Posts tagged “italy”

• Italy’s famous Lovers’ Arch collapses into the sea on Valentine’s Day – via my little sister
• What the? There’s a species of mushroom that makes everyone who trips on it think they’re seeing dozens of tiny humans. As far as we know, it’s the only hallucinogenic that makes everyone have the same hallucinations. – via Kottke
• A startup called LightBar is paying everyday internet users to probe AI models for outputs that rip off copyrighted film and TV content, then packaging that evidence for studios to use in lawsuits, settlements, or licensing deals.
• Research suggests that drinking 2 to 3 cups of caffeinated coffee per day (or 1 to 2 cups of tea) is associated with a lower risk of dementia. – via Arnold’s Pump Club
• My uncle had two small parts in the 1990 Tom Cruise NASCAR film, Days of Thunder, which was filmed partly in Daytona Beach and the surrounding area. He’s at the very beginning of the film for a few seconds as a reporter interviewing one of the racers and he appears again in the fake police officer prank as a Florida Highway Patrolman. He’s the very tall trooper with a mustache. Uncle Dic (Domenic Albanese) was a supreme exaggerator and teller of tall tales, but for some reason I always believed him – because it sounded so authentic – when he told us that while they were waiting to film the scene he and Robert Duvall got in a farting exchange that had Tom Cruise in stitches. (I am also in the movie. You can see me during the celebration after the last race, right behind Cruise’s car. I’m the dumb teenager wearing a leather jacket in Florida.)
• Take a few minutes to read the fascinating backstory behind the Benjamin Franklin medal that was used in the coin flip at Super Bowl LX and how Topps selected its list of the 75 best baseball cards of all time.
• The official trailer has been released for Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu.

Winter Olympics

• I don’t know if there is any possible way NBC could do a worse job this Olympics. Several times now I’ve managed to avoid all social media and my email, flipped to NBC to start watching, and caught the end of the local news team spoiling everything I was about to watch. Peacock doesn’t help much, either, as it seems every time I try to watch anything there I see a message telling me the event has just concluded or hasn’t started yet, or I click to watch speed skating and am shown women’s hockey instead. It’s all very frustrating.
• France’s Viral Ice Dancing Team Has A Dark Backstory
• Ukrainian Vladyslav Heraskevych is the most important athlete at the Olympics right now
• SNL always has great sketches for the Olympics. I liked this year’s about the terrified luge racer, but it doesn’t top the All-Drug Olympics or Jason Priestley (with Dana Carvey and Phil Hartman announcing) as the worst ice skater in history.
• Norwegian skier Atle Lie McGrath, grieving his grandfather’s passing at the start of the Olympics, was so distraught from losing the men’s slalom gold medal that he threw his poles, unstrapped his skis and walked toward the nearby woods to be alone.

This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things:

• The highly classified whistleblower complaint against Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard is related to a conversation intercepted last spring in which two foreign nationals discussed Jared Kushner.
• Cardi B slammed the Department of Homeland Security after it mocked her for saying she’d “jump” ICE if they came after her fans during a show.
• A Florida handyman who received a pardon from POTUS for storming the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, has been convicted of multiple state charges of child molestation and exposing himself to children
• A Pennsylvania Olive Garden employee killed himself by plunging his head into a hot deep fryer. (When I was a teenager a broken piece of fryolator equipment caused me to submerge my right arm up to the elbow in 425°F peanut oil. I got second and third degree burns all over my arm and where the oil splashed, and it was easily the most excruciating pain I’ve ever experienced.)

• A French hospital was reportedly forced to evacuate after medical staff discovered an unexploded World War I artillery shell stuck in a man’s rectum. – via standard.co.uk
• Covid was the #3 killer in 2020, but has now slipped out of the top 10; an American is more likely to die these days from cirrhosis or suicide.
• How to turn off only the cursed AI summary feature in Gmail. – via Laura Olin
• Oh, look! I found yet another excellent article that does a great job of explaining why Substack is the worst. – via @paperalphabet (and me)

Winter Olympics

• Five minutes into the first event of the Games, they lost the stadium lights in the middle of a mixed doubles curling match.
• Mary Carillo will replace Savannah Guthrie as the co-host of the NBC coverage. (I always loved her wonderful 2004 rant about badminton.)
• Facing a 1,000-metre drop, the Milano Cortina 2026 freestyle skiers must overcome more than just their competitors, but their nerves as well. (See also: Japanese freestyle skier Kokone Kondo hurt in training crash, taken to hospital)
• Ice Hockey Underdog Italy earns first Olympic win
• The World Anti-Doping Agency could investigate if evidence emerges that male ski jumpers are injecting their penises in a bid to improve sporting performance.

