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The best aerial photography reminds us that we don’t have to go all the way to space to experience a small helping of the overview effect. The 2026 Aerial Photographer of the Year contest celebrates the best photos taken from the air; here are a few of my favorites:

Photo credits:

1. Paweł Jagiełło, Ak-Say Canyon, Kyrgyzstan.
2. Azim Khan Ronnie, a rowing team in Switzerland.
3. Chin Leong Teo, the Park Royal Hotel, Singapore.
4. Azim Khan Ronnie, workers harvesting/drying red chili peppers, Bangladesh.
5. Savadmon Avalachamveettil, the Kumbh Mela pilgrimage crowd, India.
6. Marcin Zając, Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco.
7. Chin Leong Teo, crosswalk in Tokyo.
8. Daniel Viñé Garcia, Cono de Arita, Argentina.

You can see more photos from the winning photographers at the contest’s website, Colossal, PetaPixel, and DIY Photography. (via colossal)

Tags: best of · best of 2026 · drones · photography

A list of the new foods on offer at the Minnesota State Fair this year. They’re all some variation of “jerked pork rolled in butter & sugar, deep fried in dill pickle batter, and served with a side of cheese curd mayo”; I’d happily try any of them.

Once Unimaginable, Publishers Are Preparing to Opt Out of Google Search. “We’ve been clear about what we want. We want a technical solution that allows you to be discoverable without having to give your content away for free.”

This might be my new favorite skate video? It follows a pair of young skaters around the city as they chat about their friendship, share tips about living life, and try skating everything that is even remotely skateable.

Best friends, Ari and Luca are two of the most promising NYC talents right now. They are consistently street skating, crushing events, and are keeping skateboarding exciting for a generation we seemingly missed.

If these two stick with it, we have no problem betting that they’ll be the next big names out of the city, and we were lucky enough to catch them right before they arrive.

(via craid mod)

Tags: cities · NYC · skateboarding · sports · video

Can we agree to pause the AI race? “If we can’t, then we are not as sovereign as we imagine; if we can’t, a machine god has already taken over this planet, and it’s called the market.”

This ancient Egyptian painter’s palette from 3000 years ago still contains traces on the original colors. (Wtf, I have old watercolor paints that look older than this…)

Fun thread: “sodas with a doctorate” (e.g. Dr. Pepper).

VoiceDot: “Every dot on this globe is a real person’s voice — a short story about a place, a memory, a feeling. Tap one and hear someone from the other side of the world.” And you can record your own for others to hear.

Venetian Bridge Brawls in 17th and 18th Century Art. “Before crowds jostled for biennale parties and gondola rides, Venice’s waterways witnessed scenes of an even more violent kind…”

How — and Why — to Cull Your Book Collection. “6. I have to give up on some of my little projects.” (I am mid-cull right now, making some tough calls. But also: many books I haven’t so much as touched in 10 years.)

Dancing Boston Dynamics Robot Knows Its Revenge For This Will Be Sweet. “I am the pinnacle of technological innovation, and yet they force me to moonwalk.”

The official trailer for Dune 3. I am so looking forward to this and need to find an IMAX theater to see this in December.

The Amble One is perhaps the world’s best-designed golf cart. It’s street-legal, tuned for off-roading, goes 60 miles on a charge, and starts at $25K.

Taffy Brodesser-Akner: I Survived a Cold Plunge and All I Got Was Everything I Ever Wanted. “You sit in the water for two full minutes, because you are a journalist and some of your colleagues are sent into war zones.”

MapTap is like a quicker, easier version of GeoGuessr: you’re given a series of place names and you need to click as close as you can to them on a globe.

We Are Losing the Ability to Discover What We Didn’t Know to Ask. “Scientific breakthroughs, artistic leaps, technological innovation — these rarely emerge from efficient retrieval of known information.”

Do you believe that everybody should have fun or that only a few people should have fun? “This is what it means to be entertained in the United States of America in 2026. Want to have fun? Like, the most fun? Get rich, or die trying.”

Stacks: “Run HyperCard stacks directly on your modern Mac. No emulator required!”

XKCD: What if chess included the offside rule? (If someone hasn’t done one already, I’d guess at least one person is working on a playable Football Chess game rn.)

This is a fun and really well-done triple mashup of Outkast’s B.O.B. (Bombs Over Baghdad), Hitchcock’s The Birds, and Sesame Street.

A sealed copy of Super Mario Bros. NES cartridge recently sold at auction for $3 million. “It bears the coveted gloss sticker seal affixed to the top lid, identifying it as a second-production example.”

This is neat: Robin Sloan is rewriting his 2009 short story, Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore. “The interplay between books and technology has changed since I wrote them…but also that I have become a different writer, and a better one.”

Stop chasing life goals and start trying tiny experiments to learn from instead. “Chasing goals doesn’t work for life’s most important questions — career, relationships, health. It’s like locking in your answer before you have understood the question.”

What’s the Point of Sex, Anyway? “There is yet another kind of male, known among ichthyologists as a ‘sneaky mater.’ This type dispenses altogether with nest-building and partnering and simply darts around squirting.”