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The turn-of-the-century volcano photography of Tempest Anderson. "You know, Anderson, you are sure to be killed, but it will be such a very great satisfaction to you afterwards to think that it was in the cause of science."
What Americans Know About Religion, a Pew Research survey from 2019. Atheists and agnostics tend to know more about religion than Christians do.
The climate crisis has cost $16 million per hour in extreme weather damage over the past 20 years. That's $2.8 trillion total...likely "a significant understatement". And it's only going to get worse.
How Red-State Politics Are Shaving Years Off American Lives. "[State-level] investments began to diverge sharply along red and blue lines, with conservative lawmakers often balking at public health initiatives they said cost too much or overstepped."
US citizens or permanent residents with permanent disabilities can get a free lifetime pass to US National Parks (and other federal lands).
During a recent show, Jerry Seinfeld seemed to tease the return of Seinfeld: "something is going to happen that has to do with that ending".
October 10
Prada is helping design the spacesuits the astronauts will wear on NASA's Artemis III mission that's schedule to land on the Moon in 2025.
From the Milwaukee Public Library's meme-tacular Instagram account: trying to read as a kid in America.
'What Is Broken in American Politics Is the Republican Party'. "A grown-up Republican Party — even a deeply conservative one — would accept the rule of law, the norms of liberal democracy, and the legitimacy of the opposing party."
Scholastic Under Fire for Allowing Schools to Opt Out of 'Diverse Books' for Book Fairs. "Why is it appropriate for Scholastic to have an easy censorship option?"
An Epidemic of Chronic Illness Is Killing Us Too Soon. "The United States is failing at a fundamental mission — keeping people alive."
Michael Lewis finds himself under the microscope. "What happens when a writer who is used to rapturous reception, with a knack for shaping stories, collides with an active public drama he doesn't control?"
Errol Morris Did Not Like This Q&A About His le Carré Film. "Properly considered, no one should ever under any circumstances talk to anybody else."
October 8
Kelvin Kiptum shatters marathon world record with run of just over two hours. Wow, 2:00:35. "As the 23-year-old ran the final few hundred metres along Columbus Drive, he even had time to blow kisses and wave to the crowd."
It's Decorative Gourd Season, Motherfuckers. "I don't know about you, but I can't wait to get my hands on some fucking gourds and arrange them in a horn-shaped basket..."
October 6
Is food in America better or worse than in other countries (France, Korea, Peru) around the world? It depends on what you mean by "better" and how broad your lens is.
A preview of Spike Lee: Creative Sources, up at the Brooklyn Museum through early February. "There are so many amazing objects in his collection, and so many things that are so important to him and that really tell a story."
October 5
A Chance Discovery Uncovered the Remarkable Life of One of the First Female Oceanographers, Christine Essenberg. "How many other unknown women in science are out there, hidden away in boxes?"
Critics for The Hollywood Reporter pick their 50 best TV shows of the 21st century (so far). Lots to disagree with here but also "any title [on the list] you had yet to see was surely worth checking out". And wow, Mad Men.
In iOS 17, users no longer have to include "Hey" when invoking Siri. Siri Price has had to change her name bc every time someone spoke to her, all in-range phones would pipe up. "Now people can't even say my name. I'm absolutely fuming."
Huh. Did Medium "borrow" their current logo from Japan Tobacco Inc.'s 1985 logo? They are very similar...
The MacArthur Foundation has announced 2023's round of fellows and accompanying $800,000 "genius grants". Aw shoot, passed over again!
Last month was the hottest September on record by an "absolutely gobsmackingly bananas" margin. "September 2023 beat the previous record for that month by 0.5C, the largest jump in temperature ever seen." 1.8C warmer than pre-industrial levels.
October 4
"Lise Meitner developed the theory of nuclear fission, the process that enabled the atomic bomb. But her identity — Jewish and a woman — barred her from sharing credit for the discovery, newly translated letters show."
The Hidden Costs of Using an Electric Bike. "An electric bike is going to force you to get a lot more fresh air than you're used to." Lolz.
