Inspired by a question over at Cup of Jo, what are the five things that are essential in your kitchen? Mine lean black & tan: balsamic vinegar, soy sauce, parmesan, olive oil, mayonnaise. (Honorable mention: chili oil.)
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Blending In
These are some of my favorite portrait illustrations from Sofia Bonati.
In her art you’ll find female portraits that invite you into a dreamlike world where the woman and her surroundings intertwine, connect. They are women with deep, mysterious looks, who want to tell us something.
I especially like the more geometric ones that radiate. Prints and original works are available in her shop. (via colossal)
Tags: art · illustration · Sofia Bonati
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The Climate Change Paradox. “Earth’s climate is chaotic and volatile. Climate change...
The Climate Change Paradox. “Earth’s climate is chaotic and volatile. Climate change is simple and predictable. How can both be true?” Complexity & chaos theory are so interesting.
On the latest wave of AI/LLM tools. “It is a transition from...
On the latest wave of AI/LLM tools. “It is a transition from working with a co-intelligence to working with a wizard. Magic gets done, but we don’t always know what to do with the results.”
Smart Tracker Cards
Here’s a thing I didn’t know existed until the other day: credit-card sized trackers that you put into your wallet (or bag) that can be located with Apple Find My. Some come with long-life batteries and others are rechargeable. Some can play a sound when lost. This seems pretty handy for when an AirTag is too bulky.
The first one I stumbled across was this one from Paperwallet but there are also many other options.
“Trump told voters that they could indulge their resentments and still walk...
“Trump told voters that they could indulge their resentments and still walk away richer and more prosperous. But they can’t. To embrace nativism in a global, connected economic world is to sacrifice prosperity for the sake of exclusion…”
Early next year, Sesame Street is making hundreds of full episodes available...
Classic Airlines Apparel
Remember the collection of classic airline logos I linked to a few years ago? The folks at 08 Left have taken some of those old logos and put them on hats, t-shirts, and hoodies.
New from Neal Agarwal: a series of increasingly ridiculous and difficult captchas....
New from Neal Agarwal: a series of increasingly ridiculous and difficult captchas. I burst out laughing at the vegetables one.
Scandal rocks international stone skipping contest. “The would-be cheaters admitted to the...
Scandal rocks international stone skipping contest. “The would-be cheaters admitted to the scheme by a show of hands and apologized for their misdeeds after the judges raised their suspicions.” Aww, so wholesome?
“Style lessons from Robert Redford, one of the most stylish men in...
“Style lessons from Robert Redford, one of the most stylish men in the last century.” Derek Guy: “The 1970s is often written off as the ‘decade that taste forgot.’ But Redford shows how to do it well…”
A Clock: An Online Remake of Christian Marclay’s The Clock
Christian Marclay debuted his 24-hour film The Clock 15 years ago. The film is made up of thousands of clips from movies and TV shows that show timepieces or otherwise make reference to the time of day. I’ve seen chunks of it in a few museums & galleries and it’s wonderf...
A McSweeney’s list that’s not that funny: How to Tell the Difference...
A McSweeney’s list that’s not that funny: How to Tell the Difference Between a Lone Wolf and a Coordinated Effort by the Radical Left.
How Climate Scientists Saw the Future Before It Arrived. “‘The goal of...
How Climate Scientists Saw the Future Before It Arrived. “‘The goal of climate modeling is really to build a fake version of the Earth,’ a coarse-grained copy of the planet that’s stripped down to ‘the processes we think are relevant.’”
Ta-Nehisi Coates: ‘Charlie Kirk, Redeemed: A Political Class Finds Its Lost Cause’....
Ta-Nehisi Coates: ‘Charlie Kirk, Redeemed: A Political Class Finds Its Lost Cause’. “By ignoring the rhetoric and actions of the Turning Point USA founder, pundits and politicians are sanitizing his legacy.”
Incredibly Realistic 3D Models of the Moon’s Surface (From 1874!)
A gem of a find by The Public Domain Review of a collection from the Rijksmuseum: photographs of plaster models of the Moon’s surface that were made from observations of the Moon through a telescope.
