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Jason Kottke's weblog, home of fine hypertext products since 1998

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• Jason Kottke

Strata: Layered Watercolor Gradients

You know me, I love a good gradient. These watercolors are from a series called Strata by Mikael Hallstrøm Eriksen, an artist who uses “repetitive and accumulative mark-making” in his work. The works in the Strata-series are inspired by geological and natural phenomena — sediments, horisons, bodies of water, etc. These works explore a colourful imagery of accumulation, distance and transformation. Within geology and archeology, strata (singular: stratum) refers to layers (of rock, soil, culture etc.) possessing internally consistent characteristics making them distinguishable from each other. You can check out more of Eriksen’s work on Instagram. Tags: art · geology · Mikael Hallstrom Eriksen 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org →

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• Jason Kottke

This is how David Copperfield made the Statue of Liberty disappear on...

This is how David Copperfield made the Statue of Liberty disappear on live television in 1983. This was a *huge* event in my childhood and I am thrilled to finally learn how it was done.

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• Jason Kottke

First Trailer for Star Wars From 1976

In 1976, 20th Century Fox released a teaser trailer for a little film called Star Wars…aka “the story of a boy, a girl, and a universe”.

No James Earl Jones voiceover for Vader, no John Williams score (which wasn’t finished until just two months before the film premiered), but those visuals must have impressed.

Here’s the first teaser trailer for Empire Strikes Back, which features no film footage at all, just concept art drawn by Ralph McQuarrie:

And for the sake of completeness, the teaser trailer for Return of the Jedi, which appeared in theaters before Lucas changed the name from Revenge of the Jedi:

[This is a vintage post originally from Jul 2014.]

Tags: movies · Star Wars · timeless posts · trailers

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• Jason Kottke

I’ve seen a lot of these bouncing ball videos (balls double until...

I’ve seen a lot of these bouncing ball videos (balls double until my PC crashes, etc.) but this one is absolutely mesmerizing. So many more of these on Slightly Satisfying’s TikTok.

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• Jason Kottke

The Guardian on why they’re not posting on Twitter anymore. “The benefits…are...

The Guardian on why they’re not posting on Twitter anymore. “The benefits…are now outweighed by the negatives and…resources could be better used promoting our journalism elsewhere.” (If your org can’t stop, at least post elsewhere first.)

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• Jason Kottke

The Threat of Trumpism Is Real. So Is the Need for Rest....

The Threat of Trumpism Is Real. So Is the Need for Rest. “If we don’t seek out pleasure, comfort, companionship, and laughter, numbness becomes our only protection. And fascism thrives when we are dead inside.”

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• Jason Kottke

Baby Evacuation Aprons

Today I learned about evacuation aprons, which places like maternity wards use to rescue infants and toddlers in case of emergency or fire. Or as this labor & delivery nurse on Threads put it: …the goal is to grab your vest and just stuff as many babies as humanly possible in its giant kangaroo pockets before running out the door. This particular company sells a few different models, like this apron for newborns and this one for larger infants and toddlers that can carry a total weight of 60 lbs. All the aprons are fire-resistant. There is also something called the Med Sled, which can carry up to 6 infants at a time. Tags: fashion · healthcare 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org →

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• Jason Kottke

Actually not an Onion article: The Onion Says It Has Bought Infowars,...

Actually not an Onion article: The Onion Says It Has Bought Infowars, Alex Jones’s Site, Out of Bankruptcy. They’re going to relaunch the site as “a parody of itself” with Everytown for Gun Safety as an advertiser.

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• Jason Kottke

Is the love song dying? Or has the definition broadened? The Pudding...

Is the love song dying? Or has the definition broadened? The Pudding investigates.

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• Jason Kottke

I’m a journalist and I’m changing the way I read news. This...

I’m a journalist and I’m changing the way I read news. This is how. “I’ll read news, not other people’s reactions to news.”

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• Jason Kottke

Jon Baptiste Hears Green Day for the First Time

In this video from Pianote, the multi-talented Jon Baptiste hears Green Day’s Holiday for the first time (drum & vocals only) and is challenged to come up with a piano accompaniment for it — and he really really gets into it. (How do you find a song that a musical encyclopedia like Baptiste has never heard before though?)

These are always so fun to watch — see also Drummer Plays Metallica’s Enter Sandman After Hearing It Only Once. Oh and Green Day’s demastering of Dookie. (via @unlikelywords.bsky.social)

Tags: Green Day · Jon Baptiste · music · remix · video

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• Jason Kottke

Oooh, Casey Johnston is coming out with a “memoir and manifesto” about...

Oooh, Casey Johnston is coming out with a “memoir and manifesto” about weight lifting: A Physical Education: How I Escaped Diet Culture and Gained the Power of Lifting. (I am inching ever closer to taking up lifting myself…)

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• Jason Kottke

Huge if true: “Triangles were long believed to be related to squares,...

Huge if true: “Triangles were long believed to be related to squares, but genetic analysis proves that they are actually very pointy circles.”

