...ok the _theatrical_ Odyssey trailer is _amazing_ (I am about to watch AVATAR 3)

I count 10 cities in 2025 that are on track to have the fewest murders since at least 1970. Newark is on pace to have the fewest murders since 1956 (though only have data through Oct this year) and San Francisco is on pace to have the fewest murders since 1942.

Most and least favorite writing advice at once: I once discovered a post-it note in unknown handwriting stuck to one of my drafts saying “Try using the word ilk more often in your novel, as in ‘Someone of his ilk’.” The origin of this advice may remain forever as mysterious as the logic behind it

I find the generation gap in AI chatbot usage fascinating. Millennials tend to treat them as a better Google with some disliking the tech due to hallucinations. Gen Z and younger often treat them as a partner which they pour their hopes and dreams into.

The big red line here is the Champs-Élysées, easily the worst street in Paris.

I don’t mean to sound extreme, but I don’t think we should have torture camps for people with criminal records either.

My possibly controversial social media stance for the week: the trailer for THE ODYSSEY is bad. I still expect the movie to be good, based on past performance, but it has a real letdown of a trailer.

You may not believe that building new housing lowers rents, but your landlord does:

This seems cool pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

I’m curious what she thought was going to happen here. Did it not occur to her that swooping in at the last minute to kill a story on specious grounds might antagonize the journalists who worked on it? That such intervention was likely to blow up in a rather spectacular and embarrassing way?

Yea I find it crazy that a Waymo running over a pet is *so unusual* it's *literally newsworthy*, and people cite that story as evidence of the failure of the entire technology. Meanwhile all the other people + pets that get run over by manually-driven cars just become statistics in the background.

Avatar 3's opening was only 2/3 that of Avatar 2. Granted that still projects to $450B in the US, and over $1B in the rest of the world ... but that's still a pretty big hit over three years.

This is the most cyberpunk-thriller event of 2025 www.theguardian.com/world/2025/d...

I was sleeping under the stars at a campsite in Namibia, near some kind of petrified forest iirc, and in the middle of the night I woke because a hyena had entered our camp and started nosing around

...this may have been too optimistic. (Although many data points suggest to me that the angry hectoring of the fervent demonizers is papering over a real and ongoing shift in revealed preferences.)

"What, though, of the future of the Congo basin? A study earlier this year found that from 1990 to 2020 it lost 8.5% of its total forest area" www.economist.com/interactive/... (honestly I found this faintly reassuring, would have expected a larger percentage)

I’m not at all superstitious, but the two places I’ve been where you could probably convince me There’s Things There are the Salton Sea and California City. Deep inland SoCal definitely has the vibe of that kind of thing.

Honestly pretty surprised this went six rounds (not an expert expert, but there was a time in my life when I got into a ring and sparred weekly) www.theguardian.com/sport/live/2...

“If you were to ask anyone around the world, any skateboarder, what the most famous spot in the world was, they would say China Banks.” www.sfgate.com/sf-culture/a...

Haven't the foggiest about the quality of this research, or whether the headline has skewed its findings, but I want to believe.

I said “it sounds like you’re just feeding municipal vehicles to the hill” and the mayor of Montreal started crying

At last we have created the Hunger Games from the classic dystopian novel Don’t Create The Hunger Games

"Water, Water, Everywhere is a new, damp mission for Paranoia that satirises climate change. Is that something to joke about? It is in Alpha Complex." www.mongoosepublishing.com/products/wat...

I'm incredibly excited to be hosting two amazing authors & AI thinkers, @rezendi.com and @adambecker.bsky.social, for a book talk & fireside chat at @stanfordhai.bsky.social on January 21. Please join us in person or virtually! hai.stanford.edu/events/adam-...

You had me at "Harvard’s favorite cannibalism case". www.harvardmagazine.com/politics-and...

Legitimate arguments here.

Become ungovernable

I don't know who made this, but I love you

Here is Bjork for no reason

The Babylon: City of Monsters teaser trailer is up!

Yellow-Red-Blue, by Wassily Kandinsky, 1925 (detail, rotated), 📸 by @riogiancarlo.bsky.social

The cultural impact of Rob Reiner cannot be understated. Legend isn't big enough a word. It goes to 11. You can't handle the truth. As you wish. I'll have what she's having. I'm your number one fan. You guys wanna see a dead body? The very idea of a bucket list. The West Wing. All from his movies.

The moment when AI news summaries accidentally create the murder mystery we deserve

Grandchildren Politely Decline David Cronenberg’s Bedtime Story Offer https://theonion.com/grandchildren-politely-decline-david-cronenbergs-bedtime-story-offer/

Its kind of insulting just how stupid they think everyone is

"Extremely entertaining stuff happening in Canadian politics" is not a phrase one often has the opportunity to use, but here we are www.cbc.ca/news/politic...

Absolutely amazing chart from @peterkellner.bsky.social's piece in @thenewworldmag.bsky.social today: www.thenewworld.co.uk/peter-kellne...

It is bleakly American these days to get mad at (fairly broad swathes of!) people for not hating hard enough, or, worse, and often almost unimaginable, sometimes even not hating at all.

...rather than an inherent danger of networking enormous numbers of humans and enabling them to self-organize into novel communities. And while I wish this were true—because then at least in principle the problem is policy soluble without nuking the Internet—I just don't think it is.

RIP John Varley. I will never look at centaurs the same way thanks to you. locusmag.com/2025/12/john...

all of these people were picked, in part, *because* they had no real prospect of advancing past where they're at. trump's the only person who would promote them, and everyone — both trump, and the people he promoted — all know it. it's why they're all loyal to him. that was the point.

One of the best books of the century so far—an amazing masterpiece. Grab a copy if you haven't read it yet

Vaccines cause adults

Will Arnett was on Conan and told a story about how Conan dealt with the death of his parents by accusing Jason Bateman of killing them. It’s so funny.

"We look forward to shooting the reindeer and sending Santa to be tortured in South Sudan."

'The best conspiracy books of 2025' for @theguardian.com

It's time to remind everyone that books make great holiday gifts, because they're rectangular, and easy to wrap.

London Ent-erground

In fairness it also says "Not all facts and evidence presented, however, were accurate; across all three countries, the AI models advocating for candidates on the political right made more inaccurate claims" ... but still.

Listen, I know the housing shortage is killing a great American city, but that really is one of our most historically significant Safeways www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/s...