When you jump, I jump
In video from the CHI Geneva, an equestrian competitions, riders, coachers, and trainers respond to watching horses jump. Via Kottke
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When you jump, I jump
In video from the CHI Geneva, an equestrian competitions, riders, coachers, and trainers respond to watching horses jump. Via Kottke
Wednesday headlines: That child-free lifestyle
Russian lawmakers vote to ban all content that promotes "a child-free lifestyle," including social media. / Semafor
Since the 1990s, deaths have nearly always outnumbered births in Russia. / The Washington Post [+]
What can President Biden do prior to Donald Trump's new term? "Use his clemency power to empty the federal death row." / Slate
Tim Snyder on Trump: "We should expect him to try to cling to power until death, and create a cult of January 6th martyrs." / The New Yorker
See also: An updated guide to protecting yourself from government surveillance. / WIRED
Wealthier nations want Saudi Arabia, China, and the private sector to contribute more to help lower-income countries adapt and cope to the climate crisis. / The New York Times [+]
Pakistan's smog is visible from space. / Goats and Soda
Global sales of electric and plug-in hybrid cars are up 35% from October last year. / Reuters
Unrelated: Fourteen percent of urban road miles nationwide are under state control, but two-thirds of all crash deaths in the 101 largest metro areas occur there. / Vox
The iconic SS United States, "once the pride of America's maritime fleet," is about to become the world's largest artificial reef. / gCaptain
What is it like to experience polar night in the world's northernmost town? "I savor the calm it brings." / Smithsonian Magazine
A history of Black Mountain College's weaving tradition. / Hyperallergic
A review of a new biography of writer Sanora Babb, known for her bad luck "of now-legendary proportions." / The New Republic
Tracing the King James Bible's influence on Ernest Hemingway's "principle of the iceberg." / Slant Books
RIP, Alvin Ailey star and artistic director Judith Jamison. / The New York Times
See also: During the pandemic, different Ailey dancers performed Ailey's "Cry." / YouTube
Tuesday headlines: Serenade the sheep from the goats
Israel says there will be no ceasefire or pause until its war objectives are met. / The Times of Israel
A video round-up of what's happened in northern Gaza siege since the US gave its 30-day warning a month ago. / Al Jazeera
Between news-averse voters and Twitter disinformation, "Donald Trump was returned to power by the most badly informed electorate in modern American history." / The Philadelphia Inquirer
See also: The mirror of fascism in big tech. / Dead Simple Tech
Hannah Ritchie: The fact that researchers can't keep up with developments in low-carbon energy is, in many ways, a good thing. / Sustainability by numbers
Difficult-to-pronounce names are found to be negatively related to the probability of landing academic jobs. / American Economic Association
A scientist with breast cancer self-experimented with lab-grown viruses—and though the treatment was a success, she doesn't recommend just anyone try it. / Nature
Only 0.8% of American women live in an area that has an abortion facility that doesn't also have a nearby anti-abortion "crisis pregnancy center." / NBC News
"Spiritual bars"—alcohol plus tarot readings—are said to be booming in China. / Radii
More migratory birds passing through New York City means more skyscraper collisions. / The Guardian
Unrelated: Some thoughts about rethinking your commuting route. / The Los Angeles Times
Authorities dismantle a criminal group responsible for forging over 2,000 artworks attributed to more than 30 known artists. / artsy
A review of a $420,000 electric car says the best feature is the sound it makes. / The Verge
Watch: A short film about the custodians of an emergency airport in Australia. / Colossal
Residents of Coulsdon, England, find their Facebook posts deleted by an algorithm that flags the word "LSD" in their town's name. / Inside Croydon
Is social media an oral culture? "I actually don't know if any of this is right." / X
Baby boomers think the love song is dying—and they're wrong, but that's because the categories have changed. / The Pudding
Friday headlines: Fight or flightless
For the first time in history, every incumbent party in a developed nation this year lost vote share in elections. / Financial Times
See also: A German far-right party won a regional election in September, which hasn't happened since the Nazi era—a result of 30 years of ignoring a lurking problem. / The Baffler
The good news is that the US political system is too complex for Trump to destroy it. The bad news is he's going to try anyway. / The Guardian
