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Post-Japan Depression. “People feel it after coming home from a trip that feels magical, safe, clean, punctual, aesthetic, peaceful… and suddenly — boom — back to reality.” (Not sure if this person is kidding but yep! 💯🎯)

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In honor of Lucia Day on December 13, we’re diving into the origins of a Swedish holiday tradition which evolved from sinister pagan lore to a celebration of light, warmth and music.

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What is happening? Orcas started wearing dead salmon as hats again and chimps are once again putting grass in their ears. “We were even more shocked that they were doing their own spin on this by also inserting the grass and sticks in a different orifice.”

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OpenAI reportedly declared a "code red" on the 1st of December in response to increasingly credible competition from the likes of Google's Gemini 3. It's less than two weeks later and they just announced GPT-5.2, calling it "the most capable model series yet for professional...

Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups are probably my favorite big brand candy (perhaps only bested by Reese’s Pieces), so it was a real treat (groan) to see how the company makes them cups. But did you know Reese’s purposely over-roasts their peanuts just enough to bring out a bold...

MacKenzie Scott announces that she’s donated almost $7.2 billion of her personal fortune to organizations worldwide this year. That brings her total giving up to more than $26 billion.

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A streaming services savings tip from the Nomadico newsletter that I was not aware of: I’m going to add Apple TV at home after watching only part of Severance on a United flight, but I’ll likely subscribe in Mexico where it’s 28% cheaper than the USA. You can play this arbi...

Eight Million Ways to Happiness: Wisdom for Inspiration and Healing from the Heart of Japan. “Hiroko awakens readers to the idea of a traditional spiritual flexibility that seamlessly coexists with the modern secular world…”

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Liam Neeson Narrates Anti-Vax, Pro-RFK Documentary. In the narration, he calls the mRNA Covid-19 vaccines “dangerous experiments”.

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This video by Ian Lauer is an excellent accessible explanation of the basics of astrophotography as he runs through the process of how he captures a long-exposure image of the Andromeda galaxy. This picture is still black and white — and no, the galaxy is not devoid of c...

Funniest McSweeney’s piece I’ve read in awhile: The Mastermind Box Cover: What the Hell Were They Thinking? “Warmth is for Sorry! This is not a hug. This is a chess clock in a stranger’s living room telling you your parents are getting divorced.”

From the V&A Museum, here’s a 90-minute video of someone knitting a pair of gloves using a knitting pattern from the 1940s from the museum’s archive. Featuring soft-spoken moments, natural yarn sounds, needles gently tapping, and the soothing rhythm of slow, careful m...

Aging Out of Fucks: The Neuroscience of Why You Suddenly Can’t Pretend Anymore. “…that point in midlife when your capacity to pretend, perform, and please others starts shorting out like an electrical system that’s finally had enough.”

Thread: What was typography like in the Soviet Union? “They did not just have 1 font everyone had to use. As a matter of fact, there were 39.”

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Pre-show: Casey has a giggle about central Virginia snow Follow-up: Apple Fitness+ is doing better than the Mac Pro Workout Buddy Previously with Jay Blahnik More adventures with Cloudflare jramskov’s observation TLS Certificate lifetimes Alternatively, GitHub Page...

About 400 miles south of New Zealand, on the subantarctic Campbell Island / Motu Ihupuku, stands a Sitka spruce whose nearest neighbor is 170 miles away.

READ MORE IN THE ATLAS: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/worlds-loneliest-tree

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Before anyone starts patting the Trump administration on its back for one good typographic decision, take a gander at the hard-to-believe-this-is-real new signage at (and alas, on) the White House. This is the sort of signage that typically spells “Business Center” across from the check-in desk at a Courtyard Marriott. The Biden State Department replacing Times New Roman with Calibri was a typographic misdemeanor. Festooning the White House with signage set in gold-plated Shelley Script ought to land Trump in The Hague.

(The idea that the Oval Office ought to be explicitly labeled “The Oval Office” — whatever the typeface or signage style — brings to mind this classic Far Side cartoon, which I think aptly illustrates the president’s mental faculties.)

Link: yahoo.com/news/articles/white-house-just-revealed-another…

The fifth of five rules in Matthew Butterick’s “Typography in Ten Minutes”:

And finally, font choice. The fastest, easiest, and most visible improvement you can make to your typography is to ignore the fonts already loaded on your computer (known as system fonts) and the free fonts that inundate the internet. Instead, buy a professional font (like those found in font recommendations). A professional font gives you the benefit of a professional designer’s skills without having to hire one.

If that’s impossible, you can still make good typography with system fonts. But choose wisely. And never choose Times New Roman or Arial, as those fonts are favored only by the apathetic and sloppy. Not by typographers. Not by you.

(Via Antonio Cavedoni.)

Link: practicaltypography.com/typography-in-ten-minutes.html

I’m a big believer in reading original source material. For example, when Apple provided me, alongside only a handful of other outlets, with a statement regarding their decision to delay the “more personalized Siri” back in March, I ran the full statement, verbatim. I added ...