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“America is no longer a democracy. That doesn’t mean authoritarianism has won. But merely restoring the pre-Trump status quo won’t work. The country needs a democratic transformation.”
Nancy Friedman: 52 Things I Learned in 2025. Incl. “Seventy-one percent of people in Iceland are Costco members” and “In Sweden, the largest size of Hellmann’s mayonnaise — 600 grams — is called “American size”.
Kent Hendricks: 52 Things I Learned in 2025. Incl. “Birders in the United States spend $107 billion per year, including $93B on binoculars, feeders, cameras, and other equipment; and $14B on travel. That’s more than the GDP of New Hampshire.”
A wildlife photographer “discovered thousands of dinosaur footprints preserved in the vertical face of a mountainside” in the Italian Alps dating back 200M years. “This is now really one of the most important places for Triassic dinosaur footprints.”
Oh this is devilish…a game where you have make to 45 groups of 45 items each by matching two at a time. Must take hours? (Where’s the multiplayer option when you need it?)
From Lit Hub, the best audiobooks of 2025. (It’s not new, but I just started listening to Milkman by Anna Burns and it’s really good so far.)
Shel Silverstein’s Homework Machine was one of my kids’ favorite poems of his when they were little. First published in 1981, the short poem turned out to be rather prescient about AI, especially the earlier LLMs, which couldn’t math their way out of a wet paper bag.
Your homework comes out, quick and clean as can be.
Here it is— ‘nine plus four?’ and the answer is ‘three.’
Three?
Oh me …
I guess it’s not as perfect
As I thought it would be.
(via @brooksrocco)
Tags: artificial intelligence · poetry · Shel Silverstein
The Internet Archive has a playable version of the NY Times Crossword Puzzle app from 1992. It ran on Windows 3.1 and included a few hundred puzzles. (Click on Game/Open to select a puzzle.)
Good morning! Just wanted to let you all know that Rian Johnson subtly rickrolled us with a scene in Wake Up Dead Man.
My new favorite description of Christianity’s God is from Vince Staples (~16:05): “a floating man with a blowout”.
