Posts tagged “parenthood”
- Eight vignettes about power and (mis)understanding, and children, I guess, from Making It Work – via kottke
- For the first time in 37 years scientists have observed orcas wearing dead salmons as hats – via @nerdist (threads / bluesky)
- Take notes, not photos: Recent research found that if you want to strengthen your memory, taking notes by hand beats taking pictures every time—because it keeps your brain engaged and focused. – via Arnold Schwarzenegger‘s Pump Club (threads / bluesky)
- Florida’s furious finish on the recruiting trail caps stellar month for Billy Napier – via The Athletic (threads / bluesky)
- Just one retail chain was enough for Taylor Swift to have the top-selling book last week and the biggest publishing launch of 2024. – via The Hollywood Reporter (threads / bluesky)
- “No big deal, just a 12-foot long jump wearing football pads while clearing another human being.” – via @cfbalerts (threads / bluesky)
- Where to donate your money to fight climate change effectively – via @vox (threads / bluesky)
- Bluesky brings the fun, weird vibes of old Twitter back to life – also via @vox
- “I accidentally used my mom’s fabric scissors to cut wrapping paper and now the cops are here.” – via @wdgoodnight
- If I ever got name-checked on The Simpsons, I think I would spontaneously combust. – via @sepinwall
- How Gen Z Came to See Books as a Waste of Time – via @theatlantic
- For about a year and a half I was really into intermittent fasting. I used a great app called Simple that helped me track my daily water consumption and weight, and also handled reminding me when my fasting windows were, let me log what I was eating and when, etc. The app was so good, I even gladly paid for an annual subscription to unlock bonus features. And then — for reasons I cannot imagine — the developers rolled out a “new” version loaded to the gills with whiz-bang AI features that made the app completely useless and incomprehensibly frustrating. I tried for a few months to get used to the new system, but eventually abandoned it, canceled my subscription, and still haven’t found a decent replacement. I abhor the continued enshittification of everything.
- Male bigfin reef squid may be the best fathers of all cephalopods. [Ed. note: But can they make Sunday morning chocolate chip pancakes?]
- It’s really a shame that Russell Brand has gone crazy, because Forgetting Sarah Marshall is easily one of the all-time best comedies.
- Strong Lloyd Dobler vibes in this essay, and I am here for it: “[P]eople do want to work, just not for the paltry wages they were making before the pandemic.”
- “If you spell your name backwards and place an umlaut over one of the vowels, that’s your IKEA name.” [Ed. note: Mine is Engäg and I’m a kitchen drawer divider.] – via @drewtalbert
- Regular exercisers drink more, a new study confirms, but are less likely to be problem drinkers. – via @outsidemagazine
- Black Friday / Holiday Sales:
The world’s comfiest t-shirts and coziest sweatpants are crazy expensive, but this weekend almost everything is on sale at Aviator Nation.- Everything at ’47 Brand is 30% off this weekend. Get all the best sports gear gifts here.
- Need some everyday walking shoes? Everything is 50% off at Allbirds this weekend.
- I have an AirPods Pro case and a wallet from Saddleback Leather Co. and they’re both exquisite. Not everything is on sale, but they do have some pretty good deals this weekend on a few things. (Their motto is, “They’ll fight over it when you’re dead.”)
- Use promo code BLACKFRIDAY to get 30% off (and free shipping) on everything at J. Peterman this weekend.
- Fun Fact: Jon Gries, the actor who portrayed Lazlo Hollyfeld in Real Genius (TriStar Pictures, 1985), went on to play Uncle Rico in Napoleon Dynamite (Searchlight Pictures, 2004) and the love interest of Jennifer Coolidge in The White Lotus (HBO, 2021).
- “Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) said California will offer electric vehicle subsidies even if Donald Trump kills the $7,500 federal tax credit.” – via @crookedmedia
- Recent research found that men who improve their fitness are 35% less likely to be diagnosed with prostate cancer. – via Arnold’s Pump Club
- I recently purchased an Anker MagSafe Case with (what I thought) one of those cool little kickstand grips. I sort of liked the kickstand, but I found I couldn’t align the charging area easily (or at all) on anything but a MagSafe base. I also tested for a week, alternating days with my Spigen case, and discovered the Anker one was definitely both (a) getting unreasonably hot and (b) significantly draining my battery. The heat issue was bad enough, but the battery drain is not something I’d ever accept. My 13-mo old iPhone 15 Pro still regularly sticks over 80% charge after a day’s use. With the Anker case it would be down to 50% before 6pm. Obviously, your mileage may vary and IANAAT, but I’m going back to my Spigen case.