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• Jason Kottke

A New View of the Aftermath of JFK’s Assassination

This is a still frame of a film shot just a few moments after President John F. Kennedy was shot in Dallas, TX in 1963: From a NY Times story back in September: For decades Mr. Carpenter’s 8-millimeter snippets of what transpired in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963, have been a f...

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• Jason Kottke

Hey, it’s the Microscope Museum, featuring ‘scopes from the early 1800s to...

Hey, it’s the Microscope Museum, featuring ‘scopes from the early 1800s to the 1980s. “An antique microscope is a work of art as well as science.”

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• Jason Kottke

What Will You Do? “What will you do if men in uniforms...

What Will You Do? “What will you do if men in uniforms arrive in your neighborhood, and an immigrant neighbor gets a knock on the door and is led away in handcuffs? Or if the uniforms are not police uniforms, and there is not even a knock?”

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• Jason Kottke

Erin McKean goes down a rabbit hole of WWII resistance diaries, “dipping...

Erin McKean goes down a rabbit hole of WWII resistance diaries, “dipping into the thoughts of people who were also made heartsick and distressed by fascist politics”.

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• Jason Kottke

10,946: a Year-Long Post-It Note Animation

10,946 is a mesmerizing stop-motion film by Daren Jannace composed of drawings on Post-It notes. He created 30 drawings a day for an entire year and then animated them: “Set at 30 frames a second, each second represents 1 day.” The animation is accompanied by audio Jannace recorded on his phone during the year.

If you watch the whole thing, you get to experience what a year feels like if days were shrunk down into seconds. (via colossal)

Tags: animation · Daren Jannace · mesmerizing · stop motion · video

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• Jason Kottke

Kenji López-Alt Returns From Beef Dimension With New Sear Method Beyond Human...

Kenji López-Alt Returns From Beef Dimension With New Sear Method Beyond Human Comprehension. “…he jabbered incoherently about mountains of non-Euclidean tri-tips that needed to be cooked on high for both an instant and a thousand eternities.”

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• Jason Kottke

Single Line Mazes

Wacław Szpakowski was a Polish architect and engineer who, over the course of his life and in secret, made a series of drawings of mazes from single continuous lines. From The Paris Review: The drawings, he explains, “were experiments with the straight line cond...

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• Jason Kottke

Journalism’s fight for survival in a postliterate democracy. “The work of obtaining...

Journalism’s fight for survival in a postliterate democracy. “The work of obtaining facts has a major economic disadvantage against the production of bullshit, and it’s only getting worse.”

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• Jason Kottke

‘I was a fool’: Art Garfunkel describes tearful reunion with Paul Simon....

‘I was a fool’: Art Garfunkel describes tearful reunion with Paul Simon. “We’ve made plans to meet again. Will Paul bring his guitar? Who knows.”

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• Jason Kottke

The Anti-Wonka Candy Factory

In 2011, Magnum photographer Martin Parr visited the Teddy Grays candy factory near Birmingham, England that makes old-fashioned candy with Wonka-esque names — Mint Humbugs, Nutty Brittles, Spearminties. The result is this ultra-charming 20 minute film profile of the compa...

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• Jason Kottke

Words from Toni Morrison, Audre Lorde, and James Baldwin about “the vital...

Words from Toni Morrison, Audre Lorde, and James Baldwin about “the vital role that artists play in society generally, and doubly so in the face of authoritarian regimes”.

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• Jason Kottke

Marine biologist Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson: “Keep showing up. Join something. Find...

Marine biologist Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson: “Keep showing up. Join something. Find your people. Bring your superpowers. Be a problem solver. Choose your battles. Nourish joy. Love nature.”

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• Jason Kottke

A classic that really made me laugh this morning: Pachelbel’s Canon Played...

A classic that really made me laugh this morning: Pachelbel’s Canon Played by Train Horns.

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• Jason Kottke

200 of the Largest Earth Impact Craters Mapped

I am predisposed to like videos about meteorite craters but this was even more interesting than I anticipated.

A nice example of a crater 2-3 km wide is Rotor Kamm in southern Africa. I should mention that we’re easily into city killer impacts here, in case you’re wondering.

You can explore the Earth Impact Database on their website. (via @michaelhobbes.bsky.social)

Tags: geology · maps · science · video

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• Jason Kottke

The Wired Guide to Protecting Yourself From Government Surveillance. The incoming administration...

The Wired Guide to Protecting Yourself From Government Surveillance. The incoming administration has “vowed to deport millions and jail his enemies. To carry out that agenda, his administration will exploit America’s digital surveillance machine.”

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• Jason Kottke

Huh, I didn’t know that the guy who wrote The Curious Garden...

Huh, I didn’t know that the guy who wrote The Curious Garden (one my kids’ favorite books when they were younger) also wrote The Wild Robot — both inspired by the High Line.

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• Jason Kottke

Delete Your Account. For Real This Time. “There’s no need for any...

Delete Your Account. For Real This Time. “There’s no need for any Trump opponents now to be on X for the same reasons that they’re not on Gab, Gettr, Truth Social, or wherever else.”