All articles from Kottke.org
From Daphni (aka Caribou), a 7hr DJ set . 7 hours!
From Daphni (aka Caribou), a 7hr DJ set. 7 hours!
The trailer for Mary Oliver: Saved by the Beauty of the...
The trailer for Mary Oliver: Saved by the Beauty of the World. The film is showing in select locations around the country and will air on PBS this summer.
Ultimate Online Phreak Box . "This is a free...
Ultimate Online Phreak Box. “This is a free online blue box, red box, and silver box.” (With this and a time machine, you could make free phone calls in the 1970s.)
A tour of the mannequin storage room at FIT . Each...
A tour of the mannequin storage room at FIT. Each era’s mannequins are designed to mimic the “fashionable body” of that time period.
An interview with Ronald Wayne , Apple's forgotten...
An interview with Ronald Wayne, Apple’s forgotten third founder. (He was with the company all of 2 weeks.)
Radiohead Covers Joy Division's Ceremony
From a livestream recorded many years ago, this is Radiohead covering Joy Division’s Ceremony. The song was originally written by Joy Division but the version most people know is New Order’s — it was
Oh wow, this is a trippy game inspired by MC Escher . My...
Oh wow, this is a trippy game inspired by MC Escher. My brain may be permanently broken by this.
A short analysis of what makes Mark Antony's...
A short analysis of what makes Mark Antony’s “Friends, Romans, countrymen…” speech from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar so good and effective.
Using wiki software, old photos, family stories, bank...
Using wiki software, old photos, family stories, bank transactions, social media posts, and an LLM to sift through everything to build a personal encyclopedia.
"Stalin's task in building what Senior calls...
“Stalin’s task in building what Senior calls his ‘Red Empire’ was made so much easier, and so much more brutal, by the intelligence the Cambridge spies passed to Moscow.”
Charcuterie is a visual Unicode symbol explorer. Click...
Charcuterie is a visual Unicode symbol explorer. Click around, search, or use the pencil in the upper left to draw the shape you’re looking for. This is very cool.
Diary Comics From the 1940s
This is wonderful: a Redditor uploaded some of their grandmother’s comics that she made in the 1940s, documenting her marriage to the deployment of her husband for World War II. I never got to meet m
Well, this blows: FSG has shuttered their MCD imprint &...
Well, this blows: FSG has shuttered their MCD imprint & Sean McDonald is leaving the company. MCD published so many good titles/authors: Questlove, Enshittification, Robin Sloan, Jeff VanderMeer, Sloa
This tiny e-ink reader is small enough to attach to...
This tiny e-ink reader is small enough to attach to the back of your phone.
The Headless Mary Magdalene by Artemisia Gentileschi
I’m charmed by this fragment of Artemisia Gentileschi’s painting of Mary Magdalene that’s up for auction later this month. For many years it was in a private collection in Germany where it lay rolled
Between the Impossible and the Inevitable: The Case for...
Between the Impossible and the Inevitable: The Case for Defiance (aka Never F**king Surrender). “We make the future in the present, when we show up. Don’t surrender it to those who would destroy it.”
Hostile Volume is a simple and maddening game where you...
Hostile Volume is a simple and maddening game where you need to hold the audio volume at 25%, which gets increasingly difficult with each level.
International Chess Federation Adds Race Car Piece ....
International Chess Federation Adds Race Car Piece. “The race car piece gets to go twice in one turn because it’s so fast.” Smart to capitalize on F1’s popularity; they should do my fave Monopoly piec
The Fabulous Engineering and Design of Duct Tape
Bill Hammack, aka The Engineer Guy, is an amazing engineering educator and in this video he explains how duct tape is designed to simultaneously do three things well: “a) adhere with light pressure, b
Someone ported Mac OS X to the Nintendo Wii ....
Someone ported Mac OS X to the Nintendo Wii. “Since its launch in 2007, the Wii has seen several operating systems ported to it: Linux, NetBSD, and most-recently, Windows NT. Today, Mac OS X joins tha
"Working with agents feels much less like classic...
“Working with agents feels much less like classic deep work, and much more like playing a game.”
How to Guess If Your Job Will Exist in Five Years ....
How to Guess If Your Job Will Exist in Five Years. “There’s a better question for white-collar workers to ask themselves: Am I coal, or am I a horse?”
Post-Digital Digital Glitch Collages
I really love these collages by Anton Elfilter (Instagram, Threads). They are digital-ish? But also not? And does anyone else see the influence of Hilma af Klint in these? (via moss & fog)
Farmers won their right-to-repair fight against John...
