- An extraordinarily rare original of the Magna Carta has been discovered, hiding in plain sight in the archives of the Harvard Law School.
- Texas Democrats are trying to ban Republican Senator Ted Cruz from attending college playoff games, saying he’s “a well-known curse” for teams in the state.
- A baby born with a rare and dangerous genetic disease is growing and thriving after getting an experimental gene editing treatment made just for him. – via The Associated Press
- How cool is this? Rick Steves was on The Simpsons
- “These kids are ticking time bombs” – The Threat of Youth Basketball
It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry:
- The Environmental Protection Agency plans to weaken Biden-era rules that limit exposure to “forever chemicals” in drinking water.
- Kristi Noem has been working with the producer of Duck Dynasty to pitch a reality TV show titled The American, featuring immigrants competing in a string of challenges “for the honor of fast-tracking their way to U.S. citizenship.” – via brendannyhan.bsky.social
- The U.S. Register of Copyrights was abruptly dismissed last weekend just 24 hours after her office released a report stating AI companies can’t freely use copyrighted movies and TV shows for training. – via The Dailies
- NYU denies diploma to student who criticized Israel in commencement speech
- In response to latest POTUS executive orders, RAINN, the nation’s largest anti-sexual-violence organization, has barred its crisis hotline staff from sharing resources specific to LGBTQ people, immigrants, and other marginalized groups. – via maggieastor.bsky.social and sarahweinman.com
- The South Carolina Supreme Court ruled the state can keep banning abortions around six weeks after conception by agreeing with the earliest interpretation offered of when a heartbeat starts.
Posts tagged “Texas”
- I’ve been using the free native Apple Reminders app for over a decade now and at this point I’d be lost without it.
- The Best Black Friday Heist: They Told People It Was a Scam. People Paid Anyway. – via @froggyb.bsky.social
- How to read the entire Dog Man universe in order
- “If you’re going to talk shit about Kamala Harris‘ Bluetooth avoidance, please be aware Taylor Swift also follows a similar threat profile. For paparazzi spying on new music files before release.” – via SwiftOnSecurity
- If you didn’t read this the previous time I posted it, here’s a second chance: AI is a great idea if you think nobody at your company is great at what they do. [See also.]
- Did you hear about the cannibal who was expelled from school? He was buttering up his teacher.
- Olympic Gold Medalist Dominates the 100m at Her Kid’s Sports Day Event – via kottke
- Last year, Pakistan installed an incredible 22 gigawatts of solar power – more than Canada has ever built, and more than the UK has added in the past five years combined.
- I’ve (finally) started watching Andor S2 and am riveted. It’s definitely not as kid-friendly as the usual Star Wars fare, but I think it’s fantastic.
Hand Covers Bruise:
- POTUS signs (technically non-binding and illegal) executive order directing federal funding cuts to PBS and NPR.
- Despite their formal attire, penguins simply aren’t known for conducting commerce with the USA.
- Migrants held in Texas fearing deportation to notorious El Salvador prison work together to form human SOS.
- Beginning in the 2025-26 school year, thousands of high school students in Oklahoma will be required to learn about debunked claims that the 2020 election was tainted by fraud. The lesson will not be part of a course on conspiracy theories, but an official component of the new social studies curriculum created by Republican Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters.
- A third of parents with children aged 0 to 13 reported wishing they had more time to read to their children, and the number of parents saying their children have too much schoolwork to read books has risen significantly. – via kottke
- The official White House account posted an AI-generated picture of the POTUS holding a red lightsaber on Sunday, May 4th – the unofficial Star Wars day – intentionally mocking the point of the entire franchise. – via my dad
- A Masters win for Rory McIlroy gives him, at last, a seat at the table.
- The Last of Us S2 on
HBOMax premiered this weekend, so it’s a great time to read some perspectives from an epidemiologist and a plant scientist. - What can we learn from the books being read by the characters in White Lotus S3?
- Lorne Michaels is going to produce a British version of Saturday Night Live starting in 2026.
