“The planet Uranus and its five biggest moons may not be the dead sterile worlds that scientists have long thought.” A new analysis of Voyager 2 data suggests a powerful solar storm distorted the previous analysis.
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I just updated the 2024 Kottke Holiday Gift Guide, including some gifts...
I just updated the 2024 Kottke Holiday Gift Guide, including some gifts for people you hate (ugly decanters, Baby Yoda s&p shakers). Years ago, a work colleague received a *turtle* as a wedding gift. What’s the worst gift you’ve ever given or received?
Now Serving: Drinkable Mayonnaise
Lawson’s, a convenience store in Japan, has begun selling Nomu, a drinkable mayonnaise forgetting the important adage: all mayo is drinkable if you believe in yourself.
The only catch for pedantic mayonnaise lovers is that the label clarifies that Nomu mayo is a “mayonnaise...
Holiday Terms & Conditions (A Christmas Album). Lyrics include: “It’s beginning to...
Holiday Terms & Conditions (A Christmas Album). Lyrics include: “It’s beginning to look a lot like lawsuits, everywhere you scroll…” and “I don’t want a lot for Christmas, just my intellectual property rights…”
Bryan Cranston Reads From Robert Caro’s The Power Broker
At an event last month marking the 50th anniversary of the publication of Robert Caro’s The Power Broker, actor Bryan Cranston read a passage from the book (it’s about 13 minutes long):
From Literary Hub:
After some loving jabs at the devotion this book inspires and its ...
Recently found: a message in a bottle at an archaeological dig left...
Recently found: a message in a bottle at an archaeological dig left there in 1825 by an archaeologist. “It was an absolutely magic moment. We knew there had been excavations here in the past, but to find this message from 200 years ago…”
Racing’s Deadliest Day. After the 1955 Le Mans disaster, “it would be...
Racing’s Deadliest Day. After the 1955 Le Mans disaster, “it would be another 40 years before Mercedes got back into racing”. (In the meantime, they pioneered “anti-lock brakes, anti-collision radar systems, and other consumer safety technologies”.)
Monument Valley 3 is out today on iOS & Android and is...
Monument Valley 3 is out today on iOS & Android and is free to play with a Netflix subscription.
The Origin of Delay, Deny, Defend
In the wake of the murder of UnitedHealthcare’s CEO, a book published in 2010 by Rutgers Law professor Jay Feinman has hit the bestseller charts: Delay, Deny, Defend: Why Insurance Companies Don’t Pay Claims and What You Can Do About It. The book’s title is a reference to an...
Check Out the 2025 Moon Phases
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center has released a pair of visualizations of the phases the Moon will go through in 2025, one for the northern hemisphere above and one for the southern hemisphere below:
Look at that sucker wobble! Each frame of the 4K video represents one hour and there are lots of locations labeled on the map, including the landing sites of the Apollo missions.
But also: How have I never noticed that the Moon is upside-down in the southern hemisphere?! I mean, it makes total sense but I’ve just never noticed or thought it through. 🤯 (via the kid should see this)
If you haven’t had the pleasure, you should double back and read...
If you haven’t had the pleasure, you should double back and read the comments on this post from readers who have noticed things everyone else hasn’t. Not surprised to have gathered a community of extreme noticers.
The old school Oregon Trail video game is being adapted into an...
The old school Oregon Trail video game is being adapted into an action-comedy movie. “The movie will feature a couple of original musical numbers in the vein of Barbie.”
In Training: A Book of Bonsai Photos
I was reminded recently of Stephen Voss’s lovely book, In Training: a book of bonsai photos (Amazon). Voss has a number of bonsai photo prints for sale as well as some videos of bonsai on his blog. This one is of a tree called Goshin, which has been in training since 1953:
Tags: bonsai · photography · Stephen Voss · trees · video
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A very simple little browser game: open the microwave door as close...
A very simple little browser game: open the microwave door as close to the timer hitting 0:00 as you can without the bell dinging. (My best: 9500.)
