This Week in the IndieWeb

January 23-30, 2026 Recent EventsFrom events.indieweb.org/archive: Front End Study Hall #045 Thursday, January 29 at 10:00am Online! Zoom!Front End Study Hall is an HTML + CSS focused group meeting, held on Zoom to experiment and learn with the basic building blocks of the web…

Singing the gospel of collective efficacy

If I got to determine the school curriculum, I would be optimising for collective efficacy. So I live in a gentrified but still mixed neighbourhood in London (we’re the newbies at just under a decade) and we have an active WhatsApp group. Recently there was a cold snap and…

Throw the Rule of Thirds Out the Window for Street Photography

The rule of thirds are a wonderful thing to tell photographers to follow when they're first starting out. But when you're advancing, it's a good idea to throw them out. And as you become even more advanced, perhaps all you'll end up doing is centering your subjects in the middle…

Water bankruptcy is a “chronic condition that...

Water bankruptcy is a “chronic condition that develops when a place uses more water than nature can reliably replace, and when the damage to the natural assets that store and filter that water, such as aquifers and wetlands, becomes hard to reverse”. 💬 Join…

Proof Without Content

Is Apple Creator Studio Really Worth Leaving Adobe For?

Apple recently announced its first true competitor to Adobe Creative Cloud, the new Creator Studio. Creator Studio is a new subscription bundle that takes Apple’s existing creative suite – Apple’s Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, Pixelmator Pro, Motion, Compressor, and Main Stage…

This guy built an autonomous flying umbrella (powered...

This guy built an autonomous flying umbrella (powered by drones) that automagically follows you around in the rain. (A possible counter to a personal raincloud?) 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org →

Spurious Correlations

For his Spurious Correlations project, Tyler Vigen compares data sets that are the very definition of “correlation is not causation”. For instance, the number of Walmart stores worldwide correlates very strongly with the current distance between the Earth & Saturn. Or Google…

Minnesota community leaders are calling for an...

Minnesota community leaders are calling for an “ICE Out” general strike and protests on Friday, January 30. “No work. No school. No shopping. Stop funding ICE.” KDO will be participating. 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org →

A huge collection of graphic design archives and...

A huge collection of graphic design archives and resources, like The People’s Graphic Design Archive, Book Cover Archive, and Letterform Archive. This is great! 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org →

“There isn’t a lot of reliable information...

“There isn’t a lot of reliable information out there about how to buy a gas mask, especially for the specific purpose of living under state repression. But hopefully after reading this guide you’ll feel equipped to make an educated decision.” 💬 Join the…

Prettifying Graffiti

For a project called Tag Clouds, street artist Mathieu Tremblin paints over graffiti tags and makes them more legible. The result looks like when Word says that the Hardkaze and Aerosol fonts are used in the document you’re trying to open but are missing from your computer a…

“AI skeptics need to update their priors: Plenty of...

“AI skeptics need to update their priors: Plenty of cause for concern, plenty of room to hit these companies for unethical behavior, resource demands, etc, but we are so, so far past the era of ‘stochastic parrots’”. 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org �…

Vimeo was recently acquired by a private equity firm and...

Vimeo was recently acquired by a private equity firm and you know what comes next: Vimeo Lays Off ‘Most’ of Its Staff, Allegedly Includes ‘the Entire Video Team’. 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org →

Your Friends Are Still Acting Like Everything is Normal...

Your Friends Are Still Acting Like Everything is Normal in America. What Do You Do? “The first obligation we all have is an epistemic one: It’s to know what kind of reality we are actually inhabiting.” (gift link) 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org →

Defund Science, Distort Culture, Mock Education....

Defund Science, Distort Culture, Mock Education. “We have a very focused and intense effort across the board to set America back a generation, at least, for education, health, research, climate policy.” 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org →

Thing I did not know I was looking for (but totally was):...

Thing I did not know I was looking for (but totally was): a deep dive into ASCII rendering. Super interesting! 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org →

Vintage Tourist Maps of Japan

The gang at Present & Correct found a cache of pre-war tourist maps of Japan while rummaging around in Tokyo’s Jinbōchō used book district. They photographed them for a new self-published book called Paper Trails. Tags: books · design · Japan · maps · Paper…

The Copyrightability of Fonts Revisited by Matthew...

