Finally.
From the website:
Tuesday, June 16, 2026
My Commonplace Book
Back in the day commonplace books and journals and diaries were ubiquitous.
Now historical curiosities. they've been replaced by things like X, Instagram, Facebook, blogs, TikTok, YouTube videos, and their ilk.
Starting when I was in college I cut things out and wrote things down that interested me and put them into a folder for future reference.
When it got too thick I'd start another one.
I must have a zillion such folders in my basement and attic, none of which I ever look at and all of which I'm sure will be trashed by those cleaning house after I crump.
But I digress.
I will say that those folders came in very handy back around the turn of the century when I wrote my last book: a good part of its content derived from references and quotations I'd amassed over previous decades.
Today my commonplace book equivalent consists of this blog, my posts to X and Hacker News, and uploaded YouTube videos a large majority of which feature my beloved, just recently turned 4-years-old calico cat Vanta (top).
Related — I regularly email items of interest to people who produce my favorite websites, paying it forward as it were; those peeps include:
• Charles Arthur of The Overspill
• Clive Thompson of The Linkfest
• Spencer Wright of Scope of Work
• Benedict Evans of Benedict's Newsletter
• Kai Brach of Dense Discovery
• Jason Kottke of Kottke
• Marcin Wichary of Unsung
One more thing: I stumbled on an Amazon page recently that said that I've given 660+ gifts since Amazon started — and received 3.
That sounds about right: I love giving presents but alas no one I know is like me so I never receive surprise gifts.
I just love doing stuff for people that makes their lives easier/better/etc.
If only I had a friend like that....
Monday, June 15, 2026
(please click the button)
Well?
Are you game for what happens if/when you do?
Wait a sec — what's that song I'm hearing?
FunFact: over 1 billion views since it was uploaded 16 years ago.
'A Remarkable Place To Die'
I stumbled on this 4-part 2024 crime thriller on Amazon Prime: turned out it's one of the best things I've watched in a while.
Each episode is around 90 minutes long, equivalent to a full length feature film.
I wonder why the creators chose to take that approach as opposed to the more conventional 8-part/45-minute-long route.
Great cast, none of whom I'd ever seen before.
It's set around Queenstown on the South Island of New Zealand and it's total eye candy: spectacular vistas and surroundings.
Six-part Season 2 is scheduled to premiere later this year.
FunFact: I went to New Zealand for three weeks in 1982 and was dazzled by its beauty and its emptiness: it was rare to see another car on rural roads and highways.
I doubt that's still the case: 44 years passing will do that.
Sweet: Orange-Pineapple Minute Maid Zero Sugar FTW!
They started with Lemonade in 2020 and over the years have brought forth Fruit Punch, Pineapple, Mango Passion, Strawberry Lemonade, and now Orange Pineapple.
I rank them as follows, most favorite to least:
• Pineapple
• Orange Pineapple
• Mango Passion
• Strawberry Lemonade
• Fruit Punch
• Lemonade
Try 'em all!
At stores everywhere.
Sunday, June 14, 2026
Hats That Look Like... Bread?
Neatorama brings them to us in all their glory.
Wrote John Farrier:
..........................................
Kent is a craftsman in Japan who makes hats that look like loaves of bread, cakes, and other foods.
The felt hats are remarkably realistic.
They look like warm loaves fresh out of the oven.
But don't bite down on one — especially if it's being worn at the time.
In addition to bread hats, Kent makes cake hats.
I appreciate the details in the frosting that add color and texture to form.
He provides videos that illustrate how he makes each hat by carefully shaping the felt with tools and steam.
Kent's extraordinary attention to his work makes each piece of headgear a delicious treat.
..........................................
[via Clive Thompson's Linkfest]
Saturday, June 13, 2026
Controlling the speed of time passing
For many years now my sense of time passing has been that it's steadily accelerating: on Thursdays it seems as if I put out the trash bin for last Thursday morning's pickup (always around 5:30 am with a lot of banging and grinding and noise to make sure everyone in the neighborhood knows it's happening) a moment rather than a week before.
Days whizz by, all of a sudden it's time to get ready for bed.
The months pass so fast I only turn the calendar over every other month.
I've been thinking about this for years without gaining any traction understanding why this is happening.
Yes, everyone has always said time passes faster as you get older and I've always just taken that as a given since the sentiment seems universal.
Then I changed my running routine last month so as to get it done as early as possible in the morning before the 95° sun and humidity make it unbearable.
My heat tolerance as I get older isn't close to what it used to be: I used to welcome it and revel in the sweatfest.
So, off I went in the morning before it got really hot, same 2-3 miles daily as always.
But after the third straight day doing this it struck me that things had changed as I moved through the day: I no longer spent the bulk of the day procrastinating about going running (which activity I dislike doing and have always disliked), instead doing things I like to do like reading and posting to boj — which has, since inception in 2004, always put me into a flow state that can last many hours where time passes very quickly.
Now, though, since switching things up to run first and do other stuff later, time feels like it's back to normal, the way I felt it passing when I was much younger.
The flow state still happens but it doesn't feel like I've had to avoid doing something I'd rather not do to get there.
All in all, a huge improvement in my quality of life.
TMI
For many years I looked at the final item on The Guardian's website, its list of "Most viewed" articles.
Earlier this year they added a second column headed "Deeply read."
For a while I took the time to look at both but then one day I thought, "This is a chore, not at all something I'm liking."
I no longer bother looking at either.
Note to editor-in-chief Katharine Viner: Less is more.
Wait a sec... where have I heard that before?
Maybe here?
Friday, June 12, 2026
Ask An Astronaut
"Find your question among hundreds of astronaut interviews aboard the International Space Station: 333 hours of Q&A footage."
10,132 questions answered to date.