- Great quote from physicist Brian Greene: “My best teachers were not the ones who had all the answers. They were the ones deeply excited by questions they couldn’t answer.” – via Austin Kleon
Dreaming of a song, but something went wrong:
- A federal judge sided with the [current] administration in allowing immigration agents to conduct enforcement operations at houses of worship for now.
- Death is the point.
- Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard signed a sworn declaration stating that she was a resident of the State of Texas, and then voted in Hawaii. – via mehdirhasan.bsky.social
- Vice President JD Vance fumbles trophy during Ohio State football’s White House visit
- I can think of a few thousand better ways the AP could have worded this headline to more accurately convey just how corrupt this weirdo is: DeSantis Defends $10M Donation from State Agency Settlement to Charity Linked to His Wife
- The American Dream Is Over: He did this with the enthusiastic support of the entire Republican party and conservative movement, and a plurality of American voters.
- Dark energy is probably doing something weird, and we don’t know why.
- The Scale of Time
- New research suggests that being even slightly dehydrated can reduce muscle thickness after lifting weights—potentially limiting growth and recovery. – via Arnold’s Pump Club
- Prosecutors who resigned rather than carry out what they saw as an unethical, improper and potentially illegal order were 100% vindicated by [the judge]’s extensive findings.
- “Only one thing / I did wrong / Stayed in Mississippi / Way too long” – For some reason I had no idea that this was a “newer” (relatively speaking) Dylan song, or that it was released on 9/11. It feels much older than that. (It’s also weird that the Sheryl Crow cover was released in 1998!)
- On the Best (Worst) Best Man Speech Ever (at My Super Mario-Themed Wedding) – via kottke, of course
- How to optimize files and fix your storage problems on Macs, iPhones, and iPads
- We Can Do Better:
- Several members of [the President]’s National Security Council have been fired a day after conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer visited the Oval Office and pressed [the President] to get rid of them.
- The state of Florida is prepared to convict [a woman] for killing her son, despite the fact that the only direct evidence of arson has been thoroughly discredited. This story is as infuriating as it is heartbreaking.
- JD Vance Would Throw His Own Kids Under A Bus If [POTUS] Were Driving It
- How the [Current] Administration Learned to Obscure the Truth in Court
- Texas GOP Congressman Ronny Jackson has been fundraising with what appears to be an unauthorized legal expense fund.
- [Administration] Declares a Trade War on Uninhabited Islands, US Military, and Economic Logic
- Georgia Woman Arrested After Having Miscarriage
- The [current] administration is planning to halt more than half a billion dollars in contracts and grants awarded to Brown University.
- In the new documentary Secret Mall Apartment, a group of artists recount how they turned a hidden nook in a Providence shopping center into a living space for four years. – via my dad
- If you’re ever in Los Angeles, check out The Nicolosi Estate. The long-abandoned 8700-square-foot, 4-bedroom, 5-bath home is encircled by an amazing 300-foot-long serpentine swimming pool, complete with rock bridges and grotto-style hot tubs, which is visible from the road. The estate was commissioned by Johnny Weissmuller, who won five gold Olympic medals in swimming (and a bronze in water polo!) and portrayed Tarzan in a dozen films from 1932 to 1948.
- Apple is losing a billion dollars per year on Apple TV+ and that’s just fine. – via @TrungTPhan
- I cannot tell you how many times I’ve used these CSS drop-shadow snippets.
- Technofossils: How humanity’s eternal testament will be plastic bags, cheap clothes, and chicken bones. – via kottke
This Is Exhausting:
- “Under the previous administration, we looked like fools. Not anymore.” – Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, shortly before accidentally texting war plans to a journalist.
- A federal judge temporarily blocked the Environmental Protection Agency‘s attempt to recoup $20 billion in Biden-era climate grants, dealing the latest judicial setback for [the current administration]’s attempt to assert unilateral control over spending.
- There Is No Method to [the President]’s Madness. He’s Simply Insane.
