We Are Losing the Ability to Discover What We Didn’t Know to Ask . “Scientific breakthroughs, artistic leaps, technological innovation — these rarely emerge from efficient retrieval of known information.”
Hann's subjects range from handmade road signs and vintage buildings to peculiar local attractions. Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article Rob Hann’s
Do you believe that everybody should have fun or that only a few people should have fun? “This is what it means to be entertained in the United States of America in 2026. Want to have fun? Like, the most fun? Get rich, or die trying.”
Work by the Bay Area artist is on view in Menlo Park, California, through August 29.
Stacks : “Run HyperCard stacks directly on your modern Mac. No emulator required!”
XKCD: What if chess included the offside rule? (If someone hasn’t done one already, I’d guess at least one person is working on a playable Football Chess game rn.)
"As of May 2026, you can no longer buy or sell exotic cats in British Columbia. What do we do with them all now?"
Most buildings rise from the bottom up, stone by stone. Not so these churches: carved from a single rock, top-to-bottom - by Aeon Video Watch on Aeon
Gertrude Abercrombie’s crew of Magic Realists, the artist selling trash from outside Taylor Swift’s wedding, and the truth about stock photography.
From confirmation bias to loss aversion, everyone suffers from cognitive biases. Skilfully targeted mindfulness can help - by Stephanie Dorais Read on Aeon
The professionals you have the most in common with may be your competition. They wrestle with similar problems and have similar goals. And you can offer value by sharing what you’ve learned and what you know–and that value will often be reciprocated. I met Tom Rielly when was
Public and commercial spaces around the world are now lined with imagery of a vertebra-studded battle helmet and statues surrounded by flame. It’s all part of the promotional campaign for Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of the Odyssey, which will begin opening in theaters later
Albert Einstein passionately wooed his first wife Mileva Maric, against his family’s wishes, and the two had a turbulent but intellectually rich relationship that they recorded for posterity in their letters. Einstein and Maric’s love letters have inspired the short film above,
This is a fun and really well-done triple mashup of Outkast’s B.O.B. (Bombs Over Baghdad), Hitchcock’s The Birds, and Sesame Street.
A sealed copy of Super Mario Bros. NES cartridge recently sold at auction for $3 million . “It bears the coveted gloss sticker seal affixed to the top lid, identifying it as a second-production example.”
This is neat: Robin Sloan is rewriting his 2009 short story, Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore . “The interplay between books and technology has changed since I wrote them…but also that I have become a different writer, and a better one.”
This week, we honor a giant of 20th-century cinema, a sculptor of the natural world, and a self-described “paintoonist.”
“It wasn't as dirty as I was expecting,” said Justin Gignac, who suited up to collect garbage with a claw grabber outside Madison Square Garden.
Stop chasing life goals and start trying tiny experiments to learn from instead . “Chasing goals doesn’t work for life’s most important questions — career, relationships, health. It’s like locking in your answer before you have understood the question.”
A pair of exhibitions at the Milwaukee Art Museum underscores the support, comradeship, and spirit of rebellion shared by the Surrealist and her friends.
What’s the Point of Sex, Anyway? “There is yet another kind of male, known among ichthyologists as a ‘sneaky mater.’ This type dispenses altogether with nest-building and partnering and simply darts around squirting.”
In her first book, scholar Simona Supekar mines the history of stock imagery as a vessel for racism and sexism and considers its role in the age of AI.
Jonathan Allen’s guerrilla installations superimposed anti-genocide messages onto advertising displays outside the museum.
I’ve posted this before, but it’s so good, here it is again: a super-simple explanation of why differential gears are necessary in cars and how they work. (via @stevenstrogatz ) [This is a vintage post originally from Apr 2013.] Tags: cars · science · video
The Open Source AI Gap Map shows the current capabilities of open source AI tools with an eye toward answering an important question: “What building blocks are missing for creating completely open source AI products?”
The End of Reading Is Here . “The decline of reading will bring about changes of the same magnitude. It will affect our innermost thoughts, our society’s politics and culture, and how we tell the history of our civilization.”