The Copyrightability of Fonts Revisited by Matthew Butterick, a type designer & copy­right liti­gator. “If a court were asked to directly consider the copy­righta­bility of an ordi­nary digital font, it would likely rule in the nega­tive.” 💬 Join the d…

Clint Smith visits the National Memorial for Peace and...

Clint Smith visits the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama. “The goal of the sites is to force visitors to confront the violence of the past without the counterweight of a more uplifting narrative to assuage their distress.” 💬 Join…

Bruce Springstein wrote & recorded a song about...

Bruce Springstein wrote & recorded a song about Minnesota’s battle against tyranny: Streets Of Minneapolis. “Our city’s heart and soul persists / Through broken glass and bloody tears / On the streets of Minneapolis.” 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org…

David Lynch Went to the First Beatles Concert in the US (1964)

In one of his final on-camera interviews, David Lynch recounts going to the very first Beatles concert in the US in 1964. I ended up going to this concert. I didn’t really have any idea that it was the first concert. I didn’t have any idea how big this event was. And it was…

Why do RSS readers look like email clients? “When...

Why do RSS readers look like email clients? “When we applied that same visual language to RSS (the unread counts, the bold text for new items, the sense of a backlog accumulating) we imported the anxiety without the cause.” 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.or…

A collection of “well-made apps and sites”...

A collection of “well-made apps and sites” gathered by Marcin Wichary. 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org →

People Photographed With Their Vehicles

For his project called Homo Mobilis, Martin Roemers travelled the globe and photographed people with their cars, bikes, scooters, etc. You can see a selection of the photos on Roemers’ website, at The Guardian, or in his forthcoming book, Homo Mobilis (Amazon). (via @ste…

Why Some People See Collapse Earlier Than Others :...

Why Some People See Collapse Earlier Than Others: Perception, pattern-seeking, and the role of neurodivergence in a failing civilisation. “Collapse awareness is fundamentally a pattern-recognition event. Some people are wired for that.” 💬 Join the discussion…

Kristen Radtke remembers Alex Pretti . “I...

Kristen Radtke remembers Alex Pretti. “I didn’t realize, in the hours before his name was released to the public, that the man millions of people had seen lying facedown on the pavement from multiple angles…was my childhood best friend.” 💬 Join the discu…

An Archive of Italian Graphic Design

“Archivio Grafica Italiana is the first online archive dedicated to the entire Italian graphic design heritage.” (via sidebar) Tags: design 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org →

An impressive isometric map of NYC , built with AI...

An impressive isometric map of NYC, built with AI agents. “I’m particularly interested in scaling up the grindy repetitive tasks that make many ideas practically impossible.” 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org →

Watch Classic Episodes of Sesame Street for Free on YouTube

Sesame Street has uploaded a bunch of classic episodes to YouTube that are free to watch, including the very first episode from 1969, the one where Mister Rogers visits, and the episode where Mr. Snuffulupagus is finally revealed. The most recent one was uploaded just a couple…

You Need A Kitchen Slide Rule . “Kitchen work is...

You Need A Kitchen Slide Rule. “Kitchen work is all about proportions, and nothing beats the slide rule for proportions.” 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org →

Information You Could Hold in Your Hand

Whoa, this is a fantastic archive of tangible media objects — like gramophone records, punch cards, 8-tracks, floppy disks, etc. (via unsung) 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org →

Science magazine: US government has lost more than...

Science magazine: US government has lost more than 10,000 STEM PhDs since Trump took office. 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org →

The Comics Journal’s obituary for Scott Adams ....

The Comics Journal’s obituary for Scott Adams. “Dilbert’s tone shifted during the 2010s, punching down at targets, mocking and belittling societal shifts and perceived “political correctness,” with more cynical, even bitter humor…” 💬 Join the discu…

This video from December is about a pair of teenaged ICE...

This video from December is about a pair of teenaged ICE trackers. “Armed with phone and body cameras, Ben and Sam patrol the Chicago suburbs in hopes of tracking ICE agents and filming raids they see as unwarranted and unjustified.” 💬 Join the discussion on…

A 90-minute ICE Watch training session via Zoom...

A 90-minute ICE Watch training session via Zoom “on effectively protecting your neighborhoods from federal enforcement incursions”. Jan 28, 7pm ET. Sign up here. 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org →

Minnesota Proved MAGA Wrong . “Activists have made...

Minnesota Proved MAGA Wrong. “Activists have made the decision to emphasize protection, aid, and observation. When matters escalate, it is usually the choice of the federal agents.” 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org →

A collection of dartboards used in different areas of...

