Never melt better
In an unwritten, unannounced policy change, Louisiana's Dept. of Health is forbidding employees from promoting Covid, flu, or mpox vaccines. / NPR
Photos of daily life for the Palestinian people—"before all hell broke loose"—by Adam Rouhana. / VICE
An interactive exploration of data from the Fort Pulaski tide gauge, 15 miles east of Savannah, Ga., where sea levels have been tracked for 90 years. / The Washington Post [+]
How Peter Fischli and David Weiss made a snowman that's remained unmelted since 1987—it uses excess energy from a German power plant. / Artnet
"We are being slowly erased, but instead of passing peacefully into the vale with the ebb and flow of soothing waves, we are being actively replaced by garbage." On link rot. / The Verge
As a sort of performance art, a developer trained an AI on a "grab bag of inadvisable data" and unleashed it on X, where it launched a memecoin and made $1.5 million. / WIRED
See also: "After twelve years of writing about bitcoin, here's how my thinking has changed." / Moneyness
Good AI: Generate your own weird Victorian Christmas card. / Glif
Bad AI: When AI won't show what Texas Trash looks like, it's going to give you appetizing images of Meow Mix instead. / Favorite Flavor Recipes
Though if you'd like a real recipe for Texas Trash—a holiday standby centered around Chex cereal—here's a classic, part of a trove of recipe boxes saved from estate sales. / Yesterdish
"Oh, but these marshmallows were simmered in copper kettles, you tell me. And in Denver." The 2024 hater's guide to the Williams-Sonoma catalog. / Defector
What happens when reproductions of ancient artifacts are so accurate that we can no longer even feel the difference? / Internal exile
"Is this some kind of Producers thing, where you're trying to create a flop?" A producer attempts to pitch The Nutcracker. / McSweeney's
See also: From Wendy Carlos to Migos, the coolest songs that sample The Nutcracker. / Grace Spelman Music Project
Seven playlists for different types of holiday cheer. Also, Christmas music that won't make you murder someone. / Fluxblog, Spotify
"When you're 11, you're at the mercy of everything: parents, teachers, even TV schedules. Most of all, in 1987, I was at the mercy of supply and demand." A Christmas wish for an NES. / The Barbed Wire
For the person who has everything, give them a new obsession: a new daily wordless game. / Quizmoji
If you enjoy this newsletter, please become a Sustaining Member today!
🎁 Free links to paywalled sites are marked with a [+].
✔️ Got a correction or a link we should consider? Email us directly or reply to this newsletter.
Your headlines are sourced and composed by Rosecrans Baldwin and Andrew Womack (☜), Monday through Friday. View this edition and the latest headlines at TMN.