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…

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, enab…

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 Pers…

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…

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 t…

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?”…

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…

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.”…

You can help: a listing of mutual aid organizations to support in Minnesota.…

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…

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…

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. Inv…

“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 wit…

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 wa…

“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…

“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.�…

Hello, folks! Today I'm pleased to release our 17th typeface and the first of 2026. It's one steeped in literary tradition combined with my penchant for slightly analog, warbling letterforms…

For years and years, I’ve helped teams evaluate their systems, fix their systems, tweak their systems, and evolve their systems. And sometimes it’s even been necessary to help teams declare b…

The First Animation That Hayao Miyazaki Directed on His Own: Watch Footage from the Pilot of Yuki’s Sun (1972).…

“A flock of ring-necked parakeets that were filmed feasting on the wall of a 19th Century barn were echoing Amazonian feeding habits…near Welwyn in Hertfordshire.”…

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 th…

Incredible drone footage of a pileup of 100+ cars, trucks, and semis in winter conditions in Michigan.…

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 freed…

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 sta…

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 s…

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…

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 cam…

“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…

The world is an absolute mess right now and it feels like an indulgence to sit back and review the year that’s gone from such a self-centric view. But I also know that these annual reflecti…

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…

Added to the film diary:Living in OblivionTom DiCillo, 1995, ★★★When Harry Met SallyRob Reiner, 1989, ★★★★FranticRoman Polanski, 1988, ★★½Added to the music library:BullheadMelvi…