A collection of dartboards used in different areas of the UK. “The closure of pubs and leagues not being fed with new players, unfortunately, leads to some of the boards just being consigned to history.” 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org →

Scientists have detected a swole neutrino , a potential...

Scientists have detected a swole neutrino, a potential signal from a primordial black hole, which may have formed “before there were even atoms, let alone stars”. 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org →

The Best Book Covers of the Past Decade

Every year since 2016, Literary Hub has asked a group of book cover designers for their picks for the best book covers of the year. Using 10 years of data, here are their picks for the best covers of the last decade. I’ve included a few of my personal favorites below.…

“For a month, I tried: swapping my iPhone for a...

“For a month, I tried: swapping my iPhone for a Nokia which I can only use to text, call and play Snake; also, a Walkman and a film camera. I picked up physical copies of books, newspapers…” What Emma Russell learned from her digital detox. 💬 Join the disc…

“The imperial boomerang is the theory that...

“The imperial boomerang is the theory that governments that develop repressive techniques to control colonial territories will eventually deploy those same techniques domestically against their own citizens.” 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org →

M. Gessen: “It’s only natural that our brains...

M. Gessen: “It’s only natural that our brains struggle to find logic in what we are seeing. There is a logic, and this logic has a name. It’s called state terror.” 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org →

Thomas Zimmer on the stakes of Minnesota’s...

Thomas Zimmer on the stakes of Minnesota’s struggle against tyranny. “A society that has any aspiration to be free and democratic cannot — it must not! — tolerate the existence of an agency like ICE.” 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org →

ICE/DHS has killed nine people in 2026 (that we know of)...

ICE/DHS has killed nine people in 2026 (that we know of): Keith Porter, Parady La, Heber Sanchaz Domínguez, Victor Manuel Diaz, Luis Beltran Yanez-Cruz, Luis Gustavo Nunez Caceres, and Geraldo Lunas Campos, Alex Pretti, and Renee Good. 💬 Join the discussion on…

Emily Witt reports on The Battle for Minneapolis for...

Emily Witt reports on The Battle for Minneapolis for the New Yorker. “Federal agents attempting to stop U.S. citizens from monitoring them have broken observers’ car windows, doused them with pepper spray, and shoved protesters to the ground.” 💬 Join the d…

I thought this said “Winamp” and I got...

I thought this said “Winamp” and I got really excited. 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org →

Daft Punk Deep Cuts DJ Set

From Taner’s Funk Kitchen, a 30-minute set of smooth/chill deep cuts from Daft Punk. As noted in the description, this mix is less of a club vibe and more of a chill listening party. The DJ is using a Digital Vinyl System (DVS) to play/mix the songs. I’d never heard of this…

A review of Sven Beckert’s Capitalism ....

A review of Sven Beckert’s Capitalism. “‘No religion, no ideology, no philosophy, has ever been as all-encompassing as the economic logic of capitalism,’ Beckert claims, defining it as ‘the ceaseless accumulation of privately controlled capital.’” ���…

Nice piece about the forgotten queer artist Marlow Moss...

Nice piece about the forgotten queer artist Marlow Moss, whose work and influence on Piet Mondrian’s work is being reevaluated. “It is now widely recognised in the art world that it was as much Moss who influenced Mondrian as the other way round…” 💬 Join…

A Chinese factory mistakenly stitched a frown on a Year...

A Chinese factory mistakenly stitched a frown on a Year of the Horse plush toy and it became a surprise hit. Meet the ‘Cry-Cry Horse’, the perfect mascot for 2026. 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org →

How To Help if You are Outside Minnesota , including...

How To Help if You are Outside Minnesota, including donating money, hassling ICE-supporting businesses, and “Get Ready For This Bullshit to Come to You”. 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org →

Today, Minnesotans are striking (“no work, no...

Today, Minnesotans are striking (“no work, no school, no shopping”), protesting, and marching in response to the ICE invasion. “We are a northern state, and we are built for the cold, and we are going to show up…” 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org ��…

The Best Films of 2025

David Ehrlich is back with my favorite end-of-year celebration of film; here’s his look back at the best films of 2025 (YouTube). See the full list at Letterboxd. I’ve only seen five of these so it’s difficult to comment on the list as a whole, but I feel like Sinners sho…

Dr. Gladys West, Mathematician Whose Work Made GPS...

