Fishdraw is a single JavaScript file that generates...
Fishdraw is a single JavaScript file that generates drawings of fish. There’s an option to slow the animation down so you can watch it draw the fish line-by-line.
Big Math: The Hidden Codes That Run Our World. “The epic...
Big Math: The Hidden Codes That Run Our World . “The epic story of how a handful of surprisingly simple mathematical ideas have sparked today’s technological breakthroughs — from…
Is the camera shutter noise the last skeuomorphic element...
Is the camera shutter noise the last skeuomorphic element left in iOS ?
How Hunting Owls Use Sound to “See” Under the Snow
The great grey owl basically has a sound cone for a face, which helps it hunt down voles burrowing through snow in the winter. The owl’s large facial ruff, formed of dense…
Tiny Little Office is “an office suite with no accounts...
Tiny Little Office is “an office suite with no accounts and no server that holds your work. Every document lives in the address of its page… Copy the link and you have copied the…
Where You Should Live: Five Factors to Keep in Mind
I ran across this post on Instagram by Bobby in Space (who posts about design and the psychology of place) and wanted to pull it onto the actual internet. Here are some snippets…
The Muffled Thud of Fire in the Hole
From a 2014 article on The Dark Power of Fraternities by Caitlin Flanagan, this is one hell of an opening paragraph: One warm spring night in 2011, a young man named Travis Hughes…
Q: “An AI tool with all your passwords or a bear in the...
Q: “An AI tool with all your passwords or a bear in the woods?” Signal president Meredith Whittaker : “Look, I know social media wants this. I know you guys want this little clip.…
Anthropic says that, as of Sept ‘26, they were merging...
Anthropic says that, as of Sept ‘26, they were merging 30,000 code changes per day , a 12-fold increase from just four months earlier. The volume increased so much that they wrote…
Whoa, the Lion Nebula!
NASA’s JWST recently snapped this image of the Lion Nebula (NGC 2392) . Massive stars undergo supernova explosions at the end of their lives, but these kinds of events are few and…
The Case for Quitting: The Surprising Benefits of Opting...
The Case for Quitting: The Surprising Benefits of Opting Out by Lindsay Crouse. “When perseverance turns against us, quitting isn’t just a way out. Often, it’s the first step to…
It’s time to de-privatize the US government. “The problem...
It’s time to de-privatize the US government . “The problem is not just that privatization is often inefficient because it adds a nontransparent layer of profiteering on top of…
“If a human did this, it would be an instant Fields...
“If a human did this, it would be an instant Fields Medal, no questions asked.” OpenAI recently released 350+ proofs of mathematical theorems, all in one go . “I imagine many…
“I’m forced to admit that these AI-decompiled web browser...
“I’m forced to admit that these AI-decompiled web browser ports of Call of Duty: Black Ops, Halo: CE, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, Skate 3, and The Simpsons: Hit and Run actually…
The People Holding Up the Internet. Amazing to see how...
The People Holding Up the Internet . Amazing to see how much of the modern internet still depends on the volunteer work of individual people. 4 billion phones rely on the time…
ArtCraft is building open source versions of what looks...
ArtCraft is building open source versions of what looks like most of Adobe’s Creative Cloud apps . Oh, and a word processor and a spreadsheet app because why not?
The Worst Way To Get To Space. I’d never heard the story...
The Worst Way To Get To Space . I’d never heard the story of the manhole cover possibly propelled into orbit by a nuclear blast — it was estimated to be moving at ~42 miles/sec.…
Overdose Offsets: Why Every Bag of Fentanyl I Sell Is Net...
Overdose Offsets: Why Every Bag of Fentanyl I Sell Is Net Life-Positive . “Every death on my corner is offset, with a third of a toddler left over, and I’d like that number in the…
Thing I am going to make time for in the next few days:...
Thing I am going to make time for in the next few days: Harry Styles and Thom Yorke in conversation . “My laptop has been dead for about 6 years. I don’t know where my charger…
Improving Conversation on KDO
I’ve been really pleased with how KDO comments are working lately — you folks have been lively, informative, fun, and pushing conversations beyond what I can individually manage.…
Beautiful Hand-Painted Globes
Bellerby & Co. Globemakers are one of the world’s last remaining makers of globes by hand. Their Instagram account is chock full of their handiwork. If I could afford it (£2000!),…
My friend Matt was recently here for a week in Tokyo and...
My friend Matt was recently here for a week in Tokyo and wrote up his experience and observations . “I don’t think humans were ever meant to experience that many eyes and faces at…
Why I Did Not Leave Nazi Germany in Time. “Many of us...
