On the Difference Between Rest and Idleness. “The wellness industry loves rest [because] rest can be sold, because rest promises a return.” But: “[Idleness] does not promise to make you better at anything. It offers no return on investment.”

I (weirdly?) love Amy Casey’s paintings of buildings in peril — being swallowed by the sea, being flung into the sky by wind. There’s an element of the Kowloon Walled City to Casey’s work, as well as Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs (specifically the tomato tornado). (via colossal) Tags: Amy Casey · architecture · art

Everything Wrong With the 2026 World Cup. “By far the most grave of those is a World Cup host starting a war against one of the participant nations, as happened with the USA’s attack on Iran at the end of February.”

Yesterday, Ollie and I hiked up to Delta Lake (via Lupine Meadows Access) in Grand Teton National Park. It was perhaps a bit aggressive given my current lack of fitness, my non-acclimation to the altitude (we topped out at 9000’), and the rock scrambling we had to do near the top, but we were rewarded with one of the best views I’ve ever seen.

That’s the Grand Teton (13,775’) in the background. The lake was so enchantingly blue…the photos don’t do it justice. I shared a few more photos from the hike on Instagram.

Tags: Jason Kottke · photography · travel

TIL about variant sudoku puzzles, “sudoku with strange rules like thermometers, ratio dots, cages, and other things that you’re probably already confused by”.

The excellent Scene on Radio podcast is back with a new season on The News. “Just about everyone is mad at the media, and Americans seem helpless to solve our problems, in large part because we have no shared narrative and few shared facts.”

“For the first time, wind and solar generated more electricity than gas worldwide in April 2026.”

A lovely story by Mary H.K. Choi about her husband and wedding. “A green card wedding was the story I was selling…but it became clear I’d wanted to get married for all the typical risky reasons most of us do: love, understanding, hope.”

From the New Yorker, a long and difficult-to-read report by Heidi Blake about how the truly disgusting and evil Tate brothers built a sexual slavery empire.

The Supreme Court Has Invented a Right to Discriminate. “The Roberts Court has replaced the Fifteenth Amendment’s ban on racial discrimination in voting with a right to engage in racial discrimination in voting.”

Nominations are open for this year’s Tiny Awards. “The Tiny Awards exist because we thought it was important to shine a spotlight on the sorts of personal web projects that tend to get overlooked.”

Interesting question and resulting thread: have you talked with someone who was alive in the 1800s? I think I technically have (a relative in the 80s when I was a kid) but I don’t remember the circumstances. Anyone have a good memory to share?

The folks at Fred Rogers Productions have launched a YouTube channel dedicated to Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. They plan to post compilations, clips, and full episodes, some of which haven’t been seen on PBS in years & years. One of the first complete episodes they’ve posted is the one about how crayons are made!

Other full episodes include A Visit with Officer Clemmons, The Very First Episode (from 1968), and Koko the Gorilla Meets Mister Rogers.

And there’s also this 30-minute compilation of fan-favorite factory visits.

Again, here’s the channel if you want to subscribe or explore more.

Tags: Fred Rogers · Mister Rogers' Neighborhood · TV · video · YouTube

My Students Can’t Read. “There is a measurable, generational collapse in sustained reading and writing, and the academy is responding to it with improvisation and exhaustion rather than the structural overhaul it requires.”

Yeah, I’ll read the hell out of a Wesley Morris profile of Steven Spielberg. “Spielberg has always known that his movies are attempts to understand his boyhood and his parents, to try to heal them through fiction and illuminate parts of himself.”

I’m observing summer Fridays here at KDO again this year, which means I (mostly) won’t be posting here on Fridays. If past years are any guide, this doesn’t actually have too much of an effect on how much I work or post…more of a redistribution of time & effort. But it...

Illustrated break-downs of how common objects work. Currently featuring a mechanical pencil, PEZ dispenser, retractable pen, and Zippo lighter.

“Descartes Against Humanity” and Other Games Designed by Famous Philosophers.

Chipotlai Max is an AI agent that runs on “stolen compute” from Chipotle’s AI chat bot. They are looking to borrow from bots from Ikea, Expedia, Home Depot, and others.

Team Spirit is a wonderful short film for ESPN by Errol Morris about the funerals of die-hard sports fans.

I love the Steelers fan laid out in a recliner under a Steelers blanket in front of a television with a Steelers game on as if “he just fell asleep watching the game”.

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

Tags: Errol Morris · sports · timeless posts · video

The official trailer for season three of Silo. Looks like we finally get some origin story stuff (well, more than a brief scene at least).

On this date in 2004, the Killdozer rampage took place. “The bulldozer effortlessly demolished cars and buildings, including the home of a former mayor, the office of a newspaper that had sided against him in an editorial…”

Jamelle Bouie: The cruelty is still the point of the Trump regime. “This isn’t a border security policy. It’s cruelty as governance — directed at people this administration has decided don’t deserve dignity.”

Throughout most of human history, the weather has resisted humanity’s desire to change it. For thousands of years, we have sacrificed children, sung songs and danced, brewed alchemical concoctions, chanted prayers, fired cannons, and made many other futile efforts in the at...

As time passes, efforts to document the Tiananmen Square protests intensify. “History cannot only be written by officials. If you don’t have real information, it’s difficult for you to have independent thought.”

“Cameron’s World is a web-collage of text and images excavated from the buried neighbourhoods of archived GeoCities pages (1994–2009).”

Every so often, the US Postal Service reissues old stamps. This time around, they polled the public about which past stamp they’d like to see reissued and the results were decisive: the people love Mister Rogers. The Mister Rogers stamp, originally released in 2018, is n...

Ted Chiang is emphatic: LLMs are nowhere close to being conscious. “We don’t need to fully understand the nature of consciousness to definitively say that certain things are not conscious, and conversational transcripts fall in that category.”

Marjane Satrapi, author of the excellent Persepolis, has died at age 56. Friends said she “died of sadness a little over a year after the death of Mattias Ripa, her husband and the love of her life”.

Can you go 82-0? “The objective of 82-0 is to construct a historical NBA roster capable of achieving a perfect undefeated season.” You get to “draft” 5 players from randomly chosen teams & decades, then that team plays a simulated season.