Posts tagged “healthcare”

• In the new documentary Secret Mall Apartment, a group of artists recount how they turned a hidden nook in a Providence shopping center into a living space for four years. – via my dad
• If you’re ever in Los Angeles, check out The Nicolosi Estate. The long-abandoned 8700-square-foot, 4-bedroom, 5-bath home is encircled by an amazing 300-foot-long serpentine swimming pool, complete with rock bridges and grotto-style hot tubs, which is visible from the road. The estate was commissioned by Johnny Weissmuller, who won five gold Olympic medals in swimming (and a bronze in water polo!) and portrayed Tarzan in a dozen films from 1932 to 1948.
• Apple is losing a billion dollars per year on Apple TV+ and that’s just fine. – via @TrungTPhan
• I cannot tell you how many times I’ve used these CSS drop-shadow snippets.
• Technofossils: How humanity’s eternal testament will be plastic bags, cheap clothes, and chicken bones. – via kottke
• This Is Exhausting:
  • “Under the previous administration, we looked like fools. Not anymore.” – Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, shortly before accidentally texting war plans to a journalist.
  • A federal judge temporarily blocked the Environmental Protection Agency‘s attempt to recoup $20 billion in Biden-era climate grants, dealing the latest judicial setback for [the current administration]’s attempt to assert unilateral control over spending.
  • There Is No Method to [the President]’s Madness. He’s Simply Insane.
  • The corporation behind Roundup herbicide has paid out nearly $11 billion in lawsuits. Now it’s backing an EPA rule that would stop the bleeding.
  • An Austin attorney is suing the Department of Education after seeing her student loan payments skyrocket.
  • A Coast Guard Commander Miscarried. She Nearly Died After Being Denied Care.

• The SNL 50th-Anniversary special drew almost 15M viewers, becoming NBC’s most-watched primetime entertainment telecast in five years. (For comparison, Super Bowl LIX had over 127M viewers.)
• Republicans have reintroduced the SAVE Act, a bill that could disenfranchise millions of American voters. Feeling helpless? Email Your Senators to Vote NO. Call Your Senators to Vote NO. It’s not nothing, and it really does make a difference.
• “This is a blunt-force budget cut with no clear strategy—gutting programs without considering their impact or even how services could be improved for the American people, often spinning public health into fear and chaos.”
• Related: The USDA is scrambling to rehire fired workers who were involved in the government’s response to the ongoing bird flu outbreak that has devastated egg and poultry farms over the past three years.
• Senate Democrats have the power to block federal contracts to Tesla and SpaceX. It’s the path to pushing [him] out of politics.
• Scratch Huntington Beach, CA off your list of travel destinations. Former Minnesota Vikings player Chris Kluwe was arrested at a city council meeting there after protesting the installation of a disgusting “MAGA” plaque at a local library.
• I graduated a long, long time ago and I still bleed orange and blue, but there’s something more than a little disgusting about the University of Florida begging me for cash when they have a $6B endowment and are annually paying millions of dollars to multiple football coaches they fired years ago. – via me
• Is ‘Zone 2’ the Magic Effort Level for Exercise?
• A new study on more than 17,000 people discovered that too little sex is linked to cardiovascular disease and a higher risk of all-cause mortality.
• Major League Baseball will employ what it calls the automated ball-strike system, or ABS, in a big-league spring training game for the first time this week.
• Dirpy is a handy site that lets you rip YouTube videos to mp3. (e.g. Doechii rapping about anxiety over the Gotye song Somebody That I Used To Know, Taylor Swift performing You Belong with Me and Untouchable on SNL)

• 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.

