“Venus Williams is making history in her return to the U.S. Open later this month as the oldest singles player to take the court in more than 40 years.” Go Venus!
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Max Cooper, Repetition
This music video, directed by Kevin McGloughlin for Max Cooper’s song Repetition, features remixed fractal-like forms from the constructed world (roads, skyscrapers, wind turbines, etc.) interspersed with scenes from nature. Totally mesmerizing. (You’ve got a give it a minute to get going though, especially if you’re not a fan of gradual repetitive music. I was in a trance by the end. 😵💫)
Tags: Kevin McGloughlin · Max Cooper · mesmerizing · music · video
Kieran Healy recently became a US citizen. “I know the nationalities of...
Kieran Healy recently became a US citizen. “I know the nationalities of my fellow oath-takers because of the next stage of the ceremony. This was the Roll Call of Nations. I did not know this was going to happen.”
Building a Watch From Scratch in a Brooklyn Basement
Giles Clement tends to go a little overboard with his hobbies. During the pandemic, he taught himself to repair old watches and then decided to try building one himself. Taylor Scott Mason made a short documentary about Clement and his effort to build a watch from scratch in...
Michael Chabon on the time he tried to get hired to write...
Michael Chabon on the time he tried to get hired to write the script for a Fantastic Four movie (in 1995). “What are you doing here? I mean, you’re, like, a serious writer.”
Generous Media
In the latest issue of his monthly newsletter, Robin Sloan shared a quick reflection on why the Criterion closet interviews are so effective, entertaining, and worth participating in for celebrities (emphasis mine):
Let’s think about the format that is the Criterion clos...
From the inbox: “ldial is a website for listening to a curated...
From the inbox: “ldial is a website for listening to a curated list of community radio stations from across the US. I took efforts to make it super fast. To me, the random button feels like magic.”
“If you want to fight for what’s right in this moment, and...
“If you want to fight for what’s right in this moment, and forge politics that exist in opposition to what Trump represents, you must protect anyone chased by the fascists.”
Radiohead: Hail to the Thief (Live Recordings 2003-2009)
Radiohead dropped a surprise album yesterday, a live album of songs from Hail to the Thief. You can find the album on various streaming platforms, including Bandcamp, Spotify, and Apple Music. The band’s lead singer Thom Yorke says of the album:
In the process of thinkin...
“Competitive authoritarianism [can be seen as] a prevalent form of government throughout...
“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...
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.’”
The Red Onion Font
The latest post from The Pudding starts off about as good as possible to attract the likes of me: “This is a project about onions and math.” I mean, yes. I’m in. And I enjoyed the interactive article, Dicing an Onion the Mathematically Optimal Way, but the design was absolut...
The Colors of the World, Seen From the International Space Station. “Recent...
The Colors of the World, Seen From the International Space Station. “Recent photographs from crew members aboard the ISS show some spectacular views of auroras, moonsets, the Milky Way, and more, seen from from their vantage point in orbit.”
Silicon Doodles & Microchip Art
Back in the earlier days of microchips, the designers would sometimes add tiny images to the chips, for fun. From NPR:
Many of the doodles came from engineers who weren’t doing it for an audience.
“We did it for ourselves,” said Willy McAllister, a retired electrica...
Dictators love a crisis. “For reasons of both personality and political ambition,...
Dictators love a crisis. “For reasons of both personality and political ambition, Trump needs a crisis to govern — or rather, to rule. And if the actual conditions of reality will not give him a state of exception, he’ll create one himself.”
The Story of the Chinese Farmer
In a talk about Taoism called Swimming Headless, Alan Watts shared with his audience the parable of the Chinese farmer.
Once upon a time, there was a Chinese farmer who lost a horse. Ran away. And all the neighbors came ‘round that evening and said, “that’s too bad.”
An...
“Today, general officers no longer seem to see themselves as guardians of...
“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.”
The ‘What It’s Like To Be…’ podcast features interviews with people about...
The ‘What It’s Like To Be…’ podcast features interviews with people about their jobs (recently: a deli owner, a harbor pilot, a hospice nurse, and a brain surgeon). The host told me it’s “Studs Terkel meets Ted Lasso”.
A forthcoming book from long-time technology writer David Pogue: Apple: The First...
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...
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...
“‘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...
I love that The Kid Should See This has dozens of videos about poop, including a recent one about why poop is brown.
At 40, She Discovered She Was One of America’s Best Free Divers....
At 40, She Discovered She Was One of America’s Best Free Divers. Sara Burnett took a free diving intro course and a year later she competed in a world championship for the US team. “Why am I doing an extreme sport at this age?”
If you’re still back-to-school (or racing-the-tariffs) shopping, these M4 Macbook Airs are...
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.”
Car and plane travel from Canada to the US has dropped sharply...
Car and plane travel from Canada to the US has dropped sharply year-over-year, with a 37% drop in July car trips and 26% drop in air travel. Not sure why they call it a “boycott” — the Trump regime’s outright hostility to outsiders is the cause here.
The Only Time Prince & Miles Davis Jammed Together Onstage: Watch the...
The Lego Game Boy
Lego is coming out with a near 1:1 replica of Nintendo’s iconic Game Boy handheld video game system. It’s not playable, but you can insert & remove Lego game cartridges and use different lenticular screens to pretend. Here’s a short video showing how it “works”:
You can preorder the kit from Amazon; the price is $60, which is only $30 less than the actual Game Boy cost when it was released.1
I still have my original Game Boy from 1989 — it’s sitting on a table near where I’m typing this. I played so so much Tetris on that thing… (via moss & fog)
Although $90 in 1989 is $235 in 2025 dollars, which is right around what the Playdate handheld costs.↩
Tags: Game Boy · Lego · Nintendo · remix · video games
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A Man Read 3,599 Books Over 60 Years, and Now His Family...
A Man Read 3,599 Books Over 60 Years, and Now His Family Has Shared the Entire List Online. That’s roughly a book a week. The list runs over 100 pages and he checked most of the books out of the local library.
The Boston Globe’s Prescient 2016 View of Our Trumpist Future
On April 9, 2016, several months before Donald Trump was elected President for the first time, the Boston Globe ran an editorial entitled “The GOP must stop Donald Trump”.
Donald J. Trump’s vision for the future of our nation is as deeply disturbing as it is profoundly un-...
Wplace Is Exploding Online Amid a New Era of Youth Protest. “Some...
Wplace Is Exploding Online Amid a New Era of Youth Protest. “Some pixels started movements. At one point there was just a single wooden ship flying a Brazilian flag off Portugal. Soon, a fleet appeared, a tongue-in-cheek invasion.”