• Okay, I am late to the party on this one, but my heart just grew two sizes when I discovered that Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr managed to surreptitiously, throughout the course of the 2022/23 NBA season, insert all the lyrics from the Taylor Swift song All Too Well into his post-game press conferences.
• The story of the Archimedes Palimpsest is fascinating. I saw someone mention it on Instagram and couldn’t believe it was true, but it appears to be a legitimate tale.
• The team at The Athletic put together a compelling argument that not only is Mahomes worth his new half-a-billion-dollar contract, but he might actually be better than Brady.
• I doubt you need me to tell you this, but Sally Field is just incredible in Remarkably Bright Creatures on Netflix. The movie is wonderful and we loved it.
• Renewables have surpassed global coal power for the first time in over a century! (The last time coal lost its lead as the world’s largest electricity source, the Treaty of Versailles was in review and Congress had just established a national park in Arizona named for its big hole in the ground.)
• Shohei Ohtani meets 100-year-old Nagasaki survivor
• Sure, they may be trying to jump on the Wordle bandwagon, and it’s a bit tricky to play, but the new Catalogues game from The New Yorker is pretty fun once you get the hang of it. – hat-tip @heidiyounggrasshopper
• You can’t produce a Field Notes edition of The Maltese Falcon and not expect me to automatically purchase it.
• This Smithsonian article explaining The Science Behind Honey’s Eternal Shelf Life was pretty interesting.
• Some good news on the public health front: Florida Republicans Refuse to Take Up DeSantis Bill Loosening Vaccine Mandates
• Need another reason to stop eating meat? A flesh-eating cattle parasite is spreading beyond Texas.
• The Voting Rights Act Was the Nice Version
• Asian jumping worms, an invasive, soil nutrient-gobbling earthworm that can leap a foot in the air, are moving rapidly across the country.
• A second detainee has died at an ICE facility in Louisiana where a recent inspection report found insanitary conditions, problems with medical care, and the use of excessive force.

• Awesome news: Researchers have developed a method of making french fries that results in a healthier bite without sacrificing crispiness.
• In the running for most awesome job posting I’ve seen: Observatory Manager
• It’s hard to believe it’s already been a decade since we lost Prince.
• Italy Implements a New Labor Leave that Allows Workers to Care for Sick Pets
• Man Charged in LEGO Theft Scheme of Replacing Pieces With Pasta, Police Say – via my dad
• Speaking of dad, if any other Gen-Xers are trying to remember the name of that super-disturbing Randy Quaid cannibal movie, it’s Parents and it was released in 1989.
• The VHS Cover Maker is a handy utility for anyone that still owns a working VCR.
• Longtime readers will know I’m a sucker for wearable tech. I’ve tried pretty much all of them: various Fitbit devices, the Oura Ring, almost every Apple Watch, and the original Nike Fuelband. I love investigating my own metrics, but is there a downside to all this data?
• Everyone should know these handy tips and tricks for using Google.
• Another really excellent article about the continuing enshittification of everything: Your Backpack Got Worse On Purpose

It’s a Cold and It’s a Broken Hallelujah:

• The United States is being murdered, and it’s an inside job. Every department, every branch, every bureau and function of the federal government is being fatally corrupted or altogether dismantled or disabled. – via Kottke
• Not one of these companies can say with any clarity where their multi-million-dollar donations to [the president’s] library slush fund are, or where they will go.
• MAGA Is Increasingly Convinced the the 2024 Butler, PA Presidential Assassination Attempt Was Staged
• While we don’t know where this is going, we do know [the President] has no compunction about using extreme measures, including violence, to obtain the electoral outcomes he prefers.
• [The President’s] Plan to Subvert the Midterms Is Already Under Way

• This was a surprisingly fun read: A complete guide to juggling, from zero to siteswap notation, by someone who juggles in nightclubs.
• Far too few people understand this crucial statement from this article from The Handbasket on the future of artificial intelligence in journalism: Telling a machine that can’t perceive that it can’t perceive won’t make it perceive that it can’t perceive.
• A New Jersey Teen Finds Treasure, and More, in Abandoned Storage Units
• Periodic and timely reminder that Marisa Tomei is an anagram for “It’s a me Mario!” – via @benoitbruneau
• Y2K 2.0: The AI security reckoning is yet another fantastic essay from Anil.
• I’d somehow never heard of the water-level task and now I can’t stop thinking about it.
• How a blind man made it possible for others with low vision to build LEGO sets
• It’s probably bad for everyone that Meta lost that big social media lawsuit.
• A guy in Australia searching for caves to explore using Google Maps found a huge scar on the landscape that turned out to be evidence of a massive tornado that nobody saw.

