kottke.org

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

Public lists: Featured
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09 Oct 18:57 • Jason Kottke

The Evolution of the YouTube Progress Bar (2005-2025)

Since launching in 2005, YouTube has changed the progress/volume/tool bar on their video player several times. Here’s what it’s looked like through the years:¹

I don’t remember the first two or three at all, but that 2008-2010 version is a nostalgia bomb, albeit a deceptive one. You might be fooled into remembering that it used to be very simple, but the whole progress/tool bar is cut off in the graphic above; here’s the full version.

I’d love to see versions of this for iTunes/Apple Music, Spotify, and other players.

I don’t know who made the original…the furthest back I could track it was about a month ago on Reddit and FB.↩

Tags: design · YouTube

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09 Oct 18:27 • Jason Kottke

Area Man Has Far Greater Knowledge Of Marvel Universe Than Own Family...

Area Man Has Far Greater Knowledge Of Marvel Universe Than Own Family Tree.

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09 Oct 16:57 • Jason Kottke

A Data Love Letter to the NYC Subway

Giorgia Lupi and her team at Pentagram have created a data-driven animation for the MTA called A Data Love Letter to the Subway. More from Lupi (who calls this an “absolute dream project”): The project, “A Data Love Letter to the Subway,” visualizes each train line ...

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09 Oct 15:36 • Jason Kottke

“We’ve put together a reading list about capitalism, imperialism, policing, and the...

“We’ve put together a reading list about capitalism, imperialism, policing, and the politics and strategies of anti-war resistance movements of the past and present — tools in the struggle against repression, surveillance, and state violence.”

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09 Oct 15:06 • Jason Kottke

An interview with Ann Goldstein, Elena Ferrante’s English translator. “I had never...

An interview with Ann Goldstein, Elena Ferrante’s English translator. “I had never heard of Ferrante. I didn’t know anything about her. I still don’t know anything about her.”

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09 Oct 13:42 • Jason Kottke

Bird Photographer of the Year for 2025

The organizers of the Bird Photographer of the Year competition received more than 33,000 images for 2025’s contest; here are the winners and runners-up. Photos above by Franco Banfi, Francesco Guffanti, Tibor Litauszki, and Andreas Hemb. If you have no idea what yo...

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08 Oct 22:33 • Jason Kottke

This is a lovely & thoughtful essay on the messiness of teaching...

This is a lovely & thoughtful essay on the messiness of teaching and learning, an alchemy endangered by efficiency & automation. “What A.I. can’t do is feel the shape of silence after someone says something so honest we forget we’re here to learn.”

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08 Oct 21:15 • Jason Kottke

A History of the Slave-Breeding Industry in the United States

The American Slave Coast: A History of the Slave-Breeding Industry (Amazon) by Ned & Constance Sublette is a book which offers an alternate view of slavery in the United States. Instead of treating slavery as a source of unpaid labor, as it is typically understood, the...

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08 Oct 20:21 • Jason Kottke

The Oatmeal’s take on AI art. “When I consume Al art, it...

The Oatmeal’s take on AI art. “When I consume Al art, it also evokes a feeling…until I find out that it’s Al art. Then I feel deflated, grossed out, and maybe a little bit bored. This feeling isn’t a choice.”

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08 Oct 19:36 • Jason Kottke

The Family of Migrants is a new book & museum exhibition that...

The Family of Migrants is a new book & museum exhibition that tells the story of the past 120 years of human movement in photographs.

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08 Oct 18:45 • Jason Kottke

As they labor to fight off the slop bots, Wikipedia maintains a...

As they labor to fight off the slop bots, Wikipedia maintains a fairly extensive list of signs & tells that text was written by AI. “This list is descriptive, not prescriptive; it consists of observations, not rules.”

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08 Oct 16:24 • Jason Kottke

Muhammad al-Zaqzouq writes about using his books for cooking fuel. “Let’s use...

Muhammad al-Zaqzouq writes about using his books for cooking fuel. “Let’s use one or two for now, and when the war’s over you can replace them. The kids need food more than they need to be read to.”

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08 Oct 15:06 • Jason Kottke

Knit Hello, a Simple Typeface for Knitting

Designer Rüdiger Schlömer has created a new typeface for beginning knitters called Knit Hello. Knit Hello is a typeface for hand knitting. It was made for beginners: knitters and typographers who love type. You may remember Schlömer from his Futura-based Knit Grotesk. And of course, the earliest bitmap letters weren’t found on a computer screen; blocky letters have been used in cross stitch and knitting for hundreds of years. (via colossal) Tags: design · Rudiger Schlomer · typography 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org →

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08 Oct 14:33 • Jason Kottke

A list of laws, theories, principles and patterns that software developers might...

A list of laws, theories, principles and patterns that software developers might find useful, including the 1% Rule and “institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution”.

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08 Oct 13:24 • Jason Kottke

The Movies That Defined Gen X. Ferris Bueller, The Breakfast Club, Do...

