I haven’t watched the NBA in years and I only know about Joel Embiid by media osmosis, but for some reason I spent 45 minutes this morning reading this profile of him.
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From Smithsonian Magazine, the story of how Reading Rainbow came about, in...
From Smithsonian Magazine, the story of how Reading Rainbow came about, in part as an effort to combat schoolchildren’s summer reading slumps.
A collection of photos from the 70s & 80s of kids jumping...
A collection of photos from the 70s & 80s of kids jumping their bikes, sometimes over other kids. In that first pic, there is no way the two kids at the end of the row didn’t get stomped by that landing.
I had no idea Subaru actively courted lesbian car buyers with targeted...
I had no idea Subaru actively courted lesbian car buyers with targeted ad campaigns in the early 90s; here’s a 2016 Planet Money episode about it: When Subaru Came Out.
The Pedestrians Who Abetted a Hawk’s Deadly Attack. “The hawk appears to...
The Pedestrians Who Abetted a Hawk’s Deadly Attack. “The hawk appears to have learned to interpret a traffic signal and take advantage of it, in its quest to hunt. Which is…more impressive than how most humans use a pedestrian crosswalk.”
Photos Show the Vast Scale of China’s Solar Power Projects
Over at the Atlantic, Alan Taylor has collected a bunch of photos showing just how hard China is pushing on solar energy.
As the Trump administration’s “Big, Beautiful Bill” eliminates many clean-energy incentives in the U.S., China continues huge investments in wind an...
Let Your Kid Climb That Tree. “Your fear that your kid will...
Let Your Kid Climb That Tree. “Your fear that your kid will get hurt is depriving them of something they’ll never get back.” (The bit about “kinematic movers” is really interesting.)
Bruce Springsteen on Surviving Depression and His Strategy for Living Through the...
Bruce Springsteen on Surviving Depression and His Strategy for Living Through the Visitations of the Darkness. “My depression is spewing like an oil spill all over the beautiful turquoise-green gulf of my carefully planned and controlled existence.”
Writing Advice and Literary Wisdom from the Great E.B. White. “A blank...
Writing Advice and Literary Wisdom from the Great E.B. White. “A blank sheet of paper holds the greatest excitement there is for me — more promising than a silver cloud, prettier than a little red wagon. It holds all the hope there is, all fears.”
A great look at how Baltimore’s investment in an “ecosystem of community–oriented...
A great look at how Baltimore’s investment in an “ecosystem of community–oriented interventions” has drastically reduced violent crime in the city by treating crime as a public health crisis.
Bloc Party’s Tiny Desk Concert
Twenty years! It’s been twenty years since Bloc Party’s debut album Silent Alarm was released. To celebrate, the band stopped by the NPR office’s for a Tiny Desk Concert.
To celebrate, this Tiny Desk set begins with the super catchy and energetic pop anthem “Banquet” from Silent Alarm. The band continues with a couple songs from 2008’s Intimacy: the shimmery, glockenspiel-forward “Signs,” then “Mercury,” where we give a sneak peek of Okereke’s vocal effects rig under the Desk. Bloc Party closes with “Blue,” a sweet song on the slower side of the band’s catalog. It ends quietly, yet powerfully, as Okereke sings, “I fall asleep on your sleeve / with those three words in my dreams.”
Still bangs. (via @unlikelywords.bsky.social)
Tags: Bloc Party · music · Tiny Desk Concerts · video
A map of the best places to see the Northern Lights. “Kuril’s...
A map of the best places to see the Northern Lights. “Kuril’s analysis culminated in a map highlighting the locations with the best potential to see the northern lights.”
CEO Tony Stubblebine shares how Medium went from the brink of shutting...
CEO Tony Stubblebine shares how Medium went from the brink of shutting down to being profitable for almost a year now. “In 2022, Medium was losing $2.6M each month. We were also losing subscribers…”
After dealing with years of “Xfinity’s bullcrap” as customers, a pair of...
After dealing with years of “Xfinity’s bullcrap” as customers, a pair of brothers built an all-fiber ISP that’s cheaper & faster to compete with them.
