Jason Kottke's weblog, home of fine hypertext products since 1998
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“Competitive authoritarianism [can be seen as] a prevalent form of government throughout American history — one which we have only tentatively started to move away from in recent decades.” Interesting historical context.
On the disorienting thrill & agony of picking up a new sport (or relearning an old one) in midlife. “Falling as an adult means calling friends and family to tell them ‘I had a fall.’”
“Today, general officers no longer seem to see themselves as guardians of the constitutional order. It now seems clear to us that the military will not rescue Americans from Mr. Trump’s misuse of the nation’s military capabilities.”
A forthcoming book from long-time technology writer David Pogue: Apple: The First 50 Years. “Deeply researched & lavishly illustrated, Apple: The First 50 Years includes new interviews with 150 key people who made the journey, including Steve Wozniak…”
A 90-minute video of making a batch of woodblock prints “from blank paper to finished print” from the printer’s POV. Relaxing & ASMR-adjacent.
“‘This Show Felt Like It Was Falling Out of Me’. Six female artists on how they prepared for their major solo debuts this fall.”
I love that The Kid Should See This has dozens of videos about poop, including a recent one about why poop is brown.
If you’re still back-to-school (or racing-the-tariffs) shopping, these M4 Macbook Airs are somehow still on sale. “$800 is an absurdly low price for so much computer.”
Today I learned that the opening theme song for the original Iron Chef TV program was adapted from a song composed by Hans Zimmer, who has done scores for films like Interstellar, Dune, Blade Runner: 2049, Inception, and Dunkirk. Perhaps even weirder, the name of the theme song is “Show Me Your Firetruck”. (The song is from Zimmer’s score for the movie Backdraft.)
Tags: Hans Zimmer · Iron Chef · music · TV · video
The team at Tuk South visited one of the tallest sand dunes in Chile and did the obvious: threw a tire down it and followed it with a drone to see how long it would roll. The answer: almost three minutes. Take a break from whatever shit you might be dealing with at the moment, set your troubles aside, and watch this simple story of tenacity and gravity.
And yes, they went to retrieve the tire after it stopped: “Fear not. We collected the tyre. Leave only tuk tuk tyre tracks, take only memories.”
(I would like to see a Nolan cut of this, where it’s ambiguous if the tire stops at the end or not, like Cobb’s totem at the end of Inception.)
