things


The Best Book Covers of the Last Decade. (lithub.com)

Orbital. “…without earth we are all finished. We couldn’t survive a second without its grace, we are sailors on a ship on a deep, dark unswimmable sea.” (wikipedia.org)

On Additive and Extractive Technologies, “an extractive technology seeks to extract value from you instead of providing it.” Avoid.

Seer, “the built environment itself is, for all intents and purposes, becoming a gigantic archive, at all scales, forensically recording every event that occurs within it, with few or no options for opting out.” Also, BLDGBLOG is still alive.

Google Fonts organized by vibe, even if fonts aren’t your thing, visit to see all the little cursors flying around the Figma canvas.

Alistair Smith’s personal site is pretty neat.

The last box of books from my dad.

“Books can be picked up at any time, and an idea that was written down in the past can be released back into the present, and help to influence a future.”

How to organize your books

a cutaway illustration of a cave from a children’s book. Includes a mole disco party, caveman slumbering with a mammoth, and tiny submarine exploring a cave lake

From: cutaway house illustrations appreciation post & fan club by way of Meanwhile.

Book (to read): State of Paradise by Laura Van Den Berg

Fiction resists summary

It is an interesting feature of stories and fiction that they resist summary. You cannot read a summary of Anna Karenina and somehow stockpile its pleasures and charms. Narrative resists compression.

Resist Summary

His inner radio was all about oranges, dogs, and trucks

“Truly this book is in memory of my brother, Jeff. When confronted with hatred or violence, he used to say: I don’t get that station, man. His inner radio was all about oranges, dogs, and trucks. We always made up life on our own. I miss him every day.”

From the dedication of Mecca by Susan Straight.

a page from the PARKS book showing an abstract map of elevation and water flow

This map/diagram from the Parks book slaps. That is all.

Links for Week 45, 2024

Standard Ebooks: “A volunteer-driven project that produces new editions of public domain ebooks that are lovingly formatted, open source, free of U.S. copyright restrictions, and free of cost.” /via Austin Kleon

On why Werner Herzog’s memoir finishes mid-sentence, it has to do with bullets and hummingbirds.

I picked up An Illustrated History of Ghosts featuring the awesome art (and words) of Adam Allsuch Boardman.

From Open Circuits