Posts tagged “Disney”

• I finally saw Captain America: Brave New World and will say that, at the end of the day, it was a fun movie. I think Anthony Mackie works as Captain America and he’s a fine actor. Harrison Ford is brilliant, of course. The plot is actually great. But — just like pretty much every MCU offering since Avengers: Endgame — I left feeling like I have no idea whether Disney and Kevin Feige have a plan or if they’re just pumping out movies.
• A Cheeto shaped like the Pokémon Charizard sold at auction for over $87,000.
• I cannot imagine a scenario in which Stephen A. Smith is worth $20,000,000.00 per year, but I also cannot imagine paying $87,000.00 for a Cheeto shaped like a Pokémon character, so I guess that’s why I am not in charge of contracts at ESPN.
• Two men were charged Wednesday in the deaths of three Kansas City Chiefs fans whose bodies were found in a backyard two days after they got together to watch the final game of the regular season in 2024.
• I am almost certain that I read Always Go To The Funeral when it was published (or aired on the radio) two decades ago, but it just popped up in a recent issue of Links You’ll Love and it’s worth sharing again.
• I one hundred percent did not see the sudden political twist coming in White Lotus S3E3 but I am f’ing here for it. Kudos to Mike White and HBO for going there. I can’t wait to see the next episode. (And, yes, I know it’s MAX now.)
• In other news:
  • POTUS signs executive order to establish government bitcoin reserve.
    </bangs head on desk>
  • It’s Tax Season – The Perfect Time for POTUS to Sell This “Critical” IRS Computing Center: Last year, the IRS Martinsburg site was “viewed as a high priority.” Now it’s suddenly “functionally obsolete”?
  • The CDC is planning a large study into potential connections between vaccines and autism, despite extensive scientific research that has disproven or failed to find evidence of such links. – via @boghuma.bsky.social
  • Maine officials said the Social Security Administration did not provide any explanation for the abrupt end of the decades old registration process, or for the sudden reversal. – via @crampell.bsky.social
  • I really hope in a hundred years there will still be people left to cringe at this headline: Half the World’s CO2 Emissions Come from 36 Fossil Fuel Firms

• I will jump on the Last Week Tonight bandwagon and spread the word about how to change your settings to make yourself less valuable to Meta. (And, yes, that’s the correct link.)
• The surprisingly hopeful What Felt Impossible Became Possible is an excellent essay about the downfall of the Ku Klux Klan and how it relates to our current American crisis. The key takeaway — as many others have noted — is that fascism always fails. “It is destructive and it is awful and not everyone lives to see the other side, but it always, always fails.”
• A “super pod” of thousands of dolphins was spotted off the California coast.
• Disney’s Star Wars Succession Problem: Who Will Replace Kathleen Kennedy? – via The Dailies
• What happens when you pull a wildly valuable Jayden Daniels rookie card? For “Dr. Moist Muffins”, it literally changed his life.
• Scientists have found that eating more fiber could help reduce microplastic absorption and minimize its harmful effects on your body.
• Neither vaccines nor the virus prompted an increase in the number of cardiac arrests in athletes, contrary to misinformation that continues to circulate repeatedly.
• Annoying News:
  • Starlink gets FAA contract, raising new conflict of interest concerns. – via @joshtpm.bsky.social
  • The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, D.C., declined to sign an arrest warrant sent to them by local police for Republican congressman Cory Mills who happens to be an ally of the President.
  • Trump Administration Litigation Tracker
  • An analysis by ProPublica showed that dozens more pregnant and postpartum women have died in Texas hospitals since the state banned abortion. And while the national maternal mortality rate dropped, it rose in Texas by 33%. – via @joncooper-us.bsky.social
  • Here’s a handy list of sixteen Democrats who simply aren’t doing enough. If your rep is on that list, get on the phone.

• 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.

• Everyone should be following Nike Running Coach Bennett on Threads and/or Bluesky.
• Despite some choad that’s selling a nearly-identical knock-off of my app (that is somehow ranked #1 in the Food & Drink category in the App Store), the 48 hours surrounding Thanksgiving was a banner sales day for bartender.live, which was nice to see. If you haven’t yet, please rate and review my little side project. It really helps!
• We have several lighted Christmas decorations that burn through AA batteries. I’ve been buying rechargeable batteries for years and love them, but it still bugs me and I kept thinking there must be a way to convert these things to use AC power. I was ready to start researching amps and volts and power adapters and break out my soldering iron, but then found these cool dummy battery plugs that appear to do exactly what I need!
• Mary Tyler Moore and Dick Van Dyke are national treasures that should be on money. This scene is incredible.
• Did you like Agatha All Along enough to listen to a ten-hour lo-fi remix of The Witches Road? – via @agentm
• Most of us are famously terrible at comprehending very large numbers, but I find it much easier to wrap my head around the idea that around two and a half billion T. Rex roamed the Earth during the Cretaceous Period than the fact that their reign lasted nearly two and a half million years. That is a long, long, long time to rule the planet. (Humans have been around, at most, for only about 300,000 years. Sharks have been around for something like 400 million years, by the way, which means they’ve been around just a bit longer than trees and probably twice as long as Saturn has had rings.)
• Tania Rascia just redesigned her blog (again) and added light/dark theming, which is something I’ve been meaning to do here for a long time. She also created a nice web developer starter pack on Bluesky.
• I’m a big fan of moo.com’s mini business cards, and they’re having a significant sale through Dec 5: 30% off and free shipping with promo code CYBERYAY
• Bryson DeChambeau’s Viral Golf Challenge: A Marketing Masterclass, How a Simple Idea Captivated Millions and Delivered Big Results – via Culture of Sport

• Star Wars: Skeleton Crew premieres December 3^rd on Disney+ Wow. The trailer looks amazing.
• If you know anyone with an iPhone — and, duh, of course you do — one of these MagSafe power bricks is a great gift idea.
• Superman Is Still America’s Greatest Superhero: We need Christopher Reeve now more than ever.
• How Selling $160 Sweatpants Turned a SoCal Surfer into One of America’s Richest Women – via @forbes
• Forget Matt Gaetz. Merrick Garland Is America’s Worst Attorney General. – via @usnews
• I would rather watch three straight hours of Progressive commercials than another Avatar movie.
• Pamela Hayden, the voice behind Milhouse Van Houten, will retire from The Simpsons after 35 years. – via @dailycosmicmarvel
• It’s always been somewhat puzzling that Donald Duck chooses to use an airplane to fly and a boat when he’s in the water. I don’t have a problem with his insistence on eschewing pants. But I find it deeply, deeply disturbing that he carves a Thanksgiving turkey for his family. – via me
• Here’s everything you need to know about the new 12-team college football playoff format.

My mom loved “Do not go gentle into that good night”, and I have thought about that poem quite a bit since she died. Last week I stood in Poets’ Corner in Westminster Abbey and explained who Dylan Thomas was to my son. When Taylor Swift released ttpd a few days later, I heard the title track and almost couldn’t believe the serendipity.