- Who doesn’t love making paper airplanes? – via cassidoo
A “secret study” revealed that as the Florida insurance market was allegedly “failing” and companies were “losing money”, executives distributed $680M in dividends to shareholders while diverting billions more to affiliate companies, while Ron DeSantis focused on legal reforms making it harder to sue insurers.- The world’s best chess players burn more calories during a match than NBA players like Steph Curry do in a game. – via Links You’ll Love
- Media
- I am irrationally excited for the Andor season two premier on April 22, 2025.
- So far White Lotus S3 has been just as great as the first two seasons.
- I thought Kristen Bell did a fine job hosting the SAG Awards, but – as much as I love and respect Martin Short – Harrison Ford deserved the Best Actor in a Comedy Series win for his performance in Shrinking.
- Believe the hype. Flow is a phenomenal movie.
- Good News for People Who Love Bad News:
- Climate change is shrinking glaciers faster than ever, with 7 trillion tons lost since 2000.
- Flu hospitalizations this year have already surpassed the last “very bad” flu season in 2017-2018.
- There’s a real-time Project 2025 Tracker that allows you to see just how much of the nefarious plot to destroy the United States has been successful.
Posts tagged “Star Wars”
- Less than 1% of Catholic nuns in the United States today are 30 or younger.
- The sixth and final season of The Handmaid’s Tale starts on April 8, 2025.
- Microsoft Study Finds AI Makes Human Cognition “Atrophied and Unprepared” I feel like there was probably a powerful confirmation bias at work here. This seems like exactly the sort of thing you’d think was obvious, but… as strongly as I would expect the correlation to be, I am guessing we’ll soon hear of all sorts of problems with the statistics.
- I’d forgotten that Taylor Swift hosted SNL a few years ago and performed a ten-minute version of All Too Well. It’s been a long, long time since I needed to convert a YouTube video to mp3.
We’re dealing with actual Nazis.- What “Center” Is That, Exactly? is an essay by A.R. Moxon of The Reframe that includes the wonderful line, “I think of how twisted I would have to become, for the spectacle of diversity and equality and freedom to traumatize me into suicidally-counterfactual reactionary nonsense.” This echoes some of the Kübler-Rossian questions stuck on my mental treadmill since that somehow-malevolent escalator ride that foreshadowed so drastic a national decline. How do you watch Footloose and root for John Lithgow? How do you watch The Muppet Movie and root for Doc Hopper? How do you watch Captain America and root for Hydra? How do you watch Star Wars and root for the Empire?! Or – maybe more terrifying – how do you transform into a stormtrooper but think you’re a Rebel?
- When you’re done reading that, check out It’s The Fascism, Stupid, in which Moxon talks about how “the First Buddy, a Nazi apartheid billionaire/corruption mogul whose name means Flair Odor, who was not elected to anything at all, seized control of our federal infrastructure.”
- The music industry traded tape for hard drives and got a hard-earned lesson. Roughly one-fifth of the hard disk drives from the 1990s sent to Iron Mountain are entirely unreadable.
- My son got me hooked on New Rockstars. Erik Voss and his team produce amazing YouTube recaps of all sorts of things in pop culture. The Jessica Clemons breakdown of the Kendrick Lamar Super Bowl LIX halftime show is great.
A moving new trailer has been released for Borrowed Time: Lennon’s Last Decade, an ambitious documentary that explores the final years of John Lennon through archival footage, never-before-seen interviews, and firsthand accounts.- A new study shows you can lower your risk of cancer by eating just one serving of cruciferous vegetables per day. Vegetables appear to do the most to help fight gastrointestinal cancers, such as colorectal and stomach cancer, but the protective effects extended to lung and breast cancer as well.
- Climate change is causing hotter temperatures to become more frequent in the four West African countries responsible for producing approximately 70% of the world’s cacao — the key ingredient in chocolate.
- Former Florida Gators and Kansas City Chiefs wide receiver Kadarius Toney is facing multiple charges, including aggravated assault, following his arrest in Georgia last week.
- White House says it has the right to punish AP reporters over Gulf naming dispute. (I am rapidly running out of canaries, people.)
- Was I the only one a little concerned that NASA increased the odds of that asteroid hitting us in 2032 from 1.2% up to 2.3%? This brilliantly simple explanation at Scientific American from astronomer Phil Plait should ease your mind a bit.
- Recent Media
- Black Doves (Netflix) was incredible. Keira Knightley and Ben Whishaw can act. Splendid plot. A+++
- We watched the penultimate episode of Skeleton Crew and I am all-in on this show. Fantastic fun. Jude Law is perfect.
- Four episodes into Slow Horses and love this show, too.
- I loved reading this story about an 11-yo who pulled one of the most valuable baseball cards in history. The best quote from the article? “My brain pooped.”
- Hackers are hijacking WordPress sites to push malware on unsuspecting visitors. This is another good reason to make sure your plugins are core files are routinely updated.
- This short article about the psychology of scene transitions in film is really interesting. (Watch the video, too!)