Life, Liberty, & the Pursuit of Happiness:

• This should be terrifying to everyone: DHS Hunts Down 67-Year-Old US Citizen Who Criticized Them in Email
• How Not to Defeat Authoritarianism
• If the Fourth Amendment permits the government to tear down your door with nothing more than an administrative warrant, the Fourth Amendment doesn’t exist.
• South Carolina Republican Representative Nancy Mace is getting dragged after a damning New York Magazine profile revealed she forced staffers to create burner Reddit accounts to boost her standing in a “hottest women in Congress” forum. – via Comic Sands

• Banana! An Olympic figure skater from Spain will not be able to perform his normal routine due to a copyright claim from the Minions.
• I love that the Pope published a Holy See about the dangers of AI.
• A 13-year-old boy has been hailed as a hero after swimming 4 kilometres through rough waters for help after his mother and two siblings were swept out to sea off the coast of Australia.
• A photographer found thousands of dinosaur footprints near an Italian Winter Olympic venue.
• I enjoyed reading the essay Dreaming of Sundance by screenwriter Bob DeRosa about his Hollywood experience.
• Amazon is being forced to repeatedly learn a lesson: Use AI slop, and get people yelling at you until you don’t.
• Bad news for people who can’t stop thinking about bad news: Repetitive negative thinking is associated with cognitive function decline.
• Your friends are still acting like everything is normal in America. What do you do? – via Kottke

Jane! Stop this crazy thing!

• What it’s like to see ICE tear gas kids
• Ugh. Three fraternity members were arrested after the death of a Northern Arizona student following a rush event.
• “It’s perhaps unfair for me to call Melania the worst film ever made, since I haven’t seen every film ever made. But I have seen Porky’s 3, Police Academy 6, and many Rob Schneider vehicles, so you know I mean business when I say it’s the worst film I’ve ever seen.”
• This essay on the rise and fall of Scott Adams (and Dilbert) was mostly depressing.

• MTV Rewind is an interface through which you can watch music videos from the 70s to the 20s, organized by decade. – via Jason
• A Finnish company has created auto-focus glasses, which use eye-tracking sensors and liquid crystals to automatically adapt to the needs of the wearer. They look like regular glasses, too. – via What Could Go Right?
• You Can Order a Stunningly Detailed LEGO Replica of Your House on Etsy – via my dad
• I have now purchased two Jetsetter Tech Polo shirts and two pairs of Jetsetter Tech Pants from Jack Archer and they’re awesome. I was “influenced” by someone on Instagram and decided to give them a try and have been pleasantly surprised. The shirts look great even after multiple washes, and the pants are just as good as Lululemon ones. (And they even have a stretchy section in the waistband for when you know you’re going to eat a pound of pasta at dinner.)
• Did everyone else know that the fork was popularized in Italy? (I had no idea!)
• Abortion will remain legal in Wyoming after the state Supreme Court ruled that two laws barring the procedure violate the state constitution.
• The Heat Is On:
  • This is infuriating: The House of Representatives voted 341 to 79 to fund the current administration’s war-mongering foreign policy agenda.
  • “Everyone who has gotten rich since Jan 2025 should vote Republican in the midterms and everyone who hasn’t should vote Democrat.” – via @ronfilipkowski
  • Man convicted for carrying the podium belonging to Nancy Pelosi during the January 6 US Capitol riot seeks Florida county office.
  • Great quote: “An economy built on stripmining its populace cannot be sustained.” – via Citation Needed
  • Colorado appeals panel skeptical of sentencing for former county clerk who breached election systems
  • I wholeheartedly agree with this statement: “Democrats should reject any pretense of political normalcy while [the current administration’s] goons wage an ongoing terror campaign against their own constituents. With government funding running out soon, the time to take a stand is now.” – via atrupar.com