• FDA has given two biotechnology companies approval for clinical trials that will transplant organs from genetically modified pigs into patients with kidney failure.
• That “fresh” apple you just grabbed at the grocery store was probably picked a thousand miles away and over a year ago. The latest episode of Radiolab, Forever Fresh, was full of surprising facts about the food industry. (Spoiler: It’s all about plastics.)
• Here are two fascinating links on the importance and function of sleep: Our Sleep, Brain Aging, and Waste Clearance and Scientists Uncover How the Brain Washes Itself During Sleep – both via Jodi Ettenberg
• I’m considering adding my bluesky feed to a (new) sidebar on this site using Robert Devore’s WordPress Plugin.
• How do MAGA voters feel after the first two weeks of idiotic executive orders, flagrant disregard for the Constitution, economic upheaval, and diplomatic absurdities? They’re mostly fine with it, which is as horrible and disturbing as it is unsurprising. It was never about eggs.
• Five VSCode Extensions to Supercharge Your Markdown Writing has me interested in looking into VSCode again. (I’ve been using Nova (née Coda) from Panic forever, but really hate the way it handles remote servers and connections.)
• Rather than understand – or even acknowledge – the paradox of intolerance, the increasingly-popular newsletter / publishing platform Substack has decided to double-down on it.
• “Dr. Potter will not be silenced by UnitedHealthcare‘s attempts to threaten and harass her.” Pop Quiz: Without knowing any of the details about this legal issue, would you root for the health insurance company or the doctor?
• A second grade teacher in Philadelphia is using football to help her students score big in math. Her students take inspiration from their hometown football team — the Eagles — practicing their math skills by counting rushing statistics held by Eagles running back Saquon Barkley. – via George Conway

• You can now play the classic 1982 Atari 2600 game Pitfall! in your browser.
• I’ve been using FontAwesome in web projects since late 2012 and they are still the best.
• Scaling Our Rate Limits to Prepare for a Billion Active Certificates – Let’s Encrypt protects a vast portion of the Web by providing TLS certificates to over 550 million websites. They currently issue over 340,000 certificates per hour.
• The parents of a 22-yo Wisconsin man who died after an asthma attack have filed a lawsuit against Walgreens and UnitedHealth Group after they said the price for his medication suddenly rose from $66 to $539.
• Just dropping this here for no particular reason: Coup d’État: A Practical Handbook, Revised Edition
• Aides to [the man] charged with running the U.S. government human resources agency have locked career civil servants out of computer systems that contain the personal data of millions of federal employees.
• “The impotence [of the left] is as staggering as the abdication is sickening. But the current message from elected Democrats is loud and clear: You’re on your own. And the message from the … administration is even clearer: You’re next.” – via Marisa Kabas
• Apparently federal employees are using Milton’s red stapler from Office Space as a symbol of resistance, which is awesome on so many levels.
• An outbreak of tuberculosis in the Kansas City area has grown into one of the largest ever recorded in the United States, with dozens of active cases of the infectious disease reported, according to health officials. (Be alarmed.)
• Newly-appointed U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy signed a memorandum which directs the NHTSA to immediately initiate, “a rulemaking to rescind or replace all existing CAFE standards.” I just can’t get over the fact that this guy got his start on MTV’s Real World: Boston.

• Just a few days ago I said Shrinking was the best show on TV right now. Obviously I didn’t think I needed to include an “except for Bluey“ disclaimer, because certainly everyone agrees Bluey might well be the best show in the history of television. And they’re working on a Bluey movie?!
• “A well-placed swear word triggers emotional and physiological arousal, like an adrenaline boost, where your heart beats faster, and your sympathetic nervous system is given a charge, which enhances focus and energy just enough to help you perform better.” – via Arnold Schwarzenegger‘s Pump Club (threads / bluesky)
• “As we continue to face adversity in our daily lives, I’m reminded of the power of the deep breath and the walk in the woods, the vagus nerve and the parasympathetic nervous system.” – via The Curious About Everything Newsletter from Jodi Ettenberg (threads / bluesky)
• I’m very frustrated that we haven’t made time to watch the new Disney+ Star Wars series Skeleton Crew yet. Winter break starts this weekend so I imagine big bowls of popcorn and a few hours—in between football games—glued to the TV. (I’m worried that shareholders will look at the streaming numbers and decide it’s not worth the cost to keep producing Star Wars content.)
• Sotheby’s just auctioned off a 115-pound, two-foot-tall slab of marble that, around a millennia and a half ago, was inscribed with the Ten Commandments. – via crooked
• You are cutting it close if you haven’t gotten all your Christmas and/or Hanukkah shopping done yet. Might I suggest a plain white bolt t from Aviator Nation? They are crazy comfortable, cozy, stylish, and on sale right now. (Or you could buy someone an Apple App Store gift card and tell them to use it to download my handy cocktail recipe app!)
• Health department medical detectives find 84% of U.S. maternal deaths are preventable.
• The latest issue of Simple Apple Tutorials from Gannon Nordberg is a killer iPhone Notification Detox Guide.
• Bad news for people who hate good news:
  • 93% of kindergarteners in the U.S. are up to date on their childhood vaccines. – via Your Local Epidemiologist
  • HPV vaccines have been linked to a 62% drop in cervical cancer deaths in young women over the last decade. – via kottke