Wait a sec — what's that song I'm hearing? No, not that one, silly billy....
Perplexity Pro FTW!
Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses have been sold out since they were released on September 30, 2025.
Ten months have passed and they're still scarce as hen's teeth.
I did find many pairs available on StockX, where current prices are around $830, not much more than the retail price of $799, though when they first appeared on StockX at the end of January they sold for $1,300.
In recent months I've occasionally used Google to search for a store near me that has them but no dice.
Just for lulz I asked Perplexity Pro to help me find a place to buy them one day last month.
It took the AI just under 9 minutes to finish its deep dive into the internet and report the results pictured up top.
Much more than I've been able to learn after hours of frustration trying to get this information via Google Search.
Lagniappe: It was fascinating watching the AI display its "thought" process onscreen as it went down myriad internet rabbit holes.
Long story short: I've got no interest in driving three hours each way to northern Virginia to do the mandatory in-person demo required before I can purchase them.
At $15/month (down from $20/month when I signed up last year) Perplexity Pro remains the best value for money of anything I've paid for in recent memory.
Parallel Cities
You've always wanted to know which cities are on the same parallel (latitude) as yours across the globe.
Now you can find out.
Thursday, June 11, 2026
Wednesday, June 10, 2026
'Shape of Dreams' — Zendaya x Spike Jonze
Zendaya co-created a new collection for On, the Swiss fashion company, and Spike Jonze directed this promotional video starring the actress.
Put the speaker by your BAD ear
The penny dropped earlier today as I was listening to some of my favorite songs on my wonderful Marshall portable speaker (above, mission control for boj).
Since forever I've had the speaker near my laptop where it's helped pump up the volume when my MacBook Pro's [not all that bad] internal speakers aren't enough.
Anyhoo, I was about to put it on the right side of my computer where I always site it since the hearing in my right ear is much better than that in my left, a fact I was finally able to document objectively using Apple's AirPods Pro hearing test.
I mean, I've known for many, many years — since I was a kid — that if it was noisy for whatever reason when and where I wanted to go to sleep, I needed to put my right side down into the pillow with my left up uncovered.
But my brain suddenly jumped the usual rails and switched: I thought to myself, "If the hearing in my right ear is better, I should put the speaker on the left side of the computer because my right ear will perceive it as plenty loud while my diminished left ear gets the full blast.
Fantastic: much better sound this way, it's like I got an additional speaker and I'm listening in stereo.
Bottom line: you can teach a geriatric near-brain-dead retired anesthesiologist who breathed far too much unscavenged waste gas during his 38 years in the O.R. new tricks.
Evolution of the Batman Logo
Wrote Clive Thompson:
.......................................................
I didn’t realize how often DC artists had tweaked the logo for Batman. Here’s a poster by Breen that tracks all the changes.
The early evolution is slower than you'd expect. From 1939 to the early 1960s, the bat-symbol changed mostly in proportion — wings got wider, then narrower, then wider again. The head appeared, disappeared, grew prominent, shrank back. Artists tweaked wing points from five to seven to nine without much consistency. Printing technology was crude enough that fine details often vanished on the page anyway.
Then 1964 changed everything. The bat landed inside a bright yellow ellipse, and suddenly the logo had presence. The version refined in 1966 — with the wings curving outward to fill the oval — became the definitive Batman emblem for an entire generation. It held that position for over three decades.
There are some super weird ones!
DC's alternate universes — Elseworlds, the Dark Multiverse, one-shot specials — are where the bat-symbol gets truly strange. Batman: Holy Terror reimagines Bruce Wayne as a priest, and the emblem reflects it. Batman: Digital Justice #4, the first fully digital comic book ever made, carries its own distinct symbol. The 2017 Dark Nights: Metal event spawned an entire gallery of corrupted Batman variants — the Dawnbreaker, the Drowned, the Merciless, the Devastator — each with an emblem designed to feel wrong, like a bat-symbol from a universe where Batman lost.
Tuesday, June 9, 2026
The 100 Best Novels of All Time
[The title page of the first edition of "Middlemarch" (1871-1872), named the best novel of all time]
..............................................
The Guardian asked authors, critics, and academics to help compile a list of the best 100 novels of all time.
Selecting a book will show you who voted for it; then click on the voter's name to see their other choices.
I've read 59 of them in their entirety.
I started but failed to finish 7 of the remaining 41 titles, most notably the seven volumes of "In Search of Lost Time," the first volume of which, "Swann's Way," I've begun at least five times, never coming close to its conclusion.
Perhaps I'll give it another try.
4K Video of Cat-5 Super Typhoon Sinlaku
Sinlaku was the strongest tropical cyclone in the Northern Hemisphere since 2021 and the strongest storm overall so far this year.
The Mariana Islands, Guam, and Micronesia all suffered widespread damage and the storm has so far claimed 17 lives.
taken.
This web page shows how much data your browser collects that websites can use to "fingerprint" your device — even without cookies.
It identifies your device with enough specificity to distinguish it from most others on the internet.
Wait a sec — what's that song I'm hearing?
Monday, June 8, 2026
How to read X posts if you don't have an X account
I happened on this slick trick in a comment on Hacker News.
Instead of https://x.com/bookofjoe, use https://xcancel.com/bookofjoe
Above left, what you'll see.
Very cool!
..........................
Note added 4:50 p.m. today, Monday, June 8, 2026: I just checked to make sure it still works and it does.
Be patient: It takes a couple seconds to do whatever internet voodoo is necessary to take you to the "dark side."
Nissin Cup Noodles FTW!
The classic, the pioneer of microwave noodles remains atop the heap.
I've had a zillion varieties but Nissin still takes the top prize because:
1. They're the fastest
2. They taste great
3. They're cheap
4. The container never leaks
VANTA concurs, as you can clearly see in the video up top.
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