After you get past the first 14 pages of Space X S1 filing of rocket pictures, yes rocket pictures, you get to this direct quote: We do not want humans to have the same fate as dinosaurs. We want to give them a reason to look ahead with excitement, with the prospect that we are entering an age of abundance with an endlessly prosperous and exciting future. For decades, a reality where humanity…
Interviewer: What do you see as America’s unique advantages that other countries don’t have? Jensen Huang, Nvidia CEO: America's unique advantage that no country could possibly have is President Trump. [audience applauds] [image or embed] — Dare Obasanjo ( @carnage4life.bsky.social ) March 22, 2026 at 10:23 AM Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang—recently appointed to the President’s Council of…
The tentatively titled The Lord of the Rings: Shadow of the Past is set to be written by Stephen Colbert, Philippa Boyens, and Peter McGee. The trio will team up with the creative wizards behind the New Line franchise—Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh, and Boyens herself. It’s no secret that Colbert is a die-hard Lord of the Rings fan, and honestly, that just makes this collaboration all the more…
As someone who has read Frank Herbert’s Dune saga at least three times, I always believed the story was simply too vast, complex, and layered to ever work convincingly on the big screen. The scale of the universe, the politics, the philosophy—it all seemed nearly impossible to translate into film. Then Denis Villeneuve proved me wrong. With the first two films , Villeneuve managed to capture the…
Rebecca Solnit, author of her new book The Beginning Comes After the End , sat down for an interview with David Marchese of the NY Times: One of the great weaknesses of our era is that we get lone superhero movies that suggest that our big problems are solved by muscly guys in spandex, when actually the world mostly gets changed through collective effort. Thich Nhat Hanh said before he died a few…
Timothy Snyder offers a useful perspective in helping answer it : How do [we] understand the war with Iran? We must get away from the propaganda and ask why this might be happening, in light of the facts that we do know. These facts suggest two interpretive frameworks: a foreign war as a mechanism to destroy democracy at home; and a foreign war as an element of personal corruption by the president…
Follow Emma Russell on her 31 day digital detox : For a month, I tried: swapping my iPhone for a Nokia which I can only use to text, call and play Snake; also, a Walkman and a film camera. I picked up physical copies of books, newspapers and magazines; I used a London A-Z for directions, and hunted down my physical bank cards or tried to use cash. The only screen time exception was for work, where…
The Adam Bonica’s description on American exceptionalism : Start with work and economic life. Americans work longer hours, pay more out-of-pocket for college and childcare, lack parental leave, and enjoy less economic mobility. The share of income going to the top 1 percent is nearly double the OECD average. American CEOs earn, on average, 354 times as much as their workers. More workers are…
You wanna know something? I’ll give you a quote. We’re a third world country now. You wanna know why? I am an expert - I’ve been to em. I spent 17 months in southeast Asia while the draft dodger was playing golf. Right? You know how I know we’re a third world country? Because in third world countries they have the military doing their police work. […] That what…
Steven Colbert had the best commentary on the horrible shooting of an innocent American citizen by the new American ‘brown shirts’ : So the message from this administration is clear. Only they determine the truth. And when their forces come to your city, obey or die. And if you you die, you clearly didn’t obey. […] If we let this go on, regardless who your state voted for,…
Today, December 31, 2025, we lower the volume and pour one out for the empire that invented modern cool. From teased-to-the-heavens ’80s hair bands to flannel-soaked ’90s grunge, from neon countdowns to MTV Unplugged, the channel didn’t just play music—it taught a generation how to look, sound, and argue about it. For a glorious stretch, MTV was the culture. If it aired there, it mattered. If it…
Shel Silverstein’s Homework Machine , a short poem from 1981 , feels like it somehow snuck a peek at the future of AI: The Homework Machine, Oh, the Homework Machine, Most perfect contraption that's ever been seen. Just put in your homework, then drop in a dime, Snap on the switch, and in ten seconds' time, Your homework comes out, quick and clean as can be. Here it is— 'nine plus four?' and the…
Cameron McKay via Daring Fireball : It strikes me that Apple changes CPU architectures (68K → PowerPC → Intel → ARM) more often than identity fonts. They’d sooner re-engineer their products’ deepest technical building blocks than change typefaces. I suspect that’s rare among tech companies. This is Apple’s real secret weapon: constant evolution. They understand how quickly the technology landscape…
China has flying 2-seater taxis, launch delivery drones, bullet trains and robots that can change EV battery in 3 minutes. The United States answer to this: Drill baby, drill!