Shohei Ohtani's Impossible, Unrivaled, Bittersweet Season. "It might have been the greatest year of individual achievement in major-league history. Will we ever see anything like it again?"
Several years ago, great white sharks suddenly started disappearing from their traditional habitats in South Africa. Scientists have finally figured out why. "Lots of people weren't used to thinking of great white sharks as prey."
October 3
The teaser trailer for season 2 of The Gilded Age, which premieres on HBO at the end of October. (Yeah, I'm just not going to call it "Max".)
Out today: Going Infinite, Michael Lewis's book on crypto and Sam Bankman-Fried (whose trial starts today). Lewis's mini-season of interviews for the book on his Against the Rules podcast was really interesting.
NASA is planning to build long-term housing on the Moon using 3-D printing and soil made out of moon dust. "They believe that by 2040, Americans will have their first subdivision in space."
Notable Sandwiches. Talia Lavin is "going through Wikipedia's List of Notable Sandwiches in alphabetical order" and providing some "tasty commentary" about them.
On Luddites, the rebellion against Big Tech, human rights, and the AI threat: "Robots aren't coming for your job; bosses are." Ted Chiang: "Most fears about A.I. are best understood as fears about capitalism."
Katalin Karikó just won the Nobel Prize for her dogged and live-saving work on mRNA vaccines. Her impeccably timed memoir, Breaking Through: My Life in Science, is coming out next week.
Blaring phones will scare the beejesus out of everyone in America on Oct 4 at 2:20pm ET; FEMA is conducting a test of their public alert system. Maybe set an alarm or calendar notification so you'll be prepared?
October 2
"A cheap malaria vaccine that can be produced on a massive scale has been recommended for use by the World Health Organization (WHO)." Each dose is only $2-4 (4 doses/person) and 100 million doses/yr are already lined up to be produced.
How the Elon Musk biography exposes Walter Isaacson. "We are dealing with not one but two unreliable narrators: Musk and Isaacson himself."
Using NLP to find similar phrases to "champagne for my real friends, real pain for my sham friends". Results included "focus for my real friends, real cuss for my faux friends" and "metrics for my real friends, real tricks for my meh friends".
The new words added to the Merriam-Webster dictionary last month include rizz, cromulent, vector graphics, rewild, jorts, non-player character, jump scare, finsta, beast mode, and thirst trap.
UNESCO Just Named 42 New World Heritage Sites. "Among the newly inscribed group are an archaeological cemetery site in South Korea, a roadside inn in Iran, and a famed hop-growing region in Czechia."
Thomas Zimmer on one of my political pet peeves: the polarization narrative. "The 'polarization' paradigm privileges unity, stability, and social cohesion over social justice and equal participation."
Hayao Miyazaki Announces Return To Filmmaking After Big Time Fuckup At New HVAC Installation Job. "They had to bring in the drywall crew to repair all the damage I caused."
Using AI voice-cloning to make pop stars cover Weird Al Yankovic songs instead of the other way around. Think Michael Jackson covering Eat It and Madonna singing Like A Surgeon.
The 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman "for their discoveries concerning nucleoside base modifications that enabled the development of effective mRNA vaccines against COVID-19".
September 29
Former gang leader Duane Keith Davis has been indicted for the murder of Tupac Shakur. "The broad outlines of what occurred that night were known to the police as far back as 1996" but they lacked admissible evidence.
A Template for Right-Wingers Upset with Taylor Swift. "Taylor Swift's popularity is clearly a sign of societal decline because she doesn't embrace my [patriotism / Judeo-Christian values / need to force girls and women into giving birth]."
The Seven Meetings You Hate. "2. Why Am I Here? It seems like a good set of people, but I have no clue how I'm relevant to this meeting."
A good interactive from The Pudding on the invisible loneliness epidemic in America. "The amount of time we spend with friends has plummeted — and again it hit younger people [34 or younger] especially hard."
New linguistics trend: "whom of which" (and its relation to "pied piping"). "Our striker, whom of which is our best player, scores a lot of goals."
Daft Punk is releasing a "drumless" edition of their album Random Access Memories. It'll be out in Nov.