Public transit generates a ton of value for society that the transit providers can't capture in revenue. When critical infrastructure for health, daily life, and/or participation in government and democracy isn't accessible, it can create harm and barriers far more costly than bus service.

Is there any way to opt out of my apps updating with Christmas themed icons? Like I'm not allowed to be Jewish on my own phone?

This is really amazing and also means we need to quickly reevaluate a lot of "known" findings. Especially problematic because I can't even remember which facts in my head come from mturk studies!

Important, valid, and distressing confirmation of discrimination against mothers. I know #FollowFriday isn't for four more hours, but give Professor Holbein a follow anyway. He's truly excellent at curating and explaining research that's interesting and/or important.

Found a theme for my New Years Party.

Might get a little flu shot bullseye tattooed on one arm. This is really neat.

Philly Icarus

Got our 2026 nature calendar from Meg Lemieur and @sarahmackattack.bsky.social, and it is amazing. Beautiful, funny, interesting, and even emotionally moving. When the year is over, we are going to be saving many of these pictures. Highly recommend.

With Microsoft launching a new AI-powered Clippy, I'm going to double down on this joke.

TIL Wegmans has a cheese-aging facility containing 7 large rooms, each replicating the climate of a different European cheese cave. They partner with cheesemakers (many local to their region), then make unique collaborative products with their aging process. www.wegmans.com/cheese-caves

Great idea, and remember, the best thing to give a food bank is money. They can buy groceries cheaper than you can, and they know their inventory and needs better. If you have extra food items to donate, by all means, but don't go buy things specifically for a food bank. Give them the $ directly!

Me, pulling out my fancy chef's knife to chop vegetables:

Every town needs a blogblog.

Not to be that guy, but you can get them for a third this price at Costco.

How does everybody feel about this?

Just found out my tailor planted a bomb in his own shop as part of a ruse to avoid an actual assassination attempt, so you can't convince me that crime isn't up.

Nobody will get this reference, but serious Sleve McDichael vibes from GPT-5.

Rule of Claw

LLM usage in academic literature reviews will be an absolute bonanza for authors who have zero citations due to academia's strong bias towards papers that exist.

Pittsburgh seems to be on pace to quite accidentally have their 2nd successful "defund the police" movement. (The 1st being when they stopped making police do medical transport and adopted the model of a local nonprofit to scale up ambulance and EMT services, which we know now is way better.)

I wrote up a protocol for running art + activism events like Climate Change Crafting Night. We need more community, & we need people feeling empowered to take action and not just curl up in a despondent ball. Help them find the energy with art & community! Protocol: docs.google.com/document/d/1...

Hey Philly! If you like art & the environment please repost this! On Wednesday we’re getting together for climate change crafting night! We’ll learn about actions all of us can advocate for to slow climate change, then make some art to share that information with others! RSVP here lu.ma/edq742p1

A lot of things have been terrible since March, 2020, and while I know correlation is not causation, it's pretty interesting that that's exactly when McDonald's stopped serving all day breakfast.

Maybe people would be more likely to wear a mask or take other precautions if they knew that "post-COVID alcohol intolerance" was one of the possible outcomes.

Clippy walked so Copilot could also walk.

OK, here's my movie pitch. Star Trek: The Hangover, in which the cast of Lower Decks minus Boimler wakes up after a night of drinking Romulan ale and has to backtrack through their previous day to find out where he is.

Not to brag, but I've been complimented on my veins twice in the last two months. #PostYourWins

I've heard it both ways, and they're both perfectly fine philosophies for guiding environmental policy.

I had a question about Brita pitchers and somehow wound up on TikTok, where I "learned" the following things about water filtration: -Brita takes out too much; you want a pitcher that adds things -If you're smart, you'll add an extra fluoride filter -Being cute is a medical qualification

Found my new email auto-reply.

In #Philly news, the sanitation workers are still on strike, and LL Cool J (scheduled to headline the local Independence Day concert) has joined them. "“I’m not gonna cross a picket line and perform for money when people are hurting,” the rapper said" www.inquirer.com/news/ll-cool...

"Philadelphia weirdos are some of the best weirdos available" is an evergreen comment that applies to so many (possibly all) areas of life.

Happy Canada Day to all who celebrate!

SEPTA right now...

You should also BE at least one of these people for your friends. (If you need a bear, possum, manul, or kakapo person, feel free to say hi or just drop your stuff in the replies.)

Seems useful to have.

If you've got a story to tell, help journalists help the broader public understand the implications of these policy choices.

Great photo of a bird from a photographer with many great photos of birds. Maybe if more people followed this account we'd get more bird photos? My wife doesn't think so, though, because "bird photographers have to spend all their time crouching in a bush waiting for a nuthatch or something."

Idea: Duolingo module for diner slang.

I once nearly collided with then-Mayor of Philadelphia Michael Nutter as he was coming out of a dry cleaner. On a completely separate occasion he lightly made fun of my coworkers and me for all wearing the same color shirt to an event where he was speaking.

Everyone, go talk to Mark Cuban about healthcare. AI is a mixed bag with too much nuance to fit into a skeet, but Cost Plus Drugs is amazing and arguably the best thing Mr. Cuban has ever done. (And if you don't know what I'm talking about, your day is about to be brightened with one Google search.)

With every member of ACIP (the CDC's vaccine advisory committee of experts, which has until, now, set recommendations and guidance) getting fired this week, let's turn to some good vaccine news to remind us that vaccines are modern miracles, saving countless humans from death and disability.

Very envious of Toad right now.

Their data show that people think philanthropy will fund the gaps lost by federal funding for science. OH. NO. We know this is extremely unlikely. The gap is simply too large. People overestimate how big philanthropy is.

The flip side of this is: imagine how much lower taxes could be if we started building the kinds of higher density neighborhoods for which there's already very strong demonstrated demand.

Excuse me, but I am 40 and currently watching Star Trek: Deep Space Nine in a suburb of Philadelphia, thank you very much.

I wish I had done this, but fortunately I still remember my favorite comment verbatim: "If this whole research career thing doesn't work out, he could be a great talk show host. I'd watch."

Turns out N95s are great at a lot of things.

As if things aren't dystopian enough, now Peacock is paying Instacart to advertise for them in push notifications.

Can someone make a browser extension that automatically adds " -ai" to the end of all my Google searches? The combined environmental impact and annoyance of me forgetting is starting to add up.