Samwise Gamgee in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings , specifically when the Ring tempts him with visions of power, offering to make him a great gardener-king over Mordor. Sam resists by recognizing his true desire: a simple life in a small garden, showing his humble, hobbit-sense and contentment, a key theme in Tolkien’s work about ordinary folk keeping darkness at bay: He knew in…
If we lose the virile, manly qualities, and sink into a nation of mere hucksters, putting gain over national honor, and subordinating everything to mere ease of life, then we shall indeed reach a condition worse than that of the ancient civilizations in the years of their decay. President Theodore Roosevelt
Timothy Snyder Trump’s likely next step : What comes next? For the Nazis, the deportation and the pogrom of autumn 1938 were steps towards creating a centralised national police agency. In the US, something similar is unfolding with ICE: tasked initially to carry out deportations, it has taken on espionage roles, provoked citizens in the cities, and then is reinforced by soldiers of the…
For its 50th anniversary, the original theatrical cut of Star Wars is set to return to theaters on February 17, 2027 —possibly even in IMAX. Han shoots first, there’s no awkward CGI Jabba, no added “Saturn-style” rings around the Death Star. Even Mos Eisley has been restored to its original, analog wretched hive of scum and villainy. The only remaining question: Will this re-release drop the…
Yet Gen X isn’t just a time period; it’s also, as Rushkoff writes in “The GenX Reader,” “a culture, a demographic, an outlook, a style, an economy, a scene, a political ideology, an aesthetic, an age, a decade and a literature.” It’s a moment, a mood, an ethos and an enduring way of being, the hallmark characteristics of which — anticorporatism, anti-authoritarianism, ironic detachment, artistic…
At a town hall event in 2018 hosted by MSNBC’s Chris Hayes and Recode’s Kara Swisher: When asked what he would do if he were in Zuckerberg’s position, Cook replied: “What would I do? I wouldn’t be in this situation.” “The truth is we could make a ton of money if we monetized our customer, if our customer was our product,” Cook said. “We’ve elected not to do that.” “Privacy to us is a human right.…
At first glance, it may seem counterintuitive, but research consistently shows that giving people cash is far more transformative than providing services. And when you think about it, that makes perfect sense. How can those who are wealthy truly understand the daily challenges faced by people living in poverty? Well-intentioned donors may assume that better schools, more supplies, or job-training…
Atul Gawande of Harvard’s School of Public Healt on the effects of the Trump administration’s decision to shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) : In the article, Gawande cited an analysis in The Lancet that estimated that USAID assistance—aimed at combatting diseases such as HIV, tuberculosis, malaria, and polio, reducing maternal and child deaths, and fighting…
This is the trailer for an HBO documentary called Thoughts and Prayers about “the impact of the $3 billion active shooter preparedness industry on schools and communities across America”. From David Ehrlich’s review in IndieWire : Bulletproof desks that students can flip over at the first sign of trouble. A robot dog the size of a Pomeranian that jumps and yaps at the sight of an intruder.…
Sean Duffy, the secretary of transportation, began a new campaign on Wednesday that he called “The Golden Age of Travel Starts With You" . From the Department of Transportation website: Secretary Duffy posed a few key questions every flyer should ask themselves this holiday season to help Americans reach their destinations as quickly, efficiently and comfortably as possible: Are you helping a…
The Sagrada Família has become the tallest church in the world , after workers placed the first part of a cross at the top of its central tower. The Barcelona church will top 564 feet when the rest of the cross is placed in the next few months.
The Financial Times reporting : Apple is stepping up its succession planning efforts, as it prepares for Tim Cook to step down as chief executive as soon as next year. Several people familiar with discussions inside the tech group told the Financial Times that its board and senior executives have recently intensified preparations for Cook to hand over the reins at the $4tn company after more than…
Bill Wurtz’s History of Japan is the most entertaining history of anything I have ever seen.
Poverty exists not because we cannot feed the poor but because we cannot satisfy the rich. Martin M. McLaughlin
Ski mountaineer Andrzej Bargiel becomes the first person to climb Mount Everest and ski back to Everest Base Camp without supplementary oxygen. After nearly 16 hours climbing in the high altitude “death zone” (above 8,000m where oxygen levels are dangerously low), Bargiel clipped into his skis on the summit of the tallest mountain on earth and started his descent via the South Col Route. He…
Rachel Moody in an Opinion piece for The Daily Tar Heel : Part of that is due to the false perception that these minimum wage jobs are low-skill. But they’re not low-skill. They simply require different skills, ones that not just anyone possesses. I dare anyone who thinks so to work a service job for a few months. They’ll quickly realize it’s not just common sense, nor as easy as they think.…
Thor Pedersen on the lessons he learned on his epic nearly decade long trip - and the one thing that struck me the most - what you want and what you need are not the same thing : Just about anything can become routine and begin to feel like work – even travelling to every country in the world. It is rare for people to travel constantly for much more than a year because it wears the soul; most…
Anil Dash sums up my feelings on the AI bubble perfectly: What’s amazing is the reality that virtually 100% of tech experts I talk to in the industry feel this way, yet nobody outside of that cohort will mention this reality. What we all want is for people to just treat AI as a “ normal technology ”, as Arvind Naryanan and Sayash Kapoor so perfectly put it. I might be a little…
Opposition leader María Corina Machado wins the Nobel Peace Prize . When authoritarians seize power, it is crucial to recognize courageous defenders of freedom who rise and resist.
