Max Cooper, Repetition

This music video, directed by Kevin McGloughlin for Max Cooper’s song Repetition, features remixed fractal-like forms from the constructed world (roads, skyscrapers, wind turbines, etc.) interspersed with scenes from nature. Totally mesmerizing. (You’ve got a give it a min…

Kieran Healy recently became a US citizen. “I know the nationalities of...

Kieran Healy recently became a US citizen. “I know the nationalities of my fellow oath-takers because of the next stage of the ceremony. This was the Roll Call of Nations. I did not know this was going to happen.” 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org →

Building a Watch From Scratch in a Brooklyn Basement

Giles Clement tends to go a little overboard with his hobbies. During the pandemic, he taught himself to repair old watches and then decided to try building one himself. Taylor Scott Mason made a short documentary about Clement and his effort to build a watch from scratch in his…

Kodak Crisis: Could Other Camera Brands Face the Same Fate?

The photo world has been having battles on multiple fronts. From the invasion of smartphones to the boom of AI to tariffs in the United States, the industry has been trying to find ways to keep itself going despite the challenges. However, in some cases, it seems the efforts are…

Me talking about AI elsewhere

I’ve been popping up in a few places lately. Here’s a round-up: a talk, an academic paper, and a blog post. Rethink AI, WIRED x Kendryl I spoke about AI agents as part of a Wired event called Rethink AI with Azeem Azhar and others (as previously mentioned). Here’s the R…

Michael Chabon on the time he tried to get hired to write...

Michael Chabon on the time he tried to get hired to write the script for a Fantastic Four movie (in 1995). “What are you doing here? I mean, you’re, like, a serious writer.” 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org →

Generous Media

In the latest issue of his monthly newsletter, Robin Sloan shared a quick reflection on why the Criterion closet interviews are so effective, entertaining, and worth participating in for celebrities (emphasis mine): Let’s think about the format that is the Criterion closet:…

The Case for MyTerms

We know more than we can tell. That was how Michael Polanyi distinguished between tacit and explicit knowing. We may know how we form speech, or when to shake hands with someone, or hug them. But we can’t explain all the signals and mechanisms involved. Not exactly. In the nat…

From the inbox: “ldial is a website for listening to a curated...

From the inbox: “ldial is a website for listening to a curated list of community radio stations from across the US. I took efforts to make it super fast. To me, the random button feels like magic.” 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org →

“If you want to fight for what’s right in this moment, and...

“If you want to fight for what’s right in this moment, and forge politics that exist in opposition to what Trump represents, you must protect anyone chased by the fascists.” 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org →

Radiohead: Hail to the Thief (Live Recordings 2003-2009)

Radiohead dropped a surprise album yesterday, a live album of songs from Hail to the Thief. You can find the album on various streaming platforms, including Bandcamp, Spotify, and Apple Music. The band’s lead singer Thom Yorke says of the album: In the process of thinking h…

No Tubes, No Limits: Mitakon Macro Lens Brings Subjects 5X Closer

Macro lenses have enabled us to view the details of the unseen world with ease. Whether it is a dragonfly's eyes or a butterfly's wings, macro lenses showcase a side of nature that we interact with daily but never truly care about. While there are multiple lenses in this portfol…

The Best 100MP Cameras for Pro Photographers (And The One To Ditch)

A great medium-format camera offers various features, including image quality, weather sealing, and excellent autofocus performance. While there are multiple options to choose from today, we look at a few that can help you get the best of both worlds. These medium-format cameras…

“Competitive authoritarianism [can be seen as] a prevalent form of government throughout...

“Competitive authoritarianism [can be seen as] a prevalent form of government throughout American history — one which we have only tentatively started to move away from in recent decades.” Interesting historical context.

On the disorienting thrill & agony of picking up a new sport...

On the disorienting thrill & agony of picking up a new sport (or relearning an old one) in midlife. “Falling as an adult means calling friends and family to tell them ‘I had a fall.’” 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org →

The Thing Every Experienced Wildlife Photographer Needs

If you're a wildlife photographer, we both know that you've worked really hard on the images that you make. Some are honestly much better than others -- and we shouldn't necessarily base that on how Instagram followers are rating it. We all have those one or two images that we'r…

Underlines and line height

I was thinking about something I wrote yesterday when I was talking about styling underlines on links: For a start, you can adjust the distance of the underline from the text using text-underline-offset. If you’re using a generous line-height, use a generous distance here t…

Burning Questions: WTF is a Petzval Lens?

