Calculating the longest line of sight on Earth : 530km...

Calculating the longest line of sight on Earth: 530km (329 miles) between “an unnamed Himalayan ridge near the Indian-Chinese border and Pik Dankova in Kyrgyzstan”.

“ x86CSS is a working CSS-only x86...

“x86CSS is a working CSS-only x86 CPU/emulator/computer. Yes, the Cascading Style Sheets CSS. No JavaScript required. What you’re seeing above is a C program that was compiled using GCC into native 8086 machine code being executed fully within CSS.”

Ali Akbar, the last newspaper hawker in Paris, has been...

Ali Akbar, the last newspaper hawker in Paris, has been awarded a knighthood by French president Emmanuel Macron. “Macron went on to refer to Akbar as ‘the most French of the French — a Voltairean who arrived from Pakistan.’”

Tips For Photographers On Selling Your Prints (From a Buyer)

What do you think of immediately when you say that you're going to sell a print? Is it just a piece of paper and nothing more? If that's what you're doing, then you're probably selling prints wrong or the person that you're buying them from isn't doing it right at all. Because i…

Elizebeth Smith Friedman: The Codebreaker

The details of Elizebeth Smith Friedman’s remarkable career sound a bit outlandish when you list them all together: cracked thousands of codes and ciphers during WWI did the same in WWII, helping to foil Nazi spy rings and protect Allied supply ships chief cryptanalyst fo…

How America Chose Not to Hold the Powerful to Account ....

How America Chose Not to Hold the Powerful to Account. “The answer to why powerful people in some other parts of the world face consequences, while in America they rarely do, is that elite impunity is now an American national project.”

Back and (Go) Forth

Apologies for the relative silence. Between travels and slow recovery (still far from over) from cataract surgery for my left eye, looking at screens and writing on them hasn't been easy. But things are improving. Had a productive Monday at the Summit on Human Agency. My talk wa…

Americans Are Leaving the U.S. in Record Numbers (free...

Americans Are Leaving the U.S. in Record Numbers (free WSJ piece at MSN). “Last year the U.S. experienced something that hasn’t definitively occurred since the Great Depression: More people moved out than moved in.”

An Archive of Commercial Illustration (c. 1950-75)

Illustrator Zara Picken maintains an archive of commercial illustration from the mid-20th century. So much throwback inspiration here! Tags: illustration · Zara Picken

Lensbaby Twist 28 Review: The Squint and Shoot Experience

There's something that's always so appealing about Lensbaby products. Sometimes its the fact that they're embracing metal in their build quality. At other times, it's their unapologetic slap in the face to traditional standards of photography. And with the new Lensbaby Twist 28,…

Kansas Sends Letters To Trans People Demanding The...

Kansas Sends Letters To Trans People Demanding The Immediate Surrender Of Drivers Licenses. “The letter…marks one of the most significant erosions of transgender civil rights in the United States to date.”

Can Sigma’s New 85mm Art Actually Win Full Frame Market?

Sigma has multiple lenses under its portfolio for full frame cameras. However, while they have been working on various focal ranges, they have also been targeting maximum aperture for low-light photographers. For instance, the company recently introduced the 35mm f1.2 and 50mm f…

The Two Best High ISO Cameras To Pick Today

Low light photography is now a part of many other genres, such as street, portrait, photojournalism, and event photography. While most photographers focus on getting a camera that offers higher megapixels, it is also important to consider devices that deliver this alongside good…

Is the Valoi easy35 v2 Film Scanner the Best One There Is?

Last year, we tested out the original Valoi easy35 from the folks at Kamerastore, aka Kameratori, in Finland. The product was so intuitive to use that we rated it among the most convenient ways to scan 35mm film negatives and slides. Now the team at Valoi is back with an upgrade…

Little Red Dots

A nice day

It’s the 25th of February and it’s a beautiful day here in Brighton. I had lunch sitting outside—that’s how unseasonably warm it is. Like a little whiff of Summer to remind us of what’s yet to come. It’s also my birthday. The beautiful weather is an auspicious auger…

“A collection of images of trees at Dollar Tree...