• Open the microwave door as close to the timer hitting 0:00 as you can without the bell dinging. (My high score: 9766.) – via Kottke
• We would not accept [this] from a pizza company. Why do we from healthcare? – via @greg_meyer61
• Go to Amazon (app or website) and type “Thank My Driver” in the search bar. Doing this will prompt Amazon to give your last delivery person an extra $5 tip at no cost to you. – via @froggyab
• I hate that I love you: The neuroscience of heartbreak, a paper on what happens to your brain when you experience pain from love. – via The Curious About Everything Newsletter from Jodi Ettenberg (threads / bluesky)
• Wordiply is my new favorite daily mental challenge.
• Keira Knightley said she won’t have more kids because she can’t watch more Peppa Pig – via jezebel (threads / bluesky)
• Oprah‘s list of The Most Thought-Provoking Books of 2024 includes my favorite.
• The Gas Industry Is Paying Instagram Influencers to Gush Over Gas Stoves – via Mother Jones (threads / bluesky)
• Always follow the money, and especially when it comes to climate change. As newspapers withered in Florida and Alabama, a consulting firm filled the void – using money from power companies to prop up news sites promoting their corporate agendas. – via NPR (threads / bluesky)

• Reminder that Breaking Bad was a TV show about the U.S. healthcare system. – via Melanie D’Arrigo (threads / bluesky)
• I’m confused by the many complaints I’ve seen online recently about the streaming quality of NFL games on Amazon Prime. I have AT&T Gigabit fiber at home and for regular TV use the DirecTVStream app embedded in my Samsung TV. If I want to watch something on Amazon Prime, I use their app instead, also baked into the TV software. I honestly think the image quality of the Amazon NFL games beats what I see on NBC, CBS, FOX, and ESPN on DirecTVStream most of the time, which seems crazy to me. You’d think AT&T would either boost DirecTVStream bandwidth (since they own them) or somehow hamstring the Prime bandwidth. But that’s not the case at all.
• Anyway. This joke about berry packaging made me laugh out loud. – via Matt Margolis (threads / bluesky)
• I am a big fan of Wyze and have their front door deadbolt, doorbell camera, several security cameras, two outdoor plugs (for controlling Christmas lights), a bathroom scale, and at least a half dozen WiFi outlets around the house. They’re great.
• For The Love of God, Make Your Own Website – via Laura Olin (threads / bluesky)
• Threes is the iOS game I’ve played most frequently over the last decade. According to its lovely Statistics page, I’ve played it 7,838 times and my high score is 90,147.
• “Learning from other people’s mistakes is a lot less painful than learning from your own.” – via Tim Harford
• Feel-good story of the day? Giant Spoon Taken From Arizona Dairy Queen Found Thanks To Pokemon Go – via @pourmecoffee
• I’ve returned to this article a dozen times since he published it. If you’re working with iOS widget development, check out Launching iOS Apps with a Custom URL Scheme

If you want to add a “Share on Bluesky” hyperlink to your WordPress theme, this is the snippet I’m using. Also note that my theme requires FontAwesome for the bluesky icon.

<span class="label label-primary nobreak me-3"><a target="_blank" href="https://bsky.app/intent/compose?text=<?php echo urlencode( get_the_title() ); ?>%0A%0A<?php the_permalink(); ?>" title="Share on Bluesky" rel="noreferrer"><i class="fa-brands fa-bluesky"></i></a></span>