Torsten Kathke
@kathke.com
Historian. 19th/20th century US & Germany. JGU Mainz. 70s/80s cultural criticism, pop science, futurology. Book: Wires That Bind.
Went to a Christmas Market that was still going on.
They started removing decorations from the trees as we had our food and it was weirdly reminiscent of being there at the end of a college party.
They started removing decorations from the trees as we had our food and it was weirdly reminiscent of being there at the end of a college party.
January 11, 2026 at 5:44 PM
Went to a Christmas Market that was still going on.
They started removing decorations from the trees as we had our food and it was weirdly reminiscent of being there at the end of a college party.
They started removing decorations from the trees as we had our food and it was weirdly reminiscent of being there at the end of a college party.
Is this what happens to packages you never end up receiving, a "dimension event"?
January 9, 2026 at 10:04 AM
Is this what happens to packages you never end up receiving, a "dimension event"?
It’s been half a century and it seems like this still isn’t widely understood.
(from Robert Caro, 'The Power Broker', Vintage: 1975, p. 897)
(from Robert Caro, 'The Power Broker', Vintage: 1975, p. 897)
![Even before the war, of course, some urban planners had begun to see largely because of the effects of Moses' creations that building more traffic facilities would not in itself cure traffic congestion. These planners had said the Regional Plan Association had been saying it since 1929 and, after the opening of Moses' creations during the 1930's, w ith increasing urgency that the movement of people and goods In a great metropolitan region required a balanced transportation system, one in which the construction of mass rapid transit facilities kept pace w ith the construction of roads. During the last two or three years before the war, a few planners had even begun to understand that, w ithout a balanced system, roads not only would not alleviate transportation congestion but would aggravate it. Watching Moses open the Triborough Bridge to ease congestion on the Queensborough Bridge, open the Bronx-Whitestone Bridge to ease congestion on the Triborough Bridge and then watching traffic counts on all three bridges mount until all three were as congested as one had been before, planners could hardly avoid the conclusion that "traffic generation" was no longer a theory but a proven fact: the more highways were built to alleviate congestion, the more automobiles would pour onto them and congest them and thus force the building of more highways —which would generate more traffic and become congested in their turn in an inexorably widening spiral that contained the most awesome implications for the future of New York and of all urban areas. The only remedy that could check that vicious spiral was the coordination of new highways with new mass transit facilities– […]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:x4d7yazerbjhjwnwfgi4tv7q/bafkreieazhjjvr5ha3rdble7h6dwrgatwvhsd6pbr7frfwcqjawt4ck6eq@jpeg)
December 29, 2025 at 2:45 PM
It’s been half a century and it seems like this still isn’t widely understood.
(from Robert Caro, 'The Power Broker', Vintage: 1975, p. 897)
(from Robert Caro, 'The Power Broker', Vintage: 1975, p. 897)
I watched this in the cinema and everyone laughed when the joystick popped up.
Turns out that's just good design if you need to react quickly.
Turns out that's just good design if you need to react quickly.
December 28, 2025 at 7:46 AM
I watched this in the cinema and everyone laughed when the joystick popped up.
Turns out that's just good design if you need to react quickly.
Turns out that's just good design if you need to react quickly.
Entweder kann bei der DB keiner Englisch oder sie haben vergessen wie Züge funktionieren.
December 14, 2025 at 12:25 PM
Entweder kann bei der DB keiner Englisch oder sie haben vergessen wie Züge funktionieren.
Took a little pilgrimage with my parents to the Aalto Theater in Essen for "Smile," the ballet about Charlie Chaplin's life and work.
A propos of nothing, "The Great Dictator" featured prominently.
A propos of nothing, "The Great Dictator" featured prominently.
October 11, 2025 at 7:51 PM
Took a little pilgrimage with my parents to the Aalto Theater in Essen for "Smile," the ballet about Charlie Chaplin's life and work.
A propos of nothing, "The Great Dictator" featured prominently.
A propos of nothing, "The Great Dictator" featured prominently.
