"The miracle of birth is so incredibly beautiful to behold. Do you know the only thing that could make it better? Percussion. Nothing calms one’s stress and eases the pain of delivering a baby more than a little boy standing nearby absolutely shredding on his drum."

Did you know that Pee Wee's Christmas special is available to watch on YouTube any time you want?? youtu.be/NRvtOGLzpvE?...

So once upon a time, I got savaged on Twitter for saying that all a man in the games industry had to do to end a woman’s employment at the same company was sexually harass her. As soon as it happened, the timer began counting down. (Thread)

"I hope the skeptics have been satisfied by my 'puppets are uncanny' argument, because now I have to mount my third point and achieve the hat trick that will seal my grand yuletide theory: Kermit the Frog is the only performer to ever truly embody Bob Cratchit."

There's a pair of little old church ladies that volunteer 4 mornings a week at my train stop to pass out big bags of food and snacks and a giant homemade cookie to passengers bc Amtrak doesn't have a food car on that line. They've been doing it nonstop since Covid. Then, they found out that that/

So reindeer (Rangifer tarandus) can't fly, but they are VERY MAGICAL. For example, their EYES CHANGE COLOR during the year & they're one of the few large mammals that can see UV. Golden brown in summer, deep blue in winter. Let's talk about the unique visual adaptations of Rudolph and company.

I highly recommend watching this segment, not just because the CBS News execs and the White House didn’t want you to, but because these men were tortured and they deserved to have their voices heard.

"Marley's Ghost" for Nomad Sculpt practice "I wear the chains I forged in life," said the ghost. "And the harness?" asked Scrooge? "That's just something I'm trying out to see what I'm into. Don't make it weird."

I don't like to share this, but I'm most likely descended from a signer of the Declaration... as are thousands of Black Americans. (It wasn't just Jefferson, most unfortunately.) Black Americans don't count as American to MAGA unless we parrot their rhetoric. (And really, not even if we sell out.)

Per NY Times’s Michael Grynbaum on X, this is Sharyn Alfonsi’s email to her “60 Minutes” colleagues in full:

In other news, the whole thing about Calibri v. TNR isn't about a font face, it's about the fact that Calibri is easier for people with some disabilities to read. They think any accommodation, however painless, should stop.

It’s the “season of love and giving”…but this year, doesn’t it seem more like a “season of fear and taking”? Like many of you, I’ve been saddened by the human impact of draconian government budget cuts and how angry many housed Americans are at unhoused Americans. 🧵 1 of 9

Closing out my year with a journal editor shocker 🧵 Checking new manuscripts today I reviewed a paper attributing 2 papers to me I did not write. A daft thing for an author to do of course. But intrigued I web searched up one of the titles and that's when it got real weird...

The name "Popular Science" doesn't mean we shift our coverage depending on public opinion. It means we cover relevant subjects that are rigorously researched, reliable, and grounded in reality. And trans lives are grounded in reality. We see y'all. No matter what. www.popsci.com/science/tran...

this is a good reminder of how things that are shitty but have been accepted as normal and inevitable can actually turn out to be abnormal and evitable with some science, time, education and political will

YOU DUMB FUCKS. THIS IS ME. I have a scooter. I can walk. I can't, however, walk through 80 miles of airport. I can walk onto an airplane or through hallways. I can't walk the .5 mile to the convention center. People, get smarter, it's embarrassing at this point.

NB: When I, a professor of law, profess that an act is unlawful, I am not doing it to inform the lawbreaker, but rather to inform you, the reader. So the question “what, like you think he cares?” is inapposite. The question is whether *you* care. I think you should, which is why I bother.

Clay letters from ancient Mesopotamia are alive with idiom, sayings, and everyday language that I love. Here are just a few random ones so you can enjoy them too.

Hahaha ever since Craig of the Creek became the latest victim of Zaslav’s merger bloodbath I haven’t been able to find a steady job. This man has ruined careers, ruined peoples lives, and gets paid MILLIONS for it. Hahaha hahaha

These are the "good and decent people" who didn't survive the Reagan presidency.

I often think about Zohran Mamdani saying “to get to any of us, you’re gonna have to go through all of us.”