Farmers won their right-to-repair fight against John Deere. The settlement includes a 10-year “agreement by Deere to provide ‘the digital tools required for the maintenance, diagnosis, and repair’ of
This sounds like an interesting podcast series from M....
This sounds like an interesting podcast series from M. Gessen: The Idiot. “Compassion has its limits when it comes to your own cousin.”
Trump Administration Orders Dismantling of the U.S....
Trump Administration Orders Dismantling of the U.S. Forest Service. “…the most devastating attack on the U.S. Forest Service in the agency’s 121-year history. Not a budget cut. Not a policy shift. Not
A Day in the Life of an Enshittificator
From the Norwegian Consumer Council, a funny video that warns against the dangers of enshittification. It’s part of their Breaking Free initiative: Digital products and services are steadily becoming
What it's like to take an 11-day filmmaking...
What it’s like to take an 11-day filmmaking workshop with Werner Herzog (in the Azores). “Take your camera, get the shot, forgo storyboards, don’t overdo it and, above all else, do the doable.” But al
Nine Inch Nails and Boys Noize are releasing a...
Nine Inch Nails and Boys Noize are releasing a collaborative album called (maybe?) Nine Inch Noize. Available April 17.
The Most Beautiful Moment of the Artemis II Mission . It...
The Most Beautiful Moment of the Artemis II Mission. It had little to do with science or celestial bodies; instead it was a moment shared by four curious, caring humans, united in purpose, far from ho
The Sunshine Recorder
I went into this video not knowing anything about how a mid-19th century sunshine recorder might work and was genuinely delighted by the reveal. If you’d like to be similarly surprised, stop reading n
Oh, about that story you may have read about one guy...
Oh, about that story you may have read about one guy single-handedly building a “billion-dollar company” using AI: The New York Times Got Played By A Telehealth Scam And Called It The Future Of AI. Oo
The latest big exposé on the identity of Satoshi...
The latest big exposé on the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto, the secretive inventor of Bitcoin, names cryptographer Adam Back as the likeliest suspect. John Carreyrou has won Pulitzers & helped expose t
Stunning Artemis II Phone Wallpapers
NASA has made available more than a dozen mobile wallpapers of photos taken during the Artemis II mission for free download. Basic Apple Guy has made some wallpapers of his own (that are slightly larg
"I have a feeling that everyone likes using AI...
“I have a feeling that everyone likes using AI tools to try doing someone else’s profession. They’re much less keen when someone else uses it for their profession.”
Resident Advisor: there are signs that Boards of Canada...
Resident Advisor: there are signs that Boards of Canada might release some new music soon. Please let this be true, we need this!
A guide to which Apple chargers to use with which Apple...
A guide to which Apple chargers to use with which Apple products in order to charge the quickest. (Your charger’s wattage really matters when the device’s battery level is 0-50%. After that, less so.)
Solar Eclipse From the Far Side of the Moon
This shot from Artemis II of the Moon eclipsing the Sun is one of the most breathtaking astronomical photos I’ve ever seen. Holy shit. Captured by the Artemis II crew during their lunar flyby on April
I missed that author Tracy Kidder died a few weeks ago ....
I missed that author Tracy Kidder died a few weeks ago. Kidder wrote the excellent The Soul of a New Machine, which won a National Book Award and a Pulitzer Prize.
Hollywood, Ending is John Green's forthcoming...
Hollywood, Ending is John Green’s forthcoming book, “a deeply observed novel about the tension between a public and a private life, and finding your safe someone to hold onto”.
A Catalog of an Entire House/Life
In a period of four years, Belgian photographer Barbara Iweins took a photo of every single thing in her house, “from my daughters torn sock to my sons Lego, but also my vibrator, my anxiolytics… abso
Teenager Michael Haskell " buys abandoned storage...
Teenager Michael Haskell “buys abandoned storage lockers at bargain prices…with the aim of selling their contents for profit”. But: “Two years into his pursuit, he knows all too well that every locker
Shoe Pop Dream Gaze , a three-hour playlist from...
Shoe Pop Dream Gaze, a three-hour playlist from Christina Hendricks’ all-vinyl DJ set. (You may remember Hendricks as Joan on Mad Men.)
"What caught my eye as a designer, as with most...
“What caught my eye as a designer, as with most industrial plants and control rooms of that time, besides the knobs, levers, and buttons, was the use of a very specific seafoam green…” It’s time for s
Really interesting piece from Jodi Ettenberg about...
