I thought this said “Winamp” and I got really excited.
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Daft Punk Deep Cuts DJ Set
From Taner’s Funk Kitchen, a 30-minute set of smooth/chill deep cuts from Daft Punk. As noted in the description, this mix is less of a club vibe and more of a chill listening party.
The DJ is using a Digital Vinyl System (DVS) to play/mix the songs. I’d never heard of this before; from the description:
DVS is a DJ technology that allows you to control digital music files on your computer / smartphone using traditional turntables with special timecode vinyl. It combines the tactile feel of analog DJing with the flexibility of digital music libraries.
I knew many (most?) DJs were playing from digital these days but never knew how. From Wikipedia:
A Digital vinyl system (DVS) allows a DJ to physically manipulate the playback of digital audio files on a computer using turntables as an interface, thus preserving the hands-on control and feel of DJing with vinyl. This has the added advantage of using turntables to play back audio recordings not available in phonograph form. This method allows DJs to scratch, beatmatch, and perform other turntablism that would be impossible with a conventional keyboard-and-mouse computer interface or less tactile DJ controllers.
That’s pretty cool. I guess if I needed another expensive hobby…
A review of Sven Beckert’s Capitalism. “‘No religion, no ideology, no philosophy, has ever been as all-encompassing as the economic logic of capitalism,’ Beckert claims, defining it as ‘the ceaseless accumulation of privately controlled capital.’”
kdo rolodex · a list of kindred spirits, friends, open web enthusiasts, role models, fellow travelers, and collaborators
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Brad Graham (RIP)https://web.archive.org/web/20020601183825/http://www.bradlands.com/weblog/index.shtml -
Rands in Reposehttps://randsinrepose.com -
Web Curioshttps://webcurios.co.uk -
404 Mediahttps://www.404media.co -
Matt Joneshttps://petafloptimism.com
refresh for more
Nice piece about the forgotten queer artist Marlow Moss, whose work and influence on Piet Mondrian’s work is being reevaluated. “It is now widely recognised in the art world that it was as much Moss who influenced Mondrian as the other way round…”
A Chinese factory mistakenly stitched a frown on a Year of the Horse plush toy and it became a surprise hit. Meet the ‘Cry-Cry Horse’, the perfect mascot for 2026.
How To Help if You are Outside Minnesota, including donating money, hassling ICE-supporting businesses, and “Get Ready For This Bullshit to Come to You”.
Today, Minnesotans are striking (“no work, no school, no shopping”), protesting, and marching in response to the ICE invasion. “We are a northern state, and we are built for the cold, and we are going to show up…”
The Best Films of 2025
David Ehrlich is back with my favorite end-of-year celebration of film; here’s his look back at the best films of 2025 (YouTube). See the full list at Letterboxd. I’ve only seen five of these so it’s difficult to comment on the list as a whole, but I feel like Sinners should have been higher?
Dr. Gladys West, Mathematician Whose Work Made GPS Possible, Dies at 95. “Her painstaking calculations and programming helped transform raw satellite data into precise geodetic models, enabling reliable satellite-based navigation.”
Mestra is a forthcoming short story from Madeline Miller (Circe, The Song of Achilles); it’s “a powerful reimagining of Ovid’s Pygmalion”. Miller is also working on a novel about Persephone.
Pilot Captures Amazing Aurora Photos During Flight
This week, the Earth was hit with one of the strongest geomagnetic storms in recent years, which made for some gobsmacking displays of the northern lights, even as far south as California. Cruising in a 787 at 37,000 feet on his route from Calgary to London (UK), airline pilot Matt Melnyk had perhaps the best view in the world of the aurora and captured some fantastic shots. He told space.com that “This was the most incredible display of aurora I’ve ever seen in my 20 years of flying!”
From director Rian Johnson, a collection of some of the screenplays of his movies & TV shows, including Wake Up Dead Man, Knives Out, Glass Onion, Looper, and the Poker Face pilot. “Print them, share them, act them out with your friends.”
Now That I Am Old Enough to Enroll in Medicare, I Am Against Socialized Medicine. “Don’t you know that it makes my benefits less special when everyone can receive them?”
What Is the Scale of the Resistance in Minnesota?
A must-read thread from Margaret Killjoy (Skywriter thread) on what’s going on in Minnesota.
I came to Minneapolis to report on what’s going on, and one of the main questions I showed up with is “just what is the scale of the resistance?” After all, we’re all used to the news calling Portland a “war zone” or whatever when it’s just some protests in one part of town.