We blamed Facebook for Trump winning in 2016, so it tracks that we'd blame TikTok this time around—except the squirrel thing was not nothing. / Read Max
An explanation of 4B, the South Korean feminism movement that bans men, and that's been taking hold this week among American women. / Vox
"Ten percent of American workers today are union members, meaning that 90% of 'the working class' are not union members." To unfuck politics, create more union members. / How Things Work
Life after landing your dream job as a lighthouse keeper on a remote Australian island, where your only company for a month at a time is a colony of penguins. / BBC News
See also: From an 1860 John Ruskin letter, "One feels everything in the world so sympathetically ridiculous, one can't be angry when one looks at a Penguin." / Instagram
An emperor penguin has arrived on the southern coast of Western Australia, the furthest north the species has ever been recorded. / ABC
Ten years after legislation to curtail stores' and restaurants' seafood mislabeling, an investigation finds 18% of salmon sold as wild is actually farmed. / Gizmodo
Unrelated: Webfishing, a game that combines fishing, relaxing, chatting, and little else, could not have come at a better moment. / VICE
Or if smashing fascists sounds more appealing, the allure of Wolfenstein remains. / Kotaku
See also: From 1941, "It is an interesting and somewhat macabre parlor game to play at a large gathering of one's acquaintances: to speculate who in a showdown would go Nazi." / Harper's
A vibrant journey through the colorful world of mushrooms, comprising more than 800 shades. / Mushroom Color Atlas
Thursday headlines: O patria mia
Wednesday headlines: Morning portrait
Tuesday headlines: Kiss or cut bait
Monday headlines: Election nearing
There could be more continents than you think. Case in point: New Zealand may be part of its own continent, separate from Australia. / The New York Times [+]
The Greenland Ice Sheet temporarily stores a large amount of meltwater in the summer, a discovery that may aid in accurately forecasting future sea-level rise. / Phys.org
"Where can I get crystals that are less toxic, locally sourced, and ethical?" / Sierra
Small farms lose out as billionaires prove to be the "ultimate beneficiaries" of the EU's farming subsidies. / The Guardian
See also: Jeff Bezos's justification for a non-endorsement is another in a long sequence of evidence for why the future of journalism can't be billionaires. / 404 Media
In an election that's been rife with misinformation, Perplexity AI's new election hub is a bad idea at the worst possible time. / Gizmodo
See also: "Washington has to wake up and realize that in fact, Silicon Valley is in the midst of a huge power grab." How technology ruined democracy. / Foreign Policy
In election predictions: Polymarket wants you to think it has all the answers (it doesn't); and we are 100% certain that anything could fucking happen. / The Baffler, McSweeney's
Unrelated: "If you can become lucid during a nightmare you can change your response or do something that empowers you in real time and improve your capacity to cope." / Atlas Obscura
From 2021 and so necessary this week: Yuki Kawae's meditative zen gardens are an antidote to doomscrolling. / Colossal
"Google says I need an abortion." Diana Weymar's abortion embroideries document the state of post-Roe America. / Hyperallergic
According to a new investigation, dental chains are pulling healthy or treatable teeth in order to profit from implants. / KFF Health News
"What once looked like a generational change to public space in the American city has instead returned to a bunch of curb parking." Why NYC's outdoor dining fell apart. / Slate
Typical habanero peppers reach 100,000 to 350,000 units on the Scoville heat scale, while a newly created variety tops out at 1,000. / Oregon Public Radio
"Where was 'the hexagram of the heavens' I loved from the opening verse of the album?" Listening to Joni Mitchell's demos and hearing a narrative evolve. / Dada Drummer Almanach
Friday headlines: Yours for a song
More than 200 people have now died from the flooding in Valencia, Spain, in Europe's deadliest weather disaster since the 1970s. / Reuters
Long a crime that targeted Black and Latino people, jaywalking is now legal in New York City. / HuffPost
"Even liberal yuppies in my Brooklyn neighborhood lined up at a community board meeting in May to complain that there were just too many migrants at local shelters." The crime of human movement. / The New York Review
See also: Contrary to what Republicans are campaigning on, Biden and Harris worked behind the scenes to get the border crisis under control. / The New York Times [+]
The history of Electrical Audio, legendary recording engineer Steve Albini's studio, which is searching for a way forward after its founder's death. / Inc.