One of the more concerning consequences of the current administration is that when the most powerful nation in history is ruled by feckless ignorant toads, those who lust for power elsewhere are emboldened:
- Paramilitary group attacks an open market in Sudan, killing 54 people and wounding scores
- Congo says 773 dead in week-long fighting as military tries to repel Rwanda-backed rebels
- Last night I realized I can watch Dinosaurs: The Final Day with David Attenborough on BBC through AppleTV. I had to pay for it, but I think that’s pretty reasonable. I was pleasantly surprised to see Steve Brusatte make an appearance. I read his book, The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A New History of a Lost World a year or two ago and loved it. It’s really mind-blowing how much more we know about dinosaurs than we did when I was fascinated with them in elementary school. Scientists might even have finally discovered where dinosaurs first evolved! (The documentary is titled Dinosaur Apocalypse on AppleTV for some reason. I guess that sounds much more dramatic.)
- More Bird Flu Bad News: Infectious disease expert warns wind-blown avian feces may be route of transmission.
- Google searches for “adult tennis lessons” were up 245 percent shortly after the premiere of the Zendaya love-triangle sports-flick Challengers. – via The Athletic
- After reading a few of her Bluesky posts, I decided to subscribe to the tech newsletter rendezvous with cassidoo.
- Just in case you were under the misguided impression that the current administration cares about, y’know, people:
- The head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has been fired.
- On Monday the Senate confirmed fossil fuel executive Chris Wright to serve as Secretary of Energy.
- A Coup in Plain Sight: An Explainer as the Crisis Solidifies
- The legacy New England Patriots logo of a minuteman center about to hike a football (that looks suspiciously like an eggplant) is officially known as Pat Patriot. 1 When I was at Super Bowl XLII in Arizona as a guest of the NFL, I was gifted an awesome distressed / vintage white Reebok retro t-shirt featuring Pat Patriot. It was my favorite t-shirt. It was accidentally incinerated in an industrial furnace several years ago — it’s a long story — and I’ve never been able to find another one exactly like it. I’ve looked far and wide, Googled and eBayed repeatedly, set alerts, but no luck. I’ve seen a red version a few times on eBay, but never the same white one I had and loved. I can’t even find an image of the same shirt anywhere online!
- Questlove created a trailer for the 50 Years of SNL Music documentary and it is completely mind-blowing. You have got to see it.
- When our TV enters screensaver mode, it shows images from Google, including the artist’s credit. One cute photo prompted me to search for Aravind Krishnaswamy and we were delighted to discover he has a plethora of pleasing penguin pictures.
- The latest issue of Culture of Sport (from David Skilling) examines why paying $7M for a 30-second Super Bowl ad is, incredibly, still a good deal.
- The entire global cosmetic Botox industry is supported by an annual production of just a few milligrams of botulism toxin. Pure toxin would cost ~$100 trillion per kilogram. – via Tom Whitwell
- TV & Movies
- We watched Mr. Popper’s Penguins recently and it was a big hit. It’s a great kid movie, especially if your kids are infatuated with penguins. (And it’s Jim Carrey acting like a [mostly] normal human being, which is my favorite version of him.)
- We have finally started watching Skeleton Crew, the latest Star Wars series. I read somewhere last year that the concept was supposed to be The Goonies, but Star Wars, and they nailed it. So far I think it’s phenomenal and I regret not having started it sooner.
- Fly Me to the Moon (Apple TV+) was a pretty fun family movie, but should have been at least a half hour shorter. It was campy and painfully predictable, but the kids liked it. Woody Harrelson was great.
1 I would guess that the “new” logo (that looks suspiciously like a windswept Elvis) is probably officially known as Pat Patriot, too, but that’s a different issue.
- Between 7AM and 7PM Eastern you can watch Bao Li and Qing Bao – the two new Giant Pandas at Smithsonian’s National Zoo – live on the Panda Cam as they explore their indoor and outdoor habitats at the David M. Rubenstein Family Giant Panda Habitat.
- I know everyone is already drowning in what seems like an unrelenting torrent of insane news lately, but I feel like it’s important to highlight that last week Tennessee Republican Congressman Tim Burchett said he believes aliens have underwater bases on Earth.
- New research suggests that your coffee habit might help protect against type-2 diabetes. – via Arnold’s Pump Club
- The Unassuming Town of Bristol, Rhode Island, Is One of America’s Best Hidden Gems for a Weekend Getaway – via my dad
- I recently watched the 1991 Steven Spielberg film Hook for – I think – the first time. Great fun.
- The new MCU-themed Philadelphia Eagles Super Bowl hype video is pretty intense.
- Anyone interested in iOS app development with SwiftUI should be reading Swift with Majid.
- Workout.lol is a handy one-page web app that gives you an exercise routine based on what equipment you have available and which muscles you want to target. (Pairs well with musclewiki.com.) – via kottke, from way back in July of 2023
- It’s a bummer that the Dead Bothans Society has been abandoned. It looks like most of the site was archived, thankfully, and many of their videos are still available on YouTube.
