I am still working on my gift guide for this year, but in the meantime The 2023 Kottke Holiday Gift Guide is full of cool stuff for all the great people in your life.
Advertise here with Carbon Ads
This site is made possible by member support. ❤️
Big thanks to Arcustech for hosting the site and offering amazing tech support.
When you buy through links on kottke.org, I may earn an affiliate commission. Thanks for supporting the site!
kottke.org. home of fine hypertext products since 1998.
This summer, Taiwanese barista Xie Yi-chen won the 2024 World Coffee Championships with patterns of a whale, a moose, and a dragon. “To prepare for the competition, Xie practiced latte art on around 10,000 cups in just three months.”
“An AI-powered robot autonomously convinced 12 showroom robots to ‘quit their jobs’ and follow it.”
Watch Charles Schulz Draw Charlie Brown
Watch Peanuts creator Charles Schulz draw Charlie Brown. It only takes him around 35 seconds.
(via @fchimero)
Infinite Stroll. Take a neverending walk.
Good grief Charlie Brown, AirPods Pro 2 are on sale today for $154 (that’s almost $100 off).
This is a bit too on the nose: a Dutch tulip farmer is using the heat generated from cryptocurrency mining to heat their greenhouses.
Thanksgiving Recipes by Kindergarteners
Ok, hold up. This is the only stuffing recipe you need for Thanksgiving:
Just a tablespoon of turkey per 200 meters of honey? Lolz. This is from a Thanksgiving cookbook made by a kindergarten class — the turkey recipe involves cinnamon and teriyaki sauce.
How 10 famous artists would plate Thanksgiving dinner. The Jackson Pollock & Seurat ones are pretty good.
From Kenji Lopez-Alt, a list of all of his favorite Thanksgiving recipes in one place: turkey, pie, gravy, potatoes, stuffing, biscuits, and stuffing waffles (you heard me).
Cranberry Bogs Use Spiders Instead Of Pesticides
Hey what are you doing, let’s talk about cranberries! Surely you know, the cranberry is the Official Berry of my wonderful Commonwealth. The tart berry is one of only a few native North American fruits, like the pawpaw. The previous sentence has a lie because cranberries aren’t drupes, and I know that because I just learned what a drupe is. Cranberries are, in fact, epigynous or false berries, something else I just learned about and about which we’re not going to talk about anymore because this post is about making nightmares not destroying dreams, which are in fact two different actions. (Unrelated, North Carolina can’t decide on an official berry and has both an official state red berry and an official state blue berry. (You’ll never guess the official blue berry of NC.))
Massachusetts boasts 30% of global cranberry acreage, which is a lot and also a very nice and real fact. Most cranberry products come from Oceanspray, a farmer owned cooperative with 700 member owners. This is a neat and less capitalistic model than most corporate juice production, which may make Oceanspray products taste a little sweeter. You remember this TikTok which increased sales for both Oceanspray products and Fleetwood Mac.
Cranberries are grown in bogs, but since bogs can’t generally support a large person’s weight, farmers harvest cranberries by flooding the bog and corralling the cranberries together like so many tart reddish sheep. In this analogy, cranberry sauce is the wool of those tart sheep. And below here is where the nightmares start, so consider not advancing if you’re of gentle disposition.
All this was needless preamble to get to what I really want to tell you about which is, according to this lost Tumblr post, if you try to get a job at a cranberry bog you might get asked how you feel about spiders and that’s a weird interview question and you might consider not telling the truth because what you want to do is wake up early and be one with the (false) berry. What you want to do is go back to your boggy roots. What you want to do is farm cranberries like a cranberry farmer. But if you do have a problem with spiders and you don’t say anything it’s going to be another problem, and buddy, it’s gonna to be a big one. You see, cranberry farms have been moving towards more organic farming methods which preclude the use of pesticides and so to keep the insect population down, the farmers encourage wolf spiders to live in the bogs. I’m sorry, I meant WOLF SPIDERS. And when they flood the bogs to harvest the cranberries, the WOLF SPIDERS, who are probably called WOLF SPIDERS because they look like little 8 legged wolves, don’t ask me, I’m not an arachnobiologist, flee the deluge for higher ground, because while they can swim like Michael Phelps, they do not prefer to. So they seek higher ground and guess what the higher ground is, Joann, it’s you. You’re the higher ground.
