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Jason Kottke's weblog, home of fine hypertext products since 1998

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• Jason Kottke

The Good Luck Fish

The Public Domain Review has published some lovely illustrations of goldfish from a 1780 monograph called Histoire naturelle des dorades de la Chine. Histoire naturelle des dorades de la Chine (1780) — the dorades in the title refers not to sea bream but the fish’s gilded appearance — was the first monograph on goldfish published in Europe, from a time when the fish were still bound up with Eastern exoticism in the Western imagination. You can peruse the entire document at the Internet Archive. Tags: art · fish · illustration 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org →

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• Jason Kottke

George Orwell’s 11 rules for a nice cup of tea. “I maintain...

George Orwell’s 11 rules for a nice cup of tea. “I maintain that one strong cup of tea is better than twenty weak ones. All true tea lovers not only like their tea strong, but like it a little stronger with each year that passes.”

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• Jason Kottke

Photos of the Inside of a Particle Accelerator

I’ve posted before about Charles Brooks’ fantastic series of photographs of the insides of musical instruments. Recently, Brooks had the opportunity to apply his technique to capture the innards of a particle accelerator. Brooks says of the photo: Despite being a scienti...

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• Jason Kottke

International students studying in the US were asked about the chilling effects...

International students studying in the US were asked about the chilling effects of the Trump regime’s actions on their freedom of speech and movement. “Others said they now avoid speaking in public about divisive issues or participating in protests…”

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• Jason Kottke

High-School Runner Rips GOP State Rep. for Anti-Trans Comments

Trans athlete Soren Stark-Chessa finished first in the 1600-meter race at a recent track meet in Maine. Republican state representative Laurel Libby complained about Stark-Chessa’s win on a Fox News appearance, saying that trans athletes are “pushing many, many of our young ...

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• Jason Kottke

Octavia Butler’s Advice on Writing. “Write, every day, whether you like it...

Octavia Butler’s Advice on Writing. “Write, every day, whether you like it or not. Screw inspiration.”

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• Aaron Cohen

A Roundup of Things Wearing Other Things

We all recall the revelation last year that the ocean’s rebellious teenagers, orcas, have started wearing salmon on their heads. Again. (The official state animal of Connecticut is the sperm whale, which is wholly unrelated to this post, except insofar as whales were just me...

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• Jason Kottke

What It’s Like to Be a Professional Card Counter. “Suddenly, I get...

What It’s Like to Be a Professional Card Counter. “Suddenly, I get a tap on the shoulder from security telling me that they don’t want my business anymore.”

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• Jason Kottke

Typically interesting thoughts about AI from Neal Stephenson. “I see parallels between...

Typically interesting thoughts about AI from Neal Stephenson. “I see parallels between these and the hydrogen bomb tests that were conducted in your back yard during the 1950s.”

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• Jason Kottke

Future Ruins is a one-day music festival featuring film and TV composers...

Future Ruins is a one-day music festival featuring film and TV composers like Ben Salisbury, Hildur Guðnadóttir, Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross, Isobel Waller-Bridge, and Mark Mothersbaugh. Nov 8 in LA.

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• Jason Kottke

Color Photography of Paris From 1914

Albert Kahn sent photographers all over the world in the early 1900s and amassed over 72,000 color photos in the process. Here are a few shots of his from Paris on the eve of World War I. That photo is of the entrance to the Passage du Caire at the corner of Rue d’Alexandrie and Rue Sainte-Foy in the 2nd arrondissement. Here’s what it looks like today: [This is a vintage post originally from Dec 2012.] Tags: Albert Kahn · early color photography · Paris · photography · timeless posts

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• Jason Kottke

U.S. Military Bans Men With Girl Names From Combat. “Suppose your special...

U.S. Military Bans Men With Girl Names From Combat. “Suppose your special forces team is parachuting into hostile territory. Can you really order someone named Ashley to jump out of a plane? It defies common sense.”

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• Jason Kottke

The true story of how a deep-cover KGB spy living in the...

The true story of how a deep-cover KGB spy living in the US recruited his son. “I am not who you think I am. I am not a German, and I’m not called Rudi. I am a Czech man named Dalibor Valoušek, and I work for the Soviet Union, for the KGB.”

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• Jason Kottke

Power Houses, a photographic look “inside the living rooms of notable New...

Power Houses, a photographic look “inside the living rooms of notable New Yorkers”. Incl. Spike Lee, Colson Whitehead, Ella Emhoff, Huma Abedin, Martin Scorsese, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Maya Lin.

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• Jason Kottke

A Longevity Expert’s 5 Tips for Aging Well, e.g. strength training, better...