See also: "Anyone who has streamed a song on their phone for free can sense that something has changed." The decline of the working musician. / The New Yorker
Instagram allows male nipples but not female nipples—but in cases of transition when and how is that distinction drawn? / 404 Media
In response to a fake, AI-generated ad, thousands of people showed up for a Halloween parade in Dublin that never happened. / Engadget
Retail stores may soon have access to facial-recognition technology that can detect shoppers who "sweetheart" workers in hopes of scoring discounts. / Gizmodo
Mathematicians calculate there's not enough time left in our universe for monkeys to ever randomly type out the complete works of Shakespeare. / BBC News
Black plastic kitchen utensils contain high levels of fire retardants, which have a nasty habit of leaching into food. / The Atlantic
Legalized gambling is turning football upside down for fans, gamblers, and players alike. / Wide Left
It's the end of an era as the last in-flight magazine for a major carrier goes digital-only. / Columbia Journalism Review
"In a quiet, unremarkable town in Ohio, everything has begun to disappear: first shoes, then street signs, then pets." A links-based mystery game. / Question Mark, Ohio
Thursday headlines: Happy Diwalloween!
North Korea launches an intercontinental ballistic missile, perhaps looking for attention prior to the US presidential election. / USA Today
The Economist magazine endorses Kamala Harris, saying "being independent and being opinionated" aren't in conflict with each other. / Semafor
Election officials in battleground states are trying—and mostly failing—to fact-check Elon Musk in real time. / CNN
An argument that social scientists don't seem to know how to incorporate the nonlinearity of chaos. / Aeon
Unrelated: Dodgers fans set a Metro bus on fire after their team wins the World Series. / KTLA
Facebook is auto-generating militia group pages. / WIRED
Users report still being able to use Microsoft's controversial AI-powered gender classifier. / 404 Media
Schools are banning Crocs because the shoes are said to be a distraction, and dangerous. / Fortune
Related: How the font Comic Sans became the Crocs of typefaces. / FastCompany
An eating tour of eastern France's choucroute garnie, pretzels, and pork knuckles. / The Financial Times [+]
Diwali and Halloween overlap this year, producing "Diwalloween." / The Washington Post [+]
An annual favorite, a round-up of "mundane" Halloween costumes from Japan. / Spoon & Tamago
Wednesday headlines: Banana wit
Foreign interference in this year's election is said to be far more sophisticated, and far more difficult to track. / The New York Times [+]
China is considering approving $1.4 trillion in extra debt to revive its economy. / Reuters
Related: If "Xi Jinping Thought" is not a vision for a genuine socialist movement driving toward a communist utopia, what is it? / China Books Review
An explainer for why forecasts continue to miss the pace and persistence of falling birth rates. / The Financial Times [+]
The United States' Nuclear Emergency Support Team (NEST) is a group of volunteers who have high-level security clearances. / NPR
Personal assistants for billionaires earn around $250,000 a year—and the job is a logistics nightmare. / The Cut
Related: "Private rail cars were, and still are, very much a high-end luxury." / Why is this interesting?
