Aging Out of Fucks: The Neuroscience of Why You Suddenly Can’t Pretend Anymore. “…that point in midlife when your capacity to pretend, perform, and please others starts shorting out like an electrical system that’s finally had enough.”
Thread: What was typography like in the Soviet Union? “They did not just have 1 font everyone had to use. As a matter of fact, there were 39.”
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New evidence suggests that Neanderthals were making fire in the UK 400,000 years ago. The previous earliest date of human fire-making was a mere 50,000 years ago.
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From the archives of London’s V&A Museum, a selection of items that were used by Victorian-era mourners to remember and pay tribute to loved ones who had died, including jewelry with human hair, black dresses, jet black jewelry, mourning cards, and postmortem photograp...
Timothy Snyder: “What comes next? For the Nazis, the deportation and the pogrom of autumn 1938 were steps towards creating a centralised national police agency. In the US, something similar is unfolding with ICE.”
Size of Life, a visual comparison of living things from DNA to a quaking aspen clone. Lovely illustrations.
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From artist Miya Ando, Water of the Sky, A Dictionary of 2,000 Japanese Rain Words.
Through a collection of 2,000 Japanese words, their English interpretations, and 100 drawings, Ando describes the breadth and diversity of rain’s many expressions: when it falls, how it f...
Listen to jazz trio The Commercialists play Vince Guaraldi’s A Charlie Brown Christmas live in a small club called The Estate in Milwaukee. That’s this afternoon’s chill work music sorted then.
If you’re anywhere near Milwaukee this month, it looks like there are still tickets to some of their Charlie Brown performances left, although the shows at The Estate look like they’re sold out for the month. (thx, than)
Tags: jazz · music · Peanuts · video
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We Asked Critics From Authoritarian Regimes What They Wish They’d Known Sooner. “You cannot make authoritarian leaders the center of your narrative. You have to make the people the center of your narrative, and you have to be passionate about it.”
Since 2013, I’ve done a holiday gift guide that’s basically a curated roundup of stuff from the best gift guides I can find. I always do it a little bit differently from year to year, and last year I went with a simple list and it worked well. So I’m doing that again this ye...
Looks Like the Supreme Court Will Continue to Overturn the 20th Century. But: “It’s amazing how many of our problems today could be solved by a Congress that was willing and able to legislate in response to national problems.”
This is a pretty good optical illusion. If you’re not on your phone, it also works if you shake your head a little. (thx, caroline)
Tags: optical illusions
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A guide on how (and why) to quit Spotify. “I am extremely glad I [switched away from Spotify]; it’s been a minute since I’ve felt something approaching genuine delight in discovering a new tech service.”
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Why We Have Two Nostrils Instead of One Big Hole. (Great title!) “The nostrils alternate airflow from one side to the other. This may allow one side of the nose to rest.”
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Stickertop.art is a massive collection of the tops of laptop computers adorned with stickers.
Laptop stickers are more than decoration, they’re a form of self-expression. Each one is a snapshot of a moment, a place, and an attitude. But they’re fleeting; when the technology becomes outdated, the laptops along with the stories stuck to them often end up in the waste pile. I thought it was a shame for something so personal and creative to just disappear, so I created this site to preserve them.
If you’re a laptop decorator, you can upload your sticker collection to the site. (via @juandesant)
Tags: art · computers
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I’m working on the 2025 gift guide right now, but I wanted to separately shout-out my favorite gift recommendation of the year: Kelli Anderson’s incredible popup book about typography & the alphabet, Alphabet in Motion (Amazon).
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From Nature, a list of 10 people who helped shape science in 2025. “A fired public-health official, a mosquito breeder and a baby with a smile seen around the world. These are just a few of the remarkable people chosen for Nature’s 10.”
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The all-out AI race. “They are tearing towards a technology that could, in theory, sweep away millions of white-collar jobs and pose serious risks in bioweapons and cybersecurity. Or it could usher in a new era of abundance, health and wealth.”
From photographer and videographer Jan Erik Waider, a trio of videos that features the black sand beaches of Iceland from a drone’s vantage point.
Captured on Iceland’s south coast where a glacial river meets the Atlantic Ocean. The camera observes the slow interplay ...
Narrative String Theory is collection all known instances in film & TV of bulletin boards covered with investigatory items, “walls and floors littered with paperwork by obsessives”, and so on.
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At a recent Portugal. The Man concert in NYC, Weird Al joined the band on stage for a pair of songs, including a cover of Killing In The Name, Rage Against the Machine’s anthem against police brutality and the military industrial complex. Weird Al, welcome to the resistance. (via @erikahall.bsky.social)
Tags: music · Rage Against the Machine · remix · video · Weird Al Yankovic
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French electronic duo Air performs a Tiny Desk Concert. Setlist: Le Voyage de Pénélope, Cherry Blossom Girl, Highschool Lover, and Dirty Trip.
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