• Martijn Doolaard is a photographer, filmmaker and travel writer from the Netherlands who is renovating and living in a remote stone cabin in the Italian Alps. – via @thepharmdfoodie
• MacKenzie Scott (ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos) has now given away more than $19 billion, including more than a quarter of a billion to historically black colleges and universities.
• The recently-published list of the Top 100 Comedies of all Time (from Variety) is an abomination. Bull Durham deserves to be in the top ten and it’s not even on the list! (And where is Trading Places?!)
• Man Keeps Strange Rock for Years, Hoping It’s Gold. It Turned out to Be Way More Valuable. (See also: Scientists Cracked Open a Lunar Rock and Found a Huge Surprise)
• Requiem for Early Blogging doesn’t resonate with me as much as I know it does for many. (I think it’s because I started far, far earlier than the blog boom and, y’know, still haven’t stopped.)
• “User behavior suggests people are finding LLMs more convenient for finding answers than Googling, where they must leap over hurdles of ads, dive several pages into the search results, and then pogo in and out of websites to find answers to some of their most banal questions.”
• We Asked Golfers for the Best Place to Buy Used Clubs. – via my dad
• All’s Fair, the new series from Ryan Murphy, is an atrocity.
• Why Is Dad So Mad?
• Vocalist and a-ha front-man Morten Harket recently shared that he has Parkinson’s disease.
• Black Friday:
  • “Imagine the quality of an architect that Trump would pick – and who would want to work for him. Even *that guy* thinks this project is too grandiose.” – via @helenkennedy
  • “It should go without saying, but the president has no authority to do this, and anyone reporting the story needs to say as such.” – via @tomtomorrow
  • This is, quite literally, what the Germans did. We all agreed it was a big deal and nobody should ever be allowed to do it again. So for anyone in any uniform to allow it to happen by the United States of America is inexcusable.
  • Charities that help people pay for medical care say demand is way up, and that’s before scheduled cuts to Medicaid and Obamacare enacted in the new GOP spending bill take effect.
  • “The guy shot two random people with a gun, I don’t think you can say he wasn’t assimilating into our culture.” – via @internethippo
  • A Story About Illegal Orders is terrifying.

• Japan’s sushi legend Jiro Ono turns 100 and is not ready for retirement
• Wait. What? College golfer aces same hole twice in one day!
• Feisty Otters Are Once Again Hijacking Surfboards in Santa Cruz
• “When people learn with ChatGPT instead of following their own searches, they end up knowing less, caring less, and producing worse advice, even when the facts are the same.” – via Joe Hanson
• Like the HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey, researchers say some AI models may be developing their own survival drive, seeming to resist being turned off and even sabotaging their own shutdown.
• New to me: Italian time
• The average energy bar is anywhere from 6 to 15 times more expensive per calorie than a good ol’ PB&J.
• Hoo boy. Care to read about how chatfishing has made finding love on dating apps even weirder? – via kottke
• “[On] Sunday, [October 26, 2025,] the [New York] Times had more column-inches dedicated to urging readers to gamble on football than to China’s control of rare-earths minerals.” – via TMQ
• Some good reasons to vote:
  • Before [POTUS], and Before the Young Republicans, There Was the Dartmouth Review – via my dad
  • [I] really resent the continued assertion that there’s so much anger on both sides, as if the causes of the anger are equally legitimate. [W]e’re angry because masked maniacs are violently snatching our family and neighbors off the street, and they’re angry because we’re calling them out for it. – via Marisa Kabas
  • As improbable as it had seemed just minutes ago, it now appeared that I really was texting with interim U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan. [See also: New York AG Letitia James pleads not guilty to mortgage fraud charges]
  • “the speaker of the House is refusing to seat a duly elected member of Congress to protect the president from a vote to investigate his extensive connections [to] the world’s most notorious human trafficking pedophile” is one of those things you simply cannot put into New York Timesese – via ryan cooper

