Jason Kottke’s weblog, home of fine hypertext products since 1998
If the highly unlikely Silurian hypothesis is true (if the Earth was home to an intelligent civilization prior to ours), “it’s the cephalopods…who are the most likely candidates to have reached at least some level of civilization”.
From The Atlantic Science Desk, 77 Facts That Blew Our Minds in 2024. Some that caught my eye:
5. Your body carries literal pieces of your mom — and maybe your grandmother, siblings, aunts, and uncles.
15. The weight of giant pumpkins increased 20-fold in half a century.
19. In the Middle Ages, people took their pet squirrels for walks and decked them out in flashy accessories.
31. One breadfruit tree can feed a family of four for at least 50 years.
38. Classical composers used dice to randomly compose songs.
52. Dogs may be entering a new wave of domestication.
71. The 10,000-steps-a-day goal doesn’t originate from clinical science. Instead, it comes from a 1965 marketing campaign by a Japanese company that was selling pedometers.
Tags: best of · best of 2024 · lists
“Depending on the printer, trying to photocopy money might result in a warning message or the paper being completely ink-filled.”
I’ve shared animator Nick Murray Willis’ videos before — he takes snippets of sound & dialogue from sports commentary & movies and creates context-shifted animations from them. For instance, in the two videos above with football (soccer) commentary, a commentator’s chant of “Messi, Messi, Messi” becomes a French street performer thanking the crowd (“merci, merci, merci”).
(Ok, I’ve caught myself attempting to explain humor, so I’m gonna wrap this up by urging you to watch the videos if you want.)
Tags: animation · Nick Murray Willis · remix · soccer · sports · video
“Architecton is an epic, intimate, and poetic meditation on architecture and how the design and construction of buildings from the ancient past reveal our destruction — and offer hope for survival and a way forward.”
California’s raised the minimum wage for fast-food workers and contrary to some bad press & much industry outcry, it’s been a success. “California’s fast-food sector gained jobs in all but one month since September 2023.”
10 years ago, I wrote about why I support Wikipedia with a monthly donation. “I consider it a subscription fee to an indispensable and irreplaceable resource I use dozens of times weekly while producing kottke[dot]org.”
While poking around for Christmas music, I found this little-known recording of Louis Armstrong reading ‘Twas The Night Before Christmas, recorded shortly before he died.
The poem, first published in 1823, would be Armstrong’s final commercial recording. Armstrong taped it on February 26, 1971, on a reel-to-reel recorder at his home in Queens, New York, during his last spell of good health.
Truly one of the great voices of all time.
Tags: Louis Armstrong · video