Jason Kottke

George Bush, Who Steered Nation in Tumultuous Times, Is Dead at 94

I like this Bush obit as a crash course on the political forces that shaped the world during my formative years.

24 Ways

Always delighted to see this advent calendar of web design articles light up my RSS feed every December.

The Fun Is Back in Social Media…Again!

TikTok probably feels a lot like Flickr or Twitter in the early days, where everyone… See more →

Hello, dear reader!

June is gone, but its links remain.

It was a relatively busy month on my site! I had an unexpected reason to revisit an animated student film I made 20 years ago, wrote about designing better concert listings, chronicled my experience learning about the future of typography at the Ampersand conference, and offered middling reviews of the year’s most celebrated horror films, A Quiet Place and Hereditary.

This month’s links are the sort… See more →

Hello, dear reader!

May is gone, but its links remain.

The only thing I published on my site this month was a brief, snarky review of a 69-year-old movie (nice), but if all goes well in June, I’ll have a couple of substantial posts about creative projects (new and old) coming your way.

The links below include some meaty reporting on politics and a triptych of opinion pieces on our culture wars’ state of discourse.… See more →

A Gunfight in Guatemala

Crazy story: Sebastian Rotella. Art direction: David Sleight. Animation: Christopher Park.

Police Building Apartments

Lately my favorite part of my commute is passing this building.

Here’s The Powerful Letter The Stanford Victim Read To Her Attacker

Having too much to drink was an amateur mistake that I admit to, but it is not criminal. Everyone in this room has had a night where they have regretted drinking too much, or knows someone… See more →

What… the… fuck?

Pretty easy to spend a whole day reading these. So good.

Jesus…

I think this guy is serious. Therefore, I think he is a tool.

Hey Alanis, THIS is ironic:

Naturally, this book was considered extremely dangerous by the victorious Allies when they occupied Germany at the end of World War II. Copies of this book were confiscated and destroyed by the tens of thousands with the result that few originals survived the war and fewer yet survived complete and in good condition.

As far as I can tell, In Focus doesn’t have its own RSS feed. C’mon!

I wonder if the world record fingernail guy has a personality as off-putting as this woman. Like, maybe it’s the inevitable consequence of crippling yourself for financial gain.

For months, Ms. Rodriguez was unable to get much traction with any of the law enforcement entities she had called as she coped with Mr. Borker’s verbal and written attacks. Now, there seems to be a competition to punish him.

The lesson here? If you want shit to get done, get the press involved.

I am so confused. How/why did this happen? Who the fuck are those three doofuses that keep popping up?

My inner ten-year-old’s brain just exploded.

Gorgeous.

As I read this, I was trying to select more quotes to share, and I quickly realized that all 3600 words of it were valuable and quotable. Just read it.

So sad.

Accustomed as I am to be being in the minority as a commuter cyclist, I’m not sure how I would adapt if the ratio flipped. This video is magical nonetheless.

And it’s not even my birthday yet.

I’m getting pretty tired of this stuff. This comment says it all.

There is little doubt that different people are blessed with different amounts of cognitive gifts such as long-term memory and the visuospatial skills chess players are said to employ. One of the reasons chess is an "unparalleled laboratory" and a "unique nexus" is that it demands high performance from so many of the brain’s functions. Where so many of these investigations fail on a practical level is by not recognizing the importance of the process… See more →

I can’t decide which one to get.

Seriously, watch the whole thing.

My favorite thing about this is actually how they did the titles.

Um. Oh my god.

We’re seriously not past this shit yet? "Something’s wrong with the TV! It’s got these black bars up and down it! I think it’s broken, Robbie, help me!"

On the Web

• Chris Harding Animation Concern: Wonderfully designed cartoons reminiscent of Gene Deitch-era Terrytoons.
• A Whole New Internet?: Jason Kottke assesses the State of the Web Union
• Guess the Google: A fun Flash quiz game using Google Image Search
• 54 Optical Illusions & Visual Phenomena
• Amusement Park in Decay: Three pages of lovely photos (1, 2, 3)
• Five Simple Steps to Better Typography: Sound advice from Mark Boulton.
• Singles Night at Wal*Mart: I think I… See more →