Why I Did Not Leave Nazi Germany in Time . “Many of us feared the shock of being uprooted and tried to avoid it if at all possible. But to understand this reaction…I say that…
All the Percents on Star Trek: TNG
I 100% love this video of every time someone says a percentage on Star Trek: The Next Generation. And the word “percent” has lost all of its meaning due to semantic satiation .…
Nearly 4M Records of Enslaved People in 20 Former British...
Nearly 4M Records of Enslaved People in 20 Former British Colonies Now Searchable Online . “ The Former British Colonies Enslavement Registers contains about 300,000 pages…
Prompting as Self-Portrait. “We need the blank page and...
Prompting as Self-Portrait . “We need the blank page and the silence to go deeper into our thoughts and our understanding of ourselves and of the world.”
After working hard taking away the civil rights of people...
After working hard taking away the civil rights of people and granting more powers to our Mob Boss President, Chief Justice John Roberts retreats to a Maine island for the summer.…
Back in 2005, a group of restorers established a hidden...
Back in 2005, a group of restorers established a hidden workshop in Paris’s Panthéon and snuck into the building for a whole year to repair an antique clock . “The group managed…
Any Human Ever randomly picks an average person from some...
Any Human Ever randomly picks an average person from some point in human history and tells you about what their life was like. Mine was a woman born in 1547: “Of all the sounds of…
Abolish Frat Culture. “This is going to be uncomfortable...
Abolish Frat Culture . “This is going to be uncomfortable for anyone with a kid in a fraternity to hear: If your son finds himself in a group that would send a ‘free pussy’ text,…
Mamdani’s “Richard Scarry Socialism” Can Make City Life...
Mamdani’s “Richard Scarry Socialism” Can Make City Life Simple Again . “It is an astonishing indictment of our times that the cities of our picture books can seem like a radical…
The Global Rise of Electoral Dictatorships. Is the U.S....
The Global Rise of Electoral Dictatorships. Is the U.S. Next? “Electoral dictators — who identify as presidents and prime ministers — hold uncompetitive and unfair elections after…
Bertrand Russell Shows How to Respond to Fascists Who Want to Debate
Late in his life, the prominent English mathematician and philosopher Bertrand Russell was subject to an attempt in the early 1960s by Oswald Mosley to provoke him into a debate…
“Margaret Hamilton, who led the 100-person team that...
“Margaret Hamilton, who led the 100-person team that wrote the onboard software for the Apollo missions, guiding Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to a safe landing on the moon, died…
Great Deals on Apple Stuff Today
Just wanted to dip in here to say that Amazon is running another one of their sales for Prime members , which can be a great opportunity to upgrade some tech items at lower…
In 2005, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory calculated that...
In 2005, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory calculated that the water stored by China’s huge Three Gorges Dam is enough to increase the length of a day by 0.06 microseconds and move…
Blue Planet III
BBC Earth is returning to the ocean. 25 years after the first installment, the legendary naturalist, presenter, and centenarian David Attenborough narrates Blue Planet III . This…
The Job Trail, a web game about making it through 52...
The Job Trail , a web game about making it through 52 weeks as a laid-off creative worker. Based on The Oregon Trail. My first try: “You have died of burnout. Week 13. 51…
Silent Friend
Silent Friend is a historical drama written and directed by Hungarian filmmaker Ildikó Enyedi. Here’s the description: In the botanical garden of a medieval German university, a…
Watch One of Radiohead’s Best Live Shows: Bonnaroo 2006
Back in ~2008, right on the cusp of stardom, Lady Gaga did a crate-digging video in a London record shop and named Radiohead’s set at Bonnaroo 2006 as her favorite show she’s ever…
Things That Are Good to Do. Including “admit what you...
Things That Are Good to Do . Including “admit what you don’t know”, “put the cart away”, “rest before you’re exhausted” (I often get this one wrong), and “walk home if you can”.
An interesting long profile of Mark Zuckerberg. “Mark is...
An interesting long profile of Mark Zuckerberg . “Mark is the fucking Terminator. He’s actually not an asshole, which is interesting. He’s not a miserable fuck. But his source of…
From a tongue-in-cheek Google Japan, a conveyor belt...
From a tongue-in-cheek Google Japan, a conveyor belt keyboard , where the keys move and your hand stays still while typing. One of several unusual keyboards released by the…
AI-generated images don’t have to look like AI-generated...
AI-generated images don’t have to look like AI-generated images… they can be any style you want . (It’s just going to get more and more difficult to tell…)
The Best Sandwich Shop in America?
YouTuber Rob Martinez travelled to Columbus, Ohio to tell the story of what he calls the best sandwich shop in America, Wario’s Beef and Pork . Here’s part of the transcript of…
Richard Linklater is directing a film adaptation of the...
