- Renewable energy was the world’s leading source of electricity in the first half of 2025 for the first time ever, knocking coal off its longtime throne. – via The Progress Network
- Narrative String Theory (NST) is an awesome collection of movies, television shows, and other assorted media that feature detectives (or conspiracy theorists) connecting pictures on a wall or whiteboard with thread.
- Taylor Swift gave her Eras Tour crew jaw-dropping bonuses because of course she did.
- Mississippi State will face Wake Forest in the Duke’s Mayo Bowl, which requires head coaches to sign an agreement saying the winner will accept having a bucket of mayonnaise dumped on his head.
- RIP Tom Stoppard
- The Athletic did a great story on the current value of the sports collectibles seen in Home Alone.
Related: Meet the family that pulled the most expensive Shohei Ohtani baseball card to date. - Why do we have two nostrils instead of one big hole in our face? – via Jason
- 51% of the animals in farms across the world are shrimp. – via Tom Whitwell
- I know I’ve linked to this already, but I’m going to once again urge you to read the fascinating backstory of the Duck Tales theme song, history’s catchiest single minute of music.
- I’ve certainly experienced the Abilene Paradox plenty of times. I didn’t know it had a name, though. – via cassidoo
- Can Magnus Carlsen, the best chess player in the world, beat a novice while facing increasingly-difficult disadvantages?
Jingle Bell Rock:
- WTF? White House installs plaques mocking former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden
- WTF? Liam Neeson Narrates Anti-Vax, Pro-RFK Documentary
- WTF? Fake social media accounts attempted to push a ridiculous narrative framing Taylor Swift as a white supremacist.
- Massachusetts Catholic Church Angers Conservatives with Its ICE-Themed Nativity Scene
- Am I the only one thinking that there’s something really sus about this whole insane Venezuela lunacy? They’re not flooding us with drugs. We don’t need their oil. Why all the trumped up aggression? I feel like we’re living in the first few chapters of a 007 novel and we’re soon going to learn 90% of some critical part of cryptocurrency or artificial intelligence computer chips can only be found buried underneath some mountain range there or something like that.
- “It makes my blood boil. It’s so ridiculous, so petty, so small minded,” wrote Maria Shriver, about the latest stupidity out of the current administration.
Posts tagged “chess”
- A limited-edition, Fabergé egg pendant, inspired by the 1983 James Bond film Octopussy, was (grossly) recovered after six days of closely watching the man accused of swallowing the jewelry in a New Zealand store.
- Scientists found that taking 2,000 IU of vitamin D3 daily slowed telomere shortening by the equivalent of about 3 years of biological aging over 4 years. – via Arnold’s Pump Club
- Fifteen Years
If you need a good gift for anyone over 80 years old, these hard candies are great. My grandmother loved them and I used to send her a tin every year on her birthday and Christmas.- We didn’t see it in the theater, but the 1986 comedy Ruthless People was on high rotation at our house for a while (from Blockbuster, once it was released on VHS). Danny DeVito, Bette Midler, Judge Reinhold, Helen Slater, and Bill Pullman had us in stitches and I still occasionally quote it. (Now you can rent it on Amazon.)
- An Indian boy, just 3 years old, became the youngest rated chess player in history.
- These Govee Permanent Outdoor Lights are awesome. They’re super easy to install and you can control them with an app on your phone and/or via Alexa, HomeKit, etc. (The cost has been fluctuating wildly for months now, by hundreds of dollars, and I wish you the best of luck in finding them listed at the absurdly low price we paid.)
- I can relate to this guy’s 2025 Parenting Wrapped. – via hiro.report
- My Kid’s Insane Christmas Wish List, Annotated – via my friend Lauren
- University of Florida Honors Program class teaches Gainesville‘s punk history – via my little sis
- This holiday season, consider giving the gift of independent journalism. – via @marisakabas
- ‘Tis the Season:
- The president’s Florida mortgages match his description of mortgage fraud. – via @charlesornstein
Pete Hegseth Should Be Charged with Murder – via @elienyc- I Left the CDC 100 Days Ago. My Worst Fears About the Agency Are Coming True – via @brandyzadrozny
- Spotify is garbage on every count: Its treatment of artists, its ICE advertising, the CEO’s investment in military AI, its leading role in the commodification and AI slop-ification of music, its terrible audio quality—you name it. A Guide to Finding the Best Spotify Alternative – via @bcmerchant
- “If you’re a complete idiot life sure does have a lot of surprises for you.” – via @samthielman.com
- “All I want for Christmas is for the worst people in the world to experience some consequences.” – via @gracelp
- The National Park Service will offer free admission to U.S. residents on the president’s birthday next year, but is eliminating the benefit for Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Juneteenth.
- Who doesn’t love making paper airplanes? – via cassidoo
A “secret study” revealed that as the Florida insurance market was allegedly “failing” and companies were “losing money”, executives distributed $680M in dividends to shareholders while diverting billions more to affiliate companies, while Ron DeSantis focused on legal reforms making it harder to sue insurers.- The world’s best chess players burn more calories during a match than NBA players like Steph Curry do in a game. – via Links You’ll Love
- Media
- I am irrationally excited for the Andor season two premier on April 22, 2025.
- So far White Lotus S3 has been just as great as the first two seasons.
- I thought Kristen Bell did a fine job hosting the SAG Awards, but – as much as I love and respect Martin Short – Harrison Ford deserved the Best Actor in a Comedy Series win for his performance in Shrinking.
- Believe the hype. Flow is a phenomenal movie.
- Good News for People Who Love Bad News:
- Climate change is shrinking glaciers faster than ever, with 7 trillion tons lost since 2000.
- Flu hospitalizations this year have already surpassed the last “very bad” flu season in 2017-2018.
- There’s a real-time Project 2025 Tracker that allows you to see just how much of the nefarious plot to destroy the United States has been successful.
- Check out Slaughterhouse 90210, where erudite literary quotes meet TV screencaps!
- “There are more possible chess games than the number of atoms in the universe.” — from a fascinating article by Garry Kasparov on the topic of playing chess with computers
- If you’re addicted to Twitter, there are a bunch of tools you can use to monitor trends and (your own) statistics.
- Terri Carlson is 45 and was born with a genetic immune disorder C-4 complement deficiency. She’s currently on COBRA health insurance but it runs out in a year, so she says she will marry you for your health insurance.
- Probably Bad News is just like the Jay Leno “Headlines” bit. I saw a good one today: Homicide victims rarely talk to police.
- Psssst! You can buy ten ampersands for $9.99 if you’re into that sort of thing.
2024-10-15: Broken links in this post have been removed and/or updated.