- The music industry traded tape for hard drives and got a hard-earned lesson. Roughly one-fifth of the hard disk drives from the 1990s sent to Iron Mountain are entirely unreadable.
- My son got me hooked on New Rockstars. Erik Voss and his team produce amazing YouTube recaps of all sorts of things in pop culture. The Jessica Clemons breakdown of the Kendrick Lamar Super Bowl LIX halftime show is great.
A moving new trailer has been released for Borrowed Time: Lennon’s Last Decade, an ambitious documentary that explores the final years of John Lennon through archival footage, never-before-seen interviews, and firsthand accounts.- A new study shows you can lower your risk of cancer by eating just one serving of cruciferous vegetables per day. Vegetables appear to do the most to help fight gastrointestinal cancers, such as colorectal and stomach cancer, but the protective effects extended to lung and breast cancer as well.
- Climate change is causing hotter temperatures to become more frequent in the four West African countries responsible for producing approximately 70% of the world’s cacao — the key ingredient in chocolate.
- Former Florida Gators and Kansas City Chiefs wide receiver Kadarius Toney is facing multiple charges, including aggravated assault, following his arrest in Georgia last week.
- White House says it has the right to punish AP reporters over Gulf naming dispute. (I am rapidly running out of canaries, people.)
- Was I the only one a little concerned that NASA increased the odds of that asteroid hitting us in 2032 from 1.2% up to 2.3%? This brilliantly simple explanation at Scientific American from astronomer Phil Plait should ease your mind a bit.
- Recent Media
- Black Doves (Netflix) was incredible. Keira Knightley and Ben Whishaw can act. Splendid plot. A+++
- We watched the penultimate episode of Skeleton Crew and I am all-in on this show. Fantastic fun. Jude Law is perfect.
- Four episodes into Slow Horses and love this show, too.
Posts tagged “government”
- Signposts on the road to authoritarian rule: “If one were to design a path to authoritarian rule, it would be what we have seen in the first weeks of the Trump administration.”
- Kentuckians can’t afford the high cost of Trump’s tariffs is an op-ed by – of all people – Mitch McConnell.
- For women’s college basketball coaches, motherhood is no longer something to keep quiet.
- “One thing Democratic leadership could do right now is to name an alternate HHS secretary—someone to provide ongoing public updates and health information. And do it for other departments, too. Start showing voters what a Democratic government would look like—press conferences, speeches, all of it.” – via @markharris.bsky.social
- Mark Cuban Says U.S. Healthcare Is ‘Horrific’; Calls for Free Medical School to Fix Doctor Shortages and Soaring Costs
- Pope Francis’ Stunning Rebuke of JD Vance Exposes MAGA’s Dark Soul
- ICE wants to hire contractors to monitor social media for threats. Those who criticize the agency could be pulled into the dragnet.
- Thursday Night Massacre
- Acting US attorney in Manhattan resigns after directive to drop case against Mayor Eric Adams
- Dozens of CFPB Workers Fired in After-Hours Blitz
- The interim U.S. attorney for the Southern District and five officials with the federal public integrity unit quit after the Justice Department ordered charges against Mayor Eric Adams to be dropped.
- Expert Flags DOJ‘s ‘Cascading Scandal’ — That Won’t Go Away
- The Thursday Night Massacre(s)
- Thousands of federal employees fired today and tomorrow.
- What beats rock?
- Pope Francis denounced the current administration’s plan to carry out mass deportations of migrants in a letter to U.S. bishops Tuesday, while appearing to take a direct jab at Vice President JD Vance.
- For decades, casinos scoffed as mathematicians and physicists devised elaborate systems to take down the house. Then an unassuming Croatian’s winning strategy forever changed the game.
Why is Hawaii the rainbow capital of the world?- Is gold hidden under a California peak? This treasure map says so.
- These JETech iPhone screen protectors are a great investment.
- Forensics Experts Challenged the FBI. So the FBI Tried to Censor Their Conference. This story includes a timely reminder that — with the exception of DNA matches — most of the highly-regarded techniques used to put people away (fingerprint examinations, ballistics and toolmarks comparisons, blood pattern analysis) “were developed by law enforcement agencies for law enforcement, and not by scientists first subjecting them to standard, rigorous testing processes designed to ensure they stand on a solid scientific foundation.”
- How did a life-saving pediatric drug – discovered and developed using money from American taxpayers, and spurred by the grassroots fundraising of desperate parents – end up costing $2,000,000 per dose?
- In the span of just weeks, the U.S. government has experienced what may be the most consequential security breach in its history – not through a sophisticated cyberattack or an act of foreign espionage, but through official orders by a billionaire with a poorly-defined government role.
- Harrison Ford said the recent California wildfires burned several Shrinking sets.
- Almost 96% of new cars registered in Norway in January were electric. – via kottke
- The Wild True Story Behind Kendrick Lamar‘s Super Bowl Halftime Show
- The Supreme Court of Hawaii ruled that insurance companies can’t bring their own legal actions against those blamed for the catastrophic 2023 Maui wildfire, allowing a $4 billion settlement to proceed.
