• 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.

• Italy’s famous Lovers’ Arch collapses into the sea on Valentine’s Day – via my little sister
• What the? There’s a species of mushroom that makes everyone who trips on it think they’re seeing dozens of tiny humans. As far as we know, it’s the only hallucinogenic that makes everyone have the same hallucinations. – via Kottke
• A startup called LightBar is paying everyday internet users to probe AI models for outputs that rip off copyrighted film and TV content, then packaging that evidence for studios to use in lawsuits, settlements, or licensing deals.
• Research suggests that drinking 2 to 3 cups of caffeinated coffee per day (or 1 to 2 cups of tea) is associated with a lower risk of dementia. – via Arnold’s Pump Club
• My uncle had two small parts in the 1990 Tom Cruise NASCAR film, Days of Thunder, which was filmed partly in Daytona Beach and the surrounding area. He’s at the very beginning of the film for a few seconds as a reporter interviewing one of the racers and he appears again in the fake police officer prank as a Florida Highway Patrolman. He’s the very tall trooper with a mustache. Uncle Dic (Domenic Albanese) was a supreme exaggerator and teller of tall tales, but for some reason I always believed him – because it sounded so authentic – when he told us that while they were waiting to film the scene he and Robert Duvall got in a farting exchange that had Tom Cruise in stitches. (I am also in the movie. You can see me during the celebration after the last race, right behind Cruise’s car. I’m the dumb teenager wearing a leather jacket in Florida.)
• Take a few minutes to read the fascinating backstory behind the Benjamin Franklin medal that was used in the coin flip at Super Bowl LX and how Topps selected its list of the 75 best baseball cards of all time.
• The official trailer has been released for Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu.

Winter Olympics

• I don’t know if there is any possible way NBC could do a worse job this Olympics. Several times now I’ve managed to avoid all social media and my email, flipped to NBC to start watching, and caught the end of the local news team spoiling everything I was about to watch. Peacock doesn’t help much, either, as it seems every time I try to watch anything there I see a message telling me the event has just concluded or hasn’t started yet, or I click to watch speed skating and am shown women’s hockey instead. It’s all very frustrating.
• France’s Viral Ice Dancing Team Has A Dark Backstory
• Ukrainian Vladyslav Heraskevych is the most important athlete at the Olympics right now
• SNL always has great sketches for the Olympics. I liked this year’s about the terrified luge racer, but it doesn’t top the All-Drug Olympics or Jason Priestley (with Dana Carvey and Phil Hartman announcing) as the worst ice skater in history.
• Norwegian skier Atle Lie McGrath, grieving his grandfather’s passing at the start of the Olympics, was so distraught from losing the men’s slalom gold medal that he threw his poles, unstrapped his skis and walked toward the nearby woods to be alone.

This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things:

• The highly classified whistleblower complaint against Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard is related to a conversation intercepted last spring in which two foreign nationals discussed Jared Kushner.
• Cardi B slammed the Department of Homeland Security after it mocked her for saying she’d “jump” ICE if they came after her fans during a show.
• A Florida handyman who received a pardon from POTUS for storming the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, has been convicted of multiple state charges of child molestation and exposing himself to children
• A Pennsylvania Olive Garden employee killed himself by plunging his head into a hot deep fryer. (When I was a teenager a broken piece of fryolator equipment caused me to submerge my right arm up to the elbow in 425°F peanut oil. I got second and third degree burns all over my arm and where the oil splashed, and it was easily the most excruciating pain I’ve ever experienced.)

• Research from dozens of clinical trials suggests that improving your sleep quality leads to meaningful reductions in depression, anxiety, and repetitive negative thinking… and the more your sleep improves, the bigger the mental health benefit. – via Arnold’s Pump Club
• I was pulling for the New England Patriots, but I have to admit it was cool to learn that Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald and the NBC reporter who interviewed him on stage after the game, Maria Taylor, went to high school together. See also: Sam Darnold and Kenneth Walker III riding the tea cups at Disneyland.
• AI Doesn’t Reduce Work. It Intensifies It. – via mergesort.me
• A new study suggests apes can pretend, an ability once thought unique to humans.
• The night before Super Bowl LX, at a North Carolina men’s basketball game, Jordon Hudson – girlfriend of former Patriots head coach Bill Belichick – wore a sweatshirt emblazoned with the logo for ORCHIDS OF ASIA, the massage parlor where Robert Kraft – owner of the Patriots – was arrested a few years ago for soliciting prostitution. (The charges were later dropped, but still…) – via TMQ

Winter Olympics

• Sarah Schleper and son Lasse skiing for Mexico will make history as they become the first mother and son to compete at the same Winter Games.
• Olympic organizers are investigating with “maximum attention” after a spate of medals have fallen off their ribbons during celebrations on the opening weekend of the Games. – via Rodger Sherman
• German ski jumper Philipp Raimund won gold, which is quite a feat for someone afraid of heights.
• Norwegian biathlete wins bronze medal, then, totally unprompted, reveals he cheated on his girlfriend, she left him, and he wants to apologize publicly hoping she takes him back – via @rodger

A Functioning Democracy Does Not Imprison Children:

• Eric Swalwell: “You said you wanted to see a deportation process that was ‘like Amazon Prime but with human beings.’ How many times has Amazon Prime shot a mom 3 times in the face?” – via @atrupar.com
• RFK Jr. Went Dinosaur Bone Hunting with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell – via What A Day
• Ha! Paul Thomas Anderson and Jonny Greenwood (Radiohead) Want Melania Doc to Remove Phantom Thread Music
• ICE has now spent over half a BILLION dollars just on purchasing warehouses around the country to convert into detention camps. – via @jamellebouie.net

• I’m pretty sure I’ve already linked to The Labyrinth Locator, but it’s neat enough to warrant posting again in case you haven’t seen it.
• What was your favorite Super Bowl LX commercial? (I thought the Sabrina Carpenter ad for Pringles was the best one.)
• What it was like to be a bush at Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl performance
• Rockhopper Penguins’ Athleticism Makes Them the Daredevils of the Animal World
• I am cautiously optimistic about both the upcoming Ryan Gosling sci-fi flick, Project Hail Mary, and The Adventures of Cliff Booth, the Brad Pitt/David Fincher sequel to the Quentin Tarantino film, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
• The first in a wave of legal cases alleging that social media is dangerously addictive is now on trial.
• Here’s a great line from an essay about the death of programming: Someday years from now we will look back on the era when we were the last generation to code by hand.