A Longevity Expert’s 5 Tips for Aging Well, e.g. strength training, better sleep, pay attention to mental health. (Having money helps w/ all this.) And 100%: “If they’re hawking a supplement. I would kick them off the list of being credible.”

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• Jason Kottke

“British researchers have discovered that a ‘copy’ of Magna Carta owned by...

“British researchers have discovered that a ‘copy’ of Magna Carta owned by Harvard Law School is in fact an extraordinarily rare original from 1300.” Harvard bought it for $27.50 — it’s likely worth $10s of millions.

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• Jason Kottke

Astronaut Don Pettit’s Marvelous Photos From Space

a photo taken from the ISS with the Milky Way visible over an intensely colored sunrise

The NY Times has a nice feature on NASA astronaut Don Pettit’s photography from his latest stay in space, a 220-day mission aboard the ISS.

Now, you know I like a good astronomical image (like the one above of an ISS sunrise), but the thing that really caught my eye was the video of Pettit’s experiment involving charged water droplets and a teflon needle:

I could watch that allllll day long.

More Pettit: Swirling Green Aurora Captured From the ISS.

Tags: astronomy · Don Pettit · photography · science · space · video

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• Jason Kottke

10,000 Drum Machines is a growing collection of web-based drum machines. I...

10,000 Drum Machines is a growing collection of web-based drum machines. I like the Extremely Long-Term Drum Machine (“20 bass drums a millennium”).

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• Jason Kottke

Nine Rules for Evaluating New Technology

In 1987, Wendell Berry wrote an essay called Why I Am Not Going to Buy a Computer. In it, he outlined his standards for adopting new technology in his work. The new tool should be cheaper than the one it replaces. It should be at least as small in scale as the one it rep...

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• Jason Kottke

The End of Rule of Law in America. “After these first three...

The End of Rule of Law in America. “After these first three tyrannical, lawless months of this presidency, surely Americans can understand now that Donald Trump is going to continue to decimate America for the next three-plus years.”

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• Jason Kottke

Three Fascism Experts on Why They’re Leaving the US

At the end of March, I posted some news about three prominent scholars of fascism and authoritarianism who were leaving the United States to live and work in Canada. In this video for the NY Times, We Study Fascism, and We’re Leaving the U.S., Marci Shore, Timothy Snyder, ...

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• Jason Kottke

When the world is going to shit, people need music; they need...

When the world is going to shit, people need music; they need to dance. Especially those whose communities are under attack and who feel unsafe. See also Sinners. (That scene! You know the one…)

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• Jason Kottke

How to Sniff Out ‘Copaganda’: When the Police and the Media Manipulate...

How to Sniff Out ‘Copaganda’: When the Police and the Media Manipulate Our News. “The selective curation of anecdote is an essential mechanism of copaganda.”

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• Jason Kottke

Lololol: Max is changing its name back to HBO Max. It’s a...

Lololol: Max is changing its name back to HBO Max. It’s a real golden age of rich people revealing how not that smart they are. And now some more laughing: hahahaha.

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• Jason Kottke

It’s Interesting How the Past Can Make You Think About the Present....

It’s Interesting How the Past Can Make You Think About the Present. Hamilton Nolan reads a book about the beginning of WWII and “found over and over again that certain entries would vividly remind me of things happening today”.

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• Jason Kottke

Alchemists rejoice! Scientists have turned lead into gold using the Large Hadron...

Alchemists rejoice! Scientists have turned lead into gold using the Large Hadron Collider. “The ALICE scientists calculate that, while they are colliding beams of lead nuclei, they produce about 89,000 gold nuclei per second.”

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• Jason Kottke

New Report Finds Vacationing Sources Habla Un Poquito De Español. “We discovered...

New Report Finds Vacationing Sources Habla Un Poquito De Español. “We discovered that the sample population was eager to approach locals and strike up conversations about la comida, la playa, y las chicas bonitas.”

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• Jason Kottke

What I Learned at My First Tree-Climbing Workshop. “For many, climbing also...

What I Learned at My First Tree-Climbing Workshop. “For many, climbing also rekindled a connection to the natural world. ‘It reconnected me with nature in a way that I haven’t really felt since I was a kid.’”

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• Jason Kottke

A cute Minecraft-y clicker game. Big plus: finishing it doesn’t take forever....

A cute Minecraft-y clicker game. Big plus: finishing it doesn’t take forever.

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• Jason Kottke

Forget Psychedelics. Everyone’s Microdosing Ozempic Now. (In Hollywood, at least.) “They are...

Forget Psychedelics. Everyone’s Microdosing Ozempic Now. (In Hollywood, at least.) “They are doing it not primarily for weight loss…but for the surprising and widely touted side benefits, particularly its anti-inflammatory properties.”

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