Really interesting piece from Jodi Ettenberg about microdosing a GLP-1 to manage her mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS). She’s noticed “way less pain” and can eat more foods without reactions (yoghu
The Astor Place Riots of 1849 resulted in "the...
The Astor Place Riots of 1849 resulted in “the greatest loss of life in a civic insurrection in American history up to that time”. And they were incited over the “wrong” actor playing Macbeth.
Transcription by Ben Lerner
I’ve been hearing nothing but good things about Ben Lerner’s new novel Transcription (Amazon) which comes out tomorrow. From the book’s description: What unfolds from this dreamlike circumstance is th
A visual history of exploring the far side of the Moon ....
A visual history of exploring the far side of the Moon. “The Moon is tidally locked, meaning that only one side of the Moon ever faces the Earth. [For millenia,] there was an entire half of our natura
Livestream: Artemis II is about to fly around the Moon ....
Livestream: Artemis II is about to fly around the Moon. At around 1:56pm ET, they’ll surpass the Apollo 13 distance record. And: “At their closest point, they’ll pass roughly 4,000 miles above the lun
New vocabulary word: "RAM harvester" . RAM...
New vocabulary word: “RAM harvester”. RAM chips are so expensive right now that RAM harvesters are stealing them out of demo computers at electronics stores.
Missed this last week: Lane 8 dropped their Spring 2026...
Missed this last week: Lane 8 dropped their Spring 2026 Mixtape. Available on YouTube and Soundcloud.
Pattern Index, Max Cooper
Max Cooper’s music videos are always worth a look. This one, directed by Katia Schutz, is for a song called Pattern Index from his forthcoming album (Feeling Is Structure, May 8). Cooper describes Fee
Lessons from fighting cancer that apply to resisting...
Lessons from fighting cancer that apply to resisting authoritarianism. 1. We need each other. 2. We must move, even when on uncertain ground. 3. Past trauma will bring us down if we do not release its
"The promise of the open web was colonized by...
“The promise of the open web was colonized by internet giants. But the power of LLMs and agentic coding means we can start to take it back. We can build customized, personal software for ourselves tha
Louisiana, Virginia, Massachusetts, New York, and...
Louisiana, Virginia, Massachusetts, New York, and Maryland: only five US states have ever had a Black governor.
We're expected to believe that the NY Times is a...
We’re expected to believe that the NY Times is a serious newspaper when they are sending a reporter to talk to dozens of ppl to debunk a claim from a known conspiracy theorist, fascist, and grifter th
As Slow As Possible . Very very very slow versions of...
As Slow As Possible. Very very very slow versions of three classic video games: Pong, Breakout, and Missile Command. On the slowest setting, you’re almost begging for a notification functionality to a
I have to say that I was a little bit charmed by the...
I have to say that I was a little bit charmed by the trailer for Supergirl. Looks promising.
Rosalía Berghain Live
I thought the official video of Berghain by Rosalía (feat. Björk & Yves Tumor) was great — “I don’t even know what this is — classical pop? surrealist orchestral?” — and this recent live performance f
A women had sex with identical twins (within a 4-day...
A women had sex with identical twins (within a 4-day period), got pregnant, and now it’s impossible to tell which is the father, even with DNA testing.
Tracker dashboard for the Artemis II mission using...
Tracker dashboard for the Artemis II mission using real-time data from JPL.
This Is Us
The commander of NASA’s Artemis II mission to the Moon, Reid Wiseman, took this photo of the Earth as the spacecraft speeds away our planet. There are two auroras (top right and bottom left) and zodi
Does what it says on the tin: acid techno mix in...
Does what it says on the tin: acid techno mix in Japanese sake brewery.
"If Artemis II is successful, the astronauts will...
“If Artemis II is successful, the astronauts will be the first humans to reach the moon’s orbit in more than 50 years, and their path around its far side will take them farther into the universe than
Open Thread #3
Well, I’m back from my west coast trip, but I came home totally sick, the SSL cert for KDO wasn’t automatically renewed1 so the site was down for several hours this morning, and my car has decided it’
" ICE Tours VT provides guided bus tours to many...
“ICE Tours VT provides guided bus tours to many of these facilities, where you will learn about the scope, scale, and history of DHS in Vermont. Think Hollywood star tours, but instead of celebrity ma
" LLM-generated passwords…appear strong, but...
“LLM-generated passwords…appear strong, but are fundamentally insecure, because LLMs are designed to predict tokens – the opposite of securely and uniformly sampling random characters.”