All I wanted was a tracklist what is this.
September 19, 2025 at 8:58 AM
All I wanted was a tracklist what is this.
The problem with big tech is that they promote environment-destroying intellectual property-stealing confidently wrong AI tools for everyone so writing gets "easier" when I last changed the three AAA batteries in this thing in early 2024 and it just lets me think and write in peace.
September 6, 2025 at 11:15 AM
The problem with big tech is that they promote environment-destroying intellectual property-stealing confidently wrong AI tools for everyone so writing gets "easier" when I last changed the three AAA batteries in this thing in early 2024 and it just lets me think and write in peace.
It's the weekend and also halftime of my time as a lecturer for a Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes summer school. Very idyllically located in the Swiss alps. Surely could be worse surroundings.
August 2, 2025 at 10:11 AM
It's the weekend and also halftime of my time as a lecturer for a Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes summer school. Very idyllically located in the Swiss alps. Surely could be worse surroundings.
For just a $150 donation to the organization that famously opposes LGBTQ rights and once sent out a letter painting a dystopian world in case Barack Obama won the presidency you too can hang some art from perhaps the only working Western painter who apparently only knows how to depict white people.
July 15, 2025 at 11:26 AM
For just a $150 donation to the organization that famously opposes LGBTQ rights and once sent out a letter painting a dystopian world in case Barack Obama won the presidency you too can hang some art from perhaps the only working Western painter who apparently only knows how to depict white people.
It wouldn't surprise me if he had agreed to it, since Weistling is well known to be a "Christian" painter with a special edition of this picture being sold by Focus on the Family, where you can also find this story about him.
July 15, 2025 at 11:09 AM
It wouldn't surprise me if he had agreed to it, since Weistling is well known to be a "Christian" painter with a special edition of this picture being sold by Focus on the Family, where you can also find this story about him.
Fun fact: the title is not the title that the artist uses on his own website, or really anywhere prints are sold. Not sure if DHS asked him before retitling it or got him to retitle it to suit their agenda, but the picture is usually known as "A Prayer for a New Life".
www.morganweistling.com
www.morganweistling.com
July 15, 2025 at 11:03 AM
Fun fact: the title is not the title that the artist uses on his own website, or really anywhere prints are sold. Not sure if DHS asked him before retitling it or got him to retitle it to suit their agenda, but the picture is usually known as "A Prayer for a New Life".
www.morganweistling.com
www.morganweistling.com
July 15, 2025 at 10:55 AM
I'm legitimately p.o.'d we have to work around this in order to get back usable search, but quick PSA, here's how to do it on Apple devices:
Download Safari extension “Customize Search Engine” on the App Store.
Go to settings and change the default search engine to: www.google.com/search?q=%s&...
Download Safari extension “Customize Search Engine” on the App Store.
Go to settings and change the default search engine to: www.google.com/search?q=%s&...
June 26, 2025 at 2:56 PM
I'm legitimately p.o.'d we have to work around this in order to get back usable search, but quick PSA, here's how to do it on Apple devices:
Download Safari extension “Customize Search Engine” on the App Store.
Go to settings and change the default search engine to: www.google.com/search?q=%s&...
Download Safari extension “Customize Search Engine” on the App Store.
Go to settings and change the default search engine to: www.google.com/search?q=%s&...
Also ich hätte da ein anderes Bild gewählt.
June 21, 2025 at 11:52 AM
Also ich hätte da ein anderes Bild gewählt.
For your consideration. (via: extremelysmart.com/humor/howtof...)
![Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
There is an art, it says, or rather, a knack to flying. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss. Pick a nice day, [The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy] suggests, and try it.
The first part is easy. All it requires is simply the ability to throw yourself forward with all your weight, and the willingness not to mind that it's going to hurt.
That is, it's going to hurt if you fail to miss the ground. Most people fail to miss the ground, and if they are really trying properly, the likelihood is that they will fail to miss it fairly hard.
Clearly, it is the second part, the missing, which presents the difficulties.