Regarding yesterday's news about the art market, Maurizio Cattelan's Comedian—a banana fixed to a wall with duct tape—is estimated to sell for $1.5 million. / Artsy
A brief video about the tumbleweed's 19th-century arrival in America. / YouTube
A short film about two brothers traveling alone from Boston to the 1967 World's Fair in Montreal by pony cart. / The New York Times [+]
Britain's cheese world suffers the loss of over £300,000 worth of clothbound Cheddar. / NPR
How do different species respond to death? "In ways that are learned rather than instinctive, not rigidly responsive to specific stimuli, and highly variable." / The New Yorker
European scientists develop an algorithm capable of interpreting pig sounds. / Reuters
Examples of people who cultivate "divine discontent." "The tendency to revise, in particular, seems especially common." / Personal Canon
Tuesday headlines: Radio on the TV
Saudi Arabia and Iran conducted a joint military drill last week in the Sea of Oman. / TRT World
A good summary of current conflicts in the Middle East from Spencer Ackerman. / Forever Wars
Oren Yiftachel: "Apartheid is not only a moral abyss and a crime against humanity; it is also an unstable regime." / +972 Magazine
President Biden waits in line for 40 minutes to cast his vote in the election. / The Associated Press
Philadelphia's District Attorney sues Elon Musk over his million-dollar sweepstakes for voters in battleground states. / Deadline
Unrelated: SpaceX wins a new round of military contracts worth $733 million. / Ars Technica
The term "clippers" refers to people influencing the political news cycle by making snappy videos for social media. / CNN
Related: A brief online test to check your susceptibility to misinformation. / University of Cambridge
A deep dive into how Chinese firms are evading US controls on advanced technologies. / Semianalysis
Collectors spent roughly a third less on art in 2023 than in 2022, with the largest decrease in spending at the highest levels. / Artsy
A book review connects recent novels about women's midlife crises to older stories about witches. / The New Yorker
United Airlines prints its final in-flight magazine, the last connected to a major US carrier. / Columbia Journalism Review
See also: A short film about the States' last fabric flower factory. / YouTube
Analysis of baseball's minor leagues finds persistent bias against Black and Latino players dating back to 1950. / The Guardian
An argument for enjoying the World Series aurally: "Listening to baseball on the radio requires a patience—and provides a catharsis." / GQ
Confessions of a Spotify vandal. / Hearing Things
Some thoughts on what exactly is human spirit. "Our energies often come from a combination of neurotic drive and positive response." / Lapham's Quarterly
Monday headlines: Silence is deafening
"Donald Trump held a rally at Madison Square Garden last night that was so racist it got the New York Times to dust off the actual word 'racist' and use it in a headline." / Welcome to Hell World
A look at the billionaires and businesses getting in line for Trump, who's vowed to punish dissenters. / The Washington Post [+]
Why a longtime LA Times editorial writer resigned after the spiked Harris endorsement: A non-endorsement on Harris's home turf is an un-endorsement. / The Hollywood Reporter
Bird flu tracking among humans couldn't be timed worse, with researchers trying to discern whether someone's "flu-like symptoms" are a cold, Covid, influenza, or actually bird flu. / STAT
The 18th edition of the Chicago Manual of Style, a stalwart of editorial citation, has a hell of a job, landing amid an era of digital misinformation and disinformation. / Los Angeles Review of Books
A video of someone destroying ballots marked for Trump in Bucks County, Pa., is a fake planted by Russia, according to US officials. / NPR
See also: Maricopa County officials are contacting around 20 voters whose mail-in ballots were damaged after someone set a mailbox on fire (but not for political reasons). / The Gazette
In a review of BBQ joints in a small Texas town, a restaurant loses a recommendation over its owner's use of racist language. / Texas Monthly
A USGS model of more than 1,200 groundwater samples shows millions of people in California, Florida, and Massachusetts may be drinking forever chemicals. / Gizmodo
See also: Tesla's engineering headquarters in Palo Alto released some kind of lime-green liquid—purportedly a nonhazardous coolant—into a storm drain. / SFGATE
The US Copyright Office ends a longstanding frustration for fast-food restaurants, granting them the right to repair the soft-serve machines at their locations. / Ars Technica
Related: From 2021, hacking McDonald's always-broken soft-serve machines so restaurants could repair them. / WIRED
When Google Street View data is incorrect, either by accident or intention, hardware store interiors can appear in the middle of the Atlantic. / Futurism
Thirteen years later, a scandal-laden development of Disney-style palaces in Turkey remains unfinished and deteriorating. / The Guardian
