Posts tagged “college football”

• The death of Brigitte Bardot, 1960s sex symbol turned militant animal rights activist, means there are now only three people mentioned in the 1989 Billy Joel song We Didn’t Start the Fire who are still alive: Chubby Checker, Bob Dylan, and… Bernie Goetz. – via Simon Kuestenmacher
• There’s really no way to explain to anyone under the age of about forty what a big deal MTV was when it launched. It’s not at all surprising — I haven’t watched in at least twenty years — but it’s still a bit sad to learn they’re shutting down all music-only channels as of December 31.
• Also nostalgic: The HTML Elements Time Forgot
• Prepare to waste some time playing the Top 10 Free Browser Games of 2025.
• Rome just unveiled two new subway stops that transform its metro into a museum experience. – via Ciao Bella
• Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope have discovered a runaway supermassive black hole ten million times larger than the sun, rocketing through space at 2.2 million miles per hour.
• I had no idea there was a sequel to one of my favorite SNL sketches.
• “That first post-game sacrifice only aired online, but the explosion was immediate.”
• A new study suggests moderate fitness appears to act like an insurance policy against alcohol’s long-term negative health effects. – via Arnold’s Pump Club
• It’s hard to believe that Steven Spielberg has made only four studio films about aliens, primarily because his first two were so incredible. Disclosure Day, coming in 2026, will be his fifth.
• “If you want a job in the moisturizer industry, the best advice I can give is to apply daily.” – via Cassidy Williams
• Not securing domain names before announcing something idiotic has been a perpetual epic failure of the current administration.

• 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.

• T-shirt Worn by Taylor Swift Sparks a $2M Windfall for Sea Otters
• “It turns out playing God is neither difficult nor expensive,” is the catchy lede of this article on editing genes with CRISPR, Editing Nature To Fix Our Failures, that everyone I follow has already posted.
• Got a few hours to kill? Check out the Space Exploration Logo Archive. – via kottke
• Imagine getting burned by the Pope.
• Kohler Wants to Put a Tiny Camera in Your Toilet and Analyze the Contents
• Score one for the good guys: Journalists turn in access badges, exit Pentagon rather than agree to new reporting rules
• Research on 6,000 older adults reveals that optimistic people are up to 50% less likely to develop weak grip strength and lose mobility.
• Any golfer should be able to relate to this essay by Gabby Herzig: I made a 12 during the biggest golf tournament of my life. Here’s what I learned.
• Who doesn’t love a good story about a cursed Egyptian mummy? (Related: The Met is having its first Egyptian exhibit in over a decade.)
• It’s just tech, everything doesn’t have to become some weird religion that you beat people over the head with, or gamble the entire stock market on. – from The Majority AI View, a fantastic essay by Anil Dash.
• The beatings will continue until morale improves:
  • Top US Army general says he’s using ChatGPT to help make key command decisions
  • There is a special place in hell for those who use children as pawns in their quest for power.
  • I don’t understand why the headline on this article about a convicted felon isn’t simply Maliciously Incompetent, Aggressively Ignorant, Lying Buffoon Lies Again.
  • North Carolina Elections Chief Demands Voters’ Full Social Security Numbers from DMV

This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is perhaps the end of the beginning. – Winston Churchill

I watch a lot of college football and have seen a handful of Capital One ads dozens of times and it wasn’t until Week 4 of 2025 that I realized they were trying to push this dude as their version of “Jake from State Farm“. (I just thought he was a random MLB star I didn’t recognize.)

• Twitch streamer Kai Cenat gifted a home and car to a mother and her son after they were evicted.
• Del Shannon, best known for his 1961 hit Runaway, hired Tom Petty on as his producer for the 1981 album Drop Down and Get Me.
• “Pasta alla Cacio e pepe” is a traditional Italian dish made with pasta, pecorino cheese, and pepper. Despite its simple ingredient list, achieving the perfect texture and creaminess of the sauce can be challenging. – via kottke
• This is not the first time I’m urging you to learn about the paradox of tolerance.
• “I think it’s embarrassing, where they’re at. […] Like, they have no pride. They have no gut. They’re embarrassing. They’re an absolute shame and a dark mark on the University of Florida right now. Billy Napier should be gone. [But he] is not public enemy number one. He is not enemy number one of me, at all. That falls on the spineless, greedy losers that aren’t willing to make the call that needs to be made because they’re padding their own pockets, and because they don’t care about winning.” – via Brandon Olsen, Locked on Gators
• Related: SEC annual opponents revealed. Call me crazy, but I don’t like the new format and miss having divisions.
• Good news for people who love bad news:
  • Confirmed: Fascism is worse than UV rays.
  • This time around is different; things are actually getting materially worse each day, and the human brain is unequipped to notice, let alone process, all of it. – via The Handbasket
  • Here’s a very comprehensive overview of all the many indefensible things the current administration is doing to terrorize… our food.
  • Every year thousands of Americans die on the roads. Individuals take the blame for systemic problems.
  • In the olden days, a kingdom threatened by a strangely-tinted, tiny-handed, fire-breathing beast might opt to attempt to buy it off with a princess or two. Now we offer him a night at Windsor Castle.
  • We Already Know a Way to Save a Bunch of Lives. Thanks to insurance companies, we’re not doing it.