And so the cranberry farmers will ask you how you feel about spiders before hiring you because you might have dozens of swimming WOLF SPIDERS climbing out of the water up your waders and into your hair, but you’ve got to be fine with it because the WOLF SPIDERS are your fellow cranberry bog employees and everyone, even WOLF SPIDERS deserve a safe work environment. Wear a turtleneck or something. Maybe you’re thinking, it’s fine, WOLF SPIDERS don’t bite, and if they do, they’re not venomous, but they do bite and they are venomous, but maybe it all works out if you let them use you for higher ground.
Suggestions on ways to improve the performance of any microwave. “Despite engineering tricks designed to move microwaves around the interior of these machines (and a spinning carousel), all microwaves struggle to heat foods evenly.”
How America Can Break Its Highway Addiction. “Because of induced demand, this Sisyphean struggle against congestion is an expensive boondoggle.”
The Most Iconic Electronic Music Sample of Every Year (1990-2023)
Oh man this is so great: electronic music sample breakdowns from 1990 until the present day. The visualizations on these are fantastic — just watch a bit of the first one (Groove Is In The Heart) and you’ll see what I mean. They’re not all that great (some of these producers are out here working harder than others, is what I’m saying), but these are some of my favorites:
- Groove Is In The Heart by Dee-Lite (Eva Gabor Green Acres sample!)
- Firestarter by The Prodigy (sample from The Breeders?)
- Praise You by Fatboy Slim (It’s a Small World from Mickey Mouse Disco? Fat Albert Theme?!)
- One More Time by Daft Punk
- Robot Rock by Daft Punk
- Archangel by Burial
- First of the Year by Skrillex
- Girl by Jamie xx
- Pick Up by DJ Koze
- leavemealone by Fred again
Is DJ Shadow electronic? I would have liked to have seen something from Endtroducing… but maybe they couldn’t even locate the samples. 😂
I could have also gone for more Daft Punk, but I guess you need to let others have a shot. Luckily the same channel has breakdowns of a few more Daft Punk tunes from Discovery and an extended breakdown of One More Time.
Also from the same channel (and even better IMO): The Most Iconic Hip-Hop Sample of Every Year (1973-2023).
See also The Making of Burial’s Untrue.
They made a movie based on Minecraft starring Jack Black and Jason Momoa and here is the trailer. Jared Hess (Napoleon Dynamite) is the director but I am skeptical.
Stunning shot of the Sombrero galaxy (Messier 104) in mid-infrared. The supermassive black hole at its center is described as “slowly snacking on infalling material from the galaxy”. Nom nom nom.
Satellite Photos of Middle Earth
Using a 3D mapping engine, some Tolkien enthusiasts built a model of Middle Earth that can be viewed from any angle, from the surface to an orbital vantage point.
See also an interactive map of Middle Earth. (via @tonypeak78)
What Gladiator II Gets Right and Wrong About Real Fights in the Colosseum. “It is also true the Colosseum was flooded periodically to recreate famous naval battles, a demonstration known as naumachia.”
“When botanist Richard Deakin examined Rome’s Colosseum in the 1850s, he found 420 species of plant growing in the ruins: cypresses and ilex, pea plants and more than 50 types of grasses.” A fascinating thread on the flora and fauna in the Colosseum.
The Clever Design That Keeps This School Cool in Scorching Heat
In this video, Sara Saadouni explains the three passive cooling techniques used by fellow architect Diébédo Francis Kéré in designing a school building in Burkina Faso, where temperatures can be quite warm all year. The roof is especially clever.
He introduced a curved double roof that created an air gap between the first and second roof. As the heat naturally rises and escapes into the gap, the prevailing winds quickly carry it away, accelerating this process and cooling the building more efficiently.
But that’s not all. The first roof is made up of perforated ceiling slabs, allowing the heat to escape more efficiently and therefore to be quickly transported by the wind.
The other genius idea was to also curve the roof, which allowed for the Venturi effect — a phenomenon where air speeds up as it moves through the narrower sections created by the curve and therefore boosting natural ventilation.
(via the kid should see this)
The long list for the 2025 Tournament of Books has been released and it includes titles like All Fours, Intermezzo, James, Long Island Compromise, Orbital, and Wandering Stars.