I got in late last night. First thing this morning, I saw cars following an ice vehicle down the street, honking at it.
Later, we didn’t drive more than three blocks before we found people defending a childcare facility. (The idea that people have to defend a childcare facility… let that sink in)
Half the street corners around here have people — from every walk of life, including republicans — standing guard to watch for suspicious vehicles, which are reported to a robust and entirely decentralized network that tracks ICE vehicles and mobilizes responders.
I have been actively involved in protest movements for 24 years. I have never seen anything approaching this scale. Minneapolis is not accepting what’s happening here. ICE fucking murdered a woman for participating in this, and all that did is bring out more people, from more walks of life.
This mirrors what I’ve been hearing elsewhere on social media and from friends. The Trump regime’s secret police force has invaded the Twin Cities to kidnap, torture, terrorize, and murder its residents — and Minnesotans aren’t having it. They’re pushing back with all they have. I’ve spent a lot of time in the Twin Cities (even lived there for 4 years in my 20s) and these people don’t play when it comes to this type of thing. As Killjoy says, this sort of resistance is a beautiful thing.
More ways to help: Stand With Minnesota. How you can tell this is a local MN thing: “We are now just two ladies running this thing as volunteers, so please be patient.”
Ryan Coogler’s Sinners sets record for most Oscar nominations: 16! Includes best picture, best director, best screenplay, and best actor (for Michael B. Jordan). Well-deserved…Sinners was the best film I saw in 2025.
10 things I learned from burning myself out with AI coding agents. “Fifty projects later, I’ll be frank: I have not had this much fun with a computer since I learned BASIC on my Apple II Plus when I was 9 years old.”
The Great Crime Decline Is Happening All Across the Country. “What has changed nationally is a huge investment by the federal government in prevention in response to the COVID epidemic. Investing in education, police, librarians, community centers…”
“When South Morningside Primary School girls football team won the prestigious Edinburgh Schools cup last year, they were presented with a small plastic trophy. It paled into comparison with the large, grand trophy given to the winning boys team…”
Water bankruptcy is a “chronic condition that develops when a place uses more water than nature can reliably replace, and when the damage to the natural assets that store and filter that water, such as aquifers and wetlands, becomes hard to reverse”.
“The uncomfortable truth is that the president of the United States is a man with the mind of a spoiled child. His debilitating solipsism is a threat to the stability of the entire world. A functional Congress would impeach and remove him.”
“Most technologies are like guns. They tend to get aggregated and captured by those who already have a lot. Technology, in other words, generally exhibits preferential attachment to power.”
The First Animation That Hayao Miyazaki Directed on His Own: Watch Footage from the Pilot of Yuki’s Sun (1972).
Koyaanisqatsi In Five Minutes
Wyatt Hodgson took Koyaanisqatsi and sped it up 1552% so you can watch the whole movie in about five minutes.
Reggio uses time lapse in the film to great effect — you notice different things at different playback speeds — and Hodgson’s clever use of the same technique reveals the overall structure of the film much more than watching it in realtime…but the emotion of the film is completely removed. (via the candler blog)
In 1983 Steve Dyer created the Usenet group soc.motss, possibly the first-ever online LGBT community.
One Year of Trump. The Time to Act Is Now, While We Still Can. “We can’t count on change being brought about by elections when we can’t count on elections. We can’t count on the freedoms & resources we enjoy today to still be available to us tomorrow.”
Lydia Polgreen: In Minneapolis, I Glimpsed a Civil War. “Good’s killing was emblematic of [the occupation’s] true mission: to stage a spectacle of cruelty upon a city that stands in stark defiance against Trump’s dark vision of America.”
A report from occupied Minneapolis: So, How’s the Occupation Going for You? “The physical machinations of the occupation are nearly impossible to avoid. ICE stops people randomly on the street. ICE rams cars, sometimes through intersections…”
Margaret Sullivan: With Democracy in Free Fall, the Media Must (Finally) Wake Up. “It’s as if a five-alarm fire is consuming a city and the mainstream outlets are saying they might smell something burning…”
Reporting on Homeland Security’s siege of Minneapolis. “No one…is even really bothering with the pretext that they’re here to make the city safer. This is Donald Trump’s revenge campaign, and they’re the foot soldiers.”