One problem is that you have to miss the ground accidentally. It's no good deliberately intending to miss the ground because you won't. You have to have your attention suddenly distracted by something else when you're halfway there, so that you are no longer thinking about falling, or about the ground, or about how much it's going to hurt if you fail to miss it.
[…]
If, however, you are lucky enough to have your attention momentarily distracted at the crucial moment by, say, a gorgeous pair of legs (tentacles, pseudopodia, according to phyllum and/or personal inclination) or a bomb going off in your vicinty, or by suddenly spotting an extremely rare species of beetle crawling along a nearby twig, then in your astonishment you will miss the ground completely and remain bobbing just a few inches above it in what might seem to be a slightly foolish manner.
[…]
Do not listen to what anybody says to you at this point because they are unlikely to say anything helpful. They are most likely to say something along the lines of "Good God, you can't possibly be flying!" It is vitally important not to believe them or they will suddenly be right.
[…]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:x4d7yazerbjhjwnwfgi4tv7q/bafkreiclghepivqghiqicqzibgcx3e6tio3nz4yb3jau7koqp5fmkm5r5i@jpeg)
June 14, 2025 at 9:49 PM
For your consideration. (via: extremelysmart.com/humor/howtof...)
The bombs have been cleared safely, but me and probably a couple of tens of thousands of people had a bit of an odyssey getting home from work.
Here's the view from a bridge I crossed on foot with hundreds of other people since train lines were cut/rerouted.
Note the ships awaiting the all clear.
Here's the view from a bridge I crossed on foot with hundreds of other people since train lines were cut/rerouted.
Note the ships awaiting the all clear.
June 5, 2025 at 9:04 AM
The bombs have been cleared safely, but me and probably a couple of tens of thousands of people had a bit of an odyssey getting home from work.
Here's the view from a bridge I crossed on foot with hundreds of other people since train lines were cut/rerouted.
Note the ships awaiting the all clear.
Here's the view from a bridge I crossed on foot with hundreds of other people since train lines were cut/rerouted.
Note the ships awaiting the all clear.
RIP Peter David.
When I moved around a lot a few years ago I gave away all of my collection of Star Trek novels, except this one, which I've had for thirty years.
His work seemed to defy genre without ever forgetting or disregarding it. Truly the mark of a great storyteller.
When I moved around a lot a few years ago I gave away all of my collection of Star Trek novels, except this one, which I've had for thirty years.
His work seemed to defy genre without ever forgetting or disregarding it. Truly the mark of a great storyteller.
May 26, 2025 at 10:39 AM
RIP Peter David.
When I moved around a lot a few years ago I gave away all of my collection of Star Trek novels, except this one, which I've had for thirty years.
His work seemed to defy genre without ever forgetting or disregarding it. Truly the mark of a great storyteller.
When I moved around a lot a few years ago I gave away all of my collection of Star Trek novels, except this one, which I've had for thirty years.
His work seemed to defy genre without ever forgetting or disregarding it. Truly the mark of a great storyteller.
Australia always like the fun cousin you forgot was actually going to be at the family function. #Eurovision
May 17, 2025 at 10:39 PM
Australia always like the fun cousin you forgot was actually going to be at the family function. #Eurovision
France is always giving their points in French in front of the Eiffel tower. Check. #Eurovision
May 17, 2025 at 10:22 PM
France is always giving their points in French in front of the Eiffel tower. Check. #Eurovision
And the jury vote has started. As ever, we're all wondering why exactly who has given points to who and why. #Eurovision
May 17, 2025 at 10:16 PM
And the jury vote has started. As ever, we're all wondering why exactly who has given points to who and why. #Eurovision
Last year's winner Nemo once again, reenacting either the end of the last act of Angels in America or that play Joey did on Friends; unclear. #Eurovision
May 17, 2025 at 10:01 PM
Last year's winner Nemo once again, reenacting either the end of the last act of Angels in America or that play Joey did on Friends; unclear. #Eurovision