Best of Luck With the Wall
In his film Best of Luck With the Wall, director Josh Begley takes us on a journey across the entire US/Mexico border. It’s a simple premise — a continuous display of 200,000 satellite images of the border from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico — but one that deliver...
“BuildMyTransit is a web app to design, visualize, and simulate New York...
“BuildMyTransit is a web app to design, visualize, and simulate New York City subway systems. Perfect for exploring ‘what-if’ scenarios.” You can design new routes, add/remove trains, and run simulations.
Historical Tech Tree. “The tech tree is an interactive visualization of technological...
Historical Tech Tree. “The tech tree is an interactive visualization of technological history from 3 million years ago to today. A work in progress, it currently contains 1890 technologies and 2192 connections between them.”
The Best Brushes Are the Ones You Make Yourself
Wanting to get away from manufactured perfection, artist Wang Mansheng makes his own paint brushes.
Manufactured things are, you know, have a certain form. Like a manufactured brush; they’re all really fine. The factory trying to make as fine as they could, but when you use it, all the lines come out smooth and beautiful. But sometimes, I think it’s too perfect, because I really love the rough surface of a rock or the big tree trunk.
Wang’s work is currently on display at The Huntington near LA in San Marino, CA.
Tags: art · video · Wang Mansheng
Marc Andreessen Is a Traitor. “He has betrayed the very system that...
Marc Andreessen Is a Traitor. “He has betrayed the very system that made his success possible; the system in which he and a handful of others like him have profited disproportionately relative to their contribution.”
Please Shout Fire. This Theater Is Burning. “The United States is being...
Please Shout Fire. This Theater Is Burning. “The United States is being destroyed from within, and mainstream journalism isn’t making that clear.”
How Was the Wheel Invented? “How did an obscure, scientifically naive mining...
How Was the Wheel Invented? “How did an obscure, scientifically naive mining society discover the wheel, when highly advanced civilizations, such as the ancient Egyptians, did not?”
This is great: a proposed “poli-sci course that equips one for modern...
This is great: a proposed “poli-sci course that equips one for modern political analysis better than most classic theory and has a syllabus sourced entirely from random internet posts”.
Good lord, the World Cup is going to be a total shitshow...
Good lord, the World Cup is going to be a total shitshow next year. And the 2028 LA Olympics. A jingoistic facade papering over a faded superpower careening towards ruin.
“Fed up with big legacy news? Here are 13 independent, worker-owned outlets...
“Fed up with big legacy news? Here are 13 independent, worker-owned outlets to support.”
The Media’s Pivot to AI Is Not Real and Not Going to...
The Media’s Pivot to AI Is Not Real and Not Going to Work. “The only AI-related business strategy that makes any sense whatsoever is one where media companies and journalists go to great pains to show their audiences that they are human beings…”
The Cheese Was Free
I am only a couple of chapters into James McBride’s Deacon King Kong (loving it!) and in the first chapter, there’s a relatively short passage about some cheese, Jesus’s Cheese, that comes into the lives of the members of the book’s community that is a first ballot Hall of F...
A lovely, beautiful, and uplifting obituary of poet and activist Andrea Gibson....
A lovely, beautiful, and uplifting obituary of poet and activist Andrea Gibson. “One of the last things Andrea said on this plane was, ‘I fucking loved my life.’”
DOJ Removes All Mentions Of Justice From Website. This Onion article got...
DOJ Removes All Mentions Of Justice From Website. This Onion article got me for a sec; totally plausible. Wouldn’t be surprised if they actually changed it to the Department of Jesus or something.
Photos From the 2025 BigPicture Natural World Photography Competition
Here are some of the winners, finalists, and nominees from the 2025 BigPicture Natural World Photography Competition and their People’s Choice Awards. Photos by (from top to bottom): Simon Biddie, Kat Zhou, Zhou Donglin, Jonas Beyer, and Hitomi Tsuchiya.
A Ghost goby (Ple...
America is Losing Its Soul in Brown-Skinned Screams and White-Skinned Silence. “The...
America is Losing Its Soul in Brown-Skinned Screams and White-Skinned Silence. “The greatest, most grievous failure of America in this moment isn’t legislative but moral. The soul of this place is dying in screams and silences.”