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Here’s the trailer for Bugonia, dir. by Yorgos Lanthimos & starring frequent collaborator Emma Stone. “Two conspiracy obsessed young men kidnap the high-powered CEO of a major company, convinced that she is an alien intent on destroying planet Earth.” [youtube.com]
I Am An AI Hater. “But I am a hater, and I will not be polite. The machine is disgusting and we should break it. The people who build it are vapid shit-eating cannibals glorifying ignorance. I strongly feel that this is an insult to life itself.” [anthonymoser.github.io]
Dan Wang on his forthcoming book, Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future. “China is an engineering state, which brings a sledgehammer to problems both physical and social, in contrast with America’s lawyerly society…” [danwang.co]
A group of 15-20 families in South Portland, Maine have installed landlines for their kids instead of giving them cellphones. The landlines “helped their children become better listeners and more empathetic communicators”. [theatlantic.com]
These contact lenses give their wearers the ability to see infrared light, even with their eyes closed. Sign me up!! [theguardian.com]
A collection of kooky-but-rideable bikes (treadmill bike, pull-up bike, etc.) [instagram.com]
Light pollution has lengthened birds’ days. “Their day is almost an hour longer. They start vocalizing about 20 minutes earlier in the morning and they stop vocalizing about 30 minutes later in the evening.” [npr.org]
Hear a Prehistoric Conch Shell Musical Instrument Played for the First Time in 18,000 Years. “The shell may have had more range, and been more comfortable to play, with its mouthpiece, likely made of a hollow bird bone.” [openculture.com]
Kevin Kelly recently published a guide called “Everything I Know about Self-Publishing”. “The way I approach publishing today is with as much self-publishing as I can handle.” [kk.org]
Werner Herzog doesn’t use a cell phone, but he has joined Instagram. [instagram.com]
“The world’s biggest frogs build their own ponds” is art as a headline because it sounds like an adage your grandfather would tell while fishing one afternoon, but also oops the adage has now been corrupted by grind culture tech bros. [science.org]
“More than 80 years after it was looted by the Nazis from a Jewish art dealer in Amsterdam, a portrait by an Italian master has been spotted on the website of an estate agent advertising a house for sale in Argentina.” [theguardian.com]
Just wanting to let y’all know the cops have never had to chase a bear out of my ice cream shop, though I suppose that’s what an ice cream shop would say if they had had to have cops chase a bear out of it at some point. (via @anecdoche.com) [latimes.com]
California is a whole different deal
Tomatoes. The January in Vermont ones have radicalized me.
Are the AirPods Pro 3 coming soon? Here’s what the rumors say. “Apple is said to be testing a faster audio chip that drives ‘much better’ Active Noise Cancellation than the already‑impressive AirPods Pro 2 manage.” [macrumors.com]
This hilarious commercial for a 90s mail-order punk CD is for a compilation with hardly any punk music on it. [youtube.com]
Love these baseball-card style trading cards that McSweeney’s is doing for authors, including Octavia Butler, Judy Blume, Lauren Groff, Toni Morrison, Stephen King, George Saunders, etc. [kottke.org]
Prosecutors Fail to Secure Indictment Against Man Who Threw Sandwich at Federal Agent. It’s nice to hear that ordinary citizens still have some power and some sense in wielding it. [nytimes.com]
“The evidence for millionaire tax flight is scant. If high earners were truly fleeing high taxes, low-tax states would be swarming with millionaires. Instead, the highest concentrations of millionaires are found in high-tax states.” [rollingstone.com]