- Merging black holes may create bubbles that could swallow the universe. [Ed. note: The word ‘may’ is doing a lot of heavy lifting here.]
- Most Black Friday deals are pretty worthless, but here’s a good one. All Predictions Wrong — home of TMQ — is offering a 20% discount on all paid subscriptions.
Anyone who is a fan of the doomed voyage of Ernest Shackleton and his crew aboard the Endurance [Ed. note: Dad!] has got to be thrilled right now. In addition to the epic book that was released a few years ago, and the Kenneth Branagh mini-series from a few years before that, there’s a new National Geographic special on Disney+ and now even a LEGO set!- Nice to see the Florida Gators climbed all the way up to No. 33 after beating Ole Miss, one week after the win against LSU. The Gators are the highest-ranked 6-5 team, with all five losses coming to top-25 teams. – via @theathletichq
- The ugly math behind Florida’s low SAT scores: “Among all states, Florida students ranked fourth from last on the standardized exam used to gauge readiness for college. Among states where at least 50,000 students took the test, Florida ranked last.” – via @aspar1605
- Just want to confirm your household is safe for my kid: Is your family up to date on vaccines? Will there be raw milk served? Is there a gun in the house? – brilliant advice via @designmom
- Fun fact: The Portuguese garbage scow captain from Overboard (1987, Goldie Hawn) went on to become the Beverly Hills hotel manager in Pretty Woman (1990, Julia Roberts).
- “Homicides continued to decline in major U.S. cities — by more than 40% in some communities — during the first nine months of the year.” – via @crookedmedia
- How Marcus Smart’s support for cancer patients transformed children’s hospitals – via @theathletichq
- Please spare ninety seconds of your busy day today to watch Miss Piggy roasting Martha Stewart. – via @kottke
- What’s the roundest human-made object ever made? – via @thebadastronomer
- “Building beats talking. It beats being a full-time employee. It beats being well dressed or well spoken or well known. It beats being popular.” – via @ociubotaru
- “If you’re a parent, you know you don’t need a scientific study or some neuroscientist to confirm what you know from experience. There’s a part of you that didn’t exist until you had kids.” – via @dailydad, a fantastic newsletter
- I’m vehemently opposed to styling browser scrollbars, but I like the other nine items in this list of 10 CSS Tricks for UI developers – via @nnnirajn
- It’s effectively impossible to manage uploaded photos on Amazon Alexa devices using the iOS app because if you’ve uploaded more than about two dozen photos, the screen refreshes back to the top any time you scroll down more than a few pages. I posted about this on Twitter a few years ago, and I can’t believe they still haven’t fixed it.
- The complete lack of urgency from players and coaches, in the NFL and college, when down by two or more scores in Q4, makes me question whether any of these guys have ever played Madden. – via me
- The November 17th Bills–Chiefs matchup wasn’t just the game of the week, it was the most-watched NFL regular-season game of 2024 and the most-watched non-holiday game since 2007. – via @theathletichq
- Everything designed for children should be dishwasher safe. Everything. Lunch boxes. Water bottles. T-shirts. Nintendo controllers. Nikes. Backpacks. All of it. – via @gatordavid
- “Only a twisted type of fantasy can see [pornography] in a biblical figure, in a statue that is also an icon of the Renaissance and the most famous statue in the world. It’s not only absurd, it’s a worrying sign of sheer ignorance, in its most literal sense: a lack of knowledge of history – religious history, of Christianity and Judaism, and art history.” – via @italo.americano
- Transitioning to clean energy would reduce the volume and harm of mining dramatically, because a fossil fuel economy requires 535× more mining than a clean energy economy. – via distilled
- The research linking alcohol to breast cancer is deadly solid: Alcohol, regardless of whether it’s in Everclear or a vintage Bordeaux, is carcinogenic.
- The curious case of two Scott Stallings and one Masters invitation – via TheAthletic
- Private schools across the South that were established for white children during desegregation are now benefiting from tens of millions in taxpayer dollars flowing from rapidly expanding voucher-style programs.