Dr. Gladys West, Mathematician Whose Work Made GPS Possible, Dies at 95. “Her painstaking calculations and programming helped transform raw satellite data into precise geodetic models, enabling reliable satellite-based navigation.” 💬 Join the discussion on k…

Mestra is a forthcoming short story from Madeline...

Mestra is a forthcoming short story from Madeline Miller (Circe, The Song of Achilles); it’s “a powerful reimagining of Ovid’s Pygmalion”. Miller is also working on a novel about Persephone. 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org →

Pilot Captures Amazing Aurora Photos During Flight

This week, the Earth was hit with one of the strongest geomagnetic storms in recent years, which made for some gobsmacking displays of the northern lights, even as far south as California. Cruising in a 787 at 37,000 feet on his route from Calgary to London (UK), airline pilot…

From director Rian Johnson, a collection of some of the...

From director Rian Johnson, a collection of some of the screenplays of his movies & TV shows, including Wake Up Dead Man, Knives Out, Glass Onion, Looper, and the Poker Face pilot. “Print them, share them, act them out with your friends.” 💬 Join the discussi…

Now That I Am Old Enough to Enroll in Medicare, I Am...

Now That I Am Old Enough to Enroll in Medicare, I Am Against Socialized Medicine. “Don’t you know that it makes my benefits less special when everyone can receive them?” 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org →

What Is the Scale of the Resistance in Minnesota?

A must-read thread from Margaret Killjoy (Skywriter thread) on what’s going on in Minnesota. I came to Minneapolis to report on what’s going on, and one of the main questions I showed up with is “just what is the scale of the resistance?” After all, we’re all used to t…

More ways to help: Stand With Minnesota . How you can...

More ways to help: Stand With Minnesota. How you can tell this is a local MN thing: “We are now just two ladies running this thing as volunteers, so please be patient.” 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org →

You can help: a listing of mutual aid organizations to...

You can help: a listing of mutual aid organizations to support in Minnesota. 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org →

Ryan Coogler’s Sinners sets record for most Oscar...

Ryan Coogler’s Sinners sets record for most Oscar nominations: 16! Includes best picture, best director, best screenplay, and best actor (for Michael B. Jordan). Well-deserved…Sinners was the best film I saw in 2025. 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org →

10 things I learned from burning myself out with AI...

10 things I learned from burning myself out with AI coding agents. “Fifty projects later, I’ll be frank: I have not had this much fun with a computer since I learned BASIC on my Apple II Plus when I was 9 years old.” 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org →

The Great Crime Decline Is Happening All Across the...

The Great Crime Decline Is Happening All Across the Country. “What has changed nationally is a huge investment by the federal government in prevention in response to the COVID epidemic. Investing in education, police, librarians, community centers…” 💬 Join…

“When South Morningside Primary School girls...

“When South Morningside Primary School girls football team won the prestigious Edinburgh Schools cup last year, they were presented with a small plastic trophy. It paled into comparison with the large, grand trophy given to the winning boys team…” 💬 Join t…

nikitonsky is being grumpy

nikitonsky: This is how big companies quietly steal control from users. Youtube search options then → now #YouTube #Search

Canon Patents a Compact Zoom That Could Rethink the 70-200mm

Canon lenses have been quite popular amongst photographers. The company has introduced over 50 options since launching its mirrorless cameras, and it appears it will continue to do so. In a new report, it appears that they are keen on creating a new zoom lens that can be an alte…

The DIY Panoramic Camera Film Photographers Can’t Stop Talking About

Panoramic cameras are not easy to find today. While you have options such as Hasselblad's X-Pan and Fujifilm's XT-1, they both cost thousands of dollars, making them beyond many photographers' reach. But worry not. If you are still keen on making panoramic images with film camer…

Fujifilm Files Patent for Ultra-Fast Lenses With Surprisingly Large Image Circles

Fujifilm lenses have been great so far. The company has introduced some exciting APS-C and GFX models, and it appears they are working on a new 56mm lens. But the catch is that it is not for either sensor; instead, it is for an image circle closer to a full-frame sensor. Here is…

How Yongnuo’s Latest Breakthrough Could Reshape the Lens Market

Third-party lens makers have been trying to cut costs on their lenses. While companies like Nikon and Canon have blocked their access to their autofocus system, brands like Sony haven't shied away at all. In a bid to change the status of third-party lenses, Yongnuo has announced…

Now We Begin

Yesterday, Customer Commons and MyData Global launched MyTerms at a London event correctly titled The Only Way to Get Real Privacy Online. (I explain only and real at that link.) MyTerms is the nickname for 7012-2025 – IEEE Standard for Machine Readable Personal Privacy Terms.…

This guy built an autonomous flying umbrella (powered by drones) that automagically...

