- Axios has put together a handy list of which companies are rolling back DEI policies and which are standing firm.
- Related: One of my favorite podcasts is The Rest is History. A recent episode highlights an incontrovertible fact plainly obvious to anyone who’s ever had to deal with a toddler. It doesn’t matter whether you’re dealing with a schoolyard bully, a demanding client, a political rival, or Hitler himself. Appeasement never works.
- If you have an Apple computer, you can click the command key and the plus key to increase the font size in (almost) every app. And command with the minus key makes the font smaller, natch. It might seem like a silly tip, but I can’t tell you how many times someone has been delighted when I show them this.
- Put your Taylor Swift musical knowledge to the test. – via @lilmisssunshine
- “Nobody controls me. I’m uncontrollable. The only one who controls me is me, and that’s just barely possible.” – John Lennon
- If you got a new laptop for Christmas, you should grab (at least) one of these 5-in-1 USB-C / HDMI hubs. I keep one in my computer bag and the other is (essentially) what I use as a docking station at home.
- “Artificial Intelligence will finally have arrived when my laptop can tell me specifically which process is actually still accessing the flash drive I’m trying to eject after closing every open app on the machine.” – via @kiplet
- More good news for those looking to exit Meta’s social app ecosystem in favor of a more open alternative: An independent developer is building a photo-sharing app for Bluesky called Flashes. – via phillewis
- Misinformation isn’t random. It’s strategic. Misinformation is not a general condition; It is driven by populist radical right parties. When Do Parties Lie? Misinformation and Radical-Right Populism Across 26 Countries – via pettertornberg
- “The entire health insurance business model is built on scamming customers and denying the coverage they pay premiums for. Health insurance is not healthcare. It’s an unnecessary middleman that preys on the sick, and only exists because lobbyists pay off our politicians.” – via darrigomelanie
- “Is it like the old Playboy Magazine? You have essays there by the modern day equivalent of Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley Jr.?” – Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, asking if people visit Pornhub to read articles during a hearing about minors having access to pornography. – via crooked media
- You can watch the three (newer) seasons of The Animaniacs on Disney+ / Hulu, so why are you wasting your time reading this when you could be doing that instead? Five stars. Highly recommend. (The original five seasons are available on Amazon Prime and AppleTV.)
- In the US, table saws are responsible for around 4,300 amputations per year. All other products are responsible for 3,600 amputations per year combined. – via Tom Whitwell
- I have no idea how, when, or why I subscribed to the Making It Work newsletter from Youngna Park, but I’m always happy when it lands in my inbox. This week’s issue, which includes some beautiful writing about the horrific L.A. wildfires, was exceptional.
- This brilliant bit of investigative reporting (with math!) – into how Threads changed its algorithm to start throttling engagement on posts about climate change – should tell you everything you need to know about which platforms are enshittification engines and which one is not. And with that, I’m effectively done with Meta. (Mastodon might be a safe social network alternative, but it’s currently far too complicated for the general public.)
- Dozens of official government websites have been exploited by spammers to redirect to porn. – via jbhall56.bsky.social
As a diehard Florida Gators fan, I absolutely adore sporting this lapel pin I found recently at LostLustSupply.com. It was designed by artist Emily Elizabeth Miller and she’s got some other great stuff for sale, too.- “What’s the point of being rich if you can’t afford to do the right thing.” – via Kelsey Hightower
- A.J. Brown read his book during a playoff game. The story behind the book is even more unusual.
- Olympic swimmer Gary Hall Jr. to receive replacement medals after losing originals in L.A. fires.
- “You were drunk. You tried to dance with strippers. You had to be held off the stage,” said Sen. Tim Kaine, recounting allegations against Fox News host Pete Hegseth during his confirmation to be Trump’s defense secretary. – via crooked media (See also: Jamelle Bouie speaks the truth.)
- The US government wants to start protecting you (and your kids) from Roblox robux scams. – via Anil
- The Moon is part of the Diocese of Orlando, in accordance with the 1917 Code of Canon Law, which states that “any newly discovered territory was placed under the jurisdiction of the diocese from which the expedition which discovered that territory left.” – via Kent Hendricks
- I can’t be the only GenXer really struggling with the fact that it’s 2025. That number seems impossible to me. It sounds like a year from The Jetsons or Space Mountain. (Related: Wikipedia’s list of movies set in 2025 is somewhat disappointing.)