- Trump’s Driving Legal Principle This Time: “What Are You Gonna Do About It?”
- The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children was told by the Department of Justice that they’d lose their funding if the organization didn’t remove any mentions of LGBTQIA+ issues from their public materials.
- Aggeggio is a lovely Italian word for everyday objects.
- The ‘Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly’ of the United States Government
- I need to investigate Tapestry, from iconfactory. It looks like a cool iOS app for aggregating content, and I’ve loved pretty much every other app they’ve ever made. – via hiro.report
- Stop Calling Them Firings. Business terms provide a totally wrong conceptual framework for the purges underway.
- Within 24 hours of the inauguration, Amazon and UnitedHealth asked regulators to help crush their shareholders’ demands for transparency.
I knew one day I’d have to watch powerful men burn the world down. I just didn’t expect them to be such losers. – via Laura Olin- When my iPhone is connected to my MacBook Air via USB-C cable, both iOS and MacOS should prioritize that connection over the WiFi connection and maintain the link until I actually remove the cable from one of the devices. I don’t understand why Finder would / could / should ever report that “the connection was lost” when the two devices are physically connected.
- The 24-Hour Reality Check: Musk’s Impossible Power Grab and America’s Crisis
- “Be calm when the unthinkable arrives,” is one of the very eloquent bits of advice in this essay On Tyranny. – via Jodi Ettenberg
- From the Department of Irony: You Can’t Post Your Way Out of Fascism “The internet has conditioned us to constantly seek new information, as if becoming a sponge of bad news will eventually yield the final piece of a puzzle.” – via kottke
- Profiles of Courage, Patriotism, and Resistance in standing up to Trump
- Here’s a really lovely resource: Mister Rogers on How to Talk to Kids About Distressing News Events – via kottke
- Of two drivers heading towards each other down a one-way street, surely it is the one driving the wrong way who is most sorely in need of feedback. But it is unfortunately unusual to get a focused note of timely, specific, and usable criticism before things go too badly wrong.
- Scientists are using AI to decipher old scrolls charred by the Vesuvius volcano.
AI means the end of internet search as we’ve known it is a great article from MIT Technology Review about the history of Google and search engines and the wonders of the (inevitable) artificial intelligence future, but I fear we’re looking at yet another Torment Nexus. – via Jodi Ettenberg- “He’s the Veruca Salt of presidents.”
- The current administration is staging a coup, trying to illegally eliminate agencies, seize control of the U.S. government’s payment systems, and gain access to sensitive data on all Americans without any oversight. It’s time to fight back like our democracy depends on it. – via Laura Olin
- “DOGE” has already thrown entire swaths of the federal government and its programs into disarray – programs that serve millions of Americans. ProPublica is is attempting to document who is involved and what they are doing.
- Billionaire’s blitzkrieg on D.C. has brought into focus his vision for a dramatically smaller and weaker government, as he and a coterie of aides move to control, automate – and substantially diminish – thousands of public functions.
- ICE is gaming Google to create a mirage of mass deportations.
- The team at Court Watch is maintaining an ongoing list of Lawsuits Related to Trump Admin Executive Orders.
- Take a minute today to read this tribute to Dan Jezek and the story of his website, bricklink, the world’s largest online LEGO marketplace.
- A Guide to Using Signal for Government Workers – via kottke, who is doing a great job reporting on the ongoing coup
- In less than eight years the NCAA went from banning North Carolina from hosting championships due to its bathroom bill to [kowtowing to a cartoonishly evil conman]. – via @bubbaprog.lol
The universe could undergo a ‘catastrophic change’ that could alter absolutely everything, quantum machine shows.- Hopefully reading this will help convince you to dump Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and Twitter. The Technological Poison Pill: How the ATProtocol Baked into Bluesky Encourages Competition, Resists Evil Billionaires, Lock-In & Enshittification – via Jodi Ettenberg
- The President’s plan to dismantle the Department of Education could prove more costly for red states than blue.
- Incompetence and desperation are a bad combination. The important thing to remember is that [the “DOGE” attempt to get employees to resign] isn’t about economic efficiency, despite what the billionaire at the helm may say. It’s about efficiently breaking morale within the federal government to make it easier to dismantle from the inside.
- Related: “DOGE” staffer steps down after racist posts emerge
- “NOAA workers ordered to stop all communications with foreign nationals. Workers covering things like air transportation safety, drought, monitor coral reef destruction, and guarding railway shipping carriers against dangerous weather affected.” – via @timmarchman.bsky.social
- “Twenty years ago, when Jeremiah Trotter, Sr won an NFC championship with the Eagles, baby Trotter Jr. was on the field, in his father’s arms. Now he’s playing for the Eagles in this year’s Super Bowl.” – via @npr.org
- Reps. Judy Chu (D-Calif.) and Gwen Moore (D-Wisc.) barged into the office of House Speaker Mike Johnson on Wednesday and challenged him about the “DOGE” team gaining access to a sensitive payment system at the Department of the Treasury.