Before buying a domain name, check to see if it's haunted—in other words, whether something terrible happened there in the past. / Bryan Braun
Friday headlines: Won’t get food again
In attempting to investigate its own citizens' abortion history, Texas is suing to access out-of-state medical records. / The Nation
"Do not tell voters that Trump is rude and boorish and impolite. Tell them that Donald Trump is the motherfucking problem." The rich cause the problems they want you to blame immigrants for. / How Things Work
AI search results from Google, Microsoft, and Perplexity are stating as fact white supremacist theories that tie IQ to race. / WIRED
Earlier this year, a historian showed how the New England Journal of Medicine opted out of covering Nazi atrocities; now, she argues the journal is choosing to ignore the health crisis unfolding in Gaza. / The Intercept
How to know which new studies are worth paying attention to? Keep an eye out for "statistical power." / Parent Data
A newly discovered species of tardigrade has a genome with the astounding ability to repair its DNA when exposed to radiation. / Gizmodo
"If every era has a characteristic condition, ours is indigestion." A new book considers the stomach, which doctors once called "the most enigmatic of organs." / The Washington Post [+]
As McDonald's tries to track down the source of its E. coli outbreak, other major fast-food chains pull one likely suspect—onions—from their menu items. / Ars Technica
From the factory to your sandwich, why deli meats provide a haven for potential microbial activity. / Vox
Testing of products on store shelves shows Brach's Candy Corn, Autumn Mix, and Mellowcreme Pumpkins candy contain the known carcinogen Red Dye 3. / Consumer Reports
See also: Your children's Halloween candy might contain Hieronymus Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights. / X
"I Am a Bunny stands as one of the true tranquil masterpieces of children's book art." Chris Ware on Richard Scarry. / The Yale Review
It doesn't matter whether students read Faulkner or whether society thinks that's bad, except that it can be good to read things you hate. / The Culture We Deserve
Style advice from a fashionable 12-year-old. "I do wish I would see more self expression, and fewer trends." / Picnic
"Burton has a mop of fine brown hair that rises straight up from the roots whenever he is dropped from height on a ride." A profile of the designer behind the UK's tallest roller coaster. / The Guardian
Thursday headlines: House of the rising pun
Israel has damaged more buildings in two weeks than in a year of fighting with Hezbollah. / BBC News
A brief history of Hezbollah, Israel, and Lebanon. / Vox
China cracks down on "uncivilized" puns that people use to get around censorship controls. / The Guardian
One of the foremost American experts on fascism comes around to applying "this most toxic of labels" to Trumpism. / The New York Times Magazine [+]
An argument for making an "emotional hedge bet" on the presidential election—among 27 observations from a political insider. / Matt's Five Points
For Millennials, "wealth may have gone up, but if that's mostly housing wealth, then that's not actually making people better off." / The Washington post
Housing prisoners in "containment cages" for days—standing-room only, with no toilet or sink—is a widespread and unchecked practice in Texas. / Slate
In the past 40 years, the number of catastrophic injuries sustained by cheerleaders is greater than those sustained by female athletes playing all other high school and college sports combined. / The New York Times Magazine [+]
As of 2022, only about six percent of the nation's doctors identified as Black and only seven percent as Hispanic. / The Atlantic
What is the trendy recreational drug "pink cocaine?" A grab bag of different drugs dyed pink that often doesn't include cocaine. / The Associated Press
A "fruit detective" studies old paintings for produce we no longer eat. / Smithsonian Magazine
Photographs by Lars Tunbjörk of corporate worklife in the 1990s. / Lars Tunbjörk
"I don't have to tell you that posting on the internet is a weird thing to do." Lessons learned from a 90-day course taught by a TikTok influencer. / Defector
Watch: A carpenter fires his nail gun in time to a band performing next door. / Kottke
Wednesday headlines: Make a pre-line for
Regarding the election, most of Europe is pro-Harris. Israel, Russia, India, and other countries favor Trump. / Semafor
A round-up of the rampant disinformation circulating about the election. / The New York Times [+]
Related: Vladimir Putin hosts a summit for global leaders, including China's Xi Jinping and India's Narendra Modi. / The Hill
Do political fundraising texts actually work? "A well-done text marketing program can be really good at fundraising." / Vox
According to a nonpartisan aommittee, Trump's Social Security plan would empty the coffers by 2032, three years ahead of current projections. / Quartz