Grading and googling hallucinated citations, as one does nowadays, and now that LLMs have been around for a while, I've discovered new horrors: hallucinated journals are now appearing in Google Scholar with dozens of citations bc so many people are citing these fake things

Like you hear these congressional reps, especially republicans, talking about how they're scared to vote against the party line because they might get hurt and Ahmed al Ahmed literally ran at a guy with a gun because he felt his duty to his fellow humans was to try and sanctify life

Another RR thread. The world couldn't contain a heart this big.

This entire weekend

this field biologist does a great job highlighting the insidiousness of AI editing these one-click AI edit buttons are incredibly appealing to many photographers, amateurs and professionals alike, and are framed as innocuous this is worth sharing and educating people about

Happy Hanukkah! My cyber-menorah is up and running as usual. jeffreyatw.com/menorah/

my favorite thing about the benoit blanc movies is that they aren't really about benoit blanc. he is not grappling with demons from his past. we are not getting flashbacks to the husband whose murder he never solved. he just shows up and does his job like mary poppins for homicides

I’m dying to discuss #WakeUpDeadMan but it will be spoilery, so I’m going to tuck it away in the alt text of this image. If you respond, please do it in alt text of a picture so we don’t ruin anything. (If I’m missing some way that this approach is terrible, please let me know and I’ll delete)

Huh. It's almost like when institutions stand up to that spineless coward fascist, he loses and folds. I sure wish more institutions would take note of that.

#WakeUpDeadMan is my favorite of the 3 Benoit Blanc movies. Also my favorite Josh O’Connor performance, which is another high bar to clear. Already looking forward to watching it again.

I just put out a collection of short tracks. One of them is a Tom Lehrer song about Hanukkah. It's free (pay whatever you want, including $0) on Bandcamp. The whole thing is less than 10 minutes long. I'll need to write a 20-minute prog epic in 2026.

Let people be their true selves, as they know and understand them. Let children explore their identities. Celebrate difference and variety and the incredible spectrum of humanity. The only alternative denies an opportunity to celebrate the joy of human flourishing and is ultimately unspeakably cruel

I understand that a lot of folks have been misled by fear-mongering and powerful regressive voices but it’s still astonishing to me that so many have fallen for the idea that oppressively policing other people’s gender identity and expression could in any way be part of an enlightened future.

…I'm so goddam tired. Ppl are increasingly in their city halls about "AI" data centers making their water & power bills & air quality worse, & literally all Dems would have to do sew up up that bloc is *Vibe With That Energy.* It's affordability & billionaire overreach all in one package you dorks!

Seeing Army of Darkness at a theater on the Univ of Washington campus when it was new. Theater was huge and jam-packed, even the line was a riot. The audience ROARED over and over at the nonstop Evil Dead fan service. Mind-blowingly fun. Also: seeing Jacques Tati’s Playtime for the first time. 🤯

There isn't a single problem "solved" by edtech that couldn't be fixed with smaller classes led by well-paid teachers given real academic freedom

:sigh: another person whose movies I enjoy shows their entire ass

Big week for people maintaining the distinction between font and typeface

at this point AI is the equivalent of your friend eating something disgusting and asking 800 times if you wanna try it

All of this

Read this as an American woman and then go break something.

everyone post vent cats

Good on Penn Jillette. Having to come to terms with your entire political identity and philosophy being wrong is not easy and most people could never do it.

The real task isn’t “teaching people to spot misinformation.” It’s rebuilding conditions where verification, deliberation and accountability are possible. Critical thinking only works when the world around it gives those skills a place to take root.

Most discussions about “misinformation” treat the problem as if people simply don’t have good enough critical-thinking skills. It sounds intuitive, but it’s not entirely accurate. The problem isn’t just individual ignorance, it’s the structure of the information environment people are placed into.

"Christmas Time Is Here" (Vince Guaraldi/Peanuts cover) It's the 60th anniversary of A Charlie Brown Christmas and time to start busting out all the favorites from it. Hey, I'll be playing some of these at the Charles Schulz Museum in Santa Rosa, CA on Dec. 20! www.youtube.com/watch?v=t39b...

Matthew Lillard is a national god damned treasure, not only as an enjoyable as fuck actor, but as a D&D ambassador and co-owner with his friends of Beadle & Grimm's (makers of the best D&D accessories on the market.) The only person who looks worse for Quentin shitting on him is fucking Quentin.

Look, I'm just gonna tell cishet white people right now--Newsom ain't the one. You got Walz and Pritzker out here. You do not need a Bill Clinton clone wearing Mitt Romney's skin.