Biden's cabinet had a combined net worth of around $120 million, which is absolutely dwarfed by the $20 billion net worth of Trump's presumptive cabinet. / The Intercept

Spencer Ackerman: What starts as temporary, emergency measures tend to become fixed in the firmament of American governance and normalized. / Forever Wars

See also: A running list of Trump's planned executive orders, actions, proclamations, and legislation. / Politico

Scientists are worrying over threats posed by manufacturing bacteria that are mirror images of natural ones. / Undark Magazine

Previously: Built with a reverse set of amino acids and sugars, synthetic "mirror cells" pose an "unprecedented risk" for all life, scientists warn. / Smithsonian Magazine

See also: Photographs of uncanny objects by Joyce Lin Blur. / Colossal

A theory called "predictive processing" says that we don't experience the world as it is, but as we predict it to be. / Vox

Should children really learn about getting rich? "It conjures a fantasy world where people who 'deserve' it get rich and those who don't simply disappear." / The Cut

Chinese traditional medicine is now a $60 billion-a-year industry—and cows' gallstones have become the must-have item. / The Wall Street Journal [+]

Some sound advice for any people in Southern California worried about air quality. / Torched

TMN recommends: This Friday—for 24 hours only—you can stream the generative documentary film Eno. / Oh You Pretty Things

See also: A very cool interactive interpretation of Eno