• Ten Ways to Get a Tee Time at Augusta National – via my son
• What Is Italian Brain Rot? The Surreal TikTok Obsession, Explained
• A cephalopod captured on video in March has been confirmed as a juvenile colossal squid, the first live colossal squid observed in its native habitat.
• I visited the Disney website to find the hours of the EPCOT Flower & Garden Festival and was asked to complete a survey. Here was my answer to their question about Lightning Lane passes: “I have been an AP holder (at Disneyland for 5+ years and at Disney World for 10+ years) and still absolutely cannot understand how Lightning Lane works. It’s incredibly confusing compared to Fast Passes and it’s reprehensible and indefensible that AP holders must pay for Lightning Lane passes.”
• Italy enacted a law in March 2025 making it so only individuals who can prove at least one parent or grandparent was born there will can be considered citizens from birth.
• Wow. The U.S. government is phasing out the penny, whose use has spanned more than two centuries.
• The Sports Bra, a small chain of bars that only show women’s sports on their TVs, announced that it’s opening new locations in Boston, Las Vegas, Indianapolis, and St. Louis.
• Bobby Tables: A guide to preventing SQL injection
• Baby Did a Bad Bad Thing:
  • POTUS resurrected a hallmark policy of his first term, announcing that citizens of twelve countries would be banned from visiting the United States and those from seven others would face restrictions.
  • The [current] administration revoked EMTALA guidance for emergency rooms to provide abortions when pregnant patients’ lives are in danger.
  • Even the pro-gun lawyer working at the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives opposed the current administration’s move to allow the sale of forced reset triggers.
  • While ICE patrols court houses for law-abiding immigrants, friends of the President get a free pass.
  • Staff of the Federal Emergency Management Agency were left baffled after the head of the disaster agency said he had not been aware the United States has a hurricane season.
  • Close your eyes and point in almost any direction, and you’ll find an area of knowledge loss.

• How Jeffrey Lurie, Jason Kelce, and the Eagles saved the tush push.
• Police in France have found the long-lost graveside bust of Jim Morrison.
• It was never meant to be proprietary. That’s just one of many good points Anil makes in MCP is the coming of Web 2.0 2.0.
• Pope Leo XIV heads the Catholic church from Vatican City, where a secret tennis court awaits.
• Holy smokes. That Preakness win by Journalism was incredible.
• The epic collapse of Florida governor Ron DeSantis is well deserved.
• Stuck in the Middle With You:
  • The current administration is trying to repeal a Biden rule that requires lead water pipes to be replaced. – via kellster.bsky.social
  • U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi sold between $1M and $5M worth of shares on April 2, just before the POTUS “Liberation Day” press conference that sent the stock market tumbling. – via darthbluesky.bsky.social
  • I strongly agree with this statement, because it’s hard to stomach the idea that Everyone Is Cheating Their Way through College – via my friend
  • Is anyone truly surprised that Kristi Noem, the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, has no idea what habeas corpus means? See also: The Questionable Case of Kristi Noem’s $50 Million Luxury Jet
  • Criminal investigation launched related to Hope Florida, the sham charity championed by DeSantis and his wife. – via progressflorida.org

• 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

• Crumple Zone: What Car Crashes Reveal About Human Hubris and Fragility
• I’m A PGA Golf Coach – Here’s Why I Made Sure My Kids Can Play Golf – via my dad
• I’ve seen some people saying how AI-generated text is now as good as certain published authors, and honestly I think it’s really brave for these folks to admit in public how poor their reading comprehension has to be.
• Officials in Cinque Terre, Italy have introduced several strict measures to control overtourism, including a 2000€ fine for wearing flip-flops. – via Jenny
• Gray goo is a hypothetical global catastrophic scenario involving molecular nanotechnology in which out-of-control self-replicating machines consume all biomass (and perhaps also everything else) on Earth while building many more of themselves.
• Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.
  • How Much Did Congress Make Off Market Turmoil and Why Are They Allowed to Make Anything at All?
  • The great thing about fighting back against [fascism] is that if you end up losing anyway you get the same outcome you’d have gotten from complying but you don’t have to fucking hate yourself too.
  • [The Administration] Is Gaming Out How to Ship U.S. Citizens to El Salvador – via gtconway.bsky.social
  • This is severely bad: Artificial intelligence hallucinating nonexistent software packages with plausible names leads to a new malware vulnerability: “slopsquatting.” – via janelleshane.com
  • If you wrote a story about a regime so comically evil that it literally snatches people from their citizenship interviews, you’d be accused of over-the-top imaginings.
  • [Administration] freezes $2.2 billion in grants to Harvard over campus activism – via stardustbluepr.com