The frontier Anthropic & OpenAI models are only ~4...

The frontier Anthropic & OpenAI models are only ~4 months ahead of open models — at 5x the price. “Most organizations should ideally be using open models as the default for the majority of their work, according to [a report] from Mozilla…”

Last year in Ireland, a bouncy castle infested with a...

Last year in Ireland, a bouncy castle infested with a “hypervirulent, multidrug-resistant pathogen” infected almost 50 children. Reality: always weirder than the weirdest sci-fi.

Naomi Klein : “Extreme wealth has a deranging...

Naomi Klein: “Extreme wealth has a deranging effect. It turns you into a supremacist.” Klein’s new book, End Times Fascism, written with Astra Taylor, is out today.

Taryn Simon’s Father Country I Do Love You

Father Country I Do Love You sounds like a doozy of a new exhibition from photographer Taryn Simon. The project focuses on the life and work of an unnamed, retired FBI agent. From the NY Times: She Spent Years on a Giant Project About One Man. The Result Is Monumental. As i…

The Tube Computer was recently constructed from...

The Tube Computer was recently constructed from hundreds of 1950s vacuum tubes sourced from Eastern Europe. “The Tube Computer has a pleasant homely aroma from the hundreds of double triodes, all quietly burning off their dust.” It heats the room too.

Is the Canon R6 Still Worth Buying in 2026?

When the Canon R6 was launched, a lot of competitors thought it would live under the shadows of Sony's mirrorless offerings. The Canon R6 is a serious enthusiast camera with a lot of positive features. For example, good autofocus and some amazing image quality, amongst other thi…

Linkalongday

War prep redux Given the size of my corpus here, most visiting to it, on most days, is to old stuff. One currently getting some action is Desert warfare training in live ghost towns, seen from the sky, which I posted ten years ago. I've shot its scenes (five of them) often since…

Tycho’s Burning Man Sunrise Set for 2026

For the 93rd year in a row or something like that I didn’t check the math, Tycho has released his sunrise set from Burning Man. I am not a Burning Man person but I always enjoy this set. See also a playlist of every 2026 Burning Man set on Soundcloud, currently 147 tracks…

Alex Gibney’s documentary reveals that Elon Musk has...

Alex Gibney’s documentary reveals that Elon Musk has always been a racist, sexist fraud. “Musk’s ex-wife Justine, whom he married in 2000 and divorced in 2008, says the man the world began to see in 2020 was the one she’d always known.”

With a new installment every seven years since 1964, the...

With a new installment every seven years since 1964, the Seven Up series has followed a group of 14 British schoolchildren from adolescence to adulthood. The final installment, 70 Up, directed by Asif Kapadia (Senna, Amy), is out this week.

The Spice Drawer

Over the past six months (leisurely) and in the past three weeks (intensely), I’ve cleaned out and packed up my entire house where I’ve been living for the past 10 years. I went through every bit and bob of what I owned and either: gave it away (fiddle leaf fig, grill, ch…

A declaration signed by 25 Fields medalists : “The...

A declaration signed by 25 Fields medalists: “The goals of the AI companies and the goals of the mathematical community are severely misaligned.”

Affinity (Version 3.3) Review: Better for Photographers, Still not Replacing Capture One

Since the release of Affinity 3.0, one of my biggest gripes with the software has been the unshakable feeling that this was at best a piece of software that was largely incomplete and at worst not made with photographers in mind. The latest release, Affinity 3.3, changes a lot o…

nikitonsky is being grumpy

nikitonsky: Apple’s HIG: Show one popover at a time. Displaying multiple popovers clutters the interface and causes confusion. Never show a cascade or hierarchy of popovers, in which one emerges from another. If you need to show a new popover, close the open one first. Use…

Neal Slavin: Vintage Photos of a Lost American Culture

There's something inherently Americana about the work that photographer Neal Slavin is really known for. Towards the end of summer 2026, I sat on my balcony to take in the book, "Neal Slavin: When Two or More are Gathered Together," I realized that we've lost something: communit…

Nextings

See them while you can As I’ve been writing about at length on my Trunkline blog, broadcast towers are both a lifelong preoccupation of mine, and (like all of us) doomed in the long run. That’s because high-bandwidth wireless digital tech doesn’t require them. (Yes, over-t…

Fujifilm Instax Pal 2 Review: They Fixed Fuji’s Worst Camera

The Fujifilm Instax Pal 2 is a re-envisioning of the company's really awful Instax Pal, and it's mostly for the better. The ergonomics are very classic and retro inspired while the entire way that you use the camera is also quite liberating. In fact, that's the best part of the…

Fujifilm Instax Link Wide 2 Printer Review: For When Your Images Mean Something

The Fujifilm Instax Link Wide 2 is, well, to be frank with you, I didn't even really bother reading the press release much because I know how photographers will use it. Fujifilm added stuff like the collage feature; but every time I see photographers printing images from these c…

Aerospace Flowchart

Inside Canon’s Newest Lens Patents: A 20-60mm f2, a 70-135mm f2, and More

Canon has been publishing patents over the past few months. And some of them are very innovative lenses that haven't been made before. The pace does not seem to slow down either. As part of their latest filings, the company is announcing four new zoom lenses, of which, one inclu…

The Great Dude Battles of the 1880s

E. Berry Wall was a dude. But not just any dude. In 1888, he was declared “King of the Dudes” in a competition against another gentleman, one Robert Hilliard. Wall became famous after meeting Blakely Hall, a reporter hungry for good copy. Thereafter, every week or so, H…

From a curator at the Getty, ratings of every...

From a curator at the Getty, ratings of every “framed picture” emoji. “A total rejection of nature and reality. Why is the horizon rounded? Has this artist seen planet earth before?”