- The corporation behind Roundup herbicide has paid out nearly $11 billion in lawsuits. Now it’s backing an EPA rule that would stop the bleeding.
- An Austin attorney is suing the Department of Education after seeing her student loan payments skyrocket.
- A Coast Guard Commander Miscarried. She Nearly Died After Being Denied Care.
- I will jump on the Last Week Tonight bandwagon and spread the word about how to change your settings to make yourself less valuable to Meta. (And, yes, that’s the correct link.)
- The surprisingly hopeful What Felt Impossible Became Possible is an excellent essay about the downfall of the Ku Klux Klan and how it relates to our current American crisis. The key takeaway — as many others have noted — is that fascism always fails. “It is destructive and it is awful and not everyone lives to see the other side, but it always, always fails.”
- A “super pod” of thousands of dolphins was spotted off the California coast.
- Disney’s Star Wars Succession Problem: Who Will Replace Kathleen Kennedy? – via The Dailies
- What happens when you pull a wildly valuable Jayden Daniels rookie card? For “Dr. Moist Muffins”, it literally changed his life.
- Scientists have found that eating more fiber could help reduce microplastic absorption and minimize its harmful effects on your body.
- Neither vaccines nor the virus prompted an increase in the number of cardiac arrests in athletes, contrary to misinformation that continues to circulate repeatedly.
- Annoying News:
- Starlink gets FAA contract, raising new conflict of interest concerns. – via @joshtpm.bsky.social
- The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, D.C., declined to sign an arrest warrant sent to them by local police for Republican congressman Cory Mills who happens to be an ally of the President.
- Trump Administration Litigation Tracker
- An analysis by ProPublica showed that dozens more pregnant and postpartum women have died in Texas hospitals since the state banned abortion. And while the national maternal mortality rate dropped, it rose in Texas by 33%. – via @joncooper-us.bsky.social
- Here’s a handy list of sixteen Democrats who simply aren’t doing enough. If your rep is on that list, get on the phone.
- 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.
- “Hey gamers remember, on Dec 26 a lot of kids are gonna be online playing with their gifted console/game/pc for the first time. Be nice.” – via @dinocornel
- An Ode to Christmas Eve
- It’s a Christmas miracle! Netflix subscribers can play Civilization VI on iOS devices, free and with no ads. – via hiro.report
- In 1996 Sir Purr became the only NFL mascot to ever be involved in a live play. – via @gregstreetz83
- Is it just me or does every Instagram link shared via Apple Messages on iOS 18 take you to the wrong post? And the preview of the link in Messages never works.
The Alphabet Fades Away – via @anthony_onumonu- Democratic Representative Abigail Spanberger, on lawmakers’ unfounded theories about those weird drones over New Jersey: “Members of Congress need to not be opportunistic idiots who say shit that’s not true.” – via crooked
- Drinking caffeine (the equivalent of a very strong cup) thirty minutes before aerobic exercise increases fat oxidation by 11% in the morning and by 13% in the afternoon. – via Arnold Schwarzenegger‘s Pump Club
- A pregnant woman in Texas claimed her fetus was an HOV lane passenger, but got a ticket anyway.
- New England’s largest outdoor sculpture park is in Brookline, New Hampshire, about an hour north of Boston. – via my dad
- Chocolate is America’s favorite Halloween candy, with Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups once again the top choice in an overwhelming majority of states. But don’t sleep on Nerds Gummy Clusters, which boosted sales at Ferrara Candy Company from $40 million in 2018 to $800 million last year.
- Wow. Texas leads the nation in wind energy generation with over 15,000 turbines producing between a bit more than 10% of the total electricity in the United States.
- An Expert’s Guide to Protein for Athletes – via @sweatscience
- New research found that if you want to feel younger later in life, don’t go easy on your training. – via Arnold’s Pump Club
- I’ve always been a sucker for black holes, so these thought experiments that fray the fabric of space-time were fun. – via kottke, of course
- Take thirty seconds out of your day to read this brilliant poem, If Adam Picked the Apple, by Danielle Coffyn. – also via kottke