“A collection of images of trees at Dollar Tree store locations across the United States.”

Physics Is a Conversation

Physicist Sean Carroll leads off this video with this line: I like to say that Einstein is, if anything, underrated as a physicist, which is hard to imagine given how highly he is rated. And then leads us through a history of modern physics and quantum mechanics that, Ein…

These synchronized martial arts robots are genuinely...

These synchronized martial arts robots are genuinely impressive.

They’re doing a new Pride and Prejudice adaptation...

They’re doing a new Pride and Prejudice adaptation. From the comments on the trailer: “this looks like a temu version of the 2005” and “The Darcy is not Darcying”.

nikitonsky is being grumpy

nikitonsky: ✅ Delete failed 👍👍👍 Thanks @chuhlomin for the picture #AWS #Amazon

Zeiss Otus 85mm f1.4 ML Review: 5 Reasons Why This Could Be Your Worst Purchase

I’m going to say this right off the bat: the Zeiss 85mm f1.4 ML Otus is the single most uninspiring lens that I’ve used in many years. And every single review done by influencers and YouTubers probably are all done by someone who is so star-struck to feel validated. I say th…

Jayden Hoffman spent more than 4 months customizing this...

Jayden Hoffman spent more than 4 months customizing this computer keyboard, replacing the letter keys with hand-painted logos (McDonald’s arch for M, Avengers for A, Xbox logo for X, Google for G, etc.)

Is This Waymo a Better Person Than You? “When the...

Is This Waymo a Better Person Than You? “When the light turns yellow, this Waymo does not speed up. It does not calculate whether it could make it. It does not believe in ‘probably.’ It waits.”

“The CyberTruck is 17 times more likely to have a...

“The CyberTruck is 17 times more likely to have a fire fatality than a Ford Pinto”, a 70s automobile that put the “car” in “exploding car”.

Commenters in this thread shared a bunch of songs...

Commenters in this thread shared a bunch of songs “where the drum beats are Morse code that also serve as a separate layer to the lyrics”.

20 Minutes of Excellent Skateboarding Clips

What’s fun about school closing for the wicked blizzard in the Northeast today is last week was February break for Massachusetts schools, which means many kids are home for the the 6th school day in a row, and many will be home for closures tomorrow and beyond. All this to say…

Tear Gun by Taiwanese designer Yi-Fei Chen is a...

Tear Gun by Taiwanese designer Yi-Fei Chen is a contraption that “collects and freezes actual tears to shoot them back at the person who caused the cry”.

The Two Awesome Announcements from Brightin Star at CP+ 2026

At CP+ 2026, Brightin Star is announcing two really fascinating pieces of glass. For the Leica M mount, they're announcing a new 35mm f1.7 APO lens. Then, for full-frame mirrorless camera mounts, they're offering up the new 50mm f2 Tri-Sight lens; which is something that we typi…

The Best Nikon Cameras for Birding At All Budgets

Nikon mirrorless cameras have changed the way we think of the company. Their DSLR range was great, but the initial years of the company in the mirrorless field were far from exciting. Despite the trials and errors, Nikon managed to win over its audience with the launch of a few…

Voigtlander Expands Lineup with Classic and Apochromatic Trio at CP+ 2026

Cosina's Voigtlander has been launching some interesting lenses for photographers. Models such as the APO-Lanthar 65mm f2, Nokton 21mm f1.4, and Lanthar 50mm f2 are examples of how the company is trying to introduce wide-aperture primes. Joining this list are three upcoming lens…

Adrienne Salinger Gives Us a Look Into America’s Teenage Past

It takes a whole lot of courage to work on a long term project. That's been the truth for a very, very long time. And Adrienne Salinger: Teenagers in Their Bedrooms is a book that shows us how a long-term commitment to yourself can blossom into something truly beautiful when you…