“Here are some things that have been found in donation bins: A live puppy. Live Japanese grenades. An 1854 tombstone for Rebecca Jane Nye. Old skulls. A stolen Frederic Remington sculpture. Customized Air Jordans made for Spike Lee.”

Historian Eric Cline, author of 1177 BC, explains how the collapse of several civilizations circa 1200 BC was the result of an “overly interdependent system that had no way to absorb multiple shocks at once”.

This is a map published in 1927 by Paramount Studios showing the areas of California & Nevada that doubled as shooting locations for far-flung locales, including Siberia, Wales, the Nile, New England, the Red Sea, and the Alps.

Tags: Hollywood · maps · movies

Researchers have found that some aspects of sperm whales’ communication are “remarkably similar” to human languages.

What Was the Very First Plant in the World? “Scientists believe the first true plants evolved from green algae around 470 million years ago.”

This is so cool: in the early 1900s, a mechanical engineer named Louis Brennan invented a self-balancing train that ran on a single track. This video demonstrates how the train worked using a clever system of gyroscopes.

This is the Brennan Monorail, a train from the early 1900s that seemed to defy the laws of physics. Not only did it keep itself perfectly balanced on a single rail, but it mysteriously leaned into corners without any driver input.

It’s kind of incredible how well Brennan’s system worked. It’s ingenious. (via messy nessy)

Tags: engineering · inventions · Louis Brennan · physics · science · trains · video

I mentioned this book in a previous post but it deserves its own thing: Timothy Ryback’s 53 Days: How Hitler Dismantled a Democracy will hit shelves in September. A must-read for me.

As part of his Real Time series, artist Maarten Baas has created The People’s Clock, a timepiece that lives in Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport. To create the clock’s “workings”, Baas recorded more than 1000 volunteers moving as the clock’s hands over a 12-hour period. If you look carefully, you can see a single individual dressed in orange at the edge of the circle acting as the second hand:

Each of the installed clock’s faces is a looped video of that recording, synced to the current time. Here’s a quick behind-the-scenes video of how the clock was made:

See also Baas’s Sweeper’s Clock and Schiphol Clock.

Tags: amsterdam · art · clocks · Maarten Baas · time · video

The Great American GLP-1 Experiment. In the last few years, people have come up with all sorts of off-label uses for GLP-1s, including treating concussions, menopause, long Covid, IBS, drug addiction, anxiety, hair loss, and arthritis.

A rare event to capture on video: an underwater volcanic eruption in the Solomon Islands.

From a few weeks ago: Bush’s Tiny Desk Concert. Machinehead and Glycerine still hit.

Your Backpack Got Worse On Purpose. “From a shareholder’s perspective, the bag that falls apart is the better product. That’s the business model. Repeat failure, repeat purchase, repeat revenue. The quality decline isn’t a side effect. It’s the strategy.”

Two Japanese aquariums have released their 2026 flowcharts of their penguins’ relationships. “Penguin drama can include serious crushes and heartbreaks but also adultery and egg-stealing.”

I love these oversized prints of vintage Pan-Am luggage tags from artist Ella Freire. The typography and colors are just perfect. (via daringfireball) Tags: art · design · Ella Freire · travel

Fun trompe-l’œil graph paper drawings.

Don’t Just Replace Chavez — Rethink Monuments. “A memorial based on the great-man theory of history is a tale only half told.” And: “There are elegant ways to pay tribute to groups of people.”

I’d vaguely remembered that Hulu was adapting The Testaments, Margaret Atwood’s follow-up to The Handmaid’s Tale, as a sequel to the TV series of the same name, but I was surprised to find out that the show has premiered and is already three episodes in (a fourth will be available today).

The initial series lost its way after 2-3 seasons, but I still ended up watching the whole thing. I’ll probably give The Testaments a shot as well.

Tags: books · Margaret Atwood · movies · The Handmaid's Tale · The Testaments · trailers · video

Listen to the NYC Subway play some Train Jazz. “Every dot is a real subway train. Eight hundred of them, give or take, form a small jazz combo (walking bass, piano, sax, vibes, brushes) that has been playing without pause for over a hundred years.”

The Engineer Guy Bill Hammack has written a book based on his great YouTube channel: The Things We Make: The Unknown History of Invention from Cathedrals to Soda Cans.

I reported last week that signs of activity have been detected from Boards of Canada in the form of mysterious VHS tapes sent out to fans. Yesterday, the group’s record label posted a bunch of photos of posters hung up in cities around the world (NYC, Tokyo, LA) that match BoC’s style. First new album since 2013’s Tomorrow’s Harvest? Let’s hope so! Tags: Boards of Canada · music

If Every Congressman Facing Credible Rape Allegations Resigned, We’d Have No One Left to Govern the Country. “It’s naïve to imagine the government can continue to function without the tireless dedication of our best and brightest rapists.”

You know who else wanted to construct gaudy buildings in his own image? Here’s Timothy Ryback on Adolf Hitler’s obsession “with adding an expensive new wing to the Reich chancellery”. The new annex, connected to the chancellery by a marble corridor hung with crystal chand...

This looks interesting: Quiche is a highly customizable but simple browser for iOS.

“The internet known within China is a very different internet to the one known by the world at large. It is censored, regulated and structured quite differently. It is controlled and managed, rather than organic and sprawling.”

For decades, a guy named Aadam Jacobs has been recording live music shows. His collection of over 10,000 shows since 1984 feature the likes of Nirvana, R.E.M., The Pixies, Björk, Depeche Mode, Liz Phair, Sonic Youth, The Cure, Phish, Fugazi, and so many more. With the help...

On the network effect of the weekend: “The essential characteristic of the weekend is not just the having of a day off, but rather that other people have the day off.”

A brand designer’s “compendium of transit tickets” from around the world. Many of these are from the 90s and 00s. Design inspiration for daaaaays. (via meanwhile) Tags: design

The Death of the Basic American Car. “Today, there are so many wealthy people who can afford luxury cars that it simply isn’t that profitable for companies to produce cars for the bottom 40 percent of Americans by income.”

An AI bot created by Andon Labs is running its own retail store in San Francisco. The bot has hired a pair of human employees and “has a corporate card, a phone number, email, internet access and eyes through security cameras”.

“Gerontocracy has always thrived in undemocratic places — Communist people’s republics, Gulf monarchies — where only death could pry power from the ruling elders. American gerontocracy is exceptional for being freely elected.”