The Neanderthal dentist: archaeologists found evidence of a decayed tooth being drilled out with a stone tools 59,000 years ago. “It’s now the oldest known evidence of dentistry — or any direct medical treatment.”

Sarah Rose (who is blind): “Meta glasses are absolute game changers for the blind community…they are completely revolutionary.” And: “It really is incredible to talk to your glasses and ask them what they see and have them tell you.”

One of the biggest assholes in the Trump regime is Russell Vought — and that’s really saying something; it’s a fierce competition. He’s the guy who said in 2023 that he wanted to put federal workers “in trauma”. ProPublica produced a video in Oct 2025 about how Vought is a...

Omg, Amazon Prime inserted an ad for Febreze in the midst of the most famous match cut in the history of cinema (in Kubrick’s 2001, when the ape-thrown bone turns into a spacecraft). I don’t know whether to laugh or cry (rn, it’s both).

A very good, very 2026 headline: Japan Runs Out of Robot Wolves in Fight Against Bears. “Starting at around $4,000, each bespoke Monster Wolf is now equipped with battery power, solar panels, and detection sensors.”

This is a smart piece about where we are in America right now, post-Citizen’s United, post-Voting Rights Amendment, post-Dobbs, mid-MAGA: The VRA Was the Nice Version (archive). First, let’s be honest about what the Voting Rights Act actually was, because everything here...

“I believe in myself. That’s why I commit.” A young skater doesn’t give up trying to land a three-stair kickflip.

Zendaya co-created a new collection for On, the Swiss fashion company, and Spike Jonze directed this cool promotional video starring the actress. I’ve always loved his aesthetic — along with Michel Gondry, no one makes these types of videos seem “hand-crafted” (in a way that is hard to articulate) more than Jonze.

Tags: Spike Jonze · video · Zendaya

The Guardian asked authors, critics, and academics to help compile a list of the best 100 novels of all time. They’ve done 41-100 so far. Selecting a book will show you who voted for it, then click on the voter’s name to see their other choices.

The 2026 National Recording Registry inductees were announced today. “The 2026 selections mark the first recordings by Taylor Swift and Beyoncé chosen for the registry.” Also: music from Weezer, The Go-Go’s, Chaka Khan, and Johnny Cash.

This Tiny Celestial Body Past Pluto Shouldn’t Have an Atmosphere—but Astronomers Say They May Have Detected One.

A Moment That Changed Me: I Saw My First Total Solar Eclipse — and Its Beauty Shook Me to My Core. “I knew the theory, but I was not ready for the experience.”

I loved this post by Kelsey Miller for Cup of Jo about “childlore”. “Remember typing ‘BOOBS’ on a calculator?!” someone will blurt. “Or — or that thing when you’re driving by a cemetery and you have to hold your breath?” I love hearing the tiny differences in details (so...

I Want to Live Like Costco People. “Embracing the Costco lifestyle means accepting the fact that I am, in many ways, becoming my father.”

Robin Sloan writes about the personalized, AI-written, promo emails he’s been getting recently (I have too). “The form is subtler than a one-sized-fits-all promo blast, but it sucks way worse, because it’s fundamentally dishonest.”

Palantir, the data analysis defense contractor co-founded by Peter Thiel, was named after the magical seeing stones from J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings books. This video compares the ethos of the company with that of Tolkien. The palantiri of The Lord of the Rings ar...

Meet the Sad Wives of AI. “Princess Diana famously said there were three people in her marriage. For the sad wives of AI, the third is a chatbot.”

Just dropped: Foo Fighters’ Tiny Desk Concert. The setlist includes Learn to Fly, My Hero, and Everlong.

Two sequences from Dr. Strangelove done in Lego: Muffley’s call to Kissoff on the hotline in the war room and Dr. Strangelove’s increasingly erratic presentation of his plan to preserve humanity in a mine shaft.

This is really well done. (via bb)

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

Tags: Dr. Strangelove · Lego · movies · stop motion · timeless posts · video

Adam Serwer: “Violence serves an authoritarian agenda.”

A map of the regions of the US, as voted on by Reddit users. I think this seems mostly correct? One funny artifact: Washington state got some votes for “Northeast”, probably because ppl confused it with D.C. or with “Northwest”.

“So, at about 14, I became the team’s unofficial basketball musician,” writes Theocharis Papatrechas. “A big shot earned a triumphant snare drum roll with a resolving crash. And if someone missed badly — an airball — I’d drop in a ‘du-ba-dum’”.

Since Reporters Without Borders started tracking their World Press Freedom Index 25 years ago, the global rating has never been lower than the 2026 score. From a summary of their analysis: For the first time in the history of the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) World Pres...

Sounds of the 60s: the IBM 1401 (punchcard collation, reel-to-reel recorder, etc). These aren’t the sounds of my computing childhood but I imagine they’re nostalgic for some of you.

Jamelle Bouie thinks Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is positioning herself for a 2028 presidential run. “Yeah, she’s running.”

From an interview (gift link) with Don Hertzfeldt, creator of World of Tomorrow: Not to sound like a curmudgeon, but when I was a teenager, I took the train to go to the record store to find rare stuff. Spotify is way more convenient, but that wasn’t the point. The point wa...

Study: “A few weeks of X’s algorithm can make you more right‑wing – and it doesn’t wear off quickly.” People using the “For You” feed were more likely to favor GOP policies, less likely to want Trump prosecuted, and were more pro-Russia (vs Ukraine).

Aphantasia (the inability to visualize) is one of those things that I find endlessly fascinating; I’ve written about it a few times since 2016, most recently in response to Larissa MacFarquhar’s 2025 piece for the New Yorker: Some People Can’t See Mental Images. The Conseq...

We’re Diversifying the University by Hiring More Crackpots. “For too long, the university has ignored the wisdom of the donor class and hired based on academic excellence. Regrettably, this has led to the underrepresentation of discredited viewpoints…”

Digg has (sorta) relaunched (again) and instead of an underwhelming Reddit clone, it’s now just scraping noted fascist cesspool “X” for AI news and telling us that Sam Altman is influential in AI? This is embarrassing. It’ll probably be a huge success.