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Jason Kottke's curated links and essays · full text
1. The Onion: Translator Of Original ‘Minions’ Epic Poem...
By Jason Kottke · 31 Jul 2026
The Onion: Translator Of Original ‘Minions’ Epic Poem Slams ‘Sexless, Bloodless’ Film Adaptation. The actual Wilson on Bluesky: “No professional accomplishment has ever made me happier than this.” Most fun movie discourse since Barbenheimer.
2. What Are the Most Untouchable Records in Sports?
By Jason Kottke · 30 Jul 2026
I ran across this post on Threads the other day: “What’s the hardest record in sports history to ever break?” A sampling of the replies: “Bill Russell’s 11 NBA championships including 8 in a row.” “Lionel Messi scored 91 goals in the 2012 calendar year.” “Cy Young 749 complete games.” “Fernando Tatis (Sr) - 2 Grand Slams in the same inning. Most of the others mentioned here are highly improbable, but there’s no way anyone ever hits 3 slams in one inning.” “Lionel Messi’s 8 Ballon d’or” “Sir Donald Bradman’s batting average in Test cricket. His 99.94.” “Russian wrestler Aleksandr Karelin. Undefeated for 13 years. 887 wins and 2 losses, both by single point.” Last year, The Athletic offered a list of their own, which included Wayne Gretzky’s 1,963 career assists, the furthest goal in soccer (96.01 meters), Michael Phelps’ 23 Olympic golds, and Wilt Chamberlain’s 100-point game. Poking around the internet a bit, there’s also FloJo’s 100m record, UConn women’s basketball team’s 111 wins in a row, Cal Ripken’s consecutive game streak, and Simone Biles’ 30 world championship medals. Any additions to the list? Tags: best of · lists · sports
3. A Telegram Arrived — And I Had to Choose Between My Head...
By Jason Kottke · 30 Jul 2026
A Telegram Arrived — And I Had to Choose Between My Head and My Heart. “On Boxing Day, I rang my father and told him my news. He was momentarily silent until his delayed shock was so great that he dropped his favourite coffee cup and I heard it smash.”
4. “ A new Airbus passenger jet completed an...
By Jason Kottke · 30 Jul 2026
“A new Airbus passenger jet completed an ultra-long test flight between Australia and France lasting more than 24 hours—paving the way for the world’s longest nonstop commercial flights starting up next year.” Wow.
5. The Drawing Room With Mo Welch
By Jason Kottke · 30 Jul 2026
Comedian Mo Welch has a new show on PBS called The Drawing Room, where she interviews people while she draws them (and her guests draw her). What a great idea for a show. The first three episodes are live already: Brett Goldstein, Sarah Silverman, and violinist Vijay Gupta; here’s the premiere episode with Goldstein: Each episode is only 10-12 minutes long. The lineup of guests for the rest of the season include Demi Adejuyigbe, Tig Notaro, Adam Conover, and Aparna Nancherla. Tags: art · Brett Goldstein · interviews · Mo Welch · PBS · TV · video
6. The Beauty of Doing Nothing Together . “What...
By Jason Kottke · 30 Jul 2026
The Beauty of Doing Nothing Together. “What you’re doing hardly matters. What matters is inviting someone into the ordinary parts of your life instead of waiting for an occasion that feels worthy of an invitation.”
7. The Hell Mouth
By Jason Kottke · 30 Jul 2026
Volcanologist Laszlo Kestay took this photo of a lava skylight in 1996 while conducting field work at Kīlauea on Hawaiʻi. The hardened lava flows strongly resemble doomed souls being sucked into hell or the damned escaping the underworld. Tags: geology · hawaii · hell · Laszlo Kestay · photography · volcanoes
8. The legacy of the Luddite movement changes when you zoom...
By Jason Kottke · 30 Jul 2026
The legacy of the Luddite movement changes when you zoom out a bit. “The development of cooperatives around the world is another story that should not end too abruptly. We could still be weaving it today.”