The Movies That Defined Gen X. Ferris Bueller, The Breakfast Club, Do the Right Thing, Clerks, Dead Poets Society, Pulp Fiction, Before Sunrise. “Not galaxies far away, not fairy tales. Parking lots, parade floats, dead ends, second chances.”

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07 Oct 22:06 • Jason Kottke

The trailer for Downey Wrote That, a documentary about long-time SNL writer...

The trailer for Downey Wrote That, a documentary about long-time SNL writer Jim Downey. “Most of what makes us laugh is something that’s true, just you’ve never heard it put that way before.”

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07 Oct 20:42 • Jason Kottke

The first new edition of Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary in 22 years contains...

The first new edition of Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary in 22 years contains a bunch of new words & phrases: cold brew, petrichor, doomscroll, adulting, beast mode, farm-to-table, etc.

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07 Oct 20:21 • Jason Kottke

The Onion made a movie about Jeffrey Epstein and they’re airing it...

The Onion made a movie about Jeffrey Epstein and they’re airing it for free on YouTube. Jeffrey Epstein: Bad Pedophile airs Thursday, Oct 9 at 7pm ET.

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07 Oct 19:59 • Jason Kottke

Bob Ross paintings to be auctioned to support public TV stations after...

Bob Ross paintings to be auctioned to support public TV stations after federal funding cuts. What stage of anti-democratic capitalism is this? *paints huge, angry clouds*

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07 Oct 19:30 • Jason Kottke

Committing to the Bit

I thought this piece from Isaac Butler examining how Daniel Day-Lewis goes about his acting work was really interesting. I have always been haunted in some way by Day-Lewis. He is clearly among the greatest living screen actors, with a career that includes several performan...

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07 Oct 18:09 • Jason Kottke

Everything Is Becoming a Bank. “Most major corporations — from airlines to...

Everything Is Becoming a Bank. “Most major corporations — from airlines to social media platforms — now aspire to become unregulated banks. Bankification today accounts for the highest profit margins in the US economy.”

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07 Oct 17:03 • Jason Kottke

“The world’s wind and solar farms have generated more electricity than coal...

“The world’s wind and solar farms have generated more electricity than coal plants for the first time this year, marking a turning point for the global power system.”

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07 Oct 15:51 • Jason Kottke

What Do You Do with the Mad That You Feel?

In 1969, Fred Rogers appeared before the Senate to argue against cutting federal funding for public broadcasting. During his testimony, Rogers recited a song from his show, What Do You Do with the Mad That You Feel? In this short video, Jon Lefkovitz accompanies Mister Rogers’ words with some music and short scenes from movies like Moonlight, The 400 Blows, Do the Right Thing, Lady Bird, 2001, and Return of the Jedi.

Tags: Fred Rogers · Jon Lefkovitz · movies · music · remix

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07 Oct 15:01 • Jason Kottke

Qualcomm buys open-source electronics firm Arduino. “Qualcomm said Arduino ‘will retain its...

Qualcomm buys open-source electronics firm Arduino. “Qualcomm said Arduino ‘will retain its independent brand, tools and mission.’” I wonder how long that independence will last…

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07 Oct 14:54 • Jason Kottke

I missed that NIN’s Tron:Ares soundtrack came out a couple of weeks...

I missed that NIN’s Tron:Ares soundtrack came out a couple of weeks ago. Listening this morning to catch up!

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07 Oct 14:06 • Jason Kottke

Upcoming exhibition from the MFA in Boston: “‘Faces in the Crowd: Street...

Upcoming exhibition from the MFA in Boston: “‘Faces in the Crowd: Street Photography’ explores the evolving techniques photographers have used to record the human experience as it has played out in populous urban spaces…”

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06 Oct 22:21 • Jason Kottke

The Mainstream Media Is Catastrophically Failing To Meet The Moment. “Mainstream media...

The Mainstream Media Is Catastrophically Failing To Meet The Moment. “Mainstream media has become so terrified of appearing biased that they’ve abandoned their basic responsibility to clearly communicate truth to the public.”

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06 Oct 21:00 • Jason Kottke

The Taco Bell 50k Ultramarathon was run in Denver over the weekend....

The Taco Bell 50k Ultramarathon was run in Denver over the weekend. Competitors must eat at 9 out of 10 Taco Bells along the route. “By the 4th stop, all entrants must have consumed at least one (1) Chalupa Supreme or one Crunchwrap Supreme…”

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06 Oct 20:15 • Jason Kottke

I missed this from a couple of months ago: Inside the World...

I missed this from a couple of months ago: Inside the World of “The Great British Bake Off”. “No show does so much to hide its true nature: namely, that it is a competition people desperately want to win.”

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06 Oct 19:33 • Jason Kottke

What Makes for a Healthy Society?

In a 2014 preface for his 1978 book The Ohlone Way, a description of how the indigenous peoples of California’s Bay Area lived before Europeans arrived, Malcolm Margolin shared a list of what he thought constituted a healthy society: Sustainable relationship with the envir...