A thoughtful post by Philip Bump on the careful use of your power. “[Substack authors] have transferred their power to a company that has used it to promote toxic rhetoric in the guise of ‘having a debate.’” [pbump.net]
Rock guitarist Tom Morello (Rage Against the Machine) has made a playlist called Fuck ICE, “a rocking little soundtrack to enjoy while you drive those bastards out of your neighborhood”. Springsteen, Public Enemy, Joan Baez, Woody Guthrie, etc. (via @prisonculture.bsky.social) [brooklynvegan.com]
Artist Amy Sherald: Censorship Has Taken Hold at the Smithsonian. I Refused to Play Along. “History shows us what happens when governments demand that museums perform loyalty. Nazi Germany weaponized them. So did the Soviet Union.” [msnbc.com]
“Welcome to the Atlas of Space — an interactive visualization to explore the planets, moons, asteroids, and other objects in the Solar System.” [atlasof.space]
Silicon Valley is full of wealthy men who think they’re victims. “I couldn’t, and still can’t, understand this deeply unattractive combination of machismo and self-pity.” [theguardian.com]
Love this little video of city street painters painting “BUS STOP” with surprising precision & artistry. [kottke.org]
The New Yorker’s Alexandra Schwartz profiles Patricia Lockwood. Regarding her forthcoming novel: “‘I wrote it insane and edited it sane’; it is a collaboration between two different people, both of whom happen to be her.” [newyorker.com]
The Armed Takeover of US Cities by the President Is Not a “Distraction”. Jamelle Bouie: “This notion that everything is a distraction coming from Democratic politicians is to me just cowardice.” [kottke.org]
Dan Froomkin of Press Watch: “The top story of the moment is the one story that our most influential newsrooms won’t touch: That the United State has become an authoritarian state.” [presswatchers.org]
*holds up metrocard mic* 100% agree
I disagree with Quentin Tarantino on what his best film is. “So I think Kill Bill is the movie I was born to make, I think Inglourious Basterds is my masterpiece but Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood is my favourite.” [theguardian.com]
TMAP is a screen reader-friendly tool for creating tactile street maps. Raised lines and textures represent roads, pedestrian paths, and railways. [madlabdesign.org]
Did Lead Poisoning Create a Generation of Serial Killers? “Ted Bundy, Charles Manson, and many other notorious figures lived in and around Tacoma in the sixties. A new book argues that there was something in the water.” [newyorker.com]
Video: “Environmental police in Rochedo, Brazil stumbled on an unexpected sight: thousands of orange-and-black bumblebee catfish scaling the slippery rocks behind waterfalls on the Aquidauana River.” [science.org]
Christian Marclay’s Doors. “In Doors (2022), Marclay stitches together hundreds of short film clips featuring the opening and closing of doors.” [kottke.org]
American Millennials Are Dying at an Alarming Rate. “In 2023 there were about 700,000 “missing Americans” — those who died in 2023 but would be alive if they had lived somewhere else.” And it’s not a pandemic thing. [slate.com]
21 Ways People Are Using AI at Work. A high school music teacher used the prompt “make it more Gen X” for helping her write rejection letters that were direct and “thoughtful, but didn’t sound like Mr. Rogers on molly”. 😂 [nytimes.com]
Still one of my favorite McSweeney’s articles: E-mail Addresses It Would Be Really Annoying to Give Out Over the Phone. “MikeAtYahooDotCom@hotmail.com” [mcsweeneys.net]
I’d love to see this go to the next level: in a couple weeks, the call goes out again but this time it’s an invite to do some community service. Mamdani’s campaign knows where help is needed; getting volunteers out into the city is a win/win/win for all.