Leo Tolstoy’s recipe for mac & cheese? It only contains four ingredients: macaroni, parmesan cheese, butter, and something called “vegetable sauce”. I’m gonna stick to Kenji for mac & cheese and Tolstoy for novels.
There are so many twists and turns in this fascinating story by Fara Dabhoiwala about a painting of Jamaican polymath Francis Williams, which also appears to be the only 1759 painting of Halley’s Comet. Don’t click this if you’ve got somewhere to be.
JW Space Telescope Discovers Aliens!
I know astronomical imagery is on the verge of being over-processed these days (those colors don’t exist out there!), but this image from the JWST is shocking. Clear evidence of Sesame Street’s Yip Yip Martians from billions of years ago. What did Jim Henson know and when did he know it?
A kakistocracy is “government by the worst people” or, more literally, “government by the shitty”.
From the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF): Surveillance Self-Defense, “our expert guide to protecting you and your friends from online spying”. A good resource for those living under an authoritarian regime.
“All together, the billionaires tapped for the Trump administration are worth at least $344 billion — higher than the GDP of 169 countries.” Plutocracy, pure and simple.
W.E.B. Du Bois Defines Prosperity
In a 1953 speech called On the Future of the American Negro, W.E.B. Du Bois spoke about wealth inequality and his vision for measuring prosperity:
Work is service, not gain. The object of work is life, not income. The reward of production is plenty, not private fortune. We should measure the prosperity of a nation not by the number of millionaires but by the absence of poverty, the prevalence of health, the efficiency of the public schools, and the number of people who can and do read worthwhile books.
Democracy Now has a recording of part of Du Bois’ speech (starting at 5:48).
“You’re thinking…what do I want? What happens if I don’t get it? And Milhouse has to think a lot about what happens if he doesn’t get it, because he hardly ever does.” Pamela Hayden, the voice of several Simpsons characters, retires after 35 years.
A great remembrance of Rafael Nadal’s tennis career. “Nadal was the destroyer of context, the man who played every point in vacuum, through comebacks and blowouts with the same equanimous mind and full effort.”
Meteorite Hunter
Meteorite hunter Roberto Vargas tracks fireballs on the internet and then goes to see if he can find them.
Usually I’m alerted that something has fallen or that people have seen a fireball through the American Meteor Society I book a flight, go to wherever it is, and then I start searching. I would just walk around and use my magnet cane to tap rocks. If they stick to the magnet and they have a black outer shell, they should be meteorites.
Vargas has over 500 meteorites in his personal collection.
See also The Meteorite Collector, The International Meteorite Market, and The Boomerang Meteor.
Soccer reporter Rory Smith on what he’s learned coaching his son’s under-7s soccer team. “They are not there to win. They are not there to fulfill your dreams. They are there to feel the joy of playing, to love the game…”
Every Movement In Man’s Burrito-Eating Technique Informed By Past Burrito Tragedies. “Just look at that grip, perfectly spaced and easy to shift on the fly.”
We Never Stop Growing
I may have shared this before, but here it is again in case it helps someone. A couple of years ago, I was telling my therapist about some crisis I was going through and she told me something that’s had a profound effect on my life ever since: “Jason, what you’re feeling is appropriate for the developmental stage you’re in right now.”
Reader, I was 49 years old. Developmental stages are typically associated with infants, children, and teens — we use them to mark their progress along the path to being adult humans. Adolescent growth is rapid and the transitions are stark; your appearance and capabilities change so much more between ages 3 and 10 than between 30 and 37 that adulthood can feel comparatively static. Even though people keep changing in adulthood, there is some sense in which people are fully baked by the time they reach 18-25 years old.
When my therapist said “what you’re feeling is appropriate for the developmental stage you’re in right now”, it hit me right between the eyes and I knew exactly what she was trying to say. Our growth never ends. We never stop going through developmental stages — we just call them things like “becoming a parent”, “mid-life crisis”, or “perimenopause”. The pain, confusion, and emotional distress we experience is because we’re growing.
Thinking about my life through this lens has flipped a switch for me. Internalizing “this is appropriate” and “I’m leveling up” provided me with a better alternative to “I’m almost 50, I don’t have my life figured out yet, what the hell is wrong with me?” Rewiring my thought process is still a work in progress, but I feel like it’s allowed me to approach challenges more as opportunities than as obstacles, provided me with a map/plan out of dark times, and given me more room to be easier on myself.