“Scientists have been forced to rethink the intelligence of cattle after an Austrian cow named Veronika displayed an impressive – and until now undocumented – knack for tool use.” And: “We don’t believe that Veronika is the Einstein of cows…”
This is a wild Bluesky thread (and bus ride). “they switched drivers at a rest stop and the new driver is telling everyone that they’re the ones on the wrong bus??” (Gotta be logged in to Bluesky to read, sorry.)
A Visualization of the Evolution of Paris, 300 BCE to 2025
This is an animated 3D visualization of the growth of Paris from 300 BCE to the present day. It was made with Blender (no AI) by Christian Ivan, who notes that it’s a “simplification” and so might not be 100% accurate. To my eye, the broad strokes are all there. The subtle sound design helps with the overall effect as well.
The rate at which the universe is expanding differs depending on how it’s measured. Gravitationally lensed supernovas could solve the discrepancy; the lensing allows for the tracking of the supernovas over time.
The Ping-Pong Hustler Who Inspired ‘Marty Supreme’. “If Chalamet has found, in this role, an all-time character, it is surely in no small part because Reisman was an all-time character.” (Saw the movie; loved it.)
How Russia’s Children Got So Violent. “There is no positive ideology for children in a country fighting a murderous war.” Ultranationalist & xenophobic violence is encouraged by Putin’s regime.
This website is compiling a sourced list of ICE abuses in Minnesota. (Click on “List” for the full listing.)
Photos of China’s Green Energy Transition
These photos by Chu Weimin show the mind-boggling scale of China’s green energy buildout.
Last year China installed more than half of all wind and solar added globally. In May alone, it added enough renewable energy to power Poland, installing solar panels at a rate of roughly 100 every second.
The massive buildout is happening across the country, from crowded eastern cities increasingly topped by rooftop solar panels to remote western deserts where colossal wind farms sprawl across the landscape.
Wikipedia turns 25 years old. (I can’t believe it’s only been around for 25 years…trying to imagine the web without it is impossible at this point.)
At the Stone Skimming World Championships in Scotland (at an old slate quarry), it’s distance that counts, not the number of skips. “Anyone who is familiar with slate could instinctively tell you that it’s a particularly good rock for skimming.”
By All Measures. “Our scales are too imbalanced; we are unable to think the unthinkable. It goes without saying that it can be paralyzing, demoralizing, to be an individual acting as part of the collective, globe-sized world.”
The Florentine Codex
The Florentine Codex is a 16th-century illustrated encyclopedia of indigenous Mexico, “the most reliable source of information about Mexica culture, the Aztec Empire, and the conquest of Mexico.” Courtesy of the Getty, the entire document is online and searchable.
The Digital Florentine Codex gives access to a singular manuscript created by Franciscan friar Bernardino de Sahagún and a group of Nahua elders, authors, and artists. Written in parallel columns of Nahuatl and Spanish texts and hand painted with nearly 2,500 images, the encyclopedic codex is widely regarded as the most reliable source of information about Mexica culture, the Aztec Empire, and the conquest of Mexico. Upon completion in 1577 at the Imperial Colegio de la Santa Cruz in Tlatelolco (today Mexico City), the manuscript was sent to Europe where it entered the Medici family’s library in Florence—thus, the Florentine Codex. This digital edition unlocks the manuscript’s content by making the texts and images searchable.
(via jeremy bassetti)
Many of us have “lost the future” during the radical uncertainty brought about by polycrisis. “I hadn’t fully grasped how the idea of a better future sustained me — now I, like many others, find it difficult to be productive.”
From XKCD, some common sailing rigs, including the ketch, schooner, offset rig, and oops all spinnakers.
Bread Infographic
London bakery The Dusty Knuckle cleverly used a loaf of bread as a graph to illustrate the costs of running their business:
From their post:
This comes off the back of a big decision to increase our bakers’ pay ahead of the new London Living Wage coming in April 2026. That annual increase is double what everyone expected; from £13.85 to £14.80 per hour. If you want to know more about how the rate is calculated check out the work of the Living Wage Foundation @livingwagefoundation. This is fundamentally a dignity wage line that as a company we don’t feel prepared to drop beneath.
The Dusty Knuckle is a “purpose-driven” business: “we strive to use our busy operations to help at-risk youth take forward steps in their lives through on-the-job training and mentorship”. The Insta post says that “all the bread you lot ate in 2025 allowed DK to train 70 young people from the prison and care services into the workplace”. (thx, david)
“This should be the year you stop trying so hard to turn yourself into a better person, and focus instead on actually leading a more absorbing life.”
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