- Beyoncé to perform halftime show at Ravens-Texans on Christmas on Netflix
Easy Christmas Gifts for Parents
Some quick and (mostly) inexpensive gifts for parents
- Some excellent climate news: United States greenhouse gas emissions peaked in 2005 and have been declining ever since. — via All Predictions Wrong
- Some excellent environmental news: The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife announced Chinook salmon have returned to the Klamath Basin for the first time since the construction of hydroelectric dams on the Klamath River in 1912. – via @saramontourlewis
- “Sorry I missed your call. I was sitting on the couch holding my phone and watching it ring.” — @scottevandavis
- Allbirds are great everyday shoes. They’re stylish, comfortable, and you can toss them in the washing machine. I have three pairs and love them. They’re having a 30%-off Fall sale ending October 27, 2024.
A few days ago I realized that my sons have never heard of Snidely Whiplash. They don’t know Dudley Do-Right or Grape Ape or Hong Kong Phooey, either. I feel like I’m a terrible parent.- I currently have a fourteen-year old. And I absolutely remember being a fourteen-year old. This video about growing pains from Amsterdam’s NEMO Science Museum is <chef’s kiss> good. – via @dsnyderuk
- In order to pass your CCNA exam, you need to be proficient at converting decimal numbers to binary numbers and binary numbers to decimal numbers — and do so quickly. Cisco made the challenge into a video game, and it’s pretty fun! – via Jason
The annual Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards are always fun.- I’m sure everyone has seen it already, but this story about a woman in Washington who called the police after nearly 100 raccoons surrounded her property really is something else.
- The Nord-Trøndelag Health Study, a 15-year study of sense of humor and causes of mortality found that laughter is associated with a 48 percent reduction in death from all causes, a 73 percent lower risk of death from heart disease, and an 83 percent lower risk of infection
- Evidence of ‘Negative Time’ Found in Quantum Physics Experiment: This will surely delight my youngest, who is obsessed with The Flash and his time traveling adventures. It also jibes with something I posted on Threads recently!
- Speaking of Threads, one of Meta’s frustrating problems is that they haven’t managed to brand the term “threading” in a way as organic as Twitter did “tweeting”. It doesn’t feel right to say, “I threaded,” or, “I’m threading,” which makes it not-insignificantly more difficult to casually mention their platform, which I think is a primary reason Threads hasn’t already crushed the decaying bird site.
- We’re biologically wired to prevent our children’s suffering, and it can be excruciating to watch them struggle. That’s certainly an understatement. I’ve been desperately trying to not be a helicopter parent but “excruciating” doesn’t come close to describing what it’s like seeing your child suffer. And I promise I’m well aware that a little elementary school teasing or even dealing with high school cliques are light years away from the difficulties other parents – close friends, even – are facing. (Gift link, like most good things online, via Jason’s infrequent newsletter)
- In a very odd cosmic coincidence, Hurricane Milton destroyed the roof of Tropicana Field – home of the Tampa Bay Rays MLB franchise – just a few hours after the implosion of the vintage Tropicana casino in Las Vegas (to make way for a new stadium for the Oakland Athletics).
The last regular season NFL game was a banger. After spending the day logging and wrapping and putting away all the decorations, my son and I spent a few lovely hours watching the Bills beat the Dolphins before I shushed him off to brush his teeth and get in bed. Goodbye, Christmas 2023.
One of the (very, very many) things that suck about losing your mom before forty is that I remember almost nothing about my own daily life prior to high school. And because my parents were divorced and I only got to see dad for a few weeks in the summer every year, there’s nobody I can ask. I have two sons and am constantly writing (and printing) notes and reminders for them, like, “You loved to eat oatmeal with blueberries and pineapple every morning for breakfast in my forty-two year-old Empire Strikes Back cereal bowl until you were six and decided that you hate oatmeal.” Or, “If you want to make pancakes the right way you have to use the frying pan with the blue enamel.” I would probably collapse in a puddle if I ever found even a single note like this from mom. She was a writer and left hundreds of notebooks and thousands of loose pages of things. She wrote me cards and letters nearly daily from the day I left for college until shortly before she died, but sadly I’ve never found anything along those lines.