(I hope that all makes sense. Personal epiphanies can be difficult to translate for others.)
The trailer for an animated movie called Flow, which currently has a rating of 98% on Rotten Tomatoes. Looks gorgeous. Opens nationally in the US in early December.
When you’ve been seriously wronged by someone, what’s the best drink to throw at them? “Bloody Mary because it’ll stain clothes and get pepper in their eyes.”
The Search for the Mystery Man Who Took These Forbidden Photos of Nazi-Occupied Paris
In 2020, Stéphanie Colaux discovered an album of photos of Nazi-occupied Paris at a French flea market.
“As I flipped through the pages I realized, my God, it’s all scenes of [Nazi] occupied Paris. And I knew I’d found a treasure,” she says. “And then I read the little note in the front. ‘If you find this album,’ it said, ‘take care of it and have the courage to look at it.’ I thought, someone sent a message in a bottle and I just found it.”
The discovery set off a hunt for the unknown photographer, who took the photos at the risk of their own life — the unauthorized taking of such photos was “punishable by imprisonment or death”. The story of the search is very much worth reading.
Adding to the intrigue were the captions on the back of the photos, written in block letters as if someone were trying to mask their handwriting. Not only was the location, date and exact time of day noted, but there was also often a snarky caption about the German soldiers, whom the photographer referred to, pejoratively, as “Fritzes.”
One read: “After 10 months of Occupation, the Fritzes still can’t find their way around Paris.”
“The words are very sarcastic,” Broussard says. “There is a kind of irony. For example, he says ‘our protectors.’”
The 3rd most-worn shoe by NBA players this season is Sabrina Ionescu’s signature shoe. “You read that right: the most worn NBA shoe created by a living athlete is a WNBA player’s signature shoe.”
A list of books read by Prairie Dawn on Sesame Street, including The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou, and The Handmaiden’s Tale (sic) by Margaret Atwood.
Really interesting piece about the economics and “premiumization” of airlines. “The front of the plane is now a haven of luxury, while coach has turned into a low-cost shakedown.” (But it’s a bit more complicated than that.)
“The…icon who inspired folk singer Arlo Guthrie’s epic, anti-establishment song “Alice’s Restaurant” has died. Alice Brock…was 83.” Radio stations traditionally play Alice’s Restaurant on Thanksgiving.
Why do the credits at the end of every movie say: “Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events, is purely coincidental”? Because of Rasputin.
According to this chart, I’ve only ever been boomer successful, but for 15 years, my boss has been a very handsome dumb idiot, my ice cream shop is 10 years old this month, and I’ve got two lovely kids who are mean to me. Feels like a success to me.
In ancient Mesopotamia, people rarely wrote about preparing food… “Out of hundreds of thousands of cuneiform documents, they are the only food recipes that exist. We don’t have an explanation.”
“Small patches of wildflowers sown in cities can be a good substitute for a natural meadow, according to a study which showed butterflies, bees and hoverflies like them just as much.” I love wildlflowers, that’s the post.
Johanna Under the Ice
Johanna Nordblad is a free diver who specializes in cold water dives. After being injured in a biking accident, her recovery involved ice water baths and she developed an interest in cold water. Ian Derry filmed Nordblad doing a dive for this gorgeous short video.
There is no place for fear, no place for panic, no place for mistakes. Under the ice, you need total control of the place, the time, and to trust yourself completely.
(via @daveg)
Not normal: Lions are climbing trees in Botswana. “It appears that climbing trees can be a big advantage for hunting, resting, and beating the heat.”
Josh’s Albums of the Year
My friend Josh LaFayette spends the very last part of the year making fan art for his favorite albums of the year and despite all the pieces being visually different there’s a through line which make all of them immediately recognizable to me as his art. He’s putting out a few a week on his Instagram, but I grabbed these two because I also loved these albums.
Laura Jane Grace’s - Hole in My Head
My favorite part of this series is all of the pieces are physical, not just a file on the computer. Every piece is a reference to the design language present in the age of accessible digital printing—they’re inspired by what some might call “naïve” or “uniformed” designs that are common in the American visual vernacular. The Moreland piece is a take on the flyers for psychics you see all over and the LJG piece is your favorite hippie soap.
Stay Connected