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Jason Kottke's weblog, home of fine hypertext products since 1998
An interesting long profile of Mark Zuckerberg. “Mark is the fucking Terminator. He’s actually not an asshole, which is interesting. He’s not a miserable fuck. But his source of advantage is he’s never happy. He just doesn’t fucking stop.”
Richard Linklater is directing a film adaptation of the Sondheim musical Merrily We Roll Along. Shooting started in 2019 and will continue until 2040 to match the musical’s 20-year period. (Linklater’s Boyhood was shot over 12 years.)
Mapsnap is a program designed to take old Sanborn insurance maps (block-by-block maps of every US city from 1870-1960) and aligning them with modern maps.
JumpStar is the world’s strongest Chinese Checkers AI engine. Designed to emulate AlphaGo and Stockfish but for Chinese Checkers. The model was trained entirely on a M4 MacBook. You can play it online or on iOS.
Random TV Time: watch old TV pulled from the Internet Archive. 17 channels to surf, including cartoons, 1960s TV, and one that’s only old commercials.
Designer Giorgia Lupi: In Defense of the Detour. “I fear that A.I. is undermining what makes us most human — the ability to translate lived experience and nuanced thoughts into a unique point of view…”
Stalin Boys is a short documentary about a Joseph Stalin-obsessed middle-schooler from a tiny Texas town who writes a play about the Soviet dictator and enlists his three friends to stage it for the Texas State History Fair. Free to watch online.
Nappy is a site offering free stock photos of Black and brown people. (The site says they’re going offline in a few months due to a falloff in demand bc of AI. Maybe Internet Archive can do their thing here?)
Mapping Tariffs explores “the potential impacts of tariffs on jobs and businesses across Canadian cities and communities at the neighbourhood and city level”.
After working hard taking away the civil rights of people and granting more powers to our Mob Boss President, Chief Justice John Roberts retreats to a Maine island for the summer. But lately, neighbors are protesting his presence there. Good! No peace!
Is American Culture Simply Bad Now? I’ve been hanging with my friend Matt while he’s here in Tokyo for a trip, which he refers to as his “America is Cooked Tour” as he keeps running across things that are much better here.
Back in 2005, a group of restorers established a hidden workshop in Paris’s Panthéon and snuck into the building for a whole year to repair an antique clock. “The group managed to connect the hideaway to the electricity grid and install a computer…” Wild!
OrySnack: The Bar Where Bartenders Work From Home. Small robot servers in this Japanese bar are controlled by people who can only work from home because of disability or illness.
Don’t Cook That: a collection of real recipes that you shouldn’t make. Cholera remedy recipe calls for “equal parts laudanum, rhubarb, double-strength capsicum, camphor and spirits of nitre”.
The Bayeux Tapestry of Fascism. “What’s this middle bit?” “Why, that’s the Battle of Legitimate Concerns!”
“Influencers are the private equity of culture: draining whatever’s ‘cool’ until higher prices and worse experiences push out the original fan base. Then they move on to the next thing, leaving the original to die…” 🎯
A “Kelvin wave” powered by El Niño will soon raise sea levels in California “by half a foot or more”. “It’s ‘highly probable’ that California will soon witness its highest sea levels ever recorded.”
The Student Journalists Who Never Let the Cornell Assault Case Go. “Why be financially independent, [editor in chief Sophia Dasser] wondered, if not to publish sharp-edged views of the biggest campus issues?”
The best multi day hikes in the world. “As an avid hiker, who spends most of her time hiking, I have done more than 100 multi day hikes all over the world. This list includes 25 of my favorite ones.”
Lobster is Lobster: a language guessing game. “Lobster is lobster in English. Langosta is lobster in ___”
Ooh, Mestra is a new short story from Madeline Miller (Circe, Song of Achilles). “Mestra, daughter of the King of Thessaly, is granted a unique gift by Poseidon: The ability to transform herself into any being she can imagine.”
Looks like Every Frame a Painting is ramping up again! “Over the last 10 years, Taylor and I have amassed a series of ideas — some of them originally designed to be on Youtube, some designed to be other things. All of this is currently in progress”