- I thoroughly enjoyed reading this essay on the evolution of the Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade screenplay. – via hiro.report, via Phil Gyford
- Bad news for people who hate good news:
- In a 6-1 ruling in favor of sixteen youth who sued, the Montana Supreme Court affirmed their constitutional right to a “clean and healthful environment.” – via kottke
- The U.S. Supreme Court won’t hear appeals from oil companies challenging a lawsuit in Hawaii that aims to hold them accountable for climate change. – via Crooked Media
- The US jobs market roared to life in December – via Semafor
- Trump can still vote after sentencing, but can’t own a gun and will have to turn over DNA sample – via The Associated Press
- Biden Issues Sweeping Deportation Protections Before Trump Takes Office
- Good news for people who love bad news:
- Global temperatures in 2024 eclipsed 2023’s average by more than a fifth of a degree Fahrenheit. That’s an unusually large jump; until the last couple of super-hot years, global temperature records were exceeded only by hundredths of a degree. – via The Morning Wire
- Tens of millions of American Christians are embracing a charismatic movement known as the New Apostolic Reformation, which seeks to destroy the secular state. – via my dad
- A 2016 UK study found folks who participated in Dry January had improved confidence around abstinence, did not rebound, and drank less alcohol overall six months later, regardless of their January success. – via YLE
- Friendly reminder: There are exactly two things you can try and do. You can try and fail or you can try and succeed. Otherwise you try to do something.
- Research suggests that even taking small breaks from sitting could significantly improve your cardiovascular health, making it easier than ever to protect your heart and improve your overall well-being. – via Arnold Schwarzenegger‘s Pump Club
- “If you’re only going to open a book on the off chance you have several hours to kill in a comfy chair with a glass of scotch, it’s only ever going to happen when you have several hours to kill in a comfy chair with a glass of scotch.” How to Read a Whole Damn Book Every Week – via Links You’ll Love
- 33 Ways To Improve Your Life, Japanese Style – via pretty much everyone I follow
- Quantum physics is wild: “Physicists showed that photons can seem to exit a material before entering it, revealing observational evidence of negative time.”
- “You shouldn’t be driving over 100 mph—and your car shouldn’t let you.” – via kottke
- This LA Times interactive map of the Southern California wildfires has been very handy. – via @dansinker.com
- “Just a reminder that the French revolution started with a climate crisis-induced famine, an empire that had overexpanded into too many foreign wars, and parasitic nobility that funneled all the wealth upward while regular citizens suffered.” – via @chris.writes.books
If you want to “follow” me somewhere (other than here, of course), you should use my verified account on bluesky. I adored Twitter when it launched, and for many years after. But I haven’t looked at that social network in months and deleted my account a while ago. I’ve been enjoying Threads, but it looks like it’s time to abandon that platform, too. I’m very, very glad I have my own personal website. (I hardly ever look at Instagram, and doubt I’ll keep my account there for much longer. If I didn’t feel obligated to remain on LinkedIn, I’d quit that site, too.)- In China, there are registries of haunted apartments. If you’re willing to live somewhere with a sinister history, you can get a discount of 30%. – via @tomwhitwell
- I am starting to get concerned about the bird flu, H5N1. Paying attention to updates from Your Local Epidemiologist is a good way to be prepared.
