New Evidence Suggests Humans Developed Written Language To Avoid Breaking Up In Person. “Early Mesopotamians created the first cuneiform tablets in 3200 BCE because they couldn’t bear the idea of looking their partner in the eye…” 💬 Join the discussion…
I can hear my kids in their room right now. They’re trying to get something that rolled under one of their beds. They’re talking about trying to get it like planning a run in Neuromancer or something. “Okay, you can do this, just one last run!”
Panasonic has an exciting launch this month: the rumored Panasonic S1R II. We have already stated that the company should have launched this device last year, but for whatever reason, that dream never came to fruition. But now, despite the delay, rumors state that the launch is…
I'm currently typing this article, and water is coming out of my eyes. But that's not because I'm crying tears of joy; to be honest, I haven't done that in a few weeks. Instead, water is coming out of my eyes because of how intense the process of using my contact lenses is. If y…
February 7-14, 2025 Recent EventsFrom events.indieweb.org/archive: Front End Study Hall #021 Thursday, February 13 at 6:00pm 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…
Stonehenge is one of the world’s most recognizable stone circles – often shrouded by legend and intrigue it’s also a lasting reminder of our human need for connection and community. “Echoes: Stone Circles, Community, and Heritage” is a beautiful new exhibition by the B…
Hey look at this, a media diet post that’s not months and months since the last one! Phew, it’s a been a long-ass six weeks since the beginning of the year, hasn’t it? Here’s a list of what I’ve been reading, watching, listening to, and experiencing to help get me thro…
Nathan Zed argues that a lack of effort and vulnerability has made art, media, design, music, and architecture boring — that everything has the “soulless, monotonous no-personality vibe”. But artists like Tyler, the Creator; Chappell Roan; Doechii; and Kendrick Lamar are…
Ken Burns’ Criterion Closet Picks include Seven Samurai, a Fellini box set, and Wim Wenders’ Pina. 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org →
Thought-provoking musings on AI from Robin Sloan. “The language model reads Everything, and leaves Everything untouched — yet suddenly this new thing exists, with strange and formidable powers. Is that okay?” 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org →
This is lovely: man the crazy thing about babies is that like, some people would think that reading a baby a book about farm animals is teaching them about farm animals, but really it’s teaching them about the concept of a book and how there’s new information on each page…
Girls Who Code’s “Five by Five” strategic plan is “reaching 5 million girls, women, and nonbinary individuals by 2030” with their programs designed to educate girls, women, and NB folks for careers in technology. 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org ��…
A couple of days ago I linked to a post by Robin Sloan called Is it okay?, saying: Robin takes a fair and balanced look at the ethics of using large language models. That’s how it came across to me: fair and balanced. Robin’s central question is whether the current cro…
Modern cameras have incredible autofocusing abilities. In fact, they're so smart that cameras like the LUMIX S5II can detect subjects like humans, animals, birds, cars, and more. As great as it is, there are still times when it makes more sense to be intentional about the photos…
I love this week-by-week map of Gina Trapani’s life. “This is a map of my life, where each week I’ve been alive is a little box. Tap a box to see what I was doing where that week.” 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org →
Allegra Goodman writes about the “life-saving power” of listing to audiobooks (Austen, Caro, Dumas, Voltaire) with her son. “We spent hundreds of hours together and had a respite from each other too.” I *love* listening to audiobooks w/ my kids. 💬 Join…
Wes Anderson’s next movie is called The Phoenician Scheme, an “espionage comedy-drama thriller” that will be released in US theaters in May 2025. Stars Benicio del Toro, Michael Cera, Riz Ahmed, ScarJo, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Willen Dafoe, etc. 💬 Join the…
There’s that asteroid 2024 YR4 which currently has a 2% chance of hitting Earth in 2032. Uh oh. I kinda feel like… reading the socials… people are weirdly gleeful about the prospect? It’s true, it is somehow comforting to contemplate the potential of the end of the w…
Kevin Kelly is the biggest traveller I know and he recently shared some of the advice he’s learned over his 50+ years on the road. Here are a few of my favorites: If you hire a driver, or use a taxi, offer to pay the driver to take you to visit their mother. They will ordin…
Deadline: “Starz has acquired the rights to Miranda July’s buzzy novel All Fours to develop as a TV series.” I wonder if July herself will be starring… 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org →
From Nolan RoYAlty (cReAtor of oNE Million chEckBOXES), A globAL CAPS LOCK. “whenever AnYONE running the CLIENt Presses caPs LOck, it PRESSEs for everyone ELsE.” (i wrote tHIS POST WItH IT.) 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org →
Jerry Lawson was one of Silicon Valley’s first Black engineers and is known as “the father of the game cartridge”. 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org →
nikitonsky: Come on bro. You have all this bullshit anyway. 7 buttons. Two privacy policies. reCAPTCHA ad. What’s one more field? Please? Pretty please? #Login #SignIn #Password #Jira
Last call for LUMIX S9 with two lenses! Seriously, you've got the opportunity to get one of the best camera deals we've seen in a while. When you buy the LUMIX S9 with the 18-40mm lens, you can get a free 50mm f1.8. So you're literally getting one of the best nifty 50 lenses mad…
Hey, everyone. This week has been a little wonky/distracted for me — I was tending to a sick kid for a couple of days and am trying not to get sick myself, so I didn’t get to spend as much time as I would have liked here at KDO reporting on the coup and what we can do about…
Finally, some good news for photographers. After a six-year-long hiatus, Zeiss, the German lens manufacturer, is making a return to the world of photography. Since then, the company has moved its focus to other industries, such as industrial, film, and smartphone lenses, leaving…
This year, HARMAN is releasing something very special: a redscale film. Films like these deliver effects that you really need to embrace as it's often completely different from anything that you'd otherwise see. In fact, I don't even think that I've seen photographers embrace th…
Innovations must not stop in photography. It now appears that four camera and lens manufacturers have filed for new lens patents, each of which depicts improved designs, performance, and versatility. While we must remember that patents may not turn into reality, this only goes t…