Jason Kottke's weblog, home of fine hypertext products since 1998
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For the first time in awhile, copies of two lost episodes of classic Doctor Who have been discovered. Both are from the William Hartnell era and feature the Daleks.
The Great Friendship Flattening. “I amass bits of knowledge about my loved ones — my sister’s boyfriend published a poem; my friend left her job — as a spectator, in the same way that I might learn about an influencer’s favorite books…”
Why Movies Just Don’t Feel “Real” Anymore. “A deep dive into the first principles of movie immersion: on perceptual realism, indexicality, haptic visuality, and cinematic qualia.”
Recommendations of 25 medieval manuscripts to explore online. “Almost every institution with a significant collection of medieval manuscripts digitizes many of their most significant works and makes them freely accessible online.”
The Z9GT model EV from China’s BYD “can be 70 percent charged in five minutes and be almost full in 12 minutes, even in temperatures as low as -30° C” and “has a range of up to 800 km” (~500 miles). The US is sooooo far behind here.
Since the comments are back open and folks here can now share a little about themselves with each other, I thought I’d open this post up for whatever you guys want to chat about. What are you particularly interested in these days? Working on any fun projects? Got a new hobby? What’s the best thing you’ve seen this week? What’s something you’re struggling with?
Tags: kottke.org
Craig Mod is software bonkers. “I’m software bonkers: I can’t stop thinking about software. And I can’t stop building software.”
Balcony solar finally seems to be taking off in the US. “As of Wednesday, Democratic and Republican lawmakers in 28 states and Washington, D.C., have announced their own legislation to make these systems permissible.”
Yet another graph showing that when you control for quality of life (hours/week worked) and wealth inequality, American exceptionalism disappears.
Potoooooooo was an 18th-century British racehorse whose name was pronounced like “Potatoes” (Pot-eight-Os).
“Presolar grains” (microscopic crystals that are older than the Sun) harvested from meteorites may help determine how our solar system was formed.
This is great: Channel Surfer is “a retro TV guide that turns YouTube into live cable TV. Each channel plays videos on a deterministic schedule — like real TV, you tune in mid-show.”
coulou’s vinyl cafe (no. 4) - rainy day selections. “what’s up lovely humans, super excited to be sharing this new vinyl sessssion with you all.”
The Void Would Very Much Like You to Stop Screaming Into It. “I think we can both admit at this point that the screaming isn’t working. The screaming isn’t making you feel any better.”
Clive Thompson wrote about coding with AI agents. “Software developers point out that coding has a unique quality: They can tether their A.I.s to reality, because they can demand the agents test the code to see if it runs correctly.”
“We took an ancient vice…put it on everyone’s phone, and made it as normal and frictionless as checking the weather. What could possibly go wrong?” I *hate* the extent to which gambling has infested everything; it’s not going to end well.
Ballot Guessr: “GeoGuessr for politics. See a Google Street View image, guess how the county voted in the 2024 presidential election.” (633/1000 on my first try…but I borked one of the guesses bc I forgot there was a time limit. 🙃)
AI Is Rewiring How the World’s Best Go Players Think. “Players now train to replicate AI’s moves as closely as they can rather than inventing their own, even when the machine’s thinking remains mysterious to them.”
A printable zine: 50 Ways To Meet Your Neighbor. “32. Picking up trash, generally, is a good way to meet neighbors. People notice. 33. Winter: Shovel someone’s sidewalk. It’s also great cardio.”
Missed this earlier in the week: The Tournament of Books is underway! “Every March, the Tournament of Books is a month-long battle royale among the year’s best novels.”
This photo of an Icelandic glacier is really something.
The People Who Shun Super-Popular Pop Culture. “Some people are early adopters; others are late adopters. I’m simply a weirdly resistant one.”
There are at least 60 Pizza Hut Classics (red roofs, checkered tablecloths, salad bar) in the US…but the company does nothing to promote them. “They are like wormholes in the chain restaurant galaxy, portals to the past found by serendipity.”
From There I Ruined It, a version of Toto’s Africa but the lyrics are a listing of every country in Africa. They should teach this in American middle schools, not even joking.
See also Coach from Cheers singing Al-ban-i-a (a song that pops into my head every time I read or hear about that county):
Steve Scherer was a Reuters’ bureau chief in Canada. Then he got laid off, had to leave the country, and now drives for Uber in Virginia, in a country he doesn’t recognize anymore after working for 28 years abroad.
Wow, KDO pal and explorer Ariel Waldman has her own show on PBS! “LIFE UNEARTHED with Ariel Waldman is a science-driven docu-series revealing Earth’s ecosystems through radical shifts in scale…”