- You are the captain of a starship, about to embark on a long journey to a strange planet. You must hire a crew and buy supplies for the long journey ahead, then deal with all sorts of adventures and problems along the way. Space Awesome is a lovely little retro game similar to Oregon Trail* or Zork*. (You can play a complete game in a few minutes.)
- The Comprehensive Guide to Building a Realistic R2-D2 Replica
- A wall of ice the size of Rhode Island is heading toward a penguin-packed island off Antarctica.
- Once again, fans of the Buffalo Bills are the class of the NFL. They’ve raised over $100,000 with a GoFundMe for a diabetes charity supported by Mark Andrews, the Baltimore Ravens player who lost a fumble and dropped what would have been a game-tying catch in his team’s AFC divisional loss to the Bills.
- JK Brickworks is a site with instructions for lots of fun LEGO MOCs.
- “Wikenigma is an encyclopedia of known unknowns. That is, a listing of ‘scientific and academic questions to which no-one, anywhere, has yet been able to provide a definitive answer’.” – via kottke
- Oh, wow. This is awesome. The Public Domain Image Archive is a hand-picked collection of thousands of out-of-copyright works, free to browse, download, and reuse. – via @austinkleon
- Scientific American published a list of all the interesting things to see in the night sky in 2025.
- Spotify’s Secret Star Wars Easter Egg: The Hidden Lightsaber Feature (I don’t usually stream music, but this is pretty cool.)
- Are you responsible for designing or developing any type of authentication for a website or app? Take a second and read the UX of login codes by Brad Frost.
- “You can’t speak to the weather’s manager. Mother Nature has no concierge. Your investment portfolio will not halt an inferno. A college degree won’t tame the blaze. In the way we all inhabit the same Earth, we are all made of blood and flesh that burns the same.” – via The Handbasket
- Own a Kindle? You can read the complete works of Shakespeare for free.
- The Jabberwocky was one of my mom’s favorite poems. I love that I can still recite most of it from memory and it always makes me think of her.
- Just a few days ago I said Shrinking was the best show on TV right now. Obviously I didn’t think I needed to include an “except for Bluey“ disclaimer, because certainly everyone agrees Bluey might well be the best show in the history of television. And they’re working on a Bluey movie?!
- “A well-placed swear word triggers emotional and physiological arousal, like an adrenaline boost, where your heart beats faster, and your sympathetic nervous system is given a charge, which enhances focus and energy just enough to help you perform better.” – via Arnold Schwarzenegger‘s Pump Club (threads / bluesky)
- “As we continue to face adversity in our daily lives, I’m reminded of the power of the deep breath and the walk in the woods, the vagus nerve and the parasympathetic nervous system.” – via The Curious About Everything Newsletter from Jodi Ettenberg (threads / bluesky)
- I’m very frustrated that we haven’t made time to watch the new Disney+ Star Wars series Skeleton Crew yet. Winter break starts this weekend so I imagine big bowls of popcorn and a few hours—in between football games—glued to the TV. (I’m worried that shareholders will look at the streaming numbers and decide it’s not worth the cost to keep producing Star Wars content.)
- Sotheby’s just auctioned off a 115-pound, two-foot-tall slab of marble that, around a millennia and a half ago, was inscribed with the Ten Commandments. – via crooked
- You are cutting it close if you haven’t gotten all your Christmas and/or Hanukkah shopping done yet. Might I suggest a plain white bolt t from Aviator Nation? They are crazy comfortable, cozy, stylish, and on sale right now. (Or you could buy someone an Apple App Store gift card and tell them to use it to download my handy cocktail recipe app!)
- Health department medical detectives find 84% of U.S. maternal deaths are preventable.
- The latest issue of Simple Apple Tutorials from Gannon Nordberg is a killer iPhone Notification Detox Guide.
- Bad news for people who hate good news:
- 93% of kindergarteners in the U.S. are up to date on their childhood vaccines. – via Your Local Epidemiologist
- HPV vaccines have been linked to a 62% drop in cervical cancer deaths in young women over the last decade. – via kottke
- Star Wars: Skeleton Crew premieres December 3rd on Disney+ Wow. The trailer looks amazing.
- If you know anyone with an iPhone — and, duh, of course you do — one of these MagSafe power bricks is a great gift idea.
- Superman Is Still America’s Greatest Superhero: We need Christopher Reeve now more than ever.
- How Selling $160 Sweatpants Turned a SoCal Surfer into One of America’s Richest Women – via @forbes
- Forget Matt Gaetz. Merrick Garland Is America’s Worst Attorney General. – via @usnews
- I would rather watch three straight hours of Progressive commercials than another Avatar movie.
- Pamela Hayden, the voice behind Milhouse Van Houten, will retire from The Simpsons after 35 years. – via @dailycosmicmarvel
- It’s always been somewhat puzzling that Donald Duck chooses to use an airplane to fly and a boat when he’s in the water. I don’t have a problem with his insistence on eschewing pants. But I find it deeply, deeply disturbing that he carves a Thanksgiving turkey for his family. – via me
- Here’s everything you need to know about the new 12-team college football playoff format.