Photographers and Cinematographers are enamored with creative ways to separa­te their subjects from their backgrounds. One such trick is to implement a "swirly" background effect that turns otherwise mundane scenes into something out of a dream. Although the swirly bokeh effect…

LUMIX S9 Review Update: This Camera Aged So Well

The LUMIX S9 has recieved a few firmware updates, and so we've updated our full review. The other day when shooting with it, I realized that if you've got it, you've got very little reason then to want to get any of the new fancy point and shoot cameras that are being announced…

The Red Onion Font

The latest post from The Pudding starts off about as good as possible to attract the likes of me: “This is a project about onions and math.” I mean, yes. I’m in. And I enjoyed the interactive article, Dicing an Onion the Mathematically Optimal Way, but the design was absol…

The Colors of the World, Seen From the International Space Station. “Recent...

The Colors of the World, Seen From the International Space Station. “Recent photographs from crew members aboard the ISS show some spectacular views of auroras, moonsets, the Milky Way, and more, seen from from their vantage point in orbit.” 💬 Join the disc…

Silicon Doodles & Microchip Art

Back in the earlier days of microchips, the designers would sometimes add tiny images to the chips, for fun. From NPR: Many of the doodles came from engineers who weren’t doing it for an audience. “We did it for ourselves,” said Willy McAllister, a retired electric…

Dictators love a crisis. “For reasons of both personality and political ambition,...

Dictators love a crisis. “For reasons of both personality and political ambition, Trump needs a crisis to govern — or rather, to rule. And if the actual conditions of reality will not give him a state of exception, he’ll create one himself.”

Keeping Small Journalism Alive

In 2025, we’re trying to get to a minimum of 2,000 subscribers! Capture One is discounted for members! The New Phoblographer membership is now based on our website. Yes, we moved away from the app. It was a bittersweet move — but what we’re offering you now is even better.…

The Story of the Chinese Farmer

In a talk about Taoism called Swimming Headless, Alan Watts shared with his audience the parable of the Chinese farmer. Once upon a time, there was a Chinese farmer who lost a horse. Ran away. And all the neighbors came ‘round that evening and said, “that’s too bad.”…

“Today, general officers no longer seem to see themselves as guardians of...

“Today, general officers no longer seem to see themselves as guardians of the constitutional order. It now seems clear to us that the military will not rescue Americans from Mr. Trump’s misuse of the nation’s military capabilities.”

The ‘What It’s Like To Be…’ podcast features interviews with people about...

The ‘What It’s Like To Be…’ podcast features interviews with people about their jobs (recently: a deli owner, a harbor pilot, a hospice nurse, and a brain surgeon). The host told me it’s “Studs Terkel meets Ted Lasso”. 💬 Join the discussion on kot…

A Cure for Corporate Addiction to Personal Data

I wrote the original version of this post for the March 2018 issue of Linux Journal. You can find it here. Since images from archival material in the magazine no longer load, and I want to update this anyway, here is a lightly edited copy of the original. Bear in mind that what…

The Big Lie About Bird Photography

I remember watching a BBC special about photographers and how they're taking images in the wild. Specifically, one of the photographers say that in order to shoot good photos, you have to have the eye in focus. This is a big lie -- and it's often nearly impossible to do with tod…

A forthcoming book from long-time technology writer David Pogue: Apple: The First...

A forthcoming book from long-time technology writer David Pogue: Apple: The First 50 Years. “Deeply researched & lavishly illustrated, Apple: The First 50 Years includes new interviews with 150 key people who made the journey, including Steve Wozniak…” 💬…

A 90-minute video of making a batch of woodblock prints “from blank...

A 90-minute video of making a batch of woodblock prints “from blank paper to finished print” from the printer’s POV. Relaxing & ASMR-adjacent. 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org →

Thread Meeting

Style your underlines

We shouldn’t rely on colour alone to indicate that something is interactive. Take links, for example. Sure, you can give them a different colour to the surrounding text, but you shouldn’t stop there. Make sure there’s something else that distinguishes them. You could make…

Best Cameras from 2015: 5 Classics Worth Owning and The One to Skip

The last decade has seen the launch of some unique cameras, many of which are still popular today. In a time when tariffs are making life challenging for photographers, we have decided to look at some of the most unique offerings from the past decade, which can help you fill in…

“‘This Show Felt Like It Was Falling Out of Me’. Six female...

“‘This Show Felt Like It Was Falling Out of Me’. Six female artists on how they prepared for their major solo debuts this fall.” 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org →

I love that The Kid Should See This has dozens of videos...

I love that The Kid Should See This has dozens of videos about poop, including a recent one about why poop is brown. 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org →

nikitonsky is being grumpy

nikitonsky: No wonder I could never remember where the Save button is. Pro tip: keep controls at the same place so that your users can form a habit #YouTube #Watchlist #Save