- Workers at NASA were told to ‘Drop Everything’ to scrub any mentions of indigenous people and women from its websites.
- Federal Judge Blocks Executive Order Intended to End Birthright Citizenship
“It’s sad that Wile E. Coyote will always be remembered for his failures and not his amazingly realistic tunnel paintings.” – via @sean_with_an_ean_damnit- This is the sort of thing that makes my blood boil. Federal law mandates wholesome lunches, but much of it gets trashed because there isn’t time to eat it. – via Jodi Ettenberg
- The “DOGE” Government Data Heist Is the Entire Ballgame is a chilling plea written by a federal employee.
- The US Treasury Claimed “DOGE” Technologist Didn’t Have ‘Write Access’ When He Actually Did: Sources tell WIRED that the ability of Marko Elez to alter code controlling trillions in federal spending was rescinded days after US Treasury and White House officials said it didn’t exist.
- All of this, of course, depends on a functioning justice system. (Things Are Going to Keep Getting Worse Until They Get Better, Part 339.)
- CDC Posts, Then Deletes, Data on Bird Flu Spread Between Cats and People
- Conservative “Christian nationalist” Russell Vought, former vice president of Heritage Action for America and one of the architects behind Project 2025, believes there is nothing left to conserve. He desires revolution — and to burn down the system. And the Senate just confirmed him to be the head of OMB. (I would link you directly to the official White House website for OMB, but… it’s been deleted.)
- This tutorial on installing a newsletter replacement for Jetpack looks promising.
- “Just gonna slide this information in here. The Eagles refused to go to the White House after their Super Bowl victory in 2018. Do with that what you will.” – via @brandi-rene.swifties.social
- Oh, and Taylor Swift is expected to attend the Super Bowl on Sunday night. Obviously, she won’t be sitting in the same suite as POTUS.
- Tarnschriften (“hidden writings”) were pocket-sized anti-fascist essays, news updates, and how-tos – hidden inside the covers of mundane, everyday materials – which were circulated in Germany after Hitler’s rise to power.
- California has become a vivid example of a global phenomenon known as “hydroclimate whiplash,” which involves sudden and dramatic swings between extreme wet and dry conditions. – via Jodi Ettenberg
Health and climate information is already disappearing from federal websites.- The estate of Superman creator Joseph Schuster is suing Warner Bros. Discovery and DC Comics, claiming they lack the rights to release the upcoming summer movie in a handful of key territories.
- “We’ve seen this happen with brittle governments all over the world for the past century – it’s not a novel situation – and Republicans have decided that now is the moment to strike our teetering democracy. (More)
- Four Easy Ways to Make Sure No One Can Read Your Text Messages, just in case you are (justifiably) a little paranoid that you might get in trouble someday for talking about those two chuckleheads
- Related: This Military Packing Technique Can Save Space in Your Bug-Out Bag (You do have a bug-out bag, right?)
- 13 Xcode Shortcuts to Boost Your Productivity
- Saquon Barkley is a superhero for the Eagles. His origin story is straight out of a comic book, too.
- I loved reading this story about an 11-yo who pulled one of the most valuable baseball cards in history. The best quote from the article? “My brain pooped.”
- Hackers are hijacking WordPress sites to push malware on unsuspecting visitors. This is another good reason to make sure your plugins are core files are routinely updated.
- This short article about the psychology of scene transitions in film is really interesting. (Watch the video, too!)
One of the more concerning consequences of the current administration is that when the most powerful nation in history is ruled by feckless ignorant toads, those who lust for power elsewhere are emboldened:
- Paramilitary group attacks an open market in Sudan, killing 54 people and wounding scores
- Congo says 773 dead in week-long fighting as military tries to repel Rwanda-backed rebels
- Last night I realized I can watch Dinosaurs: The Final Day with David Attenborough on BBC through AppleTV. I had to pay for it, but I think that’s pretty reasonable. I was pleasantly surprised to see Steve Brusatte make an appearance. I read his book, The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A New History of a Lost World a year or two ago and loved it. It’s really mind-blowing how much more we know about dinosaurs than we did when I was fascinated with them in elementary school. Scientists might even have finally discovered where dinosaurs first evolved! (The documentary is titled Dinosaur Apocalypse on AppleTV for some reason. I guess that sounds much more dramatic.)
- More Bird Flu Bad News: Infectious disease expert warns wind-blown avian feces may be route of transmission.
- Google searches for “adult tennis lessons” were up 245 percent shortly after the premiere of the Zendaya love-triangle sports-flick Challengers. – via The Athletic
- After reading a few of her Bluesky posts, I decided to subscribe to the tech newsletter rendezvous with cassidoo.
- Just in case you were under the misguided impression that the current administration cares about, y’know, people:
- The head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has been fired.
- On Monday the Senate confirmed fossil fuel executive Chris Wright to serve as Secretary of Energy.
- A Coup in Plain Sight: An Explainer as the Crisis Solidifies