Richard Linklater is directing a film adaptation of the Sondheim musical Merrily We Roll Along . Shooting started in 2019 and will continue until 2040 to match the musical’s…
Designer Giorgia Lupi: In Defense of the Detour. “I fear...
Designer Giorgia Lupi: In Defense of the Detour . “I fear that A.I. is undermining what makes us most human — the ability to translate lived experience and nuanced thoughts into a…
The Future Library
A few years ago, in a forest just outside of Oslo, 1000 trees were planted. In 2114, after a century of growth, the trees will be cut down and made into paper for an anthology of…
Stalin Boys is a short documentary about a Joseph...
Stalin Boys is a short documentary about a Joseph Stalin-obsessed middle-schooler from a tiny Texas town who writes a play about the Soviet dictator and enlists his three friends…
Mapsnap is a program designed to take old Sanborn...
Mapsnap is a program designed to take old Sanborn insurance maps (block-by-block maps of every US city from 1870-1960) and aligning them with modern maps.
Where in the world are typefaces being designed? The US,...
Where in the world are typefaces being designed? The US, Germany, and France…but also the UK, Netherlands, and Indonesia.
Mapping Tariffs explores “the potential impacts of...
Mapping Tariffs explores “the potential impacts of tariffs on jobs and businesses across Canadian cities and communities at the neighbourhood and city level”.
Random TV Time: watch old TV pulled from the Internet...
Random TV Time : watch old TV pulled from the Internet Archive. 17 channels to surf, including cartoons, 1960s TV, and one that’s only old commercials.
Eternal Family is a media service that shows “a...
Eternal Family is a media service that shows “a hand-picked collection of unique & rare films across Vintage Animation, Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Horror, Action, Documentaries, Found Tapes…
The 100 Best TV Shows of the 21st Century
Last week, the NY Times dropped a list of The 100 Best TV Shows of the 21st Century , as picked by a panel of “more than 500 influential stars, showrunners and other notable names…
Ooh, Mestra is a new short story from Madeline Miller...
Ooh, Mestra is a new short story from Madeline Miller ( Circe , Song of Achilles ). “Mestra, daughter of the King of Thessaly, is granted a unique gift by Poseidon: The ability to…
The Student Journalists Who Never Let the Cornell Assault...
The Student Journalists Who Never Let the Cornell Assault Case Go . “Why be financially independent, [editor in chief Sophia Dasser] wondered, if not to publish sharp-edged views…
How to Make Perfect Soft-Scrambled Eggs
I love watching Gordon Ramsay make scrambled eggs. I first saw this video years ago and, possibly because I am an idiot, have yet to attempt these eggs at home. You and me, eggs,…
The best multi day hikes in the world. “As an avid hiker,...
The best multi day hikes in the world . “As an avid hiker, who spends most of her time hiking, I have done more than 100 multi day hikes all over the world. This list includes 25…
OrySnack: The Bar Where Bartenders Work From Home. Small...
OrySnack: The Bar Where Bartenders Work From Home . Small robot servers in this Japanese bar are controlled by people who can only work from home because of disability or illness.
“Sky burial is a funeral practice in which a corpse is...
“ Sky burial is a funeral practice in which a corpse is placed on a mountaintop to decompose while exposed to the elements, or to be eaten by scavenging animals.” (CW: there are…
Treat your to-read pile like a river, not a bucket....
Treat your to-read pile like a river, not a bucket . “There’s no point beating yourself up for failing to clear a backlog (of unread books, undone tasks, unrealized dreams) that…
Manchester City guilty over Premier League charges after...
Manchester City guilty over Premier League charges after £900m of ‘sham’ contracts . The “financial doping” scheme allowed the club’s owners to pump large sums of money into the…
A raw, revealing interview with an 80-year-old Sylvester...
A raw, revealing interview with an 80-year-old Sylvester Stallone on the occasion of his new memoir, The Steps . I listened to about half of this and had to stop…it’s incredibly…
The Tell, a very long read about Thomas Goldstein...
The Tell , a very long read about Thomas Goldstein (SCOTUSblog founder, high-powered lawyer, poker player) who once played a legendary game at the Bellagio where he bet wildly,…
A “Kelvin wave” powered by El Niño will soon raise sea...
A “Kelvin wave” powered by El Niño will soon raise sea levels in California “by half a foot or more” . “It’s ‘highly probable’ that California will soon witness its highest sea…
Map of the Lighthouses of the World
From mapped.earth, a map of every lighthouse on the planet , along with other charted lights like lighted buoys and such. The screenshots above are static but the lights on the…
Looks like Every Frame a Painting is ramping up again!...