Great Unreleased Track From Kendrick Lamar: Bloody Murder
This has been out in the world for a while, but I just ran across it the other day: Bloody Murder is an unreleased track recorded during the studio sessions for Good Kid, M.A.A.D City. It samples Radi
From Heatmap News & MIT, the Electricity Price Hub is...
From Heatmap News & MIT, the Electricity Price Hub is “a new public data platform that provides monthly, utility-level estimates of residential electricity rates and bills across the United States goi
Scientists have genetically engineered tobacco plants to...
Scientists have genetically engineered tobacco plants to produce five psychedelic compounds, including psilocybin, DMT, and psychedelic compounds secreted by the Sonoran Desert toad.
On Stewart Brand's Maintenance: Of Everything
I was thankful to read Marcin Wichary’s review of Stewart Brand’s Maintenance: Of Everything. I first heard about the book months and months ago; it sounded potentially interesting but I was afraid it
Not sure what level of prank/gag/stunt this is (note...
Not sure what level of prank/gag/stunt this is (note today’s date), but this is supposedly a fully functional compass that only points to the Olive Garden in Times Square.
The Pioneering Coffee House Serving Since 1645 ....
The Pioneering Coffee House Serving Since 1645. “In Oxford, ‘runners’ would go from coffee house to coffee house, picking up all the best news and delivering it back to customers, said Garner. You’re
After two years off, Tom Scott is back with a new...
After two years off, Tom Scott is back with a new YouTube series: “I took a road trip through every county in England, and filmed something interesting in each of them.”
"All of Humanity's Problems Stem From Marc Andreessen's Inability to Sit Quietly in a Room Alone"
Tech investor and billionaire Marc Andreessen has many bad opinions (as evidenced by his investment portfolio). On a recent podcast, he shared a real boner: that he isn’t introspective, that people 40
Nothing Works in Trump's America — Except Racism ....
Nothing Works in Trump’s America — Except Racism. “Trump is objectively bad at running the government, but he’s objectively good at running a Klan rally, and his supporters value the latter so much th
The 2026 issue of the HTML Review , "an annual...
The 2026 issue of the HTML Review, “an annual journal of literature made to exist on the web”.
Mark Simonson reminisces about when he discovered type...
Mark Simonson reminisces about when he discovered type design. “The idea of coming up with an original alphabet design fired my imagination. And learning that it was possible to design type profession
"By focusing its narrative on the tech industry...
“By focusing its narrative on the tech industry itself, Halt and Catch Fire’s staying power has only increased. The story it tells still has something to say about our present-day reality.”
For the latest episode of Design Matters, Debbie Millman...
For the latest episode of Design Matters, Debbie Millman interviews Timothy Snyder about “how we misunderstand freedom, why truth and empathy are under threat, and what this political moment asks of u
Endgame for the Open Web , brought on by LLM bots,...
Endgame for the Open Web, brought on by LLM bots, content summarizing while driving no traffic, increasing paywalls for information of all kinds, locking down APIs (due to AI abuse), attacks on Wikipe
NASA's LRO found a new crater on the Moon...
NASA’s LRO found a new crater on the Moon…it’s 225 meters across and 43 meters deep. “According to predictions based on other lunar landmarks, a crater that big should form only once in 139 years.”
The US Is the Last Big Petrostate
In a conversation with economist Paul Krugman, climate journalist David Roberts asserts that the United States and China are going in different directions in energy, one forwards and one back. One of
Help! My Favorite Athlete Is an Idiot (Alt headline:...
Help! My Favorite Athlete Is an Idiot (Alt headline: When Sports Heroes Have Terrible Opinions). “Just root for the jersey and not necessarily the nitwit wearing it?”
Astronaut Michael Fincke was rendered unable to speak...
Astronaut Michael Fincke was rendered unable to speak while on the ISS, prompting an evacuation to Earth. “We’re almost 100% sure that this is a space-related thing.” Uh, I’ve been reading a lot of sc
A new study shows that since 1990, the United States has...
A new study shows that since 1990, the United States has caused $10 trillion in global climate damages. China is responsible for $9T. “Our emissions have caused damage not only to ourselves, but prett
Jesus Clarifies Return Will Be Strictly Limited To...
Jesus Clarifies Return Will Be Strictly Limited To Carpentry Business. “My sole focus during this Second Coming will be various woodworking projects and not the establishment of a messianic kingdom.”
I love these looping GIF animations from...
I love these looping GIF animations from perfectl00p that use Windows 3.1 elements (Minesweeper, Solitaire, SkiFree, Notepad).