Winter Olympics

• U.S. skier Lindsey Vonn — who has arguably been the biggest story of the Winter Olympics — crashed during her fifth Olympic Games. So she won’t go home with a medal, but she will go home with the heart of a champion.
• “The summer games are about pleasant activities — swimming! running! playing games with your friends! — and the winter games have 11 separate terrifying ways to almost die hurling your body at maximum speed down an icy mountain.”
• US reaches first Olympic curling mixed doubles final, will face Swedish siblings for gold
• Hot Mic At Winter Olympics Catches NBC Announcer Call Snowboarding Big Air Final ‘So Boring’ – via @blobcostas

A Simple Desultory Philippic (Or How I Was Robert McNamara’d into Submission)

• You are probably getting brain damage from all those COVID infections.
• How TikTok 2.0 Became a Weapon for ICE – via @scalzi.com
• Children trapped in Texas immigration facility recount nightmares, inedible food, no school – via @letatcestmoi
• Heartbreaking: Read Letters from the Children Detained at ICE’s Dilley Facility
• The President’s online drugstore isn’t what it seems.
• POTUS shares racist video depicting the Michelle and Barack Obama as monkeys
• Dr. Mehmet Oz, of all people, urges Americans to get the measles vaccine as cases rise across the country.
• “Life on Peptides Feels Amazing,” says everyone who’s buying from looksmaxxers on Instagram or AI bots in China and injecting them into their bloodstream.

• A French hospital was reportedly forced to evacuate after medical staff discovered an unexploded World War I artillery shell stuck in a man’s rectum. – via standard.co.uk
• Covid was the #3 killer in 2020, but has now slipped out of the top 10; an American is more likely to die these days from cirrhosis or suicide.
• How to turn off only the cursed AI summary feature in Gmail. – via Laura Olin
• Oh, look! I found yet another excellent article that does a great job of explaining why Substack is the worst. – via @paperalphabet (and me)

Winter Olympics

• Five minutes into the first event of the Games, they lost the stadium lights in the middle of a mixed doubles curling match.
• Mary Carillo will replace Savannah Guthrie as the co-host of the NBC coverage. (I always loved her wonderful 2004 rant about badminton.)
• Facing a 1,000-metre drop, the Milano Cortina 2026 freestyle skiers must overcome more than just their competitors, but their nerves as well. (See also: Japanese freestyle skier Kokone Kondo hurt in training crash, taken to hospital)
• Ice Hockey Underdog Italy earns first Olympic win
• The World Anti-Doping Agency could investigate if evidence emerges that male ski jumpers are injecting their penises in a bid to improve sporting performance.

Life, Liberty, & the Pursuit of Happiness:

• This should be terrifying to everyone: DHS Hunts Down 67-Year-Old US Citizen Who Criticized Them in Email
• How Not to Defeat Authoritarianism
• If the Fourth Amendment permits the government to tear down your door with nothing more than an administrative warrant, the Fourth Amendment doesn’t exist.
• South Carolina Republican Representative Nancy Mace is getting dragged after a damning New York Magazine profile revealed she forced staffers to create burner Reddit accounts to boost her standing in a “hottest women in Congress” forum. – via Comic Sands

• For the first time in nearly 25 years, an Asian elephant gave birth to a calf at the Smithsonian Zoo. – via What A Day
• Got kids? Send them a link to Ian’s Shoelace Site!
• Super quick and easy way to send a message to your reps asking them to stand with the people of Minnesota against ICE: ICE OUT OF MINNESOTA NOW – via @bhay
• NSS: The US immigrant population generated more in taxes than they received in benefits from all levels of government every year from 1994 to 2023. – via @jfallows
• Leslie Jones shares what her reaction would be if she were a reporter and the President insulted her.

Winter Olympics

• Lindsey Vonn says she is competing this weekend despite rupturing the ACL in her left knee just a few days ago.
• Winter House is definitely a better name than the original.
• Where, when, and how to watch the Opening Ceremony
• How to watch Mikaela Shiffrin live at Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics
• As law enforcement officials continue to search for her mother, Savannah Guthrie will no longer be part of NBC’s Winter Olympics coverage – via @latimes.com

What fresh hell is this?

• In an interview with NPR, Melinda Gates confirmed that she ended her marriage with Bill Gates because of allegations contained in the Epstein files.
• Operation Dirtbag, Swamp Sweep, Operation Catch of the Day, the Speedway Slammer, the Cornhusker Clink, Alligator Alcatraz, and Deportation Depot are just some of the degrading, dehumanizing, and disgusting names the current administration has been using for ICE operations and facilities.
• Health officials in New Mexico are warning against consuming raw dairy products after a newborn baby in the state died from a listeria infection that they say was likely contracted when the baby’s mother drank raw milk during pregnancy. – via @philplait
• The POTUS urged Republicans to seize control of elections and place voting under national authority, one of his most explicit signals yet that he plans to interfere with the workings of democracy. – via @marcelias
• ICE confirms measles outbreak at Dilley family detention center – via @pgourevitch