- Symbol Salad is a great resource for those in need of special keyboard characters, like ¢ and ½.
- Organ Donation & Pascal’s Wager – via mergesort.me
- The current administration does not want to FAFO with an organized gang of wine moms. – via @froggyb
- Speaking of FAFO: I can’t believe this academic admitted to losing all his AI-generated research.
- The Ottawa Senators are selling jerseys with the names of the HBO Heated Rivalry characters for $325/ea (and donating the proceeds to a local queer hockey group) and they can’t keep them in stock because they sell out so quickly. – via The Athletic
- Rhode Island might ditch Mr. Potato Head license plates after Hasbro moves to Boston
- Well, fuck. Swearing Actually Seems to Make Humans Physically Stronger and There Really Is Something Soothing About Saying The ‘F’ Word
- This is absolutely wild: Back-scratching bovine leads scientists to reassess intelligence of cows (I mostly quit eating beef about 15 years ago and haven’t missed it at all. But now I’m going to feel even more guilty about the milk in my coffee.)
- It’s “Mental Illness Doesn’t Do That” Season Once Again
- This will be the first time the Patriots have been to the Super Bowl since Bill Belichick‘s girlfriend graduated high school. – via @bgoad85
And now for the bad news:
- Since beginning operations seven years ago, Brightline, which runs high-speed trains between Miami and Orlando and is the only private rail service in the country, has killed nearly 200 people. – via longreads.com
- The South Carolina measles outbreak has surpassed the recorded case count in the 2025 Texas outbreak.
- Immigration agents operating near Vail, CO placed branded ace of spades playing cards — similar to “death cards” left on corpses by U.S. forces during the Vietnam War — in cars left behind after immigrants’ arrests.
- “FYI, a masked, anonymous, armed paramilitary force denying due process and breaking into people’s homes to arrest and detain people in camps is exactly what fascism looks like.” – via @darrigomelanie
- Death of Cuban Detainee in El Paso ICE Facility Is Ruled a Homicide
- America’s Would-Be Surgeon General, Casey Means, thinks improving health is a spiritual project?!
Posts tagged “trains”
The Voice at Embankment Tube Station
A lovely Christmas tale
When I was about twelve, all of the landscaping at our apartment complex changed one day while I was at school. I thought the new design looked really cool and mentioned it to my mom. She said, “I just can’t believe they let a man do this.” When I asked why, she said, “Men always use railroad ties.”
I had no idea what railroad ties were and assumed it was some sort of neckwear and didn’t put two and two together for at least a decade.
I think about this probably more often than I should.
Los Angeles Monorail
Why can’t we have nice things?
Why Federal Construction Spending Doesn’t Translate to GDP Growth
Trains
This makes sense. I could never get why trains sometimes have locomotives on the *back* of the line. Why are there *pusher* engines? The answer was provided by – quelle surprise – The Discovery Channel. The Crash Files: On the Inside of the NTSB mentioned that longer trains need pusher engines on the rear to