This guy built an autonomous flying umbrella (powered by drones) that automagically follows you around in the rain. (A possible counter to a personal raincloud?)

Spurious Correlations

For his Spurious Correlations project, Tyler Vigen compares data sets that are the very definition of “correlation is not causation”. For instance, the number of Walmart stores worldwide correlates very strongly with the current distance between the Earth & Saturn. Or Google…

The Best 5 Viltrox Lenses for Nikon Users

Nikon cameras are great, and their lenses work perfectly well with the mirrorless cameras. However, when it comes to third-party options, Tamron seems like an ideal pair, given how the autofocus works. Viltrox is another player who has been in the game, and they continue to offe…

Minnesota community leaders are calling for an “ICE Out” general strike and...

Minnesota community leaders are calling for an “ICE Out” general strike and protests on Friday, January 30. “No work. No school. No shopping. Stop funding ICE.” KDO will be participating.

A huge collection of graphic design archives and resources, like The People’s...

A huge collection of graphic design archives and resources, like The People’s Graphic Design Archive, Book Cover Archive, and Letterform Archive. This is great!

“There isn’t a lot of reliable information out there about how to...

“There isn’t a lot of reliable information out there about how to buy a gas mask, especially for the specific purpose of living under state repression. But hopefully after reading this guide you’ll feel equipped to make an educated decision.”

Prettifying Graffiti

For a project called Tag Clouds, street artist Mathieu Tremblin paints over graffiti tags and makes them more legible. The result looks like when Word says that the Hardkaze and Aerosol fonts are used in the document you’re trying to open but are missing from your compute…

“AI skeptics need to update their priors: Plenty of cause for concern,...

“AI skeptics need to update their priors: Plenty of cause for concern, plenty of room to hit these companies for unethical behavior, resource demands, etc, but we are so, so far past the era of ‘stochastic parrots’”.

Vimeo was recently acquired by a private equity firm and you know...

Vimeo was recently acquired by a private equity firm and you know what comes next: Vimeo Lays Off ‘Most’ of Its Staff, Allegedly Includes ‘the Entire Video Team’.

This is tomorrow

“While something is “tomorrow,” institutions can hold it at arm’s length: debate it, study it, delay it, run pilots, treat it as optional. The moment it becomes “today,” the debate stops being about feasibility and becomes about distribution, governance, and conseque…

Watts Up

You're welcome NASA: Asteroid 2024 YR4 will certainly miss Earth and has a 96.2% chance of missing the Moon. I share this in faint hope that when one sees BS on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, or social media wherever saying the asteroid is going to have a spectacular impact on th…

Leica Breaks Tradition With Its First-Ever 35mm Noctilux f1.2

Leica lenses have been in a league of their own. The company has incorporated some iconic names that have changed the way we look at image-making. Examples such as the Leica 50mm f2 Summicron-M ASPH and the Leica Elmarit-M 28mm f2.8 prove that high image quality comes at a price…

Leica 35mm f1.2 Review: The Best 35mm Lens on the Market

I'm going to be frank here: I don't know how to start this review. And that's because all that I'd end up saying is that I love this lens. The Leica 35mm f1.2 that I had in for review felt like some of the most fun I've had with photography in a while. The big Japanese manufactu…

Your Friends Are Still Acting Like Everything is Normal in America. What...

Your Friends Are Still Acting Like Everything is Normal in America. What Do You Do? “The first obligation we all have is an epistemic one: It’s to know what kind of reality we are actually inhabiting.” (gift link)

Defund Science, Distort Culture, Mock Education. “We have a very focused and...

Defund Science, Distort Culture, Mock Education. “We have a very focused and intense effort across the board to set America back a generation, at least, for education, health, research, climate policy.”

Thing I did not know I was looking for (but totally was):...

Thing I did not know I was looking for (but totally was): a deep dive into ASCII rendering. Super interesting!

Daughters of Sparta by Claire Heywood

Towards the end of 2025, I wrote: I think I might change things up in 2026. Instead of waiting until the end of the year to write all the little reviews at once, I think I should write a review as soon as I finish a book. Instead of holding onto my reckons for months, I can j…