Seth Rogan Speaks Truth to Billionaires, Gets Censored. “It’s amazing that others…in this room underwrote electing a man who, in the last week, single-handedly destroyed all of American science.” Can’t give a science prize w/o science. 🤷‍♂️ https://kottke.org/25/04/seth-rogan-speaks-truth-to-billionaires-gets-censored-for-it

Mohsen Mahdawi was unlawfully detained by ICE in Vermont today as he arrived to take his US citizenship test. “He came to this country hoping to be free to speak out about the atrocities he has witnessed, only to be punished for such speech.” https://kottke.org/25/04/palestinian-protester-on-his-way-to-citizenship-test-arrested-by-ice-in-vt

Are you looking for work? Are you looking to fill a job opening? I’m once again running a makeshift job board in the comments of this blog post so if you’re looking for work or employees (full-time, freelance, whatever), come by and drop your links here. https://kottke.org/25/04/are-you-looking-for-work-are-you-looking-to-fill-a-position

@paul Macbook Air from Hanoi via Hong Kong. It seems to be stuck in customs limbo at a DHL facility in Cincinnati.

I ordered something from Apple 3 weeks ago and it's been sitting for a week and a half now waiting for customs clearance. Is this just how things work now?

JD Vance is skiing at a Vermont resort this weekend. The resort’s snow reporter took the opportunity to make some good trouble, sending out a message of resistance against an administration “threatening our democracy, our livelihoods, our land”. https://kottke.org/25/03/jd-vance-chastised-by-vermont-snow-reporter

A Programming Note. “I have pivoted to posting almost exclusively about the coup happening in the United States right now. My focus will be on this crisis for the foreseeable future.” https://kottke.org/25/02/a-programming-note-1

not a big fan of the new logo tbh

Meta’s Free Speech Grift. “What Zuck and Meta have realized is the value…of saying that you’re ‘protecting free speech’ and using it as cover for almost anything you want to do.” What Meta actually wants is increased engagement & less gov’t oversight. https://kottke.org/25/01/metas-free-speech-grift

I didn’t do a media diet post all year! So for my last post of 2024, here’s (almost) everything I read, watched, listened to, and experienced in 2024, incl. Shōgun, All Fours, GNX, Intermezzo, Godzilla Minus One, Princess Mononoke, etc. https://kottke.org/24/12/saying-goodbye-to-2024

Coldplay, Spike Jonze, and Mary Wigmore turned the band’s latest music video into a lovely & poignant tribute to Dick Van Dyke on the eve of his 99th birthday. So many great little moments in this. https://kottke.org/24/12/dick-van-dyke-coldplay-video

The 2024 Kottke Holiday Gift Guide is here! Featuring the best of many excellent gift guides and gifts like Richard Scarry temporary tattoos, lovely ceramic bowls, tinned fish, and a rollercoaster engineering kit that 12-yo Jason would have killed for. https://kottke.org/24/12/2024-kottke-holiday-gift-guide

The sampling visualizations in this video are *so* good: The Most Iconic Electronic Music Sample of Every Year (1990-2023). Includes tracks from Dee-Lite, Fatboy Slim, Daft Punk, Burial, and Fred again. https://kottke.org/24/11/the-most-iconic-electronic-music-sample-of-every-year-1990-2023

A huge thank you to kottke[dot]org members for supporting the site! And also, an appreciation of the simple hyperlink, the connective tissue of the open web: “I love linking out to other sites. Links are the whole goddamned point of the web!” https://kottke.org/24/10/hyperlinks-the-open-web-and-a-membership-appeal

💫 Comet C/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan-ATLAS.

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a midlife freak-out over:

- their trans daughter
- blog software trademarks
- a pro wrestler's sex tape
- woke
- fiat currency

At long last, Robert Caro’s The Power Broker is available as a Kindle ebook. It will be released on Sept 16 — you can preorder it here. https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0DDWV768S/ref=nosim/0sil8

This is a great piece: Ezra Edelman (OJ: Made in America) spent five years making a documentary about Prince but now Prince’s estate is blocking its release because it depicts him not only as a majestical genius but also “dark, vindictive and sad”. https://kottke.org/24/09/the-prince-documentary-you-might-never-see

The Secret Message Contained in One Million Checkboxes. “I hadn’t been hacked. Someone was writing me a message in binary.” (This is a great story.) https://kottke.org/24/08/secret-message-in-one-million-checkboxes

Here’s my recap post of the 2024 XOXO Festival, written as a series of thank you notes. “XOXO is a singularly impactful gathering that’s touched/changed/bettered too many lives to even count.” #xoxofest https://kottke.org/24/08/thanks-xoxo