I love the remix of Radiohead’s Everything In Its Right Place in the midst of Kelly Lee Owens’ Boiler Room set (~33:50 mark). Had me chair dancing this AM!
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The painting above was made in 1945 by self-taught artist Janet Sobel; it’s called Milky Way. Sobel was a Ukrainian-born artist who was a pioneer in abstract expressionist art and in drip painting; her work directly influenced that of Jackson Pollock. From Why This Pioneer...
The best telescopes for astrophotography. Boy, if I needed an expensive new hobby, this might be the one at the top of the list.
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What’s the best way to lift people out of poverty? “Cash giving programs believe the people experiencing poverty best understand what they need to escape it.”
A much-touted 4K remaster of Mad Men recently premiered on HBO Max and they forgot to apply digital effects to scenes in some of the episodes so you can see crew in the background, etc.
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For most of human history, around 50% of children used to die before they reached the end of puberty. In 2020, that number is 4.3%. It’s 0.3% in countries like Japan & Norway.
This dramatic decline has resulted from better nutrition, clean water, sanitation, neonatal healthcare, vaccinations, medicines, and reductions in poverty, conflicts, and famine.
Before ~1800, almost every parent lost a child; now it’s such an uncommon experience that people have forgotten and want to ban vaccines.
Very Good Music Fun Facts from Go Jeff Go including: “Hall and Oates never referred to themselves as “Hall and Oates.” All their records say Daryl Hall and John Oates. Also, there is a 9-inch height difference between Hall & Oates.”
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In a letter to the Times of London, Dr. Michael Baum tells how a line in Arcadia by Tom Stoppard sparked an idea which resulted in adjuvant systemic chemotherapy, a therapy Baum helped pioneer which greatly increased the survivability of breast cancer.
Sir, In 1993 my wife...
I’m in Charge at This Hertz Location, and Buddy, You’re Not Getting a Car Today. “Tell me, honestly, when you reserved a rental car through Hertz, you thought… what? That we were going to set aside a special little car just for you? Seriously?”
In just a few days (Dec 5), the entirety of Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill duology will be released in theaters as one four-hour-long film. Here’s the trailer:
Quentin Tarantino’s KILL BILL: THE WHOLE BLOODY AFFAIR unites Volume 1 and Volume 2 into a single, unrated epic—p...
A list of 25 Things to Say to Your Children, including “You can do hard things. I’ve seen you do them before and you can do them again.”; “I’m proud of you.”; and “It’s so brave to feel your feelings.”
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Paul Ford on normalized AI & what happens when bubbles burst. “When the bubble is big, every idea feels like a billion-dollar idea. I yearn for cheap ideas from strangers.”
There are a few artists where you hear their name and “Tiny Desk” together and you think, well, that’s going to be great. David Byrne is one of those and his performance does not disappoint.
Though Byrne and his band do normally spread out across large stages, the set de...
100 Notable Small Press Books of 2025. The big end-of-year lists mostly feature books from big publishers; this list aims to spread the attention to smaller publishers.
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Keene, NH has been replacing their stop-lighted intersections with roundabouts, resulting in big reductions in pollution, accidents & injuries, and costs. “Slowly moving is better than waiting at a light any day.”
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I am not generally a fan of rom-coms so I didn’t think I was going to post Evan Puschak’s newest video, but he’s so good at them. Puschak argues that rom-coms are compelling because they reflect the modern challenge of finding meaning as individuals.
In the modern day, w...
I Was Stabbed in the Back With a Real Knife While Performing Julius Caesar. “I realised what had happened while acting out my character’s death, and thinking: I have to lie here until the lights go down.”
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On next-gen GLP-1 drugs. “A mere decade ago, obesity drugs powerful enough for people to routinely drop double-digit percentages of their body weight were unheard-of. Today, there are two, and they feel ubiquitous.”
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A short video that explains *a lot* about the modern world & conservatism. “They also want to feel normal. They want to walk around and see that most other people have made the same choice they made.” And that last line!
One of my favorite end-of-year lists is Tom Whitwell’s annual record of 52 things he’s learned in the past year. Some favorites of mine from the 2025 installment:
4. You can unlock the wheels on a shopping cart by playing sounds on your phone. [Joseph Gabay]
5. In the UK...
Photographing the Microscopic: Winners of Nikon Small World 2025. “Overall Winner: A rice weevil perched on a grain of rice.”
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Adding to an “overwhelming body of evidence”, a recent study showed that “suicidality scores dropped significantly an average of two years and up to five years after [trans youth] received gender-affirming treatment”.
The Atlantic hurricane season has come to a close and Google’s DeepMind AI-based hurricane model performed really well in predicting track and intensity of storms.
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In 2010, Randall Munroe’s fiancée (now wife) was diagnosed with cancer. Every once in awhile, he updates his audience at XKCD on how that’s going. The most recent missive: Fifteen Years.
On tour for the 35th anniversary of Home Alone, Macaulay Culkin said his kids love the movie, but don’t know he’s Kevin. They’re only three and four years old, so this makes sense, but it’s still hilarious.
And while they will even get excited when they see the young charac...
Rebecca Solnit: A Year on From Trump’s Victory, Resistance Is Everywhere. “There has, in fact, been a tremendous amount and variety of resistance and opposition and it’s mattered tremendously.”
Atul Gawande of Harvard’s School of Public Health: The Trump regime’s destruction of USAID “has already caused the deaths of six hundred thousand people, two-thirds of them children”.
A long profile of comics legend Alan Moore. “For the first time in his 45-year career, Alan Moore is alone on the page.”
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