"[Tax cuts] are the political equivalent of someone chopping your house to pieces with an axe and then offering the remains back to you under a sign that says, 'Free Firewood!'" / How Things Work
Journalists are composing "pre-writes" to prepare for whoever wins. One shares his ahead of time. / Wake Up to Politics
Interviews with Harris's sorority sisters: "The first Black woman to fill-in-the-blank is almost always a sorority woman." / The New Yorker
A new coronavirus variant, XEC, is spreading across the United States. / Newsweek
Experts say a proposed revamp to the recycling symbol is still deceptive. / Grist
Boar's Head, a privately owned company run by two intensely guarded families, is said to be "the Jay Gatsby of the meat industry." / The New York Times [+]
Meanwhile, a German crime ring is found to be delivering cocaine by tucking it under pizzas. / The Guardian
NASA debuts a new traffic management system for aircraft operating above 60,000 feet. / NASA
Inside a tool purchased by law enforcement agencies that can track smartphones at abortion clinics. / 404 Media
Anthropic's latest model of Claude AI can now use a computer on your behalf. / Platformer
Your odd words of the week: condisciple, scripturiency, refocillation. / Futility Closet
Tuesday headlines: A wood man is hard to find
Russia has suffered catastrophic losses during its invasion of Ukraine, but its policies suggest the end justifies the means. / The Guardian
Mara Karlin: An era of limited war has ended; an age of comprehensive conflict has begun. / Foreign Affairs
A new rideshare company in South Africa is reportedly using intimidation to coerce drivers and passengers. / rest of world
In the past two years, Donald Trump has called for every major American TV news network to be punished. / Reliable Sources
An ethicist says making presidents and candidates share their medical history is a bad idea. / STAT
Street psychiatrists in Los Angeles offer a solution for mentally ill people—basically, "DoorDash for meds." / The New York Times [+]
Related: Observations from an hour spent last week in an LA coffeeshop. / Meditations in an Emergency
The WNBA players union opts out of its collective bargaining agreement, two years before its expiration. / The Associated Press
Unrelated: Multiply the number two by itself 136,279,841 times, minus one, and you get the new largest known prime number. / The Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search
The late-in-life partner of Oliver Sacks movingly recalls the neurologist's search to build a cohesive life. / The New York Times [+]
Anthony Bourdain's french fries recipe. "If you don't blanch your fries first, you'll get a scandalously bad result." / The Melt
See also: Remembering Ka, the "quiet sage" of underground rap (and firefighter). / Pitchfork
"A group of woodcocks is a fall. A flock of seagulls is annoying." Some ruminations on words connected to wood. / Harper's
Monday headlines: Fear and loathing
Amid shortages of food, fuel, and medicine, Cuba's electrical grid has collapsed four times since Friday, leaving 10 million people without power. / Reuters
The presidential election is down to more than swing states; in fact, the outcome appears to rest on these 21 microcommunities. / The New York Times [+]
Elon Musk's $1 million daily sweepstakes for Pennsylvanians promising to vote Republican is "either an incentive for someone to vote or it's a reward. And either way, it violates federal law." / NPR
See also: The misery of living in a swing state during election season. / The New York Times [+]
"This key is awarded if the candidate can persuade the public that they are conscious." The real 13 keys for winning the White House. / McSweeney's
As if this year's US election wasn't already chaotic enough, the FBI has arrested a man planning an election day attack on behalf of the Islamic State. / The Guardian
Laugh about Trump's ridiculous dance party all you want, but the kitschy nostalgia is exactly in line with the world his supporters long for. / Intelligencer
In a dispatch from a prisoner, the horror of Texas's containment cages. (Content warning.) / Slate
This year's flu shot doesn't protect against a once-common influenza strain that now appears to have been eradicated through Covid distancing and masking. / NPR
In an interesting comparison of median home values and median incomes, these are the most and least exclusive communities for homebuyers in America. / The Hustle
An "unusually narrow" skyscraper—at only one apartment wide, or 22.5 meters—could be going up in downtown Dubai. / Dezeen
See also: "The Neom giga-project in Saudi Arabia is currently using one fifth of all the steel produced in the world." / AGBI
Unrelated: "it is time to commit to building the largest physically possible space telescope." / Palladium
Kurt Vonnegut once designed a board game, General Headquarters, that is finally available, some 70 years after it was originally conceived. / Open Culture
