This is Not an Escape Story
"At 15, Darlene Stubbs walked away from a polygamous cult—then discovered a new life and community through running."
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Su Friedrich’s Life in Moving Images
“I always had the feeling that there isn't just a single thing to do,” the artist told Hyperallergic . “I enjoy mixing text and images, real life and invented scenarios.”
Power Traces the History of Policing in the US
Following the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, filmmaker Yance Ford was struck by the question: “What, exactly, do the police exist to do?”
The Birth of Breaking News
The completion of the US transcontinental railroad in 1869 in Utah was also the birthplace of the newsflash. The news was delivered via telegraph through a clever scheme: the famous golden spike and a silver hammer were each wired to the telegraph so that when hammer struck
Celebrating James Baldwin’s Radical Beauty
In God Made My Face , artists and critics reflect on seeing themselves through the late metamorphic writer’s work.
Find Your Dream Zine at This Sprawling Manhattan Fair
Hosted by 8-Ball Community and Printed Matter, the East Village Zine Fair will take over a block stretching from First to Second Avenues this weekend.
Are You an NPC? (Or Do You Have Free Will?)
Kurzgesagt attempts to answer the question (from the perspective of physics): Do we have free will? Here’s the deterministic perspective (from the show notes ): Now imagine that if right after the Big Bang, a supersmart supercomputer looked at every single particle in the
In a New Music Video, Lilli Carré Animates the Beauty of Transitional Moments with Gouache
Thick, expressive brushstrokes come alive in the form of slithering snakes, cascading vines, and leaping goats in the music video for “ Sunever ,” a track featured on singer-songwriter Chris Cohen ’s newest album concordantly titled Paint a Room . Los Angeles-based artist Lilli
Some people with insomnia think they are awake but they’re actually asleep....
Some people with insomnia think they are awake but they’re actually asleep. But scientists are discovering that their sleep is not as rejuvenating as normal sleep . 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org →
Homes of Brooklyn Museum Leaders Tagged With Protest Graffiti
The words “white supremacist Zionist” were spray-painted on Director Anne Pasternak’s residence two weeks after a heavily policed pro-Palestine protest at the museum.
JAPAN CUTS: Festival of New Japanese Film
North America’s largest Japanese film festival presents two weeks of contemporary movies at Japan Society in NYC, July 10–21.
What’s the Rarest Move in Chess?
YouTuber Paralogical downloaded data from over 5 billion chess games to find the rarest move in chess. Slight spoiler: there are many possible moves that weren’t played in any of the games analyzed. The data and analysis programs used are available on Github : This is a lil’
The Titan Submersible Disaster Shocked the World. The Exclusive Inside Story Is More Disturbing Than Anyone Imagined
"A year after OceanGate’s sub imploded, thousands of leaked documents and interviews with ex-employees reveal how the company’s CEO cut corners, ignored warnings, and lied in his fatal quest to reach the Titanic."
In an Imagined Post-Apocalyptic Future, Simon Laveuve’s Eclectic Dwellings Glimpse a Way of Life
At 1/35 scale, Simon Laveuve ’s meticulously crafted miniature constructions ( previously ) reveal troves of clues about each dwelling’s absent occupants. From colorful bunting strung between posts to framed pictures, Laveuve’s eccentric buildings appear in a range of states of
David Pierce reports on the Excel World Championship from Las Vegas. “There...
David Pierce reports on the Excel World Championship from Las Vegas. “There is one inescapably weird thing about competitive Excel: spreadsheets are not fun.” 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org →
Ask a Manager update about a guy who told his interviewer during...
Ask a Manager update about a guy who told his interviewer during a job interview that “maybe she made mistakes as a developer but since I actually went to school for it, I didn’t have that problem.” 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org →
Lots of good responses to this thread: “What is something someone who...
Lots of good responses to this thread: “What is something someone who has never been poor wouldn’t understand?” E.g. how expensive it is to be poor, like paying more for daily subway tickets bc you don’t have the cash on hand for a monthly. 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org →
In the Royal Academy Courtyard, ‘The Meddling Fiend’ by Nicola Turner Connects the Living with the Past
For more than 250 years, London’s Royal Academy of Arts—known today simply as the RA —has held the world’s largest open-submission exhibition annually. The Summer Exhibition showcases hundreds of works by British artists and architects, merging displays by Royal Academicians
The Mayday Call: How One Death at Sea Transformed a Fishing Fleet
"The opioid epidemic has made a dangerous job even more deadly. And when there’s an overdose at sea, fishermen have to take care of one another."
Of course Kenji López-Alt had a friend come up with a computer...
Of course Kenji López-Alt had a friend come up with a computer model that determined the ideal way to chop an onion . How can you resist reading an article with the phrase “exactly .557 onion radiuses” in it? 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org →
Chaka Khan’s Tiny Desk Concert
NPR recently welcomed Chaka Khan into the office for a Tiny Desk Concert. When the “Queen of Funk,” Chaka Khan, began to sing her hit “Sweet Thing” at the Tiny Desk, she seemed surprised at how the audience enthusiastically joined in. It’s just one example of how ingrained her
Care to play a game of Probabilistic Tic-Tac-Toe? “What gives us the...
Care to play a game of Probabilistic Tic-Tac-Toe? “What gives us the right to claim responsibility for our victories? Do we ever truly win? Or do we just get lucky sometimes?” 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org →
The Love Machine
"Love Is Blind creator Chris Coelen drops a new group of singles into his experiment—and wrestles with the lawsuits against the show."
Flood of memory
A poignant connection between the erosions of landscape and memory at a former Japanese internment camp in California - by Aeon Video Watch at Aeon
Harvard Removes the Human Skin Binding from a Book in Its Collection Since 1934
In June of 2014, Harvard University’s Houghton Library put up a blog post titled “Caveat Lecter,” announcing “good news for fans of anthropodermic bibliopegy, bibliomaniacs, and cannibals alike.” The occasion was the scientific determination that a book in the Houghton’s
Did we give up before AI arrived?
Plenty of creative pundits are decrying the speed and cost of creating pretty good work with an AI. It can often draw, write and compose as well as a mediocre freelancer, sometimes better. But why were there mediocre freelancers? The system that pushed us to turn our writing
How the 13th-Century Sufi Poet Rumi Became One of the World’s Most Popular Writers
The Middle East is hardly the world’s most harmonious region, and it only gets more fractious if you add in South Asia and the Mediterranean. But there’s one thing on which many residents of that wide geographical span can agree: Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī. One might at first
Oh My God, I’m Attracted to a Skinny White Man
The tabloid media has invented another way to explain people’s attraction to the actual status quo. They’re not objectively ugly dudes, they’re “sexy rat men”, and the internet is currently filled up with articles explaining their “rise”.
What Is Intersectionality? A Complete Breakdown
Breaking down the term ‘intersectionality’, Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw's theory, and its relevance in society today.