Peering through a self-made telescope, James Nasmyth sketched the moon’s...
Photographer Upends His Whole Life to Chase Auroras Around the Arctic. “Prior...
Photographer Upends His Whole Life to Chase Auroras Around the Arctic. “Prior to moving to Lapland, I had never owned a camera and I almost never took photographs. However, just watching the aurora captured my attention…”
A 16-Hour Video Series on Everything that Happened in the 70s, 80s, 90s, and 00s
From the Weird History YouTube channel, an epic undertaking: telling the (US-centric) cultural history of the 70s, 80s, 90s, and 00s in just (just!) 16 hours.
This is like a mega ultra monster extended mix of We Didn’t Start the Fire. The videos are organized chronologically, with each year taking 15-30 minutes to summarize, so you can watch small bits here and there instead of having to ingest a whole decade in one go.
Fun logic puzzle game called Clues by Sam. “Your goal is to...
Fun logic puzzle game called Clues by Sam. “Your goal is to figure out who is criminal and who is innocent.”
Ok, I think I have to move back to NYC (at least...
Ok, I think I have to move back to NYC (at least for Sept.) because this Big & Loud series sounds amaaaazing: films like Lawrence of Arabia, Close Encounters, 2001, Interstellar, Dunkirk, Matrix, Fury Road, etc. in 70mm + Dolby Atmos. Wow!
The Evolution of How Rappers Construct Their Rhymes
In this video, Vox’s Estelle Caswell and Martin Conner break down how rappers construct their rhymes and how it’s changed and evolved since rap’s early days. As someone who doesn’t know a whole lot about music and even less about rapping but appreciates both, this was super entertaining and informative.
[This is a vintage post originally from May 2016.]
Tags: Estelle Caswell · Martin Conner · music · timeless posts · video
Your Zodiac Sign Is 2,000 Years Out of Date. “Over millennia, our...
Your Zodiac Sign Is 2,000 Years Out of Date. “Over millennia, our view of the stars has shifted, because of Earth’s wobble. It may be time to rethink your sign.” (I actually wrote about this 26 years ago.)
Reviews of the best mp3 players you can buy in 2025. “MP3...
Reviews of the best mp3 players you can buy in 2025. “MP3 players — or digital audio players, as they should more accurately be called — are seeing a small resurgence…”
Why AI Narrators Will Never Be Able to Tell a Real Human...
Why AI Narrators Will Never Be Able to Tell a Real Human Story. “Narrating audiobooks today is the closest thing to that primal art form. One person, one voice, spinning a tale for another.”
Objects From Films
Artist and poet Marcus Merritt draws objects from films — the TV above is from E.T. and the payphone is from Terminator 2.
I very much dig the spare illustration style here. (via waxy)
Tags: art · Marcus Merritt · movies
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Hosting a WebSite on a Disposable Vape. “Recently, disposable vapes have gotten...
Hosting a WebSite on a Disposable Vape. “Recently, disposable vapes have gotten more advanced”; some have USB-C and rechargeable batteries.
Dataguessr. “This game is inspired by the work of Gapminder and Our...
Dataguessr. “This game is inspired by the work of Gapminder and Our World in Data. It uses data to give you a better understanding of the state of the world.”
TypePad is closing down at the end of the month and Phil...
TypePad is closing down at the end of the month and Phil Gyford has shared the process for downloading a TypePad blog (so that you can turn it into “a pretty self-contained ‘static HTML’ site”).
Coulou’s Vinyl Cafe (No. 1)
This is not some AI-generated to-study-to jazz video; it’s a guy who really likes jazz playing a bunch of records from his extensive collection.
over the years i’ve built a small but reallllly incredible and meaningful record collection, spanning from jazz, classical, a ...
Defiant nuns flee care home for their abandoned convent in the Alps....
Defiant nuns flee care home for their abandoned convent in the Alps. “‘Before I die in that old people’s home, I would rather go to a meadow and enter eternity that way,’ said Sister Bernadette.” (Someone get a screenplay going on this…)