Looks like Every Frame a Painting is ramping up again! “Over the last 10 years, Taylor and I have amassed a series of ideas — some of them originally designed to be on Youtube,…
“Influencers are the private equity of culture: draining...
“ Influencers are the private equity of culture : draining whatever’s ‘cool’ until higher prices and worse experiences push out the original fan base. Then they move on to the…
Blackbird Spyplane’s Jonah Weiner on his past career as a...
Blackbird Spyplane’s Jonah Weiner on his past career as a profile writer . “If you’re doing the job well, you find yourself asking them profoundly intimate questions, and they…
Amazon is releasing some new Kindle models, including a...
Amazon is releasing some new Kindle models, including a thinner Paperwhite (my fave) with an aluminum back, more storage, and faster interactions . If I didn’t just get a new…
Ominous Thunderstorm Rolling Across the Fields
This is a three-hour, high-quality recording of thunderstorms in the distance in the Slovakian countryside. The rest of the channel is loaded of similar (and similarly long)…
Craig Mod made a cool mini-site cataloging all of the...
Craig Mod made a cool mini-site cataloging all of the long walks he’s taken since 2009, with maps and GPS tracks and links to essays/books/media that resulted from them.
The “Insane” Cinematography of Pride and Prejudice
I love 2005’s Pride and Prejudice, starring Keira Knightly & Matthew Macfadyen and directed by Joe Wright. So I really enjoyed Danny Boyd’s video essay about the great…
“There are more self-storage facilities in the U.S. than...
“There are more self-storage facilities in the U.S. than there are Starbucks, McDonald’s, Walmart, Home Depot, Domino’s, Dunkin’, and Costco locations combined.”
The Bayeux Tapestry of Fascism. “What’s this middle bit?”...
The Bayeux Tapestry of Fascism . “What’s this middle bit?” “Why, that’s the Battle of Legitimate Concerns!”
Lobster is Lobster: a language guessing game. “Lobster is...
Lobster is Lobster : a language guessing game. “Lobster is lobster in English. Langosta is lobster in ___”
You can destroy kottke.org if you want. Or any other site!
You can destroy kottke.org if you want. Or any other site!
JumpStar is the world’s strongest Chinese Checkers AI...
JumpStar is the world’s strongest Chinese Checkers AI engine. Designed to emulate AlphaGo and Stockfish but for Chinese Checkers. The model was trained entirely on a M4 MacBook.…
118 Things to Do Instead of Doomscrolling. Including “put...
118 Things to Do Instead of Doomscrolling . Including “put together a puzzle”, “go for a bike ride”, “hold a plank for as long as you can — even if it’s only a second”, and “make…
O Superman, Laurie Anderson
O Superman by artist Laurie Anderson from 1981. Some of the lyrics: ‘Cause when love is gone There’s always justice And when justice is gone There’s always force And when force is…
Prince Was One of the First Players of The Oregon Trail
In this video , Patrick Hicks tells the story of the development of the classic educational video game The Oregon Trail and how Prince (you know, the genius musical artist) was…
The Ku Klux Klan is rebranding itself as The Knights...
The Ku Klux Klan is rebranding itself as The Knights Party , centered on “family and faith” along with proud & open white supremacy. 💩🖕
On The Joy Of Ownership
A lovely contemplative short video featuring Toshiyuki Ueno of the Japanese fashion brand Visvim talking about craftsmanship. We want to make things that people will get attached…
Chasing a Plane Across the Moon
Agustín Ferrando Trenchi became a little obsessed with the moon as a kid. As an adult, he’s taken tons of photos and hundreds of hours of footage of the moon. After seeing an…
A short (too short?) video from Little White Lies on...
A short (too short?) video from Little White Lies on designer Saul Bass and his influence on the art of movie title design. They also did videos on Pablo Ferro and Kyle Cooper .
Lots and Lots and Lots of Control Panels
To go along with my recent post about control rooms , here’s the Control Panels group on Flickr , containing almost 3000 photos of control interfaces for all kinds of things.…
So Many Amazing Control Rooms
From the Control Rooms group on Flickr . 🤩 So many little details in all of these photos to pore over. See also Why So Many Control Rooms Were Seafoam Green , The User Experience…
Is American Culture Simply Bad Now? I’ve been hanging...
Is American Culture Simply Bad Now? I’ve been hanging with my friend Matt while he’s here in Tokyo for a trip, which he refers to as his “America is Cooked Tour” as he keeps…
May Peace Prevail on Earth
Here are some photos I’ve taken during my time in Tokyo so far. I’ve been posting new stuff more or less daily to Instagram . Somehow I’m already about halfway through my stay.…
Wildwood
Laika is the stop-motion animation studio that made Coraline & Kubo and the Two Strings. Their newest film, Wildwood , looks pretty incredible; have a look at the trailer .…
Nappy is a site offering free stock photos of Black and...