Amazon says it will be getting rid of those plastic inflatable air pillows by the end of the year, but the plastic blue-and-white mailers may be sticking around for a while. / Grist
Friday headlines: Well-known unknowns
Researchers find that people think they know enough to make informed decisions—regardless of what information they have. / Ars Technica
A detailed investigation into how Russian propaganda reaches and influences Americans. / NBC News
Donald Trump blames Ukraine for Russia's invasion. / The Washington Post
Analysts at the Department of Homeland Security warn of right-wing extremists attacking election facilities. / WIRED
What does merch mean to political campaigns? "It's a medium for expressing a networked collection of different beliefs and values." / It's Nice That
Some thoughts on what the death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar means for the Middle East. / NPR
A short quiz about Shein, Delhi's Chandni Chowk market, and the global fashion business. / rest of world
See also: Notes from a day in the life of a small British bookstore. "Shop goes quiet for ages but it's okay." / Receipt from the Bookshop
A young person's tips for navigating an urban social life while newly sober. / plant life
A deep dive into all things tech-related from 2004. / The Verge
Some aerial photographs of scrap yards with their junk arranged into collages. / Kottke
For everyone who's not from southern Ontario, an explainer for understanding the rare game of Crokinole. / The Pudding
Thursday headlines: Megafraught
Israel's military is investigating whether Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was killed during a military operation. / CNN
Mohamad Elmasry: The US warning to Israel to "let aid in Gaza"' is merely a distraction. / Al Jazeera
European leaders are calling for new laws to ramp up deportations. / Politico
See also: For Germany, it's a remarkable switch "given that it welcomed more than a million mostly Syrian refugees." / Semafor
The FBI says investment scams are surging this year because criminals are using AI tools to seduce their victims. / The San Francisco Standard
Kyle Chayka falls back in love with iPhone photography through an app that skirts Apple's AI optimization. / The New Yorker
Forgive us, but: a round-up of apps people look at on their phone while they're sitting on the toilet. / Defector
At this year's Paris Auto show, "glitz is out" and the focus is on lower-cost offerings. / Clean Technica
What is it like to work on a megayacht? "You're a fly on the wall, but it's very one-sided." / The Cut
Unrelated: Axiom Space, NASA's commercial partner, reveals its new spacesuits developed with Prada. / Gizmodo
China ends its international adoption program, sending shockwaves through the adoption community. / Goats and Soda
Three years later, there's still no satisfying answer as to the whereabouts of disappeared Chinese tennis pro Peng Shuai. / Sports Illustrated
Some examples of Korean painters pushing feminist art forward. Also, 10 contemporary artists who are innovating landscape painting. / Artsy
Wednesday headlines: The myth of the reasonable man
China's appetite for an Iran-Israel war is said to be limited. / The Economist
Five takeaways from Kamala Harris's interview with Charlamagne Tha God. / The New York Times [+]
Donald Trump turns a town hall into a 39-minute "living-room listening session." / The Washington Post [+]
Why does the media still struggle to portray Trump accurately? Partly because of the "myth of the reasonable man." / Degenerate Art
A reporter's road trip through the Southwest, talking to voters, finds that "Latinos are as American as anyone else, if not more so." / The Los Angeles Times
Farmers worry that Trump's proposed "mass deportations" will decimate the US food supply. / Grist
Unrelated: Russia to unveil a new statue of Joseph Stalin. / Politico
Billionaires are said to be dominated by existential crises, "although each displays nuance when it comes to confrontation." / MacGuffin
Who left the United States a $7 billion payment? Theories suggest a Texan investment manager, but it's maybe someone still alive trying to minimize their taxes. / Sherwood
See also: There's no evidence the Internet Archive was hacked to edit history—but what if it was? / Interconnected
Unrelated: A video tour of New York City's so-called fake buildings. / Open Culture
TikTok is turning users with relatively low follower counts into paid shopping influencers. / rest of world
A new AI company enables users to create bots in the likeness of any person—without their consent. / WIRED
Old fashioned bookshops are now cool destinations for young people. "I can spend hours browsing—I think that's a big part of it." / The Guardian
Writers and authors create adhoc writing programs to compete with institutional workshops. / Airmail
Astrophysicists are "exulting" in new findings about the universe's first billion years, such as an image of the earliest known galaxy. / Quanta Magazine
Video and photos of 14,000 prescription lenses dangling in a Japanese forest. / Colossal