It’s the birthday of Founding Father Benjamin Franklin, born on this date in Boston in 1706. He invented bifocal lenses, the Franklin stove, lightning rods, the urinary catheter, and swim fins. He was the first US Ambassador to France and was a prolific author, giving us dozens of common sayings, some of which you probably use all the time without knowing he said them first. And of course there’s a wonderful Ken Burns PBS documentary about him.
Okay. It’s been a couple of weeks and I’m ready to call it. Opalite is my favorite track.
The purples are getting increasingly unhinged. #connections
Ranting and raving about fraud and abuse in the welfare system while blithely ignoring fraud and abuse in the White House doesn’t make you a conservative (or a liberal). It makes you an asshole.
To paraphrase Benjamin Franklin:
I’d rather 100 welfare scam artists enrich themselves than 1 child go to bed hungry.
I watch a lot of college football and have seen a handful of Capital One ads dozens of times and it wasn’t until Week 4 of 2025 that I realized they were trying to push this dude as their version of “Jake from State Farm“. (I just thought he was a random MLB star I didn’t recognize.)
Holy hell. I just saw Seth Meyers new segment, Introducing the Interns and How They Mock Me, and I am dying at his commitment to the foam cinder block bit.
I have to be honest, I don’t know if I’m going to be able to process a new Taylor Swift album this week.
Hoo boy, I cannot wait to watch Seth tonight. I hope @salgentile.bsky.social didn’t spontaneously combust when he heard about Kimmel and was able to eviscerate the GOP in what I expect will be the best A Closer Look ever. (No pressure!)
- “Productivity dysmorphia is the inability to see one’s own success, to acknowledge the volume of your own output.” – via Tom Whitwell
- How NASA has kept Apollo moon rocks safe from contamination for 50 years
- Everything you ever wanted to know about the history of tiki culture
- The Day the Music Burned is the story of the 2008 Universal fire.
- The current Banana Republic is nothing like it was when I was a kid. You can learn all about the company’s history at Abandoned Republic.
- The Launch is the story behind the 2019 debut of the Cosmic Crisp apple.
- The Ultimate Guide to Building a Hot Wheels Race Track
- For a little while now Apple has allowed you to tag someone as a legacy contact who can access and download the data in your account after your death. You can find the feature on the Sign-in & Security tab under your Apple Account at the top of the Settings app on your iOS device.
- If you ever find yourself hungry in Amsterdam, I urge you to try the pink mayonnaise french fries at ‘t Pareltje.
- Explaining how fighting games use delay-based and rollback netcode – How to design your game for optimal play over a network
- Bad news for insomniacs. New research highlights how chronic, insufficient sleep can impair your body’s ability to manage blood sugar – even if your weight stays stable. – via Arnold’s Pump Club
- “The sea is the sea. The old man is an old man. The boy is a boy and the fish is a fish.”
- Another good example of enshittification: Companies tend not to pass cost savings from efficiency gains onto consumers… they just sell people more of it. – via kottke
- The Ten Commandments of iOS Development
- At some point I really must make these artichoke soufflés. They look delicious and have been on my to-make list for years.
- When My Father Talked About Larry Bird: The Boston Celtics legend was the north star of my youth, present in every debate and stretch of silence with my dad. This was true on the night when my world stopped, leaving me on a sidewalk seeing stars.