From John Ganz in Nov 2024: “a list of things I thought the fascism theory of Trumpism predicted could happen”. Many have come to pass. The obstinance in recognizing what’s plainly happening here is upsetting — it wasn’t hard to see it coming. [unpopularfront.news]
“We’re seeing an escalation of authoritarian power on many fronts that has grown unmistakable.” Trump’s FBI Raid of John Bolton’s Home Looks Like a “Five-Alarm Fire”. [newrepublic.com]
If I was in NYC tomorrow, I'd totally be doing this
How to Make Sense of Trump’s Voting Rights Chaos. “It matters that when the president reaches for a strategic distraction, he chooses one that matches Project 2025’s goals.” (Maybe DC’s occupation is, in part, voter intimidation?) [nytimes.com]
I discovered you can watch the entirety of FC Barcelona’s 5-0 win over Real Madrid from 2010 on YouTube. Messi didn’t score, but this is one of the best club teams in history completely dominating a very strong team. [kottke.org]
James Dobson Is Dead, Was A Monster. “The world is a much worse place as a result of his life’s work; it would be a better place had he never been born.” [defector.com]
Actually, Slavery Was Very Bad. “It is worth taking the time, in light of the president’s recent words, to revisit some of…the first-person accounts of formerly enslaved people discussing the myriad horrors they endured.” [theatlantic.com]
“For many, the idea of a ‘frog sauna’ might sound bizarre,” but this simple solution is saving some Australian frogs from a deadly fungus. [nature.com]
Has anyone tried these replacement memory foam ear tips for AirPods Pro 2? Greedy for (even) better noise cancellation and sound quality… [amazon.com]
Just four players span almost the entire 79-year history of the NBA: Bob Cousy, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Kevin Willis and LeBron James. (And all four are still alive — Cousy’s first season was 1950 and he’s 97 years old.) [kottke.org]
Is It Time to Move On From Dr. Seuss? “Isn’t 65 years of Green Eggs and Ham enough? What new books will become beloved for generations? ‘We need to let go of the idea that the lone white male author represents the pinnacle of children’s literature.’” [lithub.com]
Cognitive resistance training is the defense against slop and brainrot. “Every hard task you delegate is a rep you didn’t do, a pattern your neurons didn’t carve deeper.” [pauljun.substack.com]
The Hand-Painted Storefront Signs of Detroit by Ron Miller. “He loves adding color to the neighborhood with his work. He has no website, no email and works all by word of mouth in Detroit.” [kottke.org]
John Roberts and the death of rule of law in America. “The Supreme Court was never intended to function like this. Never before has it entertained such challenges from the President, and never before has it decided them so flippantly.” [theguardian.com]
Israel Says It Killed a Hamas Commander. It Killed a Pulitzer-Winning Journalist. “The Israeli military made no attempt to obscure this brazen strike on civilians, which is a war crime.” [nytimes.com]
Daniel Day-Lewis stopped acting in 2017 after Phantom Thread. He’s unretired to star in a film called Anemone, co-written by Day-Lewis with his son Ronan Day-Lewis, who also directed. Here’s the trailer. [youtube.com]
Journalist Lauren Goode convinced her editors to let her spend a couple of days vibe-coding at a tech company. “Both vibe coding and journalism are an exercise in prodding, and in procurement: Can you say more about this? Can you elaborate on that?” [kottke.org]
I love stats like this: LeBron James has played against 35% of all of the players that have ever played in the NBA. I’m curious if there’s an older player who played with James in 2003 and how much of NBA history the two of them collectively span. [cbssports.com]
I Made a Floppy Disk from Scratch. “The magnetic film itself is measured in microns. It’s going to be quite the feat in order to figure out how to apply something that thin.” This is great. [kottke.org]
Lauren Groff: “In mid-April, I flew to Japan because I’d become obsessed with an 11th-century Japanese novel called The Tale of Genji.” [theatlantic.com]
Nine Inch Nails’ Closer mashed up with Ray Parker Jr’s theme song to Ghostbusters. “It’s the musical equivalent of cats and dogs living together.” [kottke.org]
This is cool: Internet-in-a-Box. “Up to 32 users who are within about 100m of the hotspot can connect to the device and access or download the content that exists on the device: Wikipedia slices, medical knowledge, videos, and books.” [mdwiki.org]
An incomplete list of things Jane Austen disliked, including “people who pretend to like music too much” and “practical marriages”. “Anything is to be preferred or endured rather than marrying without Affection.” [lithub.com]
How NASA’s Juno probe changed everything we know about Jupiter. And also: “Juno may be a scientific mission, but it also revealed Jupiter as a living van Gogh painting hanging in the sky.” [scientificamerican.com]