• Andor was phenomenal. Full stop. It wasn’t simply a great Star Wars story. It was a brilliant story even if you had — quite inconceivably — never even heard of Star Wars. It also managed to stay full-throttle awesome from S1E1 through S2E12, and somehow it did this even though everyone watching knew exactly what happens next, which had to have been unimaginably difficult to execute. (And I am not ashamed to admit that I didn’t realize Andor was “and/or” until several episodes into the first season, even though anyone unlucky enough to be the recipient of a professional email from me can tell you that’s one of my favorite conjunctions.)
• Related? The CIA Secretly Ran a Star Wars Fan Site
• The New York Liberty Became the First $450M Women’s Team
• I (mostly) agree with the list Bruce Feldman compiled of the 25 best players of the millennium (so far). I have bigger issues with the list David Ubben put together of the best college football games since the turn of the century. I was somewhat surprised to see Florida ranked tenth in the list Stewart Mandel made of the best programs of the 2000s. It’s hard to believe how long it’s been since we had the best QB in history.
• Take It on the Run by REO Speedwagon holds up.
• Pittsburgh Pirates outfielder Oneil Cruz recently sent a home run out of PNC Park at 122.9 mph (against the Milwaukee Brewers), recording the hardest hit ball in the Statcast era.
• (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction:
  • Dozens of staffers walked out when NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya promoted an unproven COVID origin story.
  • [Current] administration orders Michigan coal plant to stay open
  • The Belief System Behind the Palm Springs Bombing
  • “[D]on’t worry about making your products safe for your customers. Even if you kill them, just pay a small fine and move on.” Apparently not prosecuting criminals is how to make America great again.
  • It’s always a bummer to learn that a perfect domain name is already taken.
  • Every high school theology, civics, social studies, and American history teacher should show the Bible lesson scene from The West Wing (The Midterms, S2E3) at least once each semester.

• An extraordinarily rare original of the Magna Carta has been discovered, hiding in plain sight in the archives of the Harvard Law School.
• Texas Democrats are trying to ban Republican Senator Ted Cruz from attending college playoff games, saying he’s “a well-known curse” for teams in the state.
• A baby born with a rare and dangerous genetic disease is growing and thriving after getting an experimental gene editing treatment made just for him. – via The Associated Press
• How cool is this? Rick Steves was on The Simpsons
• “These kids are ticking time bombs” – The Threat of Youth Basketball
• It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry:
  • The Environmental Protection Agency plans to weaken Biden-era rules that limit exposure to “forever chemicals” in drinking water.
  • Kristi Noem has been working with the producer of Duck Dynasty to pitch a reality TV show titled The American, featuring immigrants competing in a string of challenges “for the honor of fast-tracking their way to U.S. citizenship.” – via brendannyhan.bsky.social
  • The U.S. Register of Copyrights was abruptly dismissed last weekend just 24 hours after her office released a report stating AI companies can’t freely use copyrighted movies and TV shows for training. – via The Dailies
  • NYU denies diploma to student who criticized Israel in commencement speech
  • In response to latest POTUS executive orders, RAINN, the nation’s largest anti-sexual-violence organization, has barred its crisis hotline staff from sharing resources specific to LGBTQ people, immigrants, and other marginalized groups. – via maggieastor.bsky.social and sarahweinman.com
  • The South Carolina Supreme Court ruled the state can keep banning abortions around six weeks after conception by agreeing with the earliest interpretation offered of when a heartbeat starts.

