Posts tagged “grammar”

• 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.

• A 2016 UK study found folks who participated in Dry January had improved confidence around abstinence, did not rebound, and drank less alcohol overall six months later, regardless of their January success. – via YLE
• Friendly reminder: There are exactly two things you can try and do. You can try and fail or you can try and succeed. Otherwise you try to do something.
• Research suggests that even taking small breaks from sitting could significantly improve your cardiovascular health, making it easier than ever to protect your heart and improve your overall well-being. – via Arnold Schwarzenegger‘s Pump Club
• “If you’re only going to open a book on the off chance you have several hours to kill in a comfy chair with a glass of scotch, it’s only ever going to happen when you have several hours to kill in a comfy chair with a glass of scotch.” How to Read a Whole Damn Book Every Week – via Links You’ll Love
• 33 Ways To Improve Your Life, Japanese Style – via pretty much everyone I follow
• Quantum physics is wild: “Physicists showed that photons can seem to exit a material before entering it, revealing observational evidence of negative time.”
• “You shouldn’t be driving over 100 mph—and your car shouldn’t let you.” – via kottke

• I watched Conclave over the holiday break and thought it was pretty good. The acting was great, of course, but I’d expect nothing less from a film featuring John Lithgow, Stanley Tucci, and Ralph Fiennes. If you dig Roman Catholic esoterica, I’d also suggest reading this deep dive into the Vatican’s secret saint-making process.
• Ozempic is a modified, synthetic version of a protein discovered in the venomous saliva of the Gila monster, a large, sluggish lizard native to the United States. – via Tom Whitwell’s 52 Things I Learned in 2024, not to be confused with Kent Hendricks’ equally-awesome list of 52 Things I Learned in 2024
• Some of the 77 Facts That Blew Our Minds in 2024 (from The Atlantic Science Desk) are really pretty wild! – via kottke
• The Ghosts in the Machine is a great explainer on the current kerfuffle over Spotify’s nefarious fake music.
• Please don’t say just, “hello,” via text. – via The Curious About Everything Newsletter, where I also found this awesome food map of Italy
• I enjoyed reading this quick essay on how to write readable sentences.
• What happens when websites start to vanish at random?
• An average of about 900 people per week have died of COVID-19 over the past year in the USA, according to the CDC. – via PBS

• “If a boot becomes the standard choice among war correspondents, I’m thinking it’s gotta be pretty damn good.” And now there is something else I want to buy. (A vortex cannon would be cool, too.)
• “Thousands of web designers make unforgivable spelling mistakes constantly.” Learning how to spell is actually quite easy. It’s amazing how many people think it’s perfectly acceptable to not know how to do it correctly.
• Your App’s Website Sucks should be required reading for everyone that makes any website, not just for app sites.
• The CEO of Woot! sent the world’s most awesome-packed email in the history of time to his employees to announce that Amazon had purchased them.
• Regardless of what you think, login is not a verb.
• TiPb has a stunningly complete list of every feature of the new iPhone.
• EDSBS presents A Journey Through College Football Dickdom

I can’t stand when people say, “I could care less.”

“I could care less,” is one of those little things that drives me absolutely batshit crazy. If you could care less, it means you care. That’s not what you mean when you say that, is it? What you mean is that you don’t care. Someone posted this handy little graphic in a discussion forum and it really helps. (Click it to see!) Do you get it now?

• General Stuff
  • My dad has posted more gorgeous shots of New England to his Flickr feed.
  • Nothing is over until we decide it is!
  • Suck it, Michael. The Beatles are one notch above the King of Pop for most-viewed Wikipedia article.
  • How the hell does a car’s differential work? I never understood it… and then I watched this General Motors 1930s tutorial which explains it wonderfully. (link via Kottke)
  • “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” – MLK, Jr.
  • Dooce is still writing the best stuff on the Internet. Seriously. If you haven’t yet read everything she’s ever written, take a few months off work and go do that right now. You’ll laugh. You’ll cry. You’ll wonder why she doesn’t have her own television show.
  • What did you think you were going to find at hiddenpassageway.com?
  • What’s the business benefit of free bread at restaurants? (AskMeFi is just awesome, although some of the questions people ask can be quite depressing.)
  • My wife is sure to be thrilled to see LA Weekly’s list of 99 Essential L.A. Restaurants.
  • Yes, you could build your house with LEGO blocks. But why?
  • Pizza Hut Fails Basic Grammar, another excellent post from the witty One Step Forward
• Techie Stuff
  • Check out these cool grunge peeling sticker social media icons.
  • Ten ways to stop spam in WordPress covers the basics and includes a few new tricks I didn’t know.
  • Make your Mac prettier with a glossy dock.

To the political analyst who discussed Obama‘s campaign this morning on NPR: I’m sorry to say that you lost any credibility you had the moment you said that something was furmaliar. Nothing is furmaliar. Lots and lots of things are familiar. There is no r in the middle of that word. It’s not an accent. It’s not “the way we say it here”. It’s not anything other than wrong. You disagree. I know you do. So, Mr. Political Analyst, imagine this: If you and I were engaged in a conversation about Obama and I pronounced his name Orbama, would you correct me? I think you would. If I said, “Oh, that’s just the way I say it,” what would you think? Good day, sir. I said, “Good day!”