Twenty five years of writing on adactio.com

On this day, twenty five years ago, I wrote my first journal entry on this website. Twenty five years! A quarter of a century! That’s a significant portion of the lifetime of the World Wide Web itself. Actually, this site did exist before September 30th, 2001 but it was very…

Lobster is Lobster: a language guessing game. “Lobster is...

Lobster is Lobster: a language guessing game. “Lobster is lobster in English. Langosta is lobster in ___”

Ooh, Mestra is a new short story from Madeline Miller...

Ooh, Mestra is a new short story from Madeline Miller (Circe, Song of Achilles). “Mestra, daughter of the King of Thessaly, is granted a unique gift by Poseidon: The ability to transform herself into any being she can imagine.”

Thumbsday

OMGF This was bad.

Sony a7 III Review in 2026: Is it Still Worth Buying?

As we approach a decade of the Sony a7 III's existence, it’s time to dive back into it and see if it’s still worth buying Sony’s oldest supported model. With an aging 24-megapixel sensor and "outdated" autofocusing system, the a7III may no longer be built for work, but it…

Map of the Lighthouses of the World

From mapped.earth, a map of every lighthouse on the planet, along with other charted lights like lighted buoys and such. The screenshots above are static but the lights on the real map move: each lighthouse sweeps out its actual arc and the reach of the beams is true to sc…

Looks like Every Frame a Painting is ramping up again!...

Looks like Every Frame a Painting is ramping up again! “Over the last 10 years, Taylor and I have amassed a series of ideas — some of them originally designed to be on Youtube, some designed to be other things. All of this is currently in progress”

How to Make Perfect Soft-Scrambled Eggs

I love watching Gordon Ramsay make scrambled eggs. I first saw this video years ago and, possibly because I am an idiot, have yet to attempt these eggs at home. You and me, eggs, next weekend. P.S. Jean-Georges Vongerichten makes scrambled eggs in a very similar way. Not qu…

Amazon is releasing some new Kindle models, including a...

Amazon is releasing some new Kindle models, including a thinner Paperwhite (my fave) with an aluminum back, more storage, and faster interactions. If I didn’t just get a new last-gen Paperwhite to replace one I lost, I’d be tempted to pre-order.

TTArtisan Launches AF 85mm F1.8 Neo, a Stripped-Down Portrait Prime for E, Z, and L-Mounts

TTArtisan has some good budget-friendly lenses in its whole portfolio. As part of their growing lineup, the company has introduced85mm f1.8 Neo, a full-frame autofocus prime lens for Sony E, Nikon Z, and L-mount cameras. The lens is competing with multiple first-party 85mm lense…

Everything We Know About the Fujifilm X-T6 From Its First Technical Sketches

Fujifilm has launched some wonderful cameras over the years. The company was the first to introduce a compact medium format model, which proved that the industry can keep innovating. And now, there are reports of the first technical sketches of the upcoming Fujifilm X-T6 having…

A raw, revealing interview with an 80-year-old Sylvester...

A raw, revealing interview with an 80-year-old Sylvester Stallone on the occasion of his new memoir, The Steps. I listened to about half of this and had to stop…it’s incredibly candid but what he went through as a kid & young adult, oof.

A 15-minute tour of former NFL coach Mike Tomlin’s...

A 15-minute tour of former NFL coach Mike Tomlin’s Minecraft city. As previously mentioned, he started playing the game to connect with his kids and never stopped. (This is only part 1 of ???)

How This Singaporean Photographer Captured the Awkward Beauty of Boyhood

check and correct Photographers have always used their experiences as a means to create great art. No matter how personal the experience is, it can always go on to become a universal truth. Something similar happened with Singaporean photographer Jayden Tan, whose series, BONER,…

Ground Effect

You can destroy kottke.org if you want. Or any other site!

You can destroy kottke.org if you want. Or any other site!

Ominous Thunderstorm Rolling Across the Fields

This is a three-hour, high-quality recording of thunderstorms in the distance in the Slovakian countryside. The rest of the channel is loaded of similar (and similarly long) atmospheric videos: thunderstorms, blizzards, rain, wind & fog, winter storms, etc. The most recent…

Eternal Family is a media service that shows “a...