I love you, but you are not serious people.

• This article contains some absolutely bonkerballs statistics: Analysis Finds That Google AI Overviews Are Providing Misinformation at a Scale Possibly Unprecedented in the History of Human Civilization – via @drskyskull
• I think we all agree that the narcissism of our current POTUS makes it impossible for him to carry out the duties of the presidency in the way the Constitution requires.
• The Next Coup Attempt, And How to Stop It
• A 19-year-old Mexican migrant died at a Florida immigration detention facility last month, and ICE hasn’t been able to find his arrest record.

• I cannot remember where I found it, but this World Monitor App is wild. You can configure your own sort of hyper cyber dashboard of world news and events like you always see in pretend CIA headquarters in spy movies.
• WalkmanLand pays tribute to the pocket tape devices of yesterdays. (My entire life changed when I got my first Sony Walkman, sometime around 1986.)
• I am loving these incredible color photos of Rome that Jason found at the Library of Congress. And I might have already blogged this, but in case you missed it he also found these awesome Real Photos that Look Fake.
• Say Goodbye to the Undersea Cable That Made the Global Internet Possible
• Drew Struzan: The Man Behind Your Favorite Childhood Movie Posters
• I dig this cool odometer effect implemented purely with CSS. – via cassidoo

So Much Bad News:

• The secretary of Miami-Dade County’s Republican Party started a group chat primarily for conservative students last fall — and within three weeks it was filled with racist slurs, someone wrote dozens of ways of violently killing Black people and the chat was renamed after what one member described as “Nazi heaven.”
• Students in Savannah grieve teacher killed in crash with driver pursued by ICE.
• A Call to Conscience, by Cardinal Blase J. Cupich, archbishop of Chicago
• A little-known group stacked with lobbyists for the artificial intelligence industry has been sending congressional staffers on upscale trips over the past year to tour AI companies in San Francisco, London, New York City, and Los Angeles.
• The U.S. Built a Blueprint to Avoid Civilian War Casualties. Current Administration Officials Scrapped It.
• Department of Homeland Security leaders removed top privacy officers who objected to mislabeling government records to block their public release.
• Administration Officials Attended a Summit of Election Deniers Who Want the President to Take Over the Midterms

• I love these Big Tuskers! – via johansiggesson.com
• Why Apple's Move to Video Could Endanger Podcasting’s Greatest Power
• I haven’t been able to play the best video game ever made — Star Wars: X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter (1997) — in over a quarter of a century, though I still have my old Microsoft Sidewinder in storage somewhere for it. Could the DOS Retro-Emulation Arena for Maniac Mansion™ (DREAMM) allow me to play on a Mac? We shall learn soon!
• Speaking of Mac software, I am not sure if I’ve ever mentioned how much I love Grand Perspective. If you are a Mac user, this is a must-have utility for analyzing where all your hard drive space is being used. I’ve had it for years and years and use it often.
• Are prediction markets just sports betting by another name? is a good primer on all the hooplah around them if you’re interested in that sort of thing.
• A new meta-analysis of nearly 100,000 people found that the more you watch short-form videos, the more likely you are to struggle with attention and cognitive control. The scientists found that watching short-form videos affects your ability to stop impulses and redirect focus. And it had a negative effect on mental health, specifically increasing stress and anxiety. – via Arnold’s Pump Club
• Goonies Never Say Die is a lovely essay by Dan Sinker that hit this GenXer right in the feels.
• A Rant about Daylight Saving Time: Chronobiologists and sleep researchers have reached a near-unanimous conclusion that making Daylight Saving Time permanent would subject the entire population to a kind of chronic, low-grade jet lag, one that never resolves because the clocks are perpetually misaligned with the sun.
• Do you have any ancestors who were from Canada? Great news: You are eligible for Canadian citizenship. – via my dad
• I don’t understand why the 1983 classic WarGames – one of my all-time favorite movies – isn’t required viewing for anyone and everyone who works in any way, shape, or form with the United States military, because AI really likes using nuclear weapons in simulated war scenarios.
• Radiohead tells ICE to take down a video using their song, writing, “It ain’t funny, this song means a lot to us and other people, and you don’t get to appropriate it without a fight. Also, go fuck yourselves.”
• The US struck an Iranian school where a blast killed at least 165.