• 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.

• Most people simply recorded the emergency as it unfolded. A couple of college athletes took action.
• In one of the largest studies ever, scientists found that eating more fiber meaningfully reduced your risk of heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, and colorectal cancer. – via Arnold’s Pump Club
• Oh, Jason, this is totally my cup of tea: The Greek Mythology Family Tree, Explained
• I just ordered my third set of these awesome 5″ twisty-lock wire loops because I keep finding new uses for them. I also highly recommend these JETech iPhone screen protectors, which I have on all our phones.
• Skier Lindsey Vonn said she almost lost her left leg after suffering a tibia fracture on the second day of the Olympics, adding that having surgery soon afterward was the only thing that spared an amputation.
• The best drone shots of the Olympics – via Kottke
• The U.S. women’s hockey gold medal-winning match was the most-watched women’s hockey game ever. (And then the team politely declined an invitation from the president to attend his State of the Union address.)
• It’s pretty incredible that the same guy who wrote Andor, Rogue One, the Bourne screenplays, and Michael Clayton also wrote The Cutting Edge.

It Could Be All Downhill from Here:

• In any other universe, this would be the biggest story of the month. But in our current dystopian hellscape, it barely made the news: The US Justice Department withheld testimony that POTUS sexually abused a girl when she was 13 or 14. – via @adamjschwarz
• In any other universe, this would be the second-biggest story of the month. But in our current dystopian hellscape, it barely made the news: The US Secret Service shot and killed an armed man who entered the secure perimeter of Mar-a-Lago.
• Companies with backbones should be supported.
• Wired is reporting that a popular right-wing account that called a video depicting Barack and Michelle Obama as apes “a masterpiece” appears to be run by a White House staffer.
• What is clear is that Kansas Republicans have weaponized the government to target a tiny subset of an already small portion of the population to score political points and institutionalize cruelty.
• Someone referred to VPOTUS as the Pillsbury Proud Boy and that is simply some top-tier comedy right there.
• An analysis reveals that the social media accounts of Nicki Minaj, which are now advocating for conservative causes, has been amplified by an army of bots and coordinated activity.
• U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales of Texas resisted growing calls from fellow congressional Republicans to resign over a report of an alleged affair with a former staffer who later died after she set herself on fire.
• More than a dozen states sued the current administration over its rollback of vaccine recommendations for children, calling the move an illegal threat to public health.

• This essay had me literally laughing out loud. “Cookie Monster has operated in plain sight for over fifty years, and no one has asked the obvious question: What is he?” – via @philplait
• It took just seven minutes to deploy the massive and intricate set for the Bad Bunny halftime show at Super Bowl LX and you can watch an amazing time-lapse video of the process. – via hiro.report
• Good news: Federal Judge Cynthia Rufe, a George W. Bush appointee, ordered the restoration of public Philadelphia slavery exhibits and compared the administration’s effort to remove the panels to something out of the dystopian George Orwell novel 1984.
• Some wise words from Anil: It often takes more than one time before your idea actually resonates or sticks with the people you’re trying to reach.
• Crews search for 9 skiers missing after California avalanche near Lake Tahoe

Winter Olympics

• The newest Olympic sport goes by the name skimo, which is short for ski mountaineering.
• The president of the biggest soccer club in the Ukraine has announced a $200k+ donation to skeleton racer Vladyslav Heraskevych after he was banned from the Winter Olympics.
• Does US speed skater Jordan Stolz really eat pizza every day before training?
• Mac Forehand, the freestyle skiing Big Air silver medalist, reveals the process behind stomping a world’s first trick on the penultimate jump of the competition, which helped push the sport to new heights. (Click the image to view his jump!) – via Sports! with Rodger Sherman
• Higher-than-anticipated demand led to a condom supply shortage after organizers provided only four for each Olympian, compared to the thirty given to everyone competing at the Paris games.
• Meet the cameraman who skates backward to capture Olympic triumph and defeat.

None of This Is Normal:

• Reading this chilling account of how the current administration is abusing a repurposed Navy logistics program to rapidly expand its ability to hide people is enough to make anyone sick to the stomach, but ignorance is not an option these days. The bottom line is that the Department of Homeland Security is buying warehouses across the country to build out concentration camps for caging and deporting immigrants, and this program is allowing them to be operational in a matter of weeks.
• Speaking of terrible immigration policies, I give you a very rare 20+ thread post that is well worth reading.
• Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was poisoned by the Kremlin with a rare and lethal toxin found in the skin of poison dart frogs.
• “I don’t think we should allow the secret police to round people up and sort them by race.”
• In case you’re still on the fence about whether to use their service or read publications there, you can read about how Substack makes money from hosting Nazi newsletters. – via Kottke
• The current administration is using $15,000,000 from USAID funds to pay for security for budget director Russ Vought for the year.