This championship-winning yoyo routine by 8-time world champ Hajime Miura falls somewhere on the spectrum between magical illusion & performance art; even the music is perfect. The result is mesmerizing. [kottke.org]
Gutted: How Deeply Trump Has Cut Federal Health Agencies (ProPublica). “Food and drug facility inspectors are having to go to the store and buy supplies on their own dime so they can take swab samples to test for pathogens.” [projects.propublica.org]
David Garry accidentally bought over 10K Greg Briley baseball cards. “The cards were all perfect. The overall impression was as if someone in 1989 had a hazy vision that someone on the 1989 Mariners was going to be an all-time great.” [defector.com]
Stephen Miller’s Wikipedia bio reads like that of a school shooter
![Miller began attending Duke University in 2003.201 to study political science. [21] There, he was nicknamed](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:vaba7tf7ylt2kaavf4t2kotp/bafkreiatbx2iuflk632jcnon7jel7mm3x6vp46h4cyhqeve4rv6qnr243q@jpeg "Click to view full size")
Notes from a Burner Phone 101 workshop. Participants learned about “phone-related risk modeling, privacy-protective smartphone practices, the full spectrum of burner phone options, and when to leave phones behind entirely”. [rebeccawilliams.info]
“You do not need the strongest powers of observation to see that crime is a pretext — and not the main reason — for the military occupation of Washington by federal agents and soldiers from the National Guard.” [nytimes.com]
Refusing to Choose Is a Choice. “You can say ‘all are welcome,’ but if wolves and sheep are both welcome then you’re only going to get wolves.” [kottke.org]
I’m sorry, what? Platypus locate prey through electro receptors in their bills which detect “tiny electrical currents emitted from muscle contractions from their prey (like a heartbeat)”. Wow! [thekidshouldseethis.com]
Joe Caroff, Who Gave James Bond His Signature 007 Logo, Dies at 103. He was paid $300 for the Bond logo. [nytimes.com]
Frank Chimero writes about taking a summer sabbatical. “There’s a pressure to have noticeable outcomes to life choices like this. I made space, and after 3 months, all I have is a more internalized sense of that space.” [kottke.org]
Fun & simple little browser game: Dodge This. “Move to dodge the bullets. How long can you survive?” My high score so far is 76.6 seconds. [trickle.so]
The newly launched Eclipse Atlas website contains “over 2,000 historic and modern eclipse maps dating from 1654 to the present” as well as maps & guides for future eclipses. (The 8/2/27 eclipse will last for 6m23s near Luxor in Egypt!) [eclipseatlas.com]
The Covid Vaccine Situation for the Fall Is a Complete Mess. “If you’re under 65 and not high risk, the window to get a Covid-19 vaccine is right now — before the FDA label changes. Once it happens, access will be limited immediately…” [kottke.org]
What Happened When I Tried to Replace Myself with ChatGPT in My English Classroom. “Was it still necessary or valuable to learn to write? […] At the end of the semester, they would decide by vote whether A.I. could replace me.” [lithub.com]
The World Is Burning, But Want to Meet Up for Thirty-Four-Dollar Cocktails? “Nothing makes me want to drink a fancy aesthetic cocktail more than what’s happening right now.” [mcsweeneys.net]
Teaser trailer for season two of Fallout. My son and I really enjoyed s01. [youtube.com]
Slow Start to the Week. I’m dropping my son at college today, so the site is going to be a little slow until I get back midweek. 👋 [kottke.org]
For a small monthly fee, you should be able to go into your local Mexican restaurant and exchange an unripe avocado for a perfectly ripe one.
“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! [npr.org]
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. [kottke.org]
EXACTLY
jog on you fascist motherfucker
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.” [kieranhealy.org]
Building a Watch From Scratch in a Brooklyn Basement. “I have this weird tendency where I’ll find something or something will come my way and and I’ll take it up as a hobby, but then I tend to take it a bit too far.” [kottke.org]
s-tier pun here, works on multiple levels
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.” [michaelchabon.substack.com]
Generous Media. Robin Sloan on what makes the Criterion closet interviews tick: giving artists an opportunity to praise other artists in positive-sum sort of way. What other examples of generous media can you think of? [kottke.org]
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.” [ldial.org]
100,000,000,000%!!! It’s the “yes, and…” improv approach to social media.
“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.” [organizingmythoughts.org]
Radiohead dropped a surprise album yesterday, a live album of songs from Hail to the Thief. Listening now and really enjoying it; I’d welcome live versions of all their albums. [kottke.org]
“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. [publicnotice.co]
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.’” [newyorker.com]
so. many. cameras.
Expanding this to movies: The Devil Wears Temu
