Posts tagged “cancer”

• A study of 500 diners found “attractive servers earn approximately $1,261 more per year in tips than unattractive servers.” Mostly because of “female customers tipping attractive females more than unattractive females.” – via 52 things I learned in 2025
• A recent randomized trial on exercise for cancer patients breaks new ground in showing the life-extending powers of a workout.
• Scope Creep is an online horror video game about being a project manager.
• “Time is indeed a cruel mistress.”

  History and the Passing of Time is a brilliant (and short) essay by Daniele Bolelli, host of the History on Fire podcast.

• This is your annual reminder that the album Sugar & Booze by SNL alum Ana Gasteyer is chock full of fantastic holiday music and you can stream it on Alexa.
• I have at least eight of these Wyze smart plugs and they are great for scheduling holiday decorations. (I have two Wyze outdoor plugs, too.) This year I bought two more of these battery-to-plug adapters. (They let you convert battery-powered decorations—like snow globes and animated Santas—so you can plug them into the wall.)
• And you may ask yourself, “How did I get here?” (This is actually a fabulous explanation of how the Internet works and not, sadly, a site about Talking Heads. Coincidentally, I just learned a few days ago that David Byrne was at RISD at the same time that my dad was at PC, and my dad said Byrne used to work in the window of a New York System place grilling hot dogs.)
• This might be the most wholesome thing on YouTube. Dad, How Do I? is a collection of videos teaching you how to do all sorts of basic things. – via Jason
• It’s hard for me to believe it’s been a decade since the release of The Force Awakens. (I still love BB-8 and was pleasantly surprised to learn he was imagined into existence by J.J. Abrams himself!)
• In Bolivia a team of paleontologists have discovered and meticulously documented 16,600 footprints left by theropods, the dinosaur group that includes the Tyrannosaurus rex.

• When ancient Romans felt wronged, they didn’t ask for revenge from the gods. Instead they scratched their anger into thin lead sheets called defixiones, folded them carefully, and buried them in wells, graves, or temples, trusting that some power beneath the earth would take care of the rest.
• Buckle up, buttercup. This essay is going to be tough to swallow. Collagen Sits on a Throne of Lies: How the supplement industry took meat garbage and turned it into a $9B business
• A single HPV vaccination appears just as effective as two doses at preventing the viral infection that causes cervical cancer.
• Finding it impossible to stop thinking about The Chair Company? You can get a Tecca t-shirt or hat, but they’re sold out of chairs.
• One of the hardest parts of being a parent is attempting to balance, “Please study! School and your grades are very important,” with, “Don’t be stressed! This one history test isn’t going to matter at all in twenty years.” – via me
• Have you ever wondered how a touch screen knows you are touching it?
• Chindōgu: The Japanese Art of Unuseless Inventions
• How a UF engineer found purpose Below Deck
• Man unexpectedly cured of HIV after stem cell transplant
• “Anyone who was born an American and therefore feels superior to someone who had to work to become an American doesn’t know the first thing about being an American.” – via @harrymccracken.com
• Good News for People Who Like Bad News:
  • A 6-year-old boy is missing after ICE arrested him and his dad in NYC last week and shipped them to separate facilities. – via @clauirizarry
  • Zillow has removed climate risk scores from over a million real estate listings after realtors complained that information such as how at risk a home is from wildfires was causing them to lose sales. – via @carnage4life
  • Crucial is shutting down — because Micron wants to sell its RAM and SSDs to AI companies instead. – via @papapishu
  • “You are an abuser of women — that is the ugly truth and I have no respect for any man that belittles, lies, cheats, sleeps around, and uses women for his own power and ego.” – Penelope Hegseth to her son, Pete
  • The Supreme Court is siding with the current administration 84 percent of the time; it sided with the Biden administration only 53 percent of the time. And of course only one of those administrations is habitually laying waste to the rule of law.
  • Lawsuits allege USA Gymnastics, SafeSport failed to prevent sexual abuse by coach

• Gators!
  • Florida rallies past Houston to win March Madness 2025 NCAA championship
  • How Florida drew from back-to-back champs to stop Houston, start new reign over college hoops
  • After Final Four slugfest with Auburn, Florida stands alone as the class of an all-time SEC
  • Dramatic title game between Florida, Houston delivers end to greatest Final Four ever
• I NY: New York public schools tell [current] administration they won’t comply with DEI order
• Why Big Pharma wants you to eat more meat – via Curious About Everything
• Creating and sharing deceptive AI-generated media is now a crime in New Jersey
• You Can’t Always Get What You Want:
  • Border Czar Tom Homan Faces Backlash in His Hometown for Locking Up a Local Family / ICE disappeared a mother and 3 children. Neighbors said hell no. / BREAKING: Third grader & family abducted by ICE will return home
  • Judge says deportation of Maryland man to an El Salvador prison was wholly lawless.
  • Massive, Unarchivable Datasets of Cancer, Covid, and Alzheimer’s Research Could Be Lost Forever – via meyerweb.com
  • “When children die from measles, it means that adults have catastrophically failed to protect them because they have rejected basic science.” – via luckytran.com
  • RFK Jr. says he plans to tell CDC to stop recommending fluoride in drinking water
  • Ousted Vaccine Chief Says RFK Jr.’s Team Sought Data to Justify Anti-Science Stance – via carlzimmer.com

