally airtight script…”
John Dvorak back in 2014, two months before Apple Watch was announced:
I got a lecture from a potential buyer, who will only purchase an iTime as a replacement for the iPhone rather than an accessory. But all evidence leads me to believe this device will be an accessory.
Doing that limits the appeal to people who were promised a sleeker gadget profile, which they desperately need, because they never manage to pare down anything. It’s tablet computing all over again.
If he’d meant that Apple Watch would be like the iPad, in terms of being a durable long-term many-billion-dollars-in-sales-per-quarter platform, he’d have been correct. But he meant that both were duds.
Dvorak is still writing, but alas, only occasionally.
