I was reminded recently of Stephen Voss’s lovely book, In Training: a book of bonsai photos (Amazon). Voss has a number of bonsai photo prints for sale as well as some videos of bonsai on his blog. This one is of a tree called Goshin, which has been in training since 1953:
Tags: bonsai · photography · Stephen Voss · trees · video
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Using a video game metaphor, John Scalzi explains straight white male privilege for those straight white males who get hung up on the word “privilege”.
Dudes. Imagine life here in the US — or indeed, pretty much anywhere in the Western world — is a massive role playing gam...
The New Rules of Media. “Everything is a personality cult, and maybe just a cult. You have to cultivate your own, no matter how small.” (No thank you.)
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Willem Dafoe interviewed by Matt Zoller Seitz. “If you make it about you, you’re limited. You have to make it about other people and go toward that.” Great stuff in here about the ‘why’ of craft.
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“ProPublica’s Claim File Helper lets you customize a letter requesting the notes and documents your insurer used when deciding to deny you coverage.” Greatest nation in the world, etc.
Sally Rooney: When are we going to have the courage to stop the climate crisis? Multinational corporations are destroying Earth for profit. If we want real change, we have to be willing to threaten those profits.
As you know, I am passionate about sweet things. All different kinds. So imagine my dismay back in 2017 when I discovered the recipe for Heath Bar Klondike had been changed to remove any trace of Heath Bar bits from the Klondike. It wasn’t just one box of Heathless wonders n...
An analysis of the UX of Lego interface panels. “Armed with 52 different bricks, let’s see what they can teach us about the design, layout and organisation of complex interfaces.”
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For The Love of God, Make Your Own Website. “It will only become more painfully clear how important sovereign websites are to protecting information and free expression.”
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Several years ago, Brandon Silverman become obsessed with the lettering and typography on the fire insurance maps published by the Sanborn Map Company in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Sanborn maps were designed to help insurance companies assess the fire risk of...
The oldest known wild bird, Wisdom, a 74 year old Laysan albatross, has a new egg. Laysan albatrosses mate for life, but Wisdom’s mate hadn’t been seen in a few years. Last week, she landed in Hawaii and started cavorting with a new male.
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No One Has to Settle for Bad Pizza Anymore. “Violinists have the Stradivarius. Sneakerheads have the Air Jordan 1. Pizza degenerates like me have the Ooni.”
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Sam Crane and Mark Oosterveen, actors out of work during the pandemic, were playing Grand Theft Auto when they found the Pinewood Bowl amphitheater and decided to try staging a production of Hamlet within the game with other players voicing all the parts. Grand Theft Hamlet ...
Vaccines have saved 150 million children over the last 50 years. “Every ten seconds, one child is saved by a vaccine against a fatal disease.” Almost 94 million from measles alone.
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No surprise: conservatives are embracing media villains like Tony Soprano & Judge Dredd. “One’s model for justice should not be a fascist invented in part to illustrate the distinction between elite impunity and the brutality that ordinary people face.”
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Your 2024 Therapy Wrapped. “2024 was a BUMPY ride…and your therapist was right there with you for every maternal microaggression and election-induced tummy ache. Let’s see how your neuroses stacked up…”
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This Beautiful Day: Daily Wisdom from Mister Rogers (Bookshop) is exactly what it says on the tin: a book of daily reflections from the writings, stories, and shows of Fred Rogers. I would be chuffed to find this under the tree on Xmas morning.
Tags: books · Fred Rogers · This Beautiful Day
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“Food deserts are not an inevitable consequence of poverty or low population density, and they didn’t [form] for no reason.” Guess who? Ronald Fucking Reagan! The government stopped enforcing price discrimination laws in the 80s & big chains thrived.
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Just updated the 2024 Kottke Holiday Gift Guide with suggestions from Kottke readers, a surprisingly popular Japanese nail clipper, a bonkers Criterion Collection box set, and a very unique timepiece.
It appears that the brutal reign of the Assad regime is over after more than 50 years. “Syrian rebels declared they had ousted President Bashar al-Assad after seizing control of Damascus on Sunday, forcing him to flee…”
Catherine Russell has starred in the same off-Broadway play for 37 years, runs the theater it plays in, teaches six days a week, manages a restaurant, and even works the box office one day a week. I’m tired just writing all that!
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A fantastic interactive feature about the newly restored Notre-Dame cathedral. “Each day we have 20 difficulties. But it’s different when you work on a building that has a soul. Beauty makes everything easier.”
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I wonder if, when Bobby Internet invented the internet, he imagined it would be used for videos like this. There’s something so fun about watching people crack up at work. See also SNL actors breaking. They also have fun accents, which I maybe shouldn’t say because kottke....
Coldplay tapped Spike Jonze & Mary Wigmore to direct the music video for a song called All My Love from their latest album and the pair decided to turn it into an early 99th birthday celebration of Dick Van Dyke. Van Dyke danced a bit, sung a bit, was swarmed by his fa...
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