• Oh, boy. This is just a fantastic response to being told you can’t teach DEI at a private university. – via @mjsdc.bsky.social
• If you grew up watching Schoolhouse Rock, you likely need a measles booster.
• I am irrationally upset that The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest is ending its 54-year run. – via kottke
• The Last of Us returns for season 2 on April 13.
• I have always loved making paper airplanes.
• Some good news: From 2008-2022, cervical precancer rates dropped by a whopping 80% among women aged 20-24. – via YLE
• Sex, Drinking and Dementia: 25 Lawmakers Spill on What Congress Is Really Like is nowhere near as wild and crazy as the headline would have you believe. If anything, the whole piece reads more like, “Aw, shucks! These people are just plain old good regular folks like you n’ me!” Don’t bother.
• In other news:
  • This is how you become a Nazi bar.
  • After Georgia banned abortion, its maternal mortality committee detailed the “preventable” deaths of two women, which led to the state… dismissing all thirty-four members.
  • Democrats who censured Al Green are as clueless as they are feckless. Right now there’s too much appeasement and not enough fighting.

• The music industry traded tape for hard drives and got a hard-earned lesson. Roughly one-fifth of the hard disk drives from the 1990s sent to Iron Mountain are entirely unreadable.
• My son got me hooked on New Rockstars. Erik Voss and his team produce amazing YouTube recaps of all sorts of things in pop culture. The Jessica Clemons breakdown of the Kendrick Lamar Super Bowl LIX halftime show is great.
• A moving new trailer has been released for Borrowed Time: Lennon’s Last Decade, an ambitious documentary that explores the final years of John Lennon through archival footage, never-before-seen interviews, and firsthand accounts.
• A new study shows you can lower your risk of cancer by eating just one serving of cruciferous vegetables per day. Vegetables appear to do the most to help fight gastrointestinal cancers, such as colorectal and stomach cancer, but the protective effects extended to lung and breast cancer as well.
• Climate change is causing hotter temperatures to become more frequent in the four West African countries responsible for producing approximately 70% of the world’s cacao — the key ingredient in chocolate.
• Former Florida Gators and Kansas City Chiefs wide receiver Kadarius Toney is facing multiple charges, including aggravated assault, following his arrest in Georgia last week.
• White House says it has the right to punish AP reporters over Gulf naming dispute. (I am rapidly running out of canaries, people.)
• Was I the only one a little concerned that NASA increased the odds of that asteroid hitting us in 2032 from 1.2% up to 2.3%? This brilliantly simple explanation at Scientific American from astronomer Phil Plait should ease your mind a bit.
• Recent Media
  • Black Doves (Netflix) was incredible. Keira Knightley and Ben Whishaw can act. Splendid plot. A+++
  • We watched the penultimate episode of Skeleton Crew and I am all-in on this show. Fantastic fun. Jude Law is perfect.
  • Four episodes into Slow Horses and love this show, too.

• Just a few days ago I said Shrinking was the best show on TV right now. Obviously I didn’t think I needed to include an “except for Bluey“ disclaimer, because certainly everyone agrees Bluey might well be the best show in the history of television. And they’re working on a Bluey movie?!
• “A well-placed swear word triggers emotional and physiological arousal, like an adrenaline boost, where your heart beats faster, and your sympathetic nervous system is given a charge, which enhances focus and energy just enough to help you perform better.” – via Arnold Schwarzenegger‘s Pump Club (threads / bluesky)
• “As we continue to face adversity in our daily lives, I’m reminded of the power of the deep breath and the walk in the woods, the vagus nerve and the parasympathetic nervous system.” – via The Curious About Everything Newsletter from Jodi Ettenberg (threads / bluesky)
• I’m very frustrated that we haven’t made time to watch the new Disney+ Star Wars series Skeleton Crew yet. Winter break starts this weekend so I imagine big bowls of popcorn and a few hours—in between football games—glued to the TV. (I’m worried that shareholders will look at the streaming numbers and decide it’s not worth the cost to keep producing Star Wars content.)
• Sotheby’s just auctioned off a 115-pound, two-foot-tall slab of marble that, around a millennia and a half ago, was inscribed with the Ten Commandments. – via crooked
• You are cutting it close if you haven’t gotten all your Christmas and/or Hanukkah shopping done yet. Might I suggest a plain white bolt t from Aviator Nation? They are crazy comfortable, cozy, stylish, and on sale right now. (Or you could buy someone an Apple App Store gift card and tell them to use it to download my handy cocktail recipe app!)
• Health department medical detectives find 84% of U.S. maternal deaths are preventable.
• The latest issue of Simple Apple Tutorials from Gannon Nordberg is a killer iPhone Notification Detox Guide.
• Bad news for people who hate good news:
  • 93% of kindergarteners in the U.S. are up to date on their childhood vaccines. – via Your Local Epidemiologist
  • HPV vaccines have been linked to a 62% drop in cervical cancer deaths in young women over the last decade. – via kottke