- A wilderness survival trainer spent years undercover, climbing the ranks of right-wing militias. He didn’t tell police or the FBI. He didn’t tell his family or friends. Then, in 2023, a ProPublica reporter received an envelope with no return address. Inside was a flash drive containing tens of thousands of secret files. – via @propublica
- “In species where males invest in weaponry (antlers, horns, tusks, etc.), female brains are bigger.” – via Kent Hendricks
- How to Make the World’s Rarest Pasta – via kottke
- The requirement that homes be built at least 21 meters apart in parts of the UK dates back to a 1902 regulation drafted by two men who determined this was closest they could be to each other before they could see the other’s nipples through their shirts. – via Kent Hendricks
- The Lions–Vikings regular season finale had three times as many viewers as the Golden Globes. – via TMQ
- Bartosz Ciechanowski occasionally publishes incredibly detailed articles on fascinating topics. Last month he tackled the moon and – hoo boy! – this is a deep dive on our nearest celestial neighbor. – via The Curious About Everything Newsletter
- I would probably finally switch completely from Firefox to Chrome if it wasn’t for Chrome’s egregious, unforgivable, inexcusable insistence on stealing focus from other apps on launch. – via bluesky
- “I can’t believe the billionaires are unanimously siding with the fascists! This has only happened every possible time throughout history so I am truly stunned!” – via @fousheezy
- “I don’t think people understand how devastating the end of net neutrality, and consumer protections around internet connectivity, are going to be.” – via @anildash
- Animals as Chemical Factories: Horses are bled for antivenom, crabs are drained for endotoxin tests, and silkworms are boiled for silk. Science can now replace these practices with synthetic alternatives, but we need to find ways to scale them.
- I watched Conclave over the holiday break and thought it was pretty good. The acting was great, of course, but I’d expect nothing less from a film featuring John Lithgow, Stanley Tucci, and Ralph Fiennes. If you dig Roman Catholic esoterica, I’d also suggest reading this deep dive into the Vatican’s secret saint-making process.
- Ozempic is a modified, synthetic version of a protein discovered in the venomous saliva of the Gila monster, a large, sluggish lizard native to the United States. – via Tom Whitwell’s 52 Things I Learned in 2024, not to be confused with Kent Hendricks’ equally-awesome list of 52 Things I Learned in 2024
- Some of the 77 Facts That Blew Our Minds in 2024 (from The Atlantic Science Desk) are really pretty wild! – via kottke
- The Ghosts in the Machine is a great explainer on the current kerfuffle over Spotify’s nefarious fake music.
Please don’t say just, “hello,” via text. – via The Curious About Everything Newsletter, where I also found this awesome food map of Italy- I enjoyed reading this quick essay on how to write readable sentences.
- What happens when websites start to vanish at random?
- An average of about 900 people per week have died of COVID-19 over the past year in the USA, according to the CDC. – via PBS
- Just in time for Penguin Awareness Day (on Thursday, January 20th), the Wildlife Conservation Society‘s Argentina Program has released amazing underwater selfie video recently taken by a male Gentoo penguin fitted with a special camera.
- Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada, said, “I don’t know if the bird flu will become a pandemic, but if it does, we are screwed.” – via The Curious About Everything Newsletter
- In the city of Poznań, Poland, a group of eight clams controls the local water supply through a clever bio-monitoring system. – via kottke
- I have been trying unsuccessfully for a while now to find the recipe for the Pistachio & Orange “Redemption Cake” that Amelia Le Bruin made on The Great British Baking Show: Holidays (S7: E1 “The Great Christmas Baking Show”). If anyone has any leads, please let me know. [Update: I sent her an Instagram DM and she replied to tell me she’d try to find the recipe in her notes!]
- Oysters and Beer Have Always Been on the Menu at One of America’s Oldest, Most Renowned Restaurants. I have been here many times, including a memorable birthday dinner in my 40s, and can confirm that The Union Oyster House is a national treasure. – via my dad
- Netflix Is Telling Writers to Dumb Down Shows Since Viewers Are on Their Phones – via The Dailies
- The essay Who Goes Nazi? from the August 1941 issue of Harper’s Magazine should be required reading at every high school in America. – via Laura Olin (threads / bluesky)
- It was fun to read about all the wild Christmas gifts NFL quarterbacks got their offensive lineman last week. Did you know that NFL teams are required to provide “three dozen sliced oranges for halftime” for the visiting team? And that each team easily goes through at least 80,000 Uncrustables each year? Oh, and Notre Dame winning the Sugar Bowl on January 2, 2025 ensured a Black head coach will be in an FBS national championship game for the first time ever. – via The Athletic (threads / bluesky)
- People often ask me what I think their children should study to learn how to be a programmer, or create video games or apps and I always answer that they should start with the absolute basics. Learn Bash Scripting in 10 minutes is a great example.
The Voice at Embankment Tube Station
A lovely Christmas tale