Nappy is a site offering free stock photos of Black and brown people. ( The site says they’re going offline in a few months due to a falloff in demand bc of AI. Maybe Internet…
Unseen Places: Rediscovering the Art of Observation by...
Unseen Places: Rediscovering the Art of Observation by Anna Kodé. Looking forward to this one…Kodé is one of my favorite journalists covering urban culture. “Observation…is not a…
Every US Electrical Outlet Explained
This video from Practical Engineering was very illuminating to me, a naive person who thought there were only three types of electrical outlets used in the US — the two-prong, the…
The 2026 Comedy Wildlife Awards Finalists
The Comedy Wildlife Awards have announced the finalists for the 2026 competition and, well, these awards never miss. You can almost hear the background music for some of these……
Japanese book rave. A club in Tokyo spread carpets on the...
Japanese book rave . A club in Tokyo spread carpets on the dance floor, played ambient music, and invited daytime clubgoers to chill out and read. Would 100% frequent a…
Weball allows you to roll up websites into a Katamari...
Weball allows you to roll up websites into a Katamari ball. You can even roll up KDO . This is too much fun. See also Destroy Any Website .
How many shots are in the average movie? How does it...
How many shots are in the average movie? How does it compare to the past? “You might expect the editor to be the most important factor in the number of shots, but in fact, knowing…
I just went down a rabbit hole of incense seals. So cool.
I just went down a rabbit hole of incense seals . So cool.
Bill McKibben: I’m Exhausted. You’re Demoralized. We...
Bill McKibben: I’m Exhausted. You’re Demoralized. We Weren’t Built for a World Like This. The human nervous system wasn’t designed for the polycrisis. “Among all the other dangers…
Don’t Cook That: a collection of real recipes that you...
Don’t Cook That : a collection of real recipes that you shouldn’t make. Cholera remedy recipe calls for “equal parts laudanum, rhubarb, double-strength capsicum, camphor and…
A 15-minute tour of former NFL coach Mike Tomlin’s...
A 15-minute tour of former NFL coach Mike Tomlin’s Minecraft city . As previously mentioned , he started playing the game to connect with his kids and never stopped. (This is only…
“‘Digger’ has a lot of haters. Here’s why they’re wrong.”...
“‘Digger’ has a lot of haters. Here’s why they’re wrong.” Digger is fascinating — I can’t remember another big movie where public opinion has been so divided (it’s either genius…
Girls is coming back to HBO for a 5-episode run. Lena...
Girls is coming back to HBO for a 5-episode run . Lena Dunham, Allison Williams, Jemima Kirke, Zosia Mamet, and Andrew Rannells are all returning. I loved this show and will tune…
Teaser trailer for season three of The Lord of The Rings:...
Teaser trailer for season three of The Lord of The Rings: The Rings of Power . Maybe this isn’t the best show in the world, but I have been enjoying it. I thought s02 was better…
Reelizer: A Trove of Movie Art
Reelizer is a personal project by Roger Erik Tinch that is a collection of movie art: prints, posters, illustrations, albums, books, covers, etc. Careful, you can lose hours…
In 1996, the Blondin family drove all around the US,...
In 1996, the Blondin family drove all around the US, blogging about it all before “blog” was even a word . “We were doing something that had no name and no manual, and we were…
Stutterer
Stutterer by Benjamin Cleary won the 2016 Oscar for Best Live Action Short Film and is now available to view online for free courtesy of the New Yorker . It’s a thirteen-minute…
The first trailer for Greta Gerwig’s Narnia: The...
The first trailer for Greta Gerwig’s Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew . I love Gerwig and I know this will be good, but I’m cautiously optimistic that it will be great. (I still…
Crossword Clues Where It’s Clear the Puzzle’s Creator Got...
Crossword Clues Where It’s Clear the Puzzle’s Creator Got Themselves into a Jam Letter-wise . Incl. “Could be found on the second to last line of an optometrist’s vision chart”…
Is This Weird Quiz Game the Toughest F1 Video Game Ever?
It might be that this text-only quiz game from 1993 is the most challenging F1 video game of all time . Here are a couple of the 23 questions from Gerhard Berger’s Formula 1 Quiz:…
So Many Different Mes
Japanese photographer and artist Tomoko Sawada works primarily in self-portraiture. For her first project, she visited ID photo booths to take hundreds of photos of herself,…