• “Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) said California will offer electric vehicle subsidies even if Donald Trump kills the $7,500 federal tax credit.” – via @crookedmedia
• Recent research found that men who improve their fitness are 35% less likely to be diagnosed with prostate cancer. – via Arnold’s Pump Club
• I recently purchased an Anker MagSafe Case with (what I thought) one of those cool little kickstand grips. I sort of liked the kickstand, but I found I couldn’t align the charging area easily (or at all) on anything but a MagSafe base. I also tested for a week, alternating days with my Spigen case, and discovered the Anker one was definitely both (a) getting unreasonably hot and (b) significantly draining my battery. The heat issue was bad enough, but the battery drain is not something I’d ever accept. My 13-mo old iPhone 15 Pro still regularly sticks over 80% charge after a day’s use. With the Anker case it would be down to 50% before 6pm. Obviously, your mileage may vary and IANAAT, but I’m going back to my Spigen case.
• Merging black holes may create bubbles that could swallow the universe. [Ed. note: The word ‘may’ is doing a lot of heavy lifting here.]
• Most Black Friday deals are pretty worthless, but here’s a good one. All Predictions Wrong — home of TMQ — is offering a 20% discount on all paid subscriptions.
• Anyone who is a fan of the doomed voyage of Ernest Shackleton and his crew aboard the Endurance [Ed. note: Dad!] has got to be thrilled right now. In addition to the epic book that was released a few years ago, and the Kenneth Branagh mini-series from a few years before that, there’s a new National Geographic special on Disney+ and now even a LEGO set!
• Nice to see the Florida Gators climbed all the way up to No. 33 after beating Ole Miss, one week after the win against LSU. The Gators are the highest-ranked 6-5 team, with all five losses coming to top-25 teams. – via @theathletichq
• The ugly math behind Florida’s low SAT scores: “Among all states, Florida students ranked fourth from last on the standardized exam used to gauge readiness for college. Among states where at least 50,000 students took the test, Florida ranked last.” – via @aspar1605
• Just want to confirm your household is safe for my kid: Is your family up to date on vaccines? Will there be raw milk served? Is there a gun in the house? – brilliant advice via @designmom
• Fun fact: The Portuguese garbage scow captain from Overboard (1987, Goldie Hawn) went on to become the Beverly Hills hotel manager in Pretty Woman (1990, Julia Roberts).

• “Homicides continued to decline in major U.S. cities — by more than 40% in some communities — during the first nine months of the year.” – via @crookedmedia
• How Marcus Smart’s support for cancer patients transformed children’s hospitals – via @theathletichq
• Please spare ninety seconds of your busy day today to watch Miss Piggy roasting Martha Stewart. – via @kottke
• What’s the roundest human-made object ever made? – via @thebadastronomer
• “Building beats talking. It beats being a full-time employee. It beats being well dressed or well spoken or well known. It beats being popular.” – via @ociubotaru
• “If you’re a parent, you know you don’t need a scientific study or some neuroscientist to confirm what you know from experience. There’s a part of you that didn’t exist until you had kids.” – via @dailydad, a fantastic newsletter
• I’m vehemently opposed to styling browser scrollbars, but I like the other nine items in this list of 10 CSS Tricks for UI developers – via @nnnirajn
• It’s effectively impossible to manage uploaded photos on Amazon Alexa devices using the iOS app because if you’ve uploaded more than about two dozen photos, the screen refreshes back to the top any time you scroll down more than a few pages. I posted about this on Twitter a few years ago, and I can’t believe they still haven’t fixed it.
• The complete lack of urgency from players and coaches, in the NFL and college, when down by two or more scores in Q4, makes me question whether any of these guys have ever played Madden. – via me
• The November 17^th Bills–Chiefs matchup wasn’t just the game of the week, it was the most-watched NFL regular-season game of 2024 and the most-watched non-holiday game since 2007. – via @theathletichq

• Everything designed for children should be dishwasher safe. Everything. Lunch boxes. Water bottles. T-shirts. Nintendo controllers. Nikes. Backpacks. All of it. – via @gatordavid
• “Only a twisted type of fantasy can see [pornography] in a biblical figure, in a statue that is also an icon of the Renaissance and the most famous statue in the world. It’s not only absurd, it’s a worrying sign of sheer ignorance, in its most literal sense: a lack of knowledge of history – religious history, of Christianity and Judaism, and art history.” – via @italo.americano
• Transitioning to clean energy would reduce the volume and harm of mining dramatically, because a fossil fuel economy requires 535× more mining than a clean energy economy. – via distilled
• The research linking alcohol to breast cancer is deadly solid: Alcohol, regardless of whether it’s in Everclear or a vintage Bordeaux, is carcinogenic.
• The curious case of two Scott Stallings and one Masters invitation – via TheAthletic
• Private schools across the South that were established for white children during desegregation are now benefiting from tens of millions in taxpayer dollars flowing from rapidly expanding voucher-style programs.
• Beyoncé to perform halftime show at Ravens-Texans on Christmas on Netflix

My favorite part of Monday Night Football is learning about all the new prescription cancer medications.