• AI is a great idea if you think nobody at your company is great at what they do. This is an absolute must-read from Anil.
• My son sent me a silly YouTube short about a guy stumbling upon some ancient Greek statues buried at the beach. It sounded fishy to me, and the YouTube short gets many of the details wrong, but the Riace bronzes are very much real and the true story is just as wild. – via my son
• The Weird History of Fuzzy Toilet Seat Covers and Accessories – via my dad
• Why isn’t the state of Florida producing highly ranked quarterback recruits?
• I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned these, but I highly recommend getting JETech screen protectors for all your digital devices. There are oodles of companies that make screen protectors, but I like these because they’re so inexpensive, they work well, and they come with a cool installation kit that makes it very easy to apply the thing straight and without any air bubbles.
• Everybody Wants to Rule the World:
  • The Senate voted down a resolution to block the POTUS global tariffs. Everyone is angry at Whitehouse for skipping the vote, but it was never going to pass the House, and would have gotten vetoed regardless.
  • It’s frightfully clear that, worm-infested or not, Kennedy‘s brain is marinated in wild conspiracy theories and dangerous misinformation.
  • Internet laughs at White House briefing with Temu Draco Malfoy
  • The Vietnam War Is Still Killing People, 50 Years Later
  • Staff members at the National Science Foundation were told on April 30^th to, “stop awarding all funding actions until further notice.”
  • Jill Sobule, Singer-Songwriter of Groundbreaking 1995 Song I Kissed a Girl, Dies in House Fire – via @scalzi.com

• On The (Apocryphal?) Rules of Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote Cartoons – via kottke, natch
• With the possible – possible – exception of Sonny Corleone‘s toll booth scene, I cannot think of anything in the universe that wouldn’t be dramatically improved by adding a college marching band.
• Netflix is developing a reality television series based on the classic board game Monopoly. Fingers crossed that the producers convey that the only realistic way to win the game is to hoard all the money and property, causing everyone else to eventually quit in despair and destitution, and that unfettered capitalism is actually terrible for any species. – via The Dailies
• Good news! AP wins reinstatement to White House events after judge rules government can’t bar its journalists
• A federal judge ruled former Florida QB signee Jaden Rashada can proceed with his lawsuit against Gators football coach Billy Napier over a $13M NIL deal gone wrong.
• There are actually a few cool items in this Wirecutter article: 18 Things You Didn’t Know Your iPhone Could Do
• Instagram users under 16 will no longer be able to livestream or unblur nudity in direct messages without parental approval. This seems like something that should have already been the policy, but I guess I’ll take the win. – via me
• Why don’t we remember being a baby? Infants can encode specific memories, a new Yale study shows, suggesting “infantile amnesia” might be a memory retrieval problem.
• When Is This Going to Stop?
  • POTUS signs executive orders to… boost coal production.
  • China slams Vance for ‘peasants’ slur as tariff war intensifies – via thebasement.nz
  • WTF? Administration orders half of national forests open for logging – via moudhy.bsky.social
  • 20 Rude Questions the Media Should Ask – via markjacob.bsky.social
  • Inside ICE Air: Flight Attendants on Deportation Planes Say Disaster Looms

• You probably never considered how awesome it would be to hear Rick Astley perform an acoustic cover of the Chappell Roan hit Pink Pony Club, did you? – via @jacksongagne.com
• The team at The Athletic put together a sweet Bluesky college football starter pack.
• Mustaaaaaaaaaard! – via kottke
• As a kid I only ever barely paid attention to Star Trek — we were a Star Wars family — but the way Chekov (Walter Koenig) repeats, “Botany Bay,” as he realizes his predicament is just phenomenal.
• Humor is vital to effective protest, and the Democrats suck at it. – via @kurtandersen.bsky.social
• I may have linked this already, but it’s worth a repost: “Wherever you get your podcasts,” is a radical statement.
• “If no laws have been broken, there should be nothing to hide.” – via @beyer.house.gov
• I’m terrified beyond the capacity for rational thought:
  • The detention of Mahmoud Khalil means we are a hop, skip & jump away from political persecutions. It’s a steep, slippery slope from here to “speak out against [the administration] and go to jail.” – via @joycewhitevance.bsky.social
  • I don’t even want to include the subject matter here, but these people are pure evil.
  • McLaurine Pinover, the chief spokesperson at OPM and the current administration’s official tasked with defending “DOGE” personnel cuts, posted fashion influencer videos from her office.
  • Listening to Chris Hayes interview Robert Garcia (D–CA) on his Why Is This Happening? podcast is not likely to make you feel any better about the future of our country, but it is pretty interesting.
  • California, New York, and Maryland all confirmed their first cases of measles this week.
  • EPA head says he’ll roll back dozens of environmental regulations, including rules on climate change