Dave Snyder writing for Design Observer : I’ve been designing digital products for 25 years. I remember when the big decision was going from 800×600 to 1024 pixels. I’ve lived through multiple cycles of VR hype, watched the web go from static pages to social networks to AI everything. I’ve launched products that failed spectacularly and others that succeeded for reasons no one predicted. Trees…
Donald Trump on his blog : THE BIDEN FBI PLACED 274 AGENTS INTO THE CROWD ON JANUARY 6. If this is so, which it is, a lot of very good people will be owed big apologies. What a SCAM - DO SOMETHING!!! President DJT The man is obviously unwell.
Ryan Gould and Liana Baker, reporting for Bloomberg : Intel Corp. has approached Apple Inc. about securing an investment in the ailing chipmaker, according to people familiar with the matter, part of efforts to bolster a business that’s now partially owned by the US government. Apple and Intel also have discussed how to work more closely together, said the people, who asked not to be identified…
This is still spot on…
Now at this last we must take a hard road, a road unforeseen. There lies our hope, if hope it be. Tolkien JRR. The Fellowship of the Ring (The Lord of the Rings, Book 1). HarperCollins UK
The trailer for Wake Up Dead Man , the new Knives Out movie. Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) returns for his most dangerous case yet in the third and darkest chapter of Rian Johnson’s murder mystery opus. Starring Daniel Craig, Josh O’Connor, Glenn Close, Josh Brolin, Mila Kunis, Jeremy Renner, Kerry Washington, Andrew Scott, Cailee Spaeny, Daryl McCormack, and Thomas Haden Church. The trailer for…
Alexandra Petri reporting in The Atlantic on Florida’s elimination of vaccine mandates: Florida is the first state to take the courageous step toward decluttering itself of excess children, but under the inexpert guidance of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., other states may follow. If we lose herd immunity, we will bring back diseases that had formerly been eliminated, and some children who would…
Bernie Sanders, in a NYT op-ed : Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the secretary of health and human services, is endangering the health of the American people now and into the future. He must resign. Mr. Kennedy and the rest of the Trump administration tell us, over and over, that they want to Make America Healthy Again. That’s a great slogan. I agree with it. The problem is that since coming into office…
The New York Times video features a number of scientists who were working on stuff like HIV treatments and life-saving cancer research but whose work has been shut down or curtailed by the Trump regime cutting their funding.
Annie Lowrey for The Atlantic : In the end, the top 400 Americans paid an estimated 23.8 percent of their income to Uncle Sam from 2018 to 2020—down from roughly 30 percent before the passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, in 2017. They paid 1.3 percent of their total wealth to the IRS in those years, down from 2.7 percent from 2010 to 2013. Their tax rates were lower than the average paid by all…
In the aftermath of the 2016 election, British American artist Jo Hay began a series of engaging portraits called Persisters “that depict contemporary, trailblazing women in pursuit of civil rights and justice”. Pictured above are her paintings of Letitia James, Elizabeth Warren, Greta Thunberg, Christine Blasey Ford, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Marie Yovanovitch.
The ultrawealthy are threating to leave if Zohran Mamdani institutes 2% tax hike on New York’s millionaire class. Go ahead - leave. As Nia Law and Lindsay Owens states in a Rolling Stones commentary : The evidence for millionaire tax flight is scant. If high earners were truly fleeing high taxes, low-tax states would be swarming with millionaires. Instead, the highest concentrations of…
Nell Greenfieldboyce reporting on All Things Considered podcast that Light pollution has lengthened birds’ days: Their day is almost an hour longer. They start vocalizing about 20 minutes earlier in the morning and they stop vocalizing about 30 minutes later in the evening.
Ozzy Osbourne - the Prince of Darkness has died at 76. Kory Grow writing for Rolling Stone : Ozzy Osbourne, the singular metal legend whose Black Sabbath virtually invented heavy metal and in later years became a reality TV pioneer, has died. He was 76. Osbourne’s family confirmed his death in a statement shared with The Guardian. “It is with more sadness than mere words can convey that we have to…
In a move that defies both logic and morality, the Trump administration ordered nearly 500 metric tons of emergency food aid to be incinerated—enough to feed approximately 1.5 million children for an entire week. Instead of delivering this life-saving nourishment to vulnerable populations abroad, the food will soon be reduced to ash. The food, originally intended for children in crisis zones like…