9. The trailer for Wicker (starring Olivia Colman,...
By Jason Kottke · 30 Jul 2026
The trailer for Wicker (starring Olivia Colman, Alexander Skarsgård, Peter Dinklage, Elizabeth Debicki). “An outcast in a fishing village commissions a husband for herself made out of wicker.” Looks unhinged (complimentary).
10. The coffee shop where 162 regulars have their own mug...
By Jason Kottke · 30 Jul 2026
The coffee shop where 162 regulars have their own mug (1977). “The cups may not be such a small thing after all. They are a town register and a history and a confirmation that life goes on in a small American town.”
11. It’s Cool to Be Weird
By Jason Kottke · 29 Jul 2026
I really like what Razaak Eniola has to say here about human difference. Before Prince was Prince, Prince was weird. And that goes the same for probably any of your favorite artists. Before Erykah Badu was Erykah Badu, Erykah Badu was weird. Before Marc Rebillet was Marc Rebillet, Marc Rebillet was weird. Everybody loves to clap at the end — and most of the time we are clapping for the wrong reasons. We live in a culture that loves final products. It’s cool to be weird, as long as it’s rooted and aligned with what’s true and what’s sincere. I often tell people they’re weird and it’s always a compliment. Before it came to mean odd-looking or “disturbingly different”, weird meant “having power to control fate” — perhaps you could think of it as describing someone who can forge their own way, make their own luck. Here’s a short quiz to discover your weirdness: You’re Weirder Than You Think. For whatever reason, this also reminds me of something I read earlier today by Robin Sloan: We should never forget that the product of work isn’t only the work — it’s also the worker. (via @witoldriedel & @prisonculture.bsky.social) Tags: language · Razaak Eniola
12. Walmart is busy building out their fast EV charger...
By Jason Kottke · 29 Jul 2026
Walmart is busy building out their fast EV charger network in the US…currently 73 locations in 17 states. Their eventual goal is install chargers at “thousands of its locations by 2030”.
13. A terrarium iPhone case that houses actual growing...
By Jason Kottke · 29 Jul 2026
A terrarium iPhone case that houses actual growing plants and moss.
14. “ Zugunruhe is a German term describing the...
By Jason Kottke · 29 Jul 2026
“Zugunruhe is a German term describing the restless, twitching urge migratory birds feel when caged — and the same primal restlessness humans feel when trapped.”
15. Some Interesting Apples
By Jason Kottke · 29 Jul 2026
Something that still blows my mind is that every apple seed produces a new variety. Every single one. This is a lovely short documentary about a project called Some Interesting Apples, which aims to find apples growing in unusual places (i.e. not commercial orchards but in places where people tend to discard apple cores): The last three years I have been involved with a project called ‘Some Interesting Apples’, the primary aim of which is to record and, where characteristics make desirable (and sometimes where they don’t), preserve wilding apples, i.e., domestic apples growing on their own roots as the result of a discarded core. Some of the best apples are then cultivated in an orchard dedicated to wild apples: The ‘Some Interesting Apples’ project collects apples from wild trees that have been grown using cores thrown away — many from car windows or dropped from walkers and animals. The wild trees or ‘wildlings’ are trees that grow from those apple cores discarded in hedges and along train tracks, footpaths and roadsides. Their fruit often goes uneaten or rots — but have now instead be used to create a unique orchard. The orchard has been developed from dropped fruit from more than 600 apple wildings in Cornwall. It has now created Wilding Mother Orchard - the first ever orchard in the UK solely dedicated to cultivating wild-grown, chance-seedling apples. The discovered apple varieties are named for their what3words locations; they have names like Horse Wish Gossip, Panes House Taxi, and Autumn Mushroom Spoke. Apples are super interesting. I read it years ago now, but I still often think of Michael Pollan’s chapter on apples in The Botany of Desire. Tags: apples · botany · food · science