Eternal Family is a media service that shows “a hand-picked collection of unique & rare films across Vintage Animation, Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Horror, Action, Documentaries, Found Tapes & Much More”. KDO readers might like the Early Technology section.

Blackbird Spyplane’s Jonah Weiner on his past career as a...

Blackbird Spyplane’s Jonah Weiner on his past career as a profile writer. “If you’re doing the job well, you find yourself asking them profoundly intimate questions, and they find themselves answering them.” Really interesting.

“There are more self-storage facilities in the U.S. than...

“There are more self-storage facilities in the U.S. than there are Starbucks, McDonald’s, Walmart, Home Depot, Domino’s, Dunkin’, and Costco locations combined.”

The “Insane” Cinematography of Pride and Prejudice

I love 2005’s Pride and Prejudice, starring Keira Knightly & Matthew Macfadyen and directed by Joe Wright. So I really enjoyed Danny Boyd’s video essay about the great cinematography in the film. Pride & Prejudice isn’t a movie I’ve exactly seen a 100 times in my li…

Alexander James Hamilton Turns Water and Light Into Photographs Shot on Film

Have you ever seen an image that leaves you questioning reality? For instance, many pictures depict our surroundings in a way that makes the familiar feel unreal. Some may reflect on history, while others challenge how we see the world and deepen our appreciation of it. Alexande…

The Tell, a very long read about Thomas Goldstein...

The Tell, a very long read about Thomas Goldstein (SCOTUSblog founder, high-powered lawyer, poker player) who once played a legendary game at the Bellagio where he bet wildly, didn’t even look at his cards for long stretches of time, and won big.

“Sky burial is a funeral practice in which a corpse is...

“Sky burial is a funeral practice in which a corpse is placed on a mountaintop to decompose while exposed to the elements, or to be eaten by scavenging animals.” (CW: there are some potentially upsetting photos on that page.)

Notesday

In wasted dollars Our species began to get civilized when it invented clothing: the original privacy tech. But that was in the natural world. In the digital one, we are still naked, and privacy is just a promise you get from "consent" (cookie notice) agreements and settings. It'…

Craig Mod made a cool mini-site cataloging all of the...

Craig Mod made a cool mini-site cataloging all of the long walks he’s taken since 2009, with maps and GPS tracks and links to essays/books/media that resulted from them.

Laowa ACRIS 35mm Is the World’s First AF 1:1 Macro Lens at 35mm

Macro photographers will certainly be rejoined. Venus Optic has truly pushed the third-party lens market with the launch of the Laowa ACRIS 35mm f2.8 1X AF Macro APO, the world's first full-frame autofocus 35mm lens that can produce a 1:1 magnification ratio. The latter has been…

Announcing the Photographers of the 5 Boro Foto Fest: Jamel Shabazz, Greg Miller, Brooke DiDonato, Rafael Fuchs, and More

Today, the 5 Boro Foto Fest is announcing our list of photographers and vendors who will be selling prints, zines, books, etc. to art lovers and collectors on October 25th, 2026 at Culture Lab LIC in NYC. The organizers checked that none of the work was made involving the use of…

Lomography Launched a New 35mm Lens That Is Built to Warp Bokeh on Purpose

Lomography is known for creating some fantastic cameras and lenses for portrait photography. The Joseph Petzval Métamorphose 35mm f1.8 is one such offering that helps to grow the company's portfolio of optics that offer great bokeh. As part of their signature, dreamy bokeh, the…

On The Joy Of Ownership

A lovely contemplative short video featuring Toshiyuki Ueno of the Japanese fashion brand Visvim talking about craftsmanship. We want to make things that people will get attached to and will use for a long time. And that’s at the core of our creating process. It’s simp…

Manchester City guilty over Premier League charges after...

Manchester City guilty over Premier League charges after £900m of ‘sham’ contracts. The “financial doping” scheme allowed the club’s owners to pump large sums of money into the team without appearing to exceed the league’s spending limits.

12-Bit vs. 14-Bit RAW: Does the Extra Bit Depth Actually Show Up in a Photo?

If you're the type of photographer who cares a lot about post-production, then 14-Bit RAW is something that you probably always use. 14-bit RAW images hold a lot more information in them than 12-bit RAW images. But does it really matter? A lot of information on the web is all ab…