davidgagne.net

An oral history of Industrial Light and Magic
Always Invite Anna
Don’t cry for millennials or Gen Z. Save your pity for those in their 50s. Why Gen X is the real loser generation.
Fat Bear Week is here.
This is now incredibly the 16th consecutive year I’m linking to this: It’s Decorative Gourd Season, Motherfuckers
The truth is not always beautiful nor beautiful words the truth. – via @swiftonsecurity.com
I’ve always loved the Jabberwocky.
For more than a century in the 18th & 19th centuries, an edited version of Romeo & Juliet, with “a 67-line final conversation between Romeo and Juliet“, was more popular than Shakespeare‘s original. – via kottke
And now for the bad news:
- A little chat about genAI is well worth your time. Don’t be the kind of person who says, “I hear you. I understand. But also, I don’t care.”
- He’s Been On Louisiana’s Death Row for Decades. A Judge Just Vacated His Conviction.
- “A former director of the North Carolina Republican Party – who resigned amid election fraud and corruption scandals – has been appointed to a new role overseeing North Carolina’s state and local election officials…” – via @maddow.msnbc.com
- Bear shot, killed after wandering into Central Florida home
- POTUS Fired a U.S. Attorney Who Insisted on Following a Court Order
- Hollywood Union Files Complaint Against Use of James Earl Jones’ Darth Vader Voice—Which He Sold Before His Death

I can’t speak or read Spanish, but used Google to translate this article about a tiger being captured in a Mexican taco shop. That this is the third time this has happened in the last two months seems like a big deal!
Anyone still holding out hope for a ‘compromise’ on abortion rights needs to give it up. When the state oppresses women, more babies die. This isn’t rocket science. The best quote, I think, applies to so much more than just this one issue: “You don’t ask the guy with the boot on your neck to wear a softer shoe. You rip his fucking foot off.”
How the Hims & Hers Super Bowl Ad Exposed the Dangerous World of Unregulated Weight Loss Drugs
This is from 2+ years ago, but still pretty amazing: A paralyzed man with a severed spinal cord has been able to walk again, thanks to an implant developed by a team of Swiss researchers.
Good news for people who like bad news: The Texas measles outbreak doubled in size to 48 cases, including 13 hospitalizations mostly among kids. (None were vaccinated.) Another measles case was reported in New Mexico in a county that shares a western border with Texas. And on the other side, the Louisiana Department of Health stopped promoting routine vaccinations by banning vaccine events and ordering staff not to promote vaccinations. – via @yourlocalepidemiologist
I used to use scotch tape to splice together 8-tracks to expand the available “memory” on my first computer. Being able to copy something on my iPhone and then paste it over the air to my laptop is pretty mind-blowing. And, yes, I remember punch cards and being excited about BASIC. The things is, I know how all this stuff works – even today – which is why I think I appreciate these little conveniences so much. (Yet it’s still amazing to me that we’ve come this far so quickly.) But maybe that’s also why I get so angry about incompetent inexperienced incel “DOGE” choads gleefully doing the bidding of their faux-evangelical Smaug-like Nazi masters. When I was a kid I was certain we’d have jetpacks and R2-D2s by now and instead a few dozen truly evil Montgomery Burns are deplorably clawing us back to the 1400s.