Straight White Male, the Game of Life’s Lowest Difficulty Setting
Using a video game metaphor, John Scalzi explains straight white male privilege for those straight white males who get hung up on the word “privilege”.
Dudes. Imagine life here in the US — or indeed, pretty much anywhere in the Western world — is a massive role playing gam...
The New Rules of Media. “Everything is a personality cult, and maybe...
The New Rules of Media. “Everything is a personality cult, and maybe just a cult. You have to cultivate your own, no matter how small.” (No thank you.)
Willem Dafoe interviewed by Matt Zoller Seitz. “If you make it about...
Willem Dafoe interviewed by Matt Zoller Seitz. “If you make it about you, you’re limited. You have to make it about other people and go toward that.” Great stuff in here about the ‘why’ of craft.
“ProPublica’s Claim File Helper lets you customize a letter requesting the notes...
“ProPublica’s Claim File Helper lets you customize a letter requesting the notes and documents your insurer used when deciding to deny you coverage.” Greatest nation in the world, etc.
Sally Rooney: When are we going to have the courage to stop...
Sally Rooney: When are we going to have the courage to stop the climate crisis? Multinational corporations are destroying Earth for profit. If we want real change, we have to be willing to threaten those profits.
A thread of some letters people wrote to each other on clay...
A thread of some letters people wrote to each other on clay tablets in Mesopotamia thousands of years ago. “I am the servant of my lord. May my lord not withhold a chariot from me.”
What’s The One Thing Only You Noticed?
As you know, I am passionate about sweet things. All different kinds. So imagine my dismay back in 2017 when I discovered the recipe for Heath Bar Klondike had been changed to remove any trace of Heath Bar bits from the Klondike. It wasn’t just one box of Heathless wonders n...
An analysis of the UX of Lego interface panels. “Armed with 52...
An analysis of the UX of Lego interface panels. “Armed with 52 different bricks, let’s see what they can teach us about the design, layout and organisation of complex interfaces.”
For The Love of God, Make Your Own Website. “It will only...
For The Love of God, Make Your Own Website. “It will only become more painfully clear how important sovereign websites are to protecting information and free expression.”
The Arresting Typography of the Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps
Several years ago, Brandon Silverman become obsessed with the lettering and typography on the fire insurance maps published by the Sanborn Map Company in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Sanborn maps were designed to help insurance companies assess the fire risk of...
The oldest known wild bird, Wisdom, a 74 year old Laysan albatross,...
The oldest known wild bird, Wisdom, a 74 year old Laysan albatross, has a new egg. Laysan albatrosses mate for life, but Wisdom’s mate hadn’t been seen in a few years. Last week, she landed in Hawaii and started cavorting with a new male.
No One Has to Settle for Bad Pizza Anymore. “Violinists have the...
No One Has to Settle for Bad Pizza Anymore. “Violinists have the Stradivarius. Sneakerheads have the Air Jordan 1. Pizza degenerates like me have the Ooni.”
Grand Theft Hamlet
Sam Crane and Mark Oosterveen, actors out of work during the pandemic, were playing Grand Theft Auto when they found the Pinewood Bowl amphitheater and decided to try staging a production of Hamlet within the game with other players voicing all the parts. Grand Theft Hamlet ...
Vaccines have saved 150 million children over the last 50 years. “Every...
Vaccines have saved 150 million children over the last 50 years. “Every ten seconds, one child is saved by a vaccine against a fatal disease.” Almost 94 million from measles alone.
No surprise: conservatives are embracing media villains like Tony Soprano & Judge...
No surprise: conservatives are embracing media villains like Tony Soprano & Judge Dredd. “One’s model for justice should not be a fascist invented in part to illustrate the distinction between elite impunity and the brutality that ordinary people face.”
Your 2024 Therapy Wrapped. “2024 was a BUMPY ride…and your therapist was...
Your 2024 Therapy Wrapped. “2024 was a BUMPY ride…and your therapist was right there with you for every maternal microaggression and election-induced tummy ache. Let’s see how your neuroses stacked up…”