What’s under your kilt?
A list of responses to “The Question” asked of all kilt-wearing gentlement: What’s under your kilt?
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.
Beloved by 86.47% of the web.
kottke.org posts about lists
Fifty greatest TV shows of all time
There’s much to argue with on this list of the 50 greatest TV shows of all time. Too many 1 or 2 season shows and recent shows. And Buffy at #2? Christ, whatever.
A list of reasons why people write
A list of reasons why people write and explore history with examples of each.
14. The past is heritage: we study it to form or enforce national, ethnic, religious or personal identity, or to combat attempts to destroy heritage. Gertrude Himmelfarb, The De-Moralization of Society.
(via short shrift)
The 10 most appropriate weatherperson names…like Ray
The 10 most appropriate weatherperson names…like Ray Ban and Storm Field. When I was a kid watching the news out of Minneapolis, their morning weather guy’s name was Sunny Haus. (Not his real name though…the station wouldn’t let Steve Wolhenhaus go by his real name.)
A list of the top one articles
A list of the top one articles by Neal Pollack about how sportswriters should stop writing about the NBA MVP race and, oh yeah, lists of stuff are dumb:
Sportswriters and pundits, on the other hand, are treating the MVP race with the gravitas of a presidential election. That’s because they make up the Electoral College. When they’re debating who’s going to win the award, they’re not really talking about who they think the best player is; they’re talking about whom they should pick as the best player. It’s the ultimate circle-jerk of sports-guy self-regard.
A somewhat uneven list of the best
A somewhat uneven list of the best films that never won a Best Picture Oscar. As the commenters point out, lots of good films (like Raging Bull & Dr. Strangelove) were missed. (via house next door)
20 respectable rock and rap acts that peaked with debut albums.
20 respectable rock and rap acts that peaked with debut albums.
A visual look at the top 10 trends
A visual look at the top 10 trends in spring/summer 2008 fashion, including parachute silk, higher waistlines, and skinny belts.
It will take you literally hours to
It will take you literally hours to get through this list of the 50 Greatest Comedy Sketches of All Time (video often included). (thx, miguel)
A list of “evil” human experiments, including
A list of “evil” human experiments, including the Stanford prison experiment (one of the milder examples) and the Nazi experiments on concentration camp prisoners. Heed the warning at the top of the page…this was a difficult list to read.
Update: I had to remove the link because there was a bunch of crappy, virus stuff. If you’re on a Mac, have popup blocking turned on, or have a strong constitution, you can click here to see the list.
A list of quintessentially New York books.
A list of quintessentially New York books.
New York is a hypertextualized city. By 6 a.m., our commuters have smudged more words off their papers than most cities read all day. How to even begin identifying a canon? While reading, I plotted candidates along two mystical axes: one of all-around literary merit, and the other of “New Yorkitude” — the degree to which a book allows itself to obsess over the city. Robert Caro’s The Power Broker just about maxes out both axes; others perseverate so memorably on smaller aspects of city life that they had to be included.
The list includes Rem Koolhaas’ Delirious New York, Don DeLillo’s Great Jones Street, and Tom Wolfe’s The Bonfire of the Vanities.
A chronological list of fears, from childhood
A chronological list of fears, from childhood through parenthood. (via lone gunman)
A large list of interesting print catalogs
A large list of interesting print catalogs for niche industries and hobbies.
Cabela’s. 1400 pages of hunting, fishing & outdoor gear. Comes with foldout index tabs and if you spend appalling amounts there (like my SO), they send you a hardbound version.
(via mathowie)
A short list of What Every American
A short list of What Every American Should Know About the Middle East.
Arabs are part of an ethnic group, not a religion. Arabs were around long before Islam, and there have been (and still are) Arab Christians and Arab Jews. In general, you’re an Arab if you 1) are of Arab descent (blood), or 2) speak the main Arab language (Arabic).
A companion list of what every resident of the Middle East should know about the US might also be helpful. (via chris glass)
The top five reasons why “the customer
The top five reasons why “the customer is always right” is wrong. I like the idea that a company should be as ready to fire bad customers as they are to fire bad employees.
Top ten artists suffering the Lindsey Buckingham
Top ten artists suffering the Lindsey Buckingham Paradox.
The Lindsey Buckingham Paradox is what happens when otherwise brilliant musicians decide they’re better than their bandmates (creative differences, natch), strike out on their own with solo “careers”, and somewhat curiously never again manage to grasp his or her own genius in the way we all know is possible.
Sting clocks in at #2:
Stewart Copeland and Andy Summers brought their own special flavors to the Police party, and without them, Sting is just a big bowl of goddamned puffy cheetos. Like Bono, maybe, without the passion or, you know, cred.
A list of 98 nicknames for New York
A list of 98 nicknames for New York City, including The City of Friendly People, The University of Telephony, and Father Knickerbocker. (via gothamist)
From the outgoing NY Times Paris bureau
From the outgoing NY Times Paris bureau chief, eight lessons in the ways of the French.
A doctor I know told me he once bought a coat at a small men’s boutique only to discover that it had a rip in the fabric. When he tried to return it, the shopkeeper gave him the address of a tailor who could repair it - for a large fee. They argued, and the doctor reminded the shopkeeper of the French saying, “The customer is king.”
“Sir,” the shopkeeper replied, “We no longer have a king in France.”
Ed Boyden on How to Think “in
Ed Boyden on How to Think “in a world where problems are extremely complex, targets are continuously moving, and our brains often seem like nodes of enormous networks that constantly reconfigure”.
Make your mistakes quickly. You may mess things up on the first try, but do it fast, and then move on. Document what led to the error so that you learn what to recognize, and then move on. Get the mistakes out of the way. As Shakespeare put it, “Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt.”
(via spurgeonblog)
A list of foods that were unknown
A list of foods that were unknown in Europe in the Middle Ages. A good resource for Renaissance Faire planners.
The world’s 50 best works of art and
The world’s 50 best works of art and where to go to see them. Random Knowledge has links to all the art so you can check them out virtually in less time and for less money.
The 100 best last lines from novels. (via clusterflock)
The 100 best last lines from novels. (via clusterflock)
If you can ignore the stupid one-logo-per-page
If you can ignore the stupid one-logo-per-page interface, check out the 25 best band logos.
The UK Sunday newspaper The Observer recently
The UK Sunday newspaper The Observer recently published a list of the world’s 50 most powerful blogs. kottke.org is fourth on the list. “Powerful” seems to be a word used here for its succinct headline value…that adjective doesn’t fit many of the blogs on the list. But The Observer has made an effort to build a wide-ranging list of blogs that you should be reading…it’s very nice to be included.
Typographica’s list of their favorite typefaces of 2007.
Typographica’s list of their favorite typefaces of 2007. Some great work in that list. I also enjoyed Mark Simonson’s explanation of the difference between a font and a typeface:
The physical embodiment of a collection of letters (whether it’s a case of metal pieces or a computer file) is a font. When referring to the design of the collection (the way it looks) you call it a typeface.
Oh and also good was that they were thoughtful enough to wait until 2007 was actually over to make their selections.
A long list of obsolete skills, like “
A long list of obsolete skills, like “tuning in TV stations by using an antenna rotor” and “cranking up or down a car window”.
Posters of 80 years of Oscar best picture winners.
Posters of 80 years of Oscar best picture winners.
Top shots of 2007
An annotated list of the top ten cinematographic moments in film in 2007: part 1 and part 2.
The shot that stuck out in my head the very first time I saw the film spoke to me so deeply that I referenced it in my initial review: “A few years trickle by as Plainview adds onto his enterprise until finally, oil. A black-tarred hand reaches to the sky and suddenly you sense the influence of Stanley Kubrick on the film. Like the apes who discovered weaponry in “2001: A Space Odyssey,” Plainview has come upon the object that will dictate America’s destiny for the next century and more.” I don’t thiink I could say it any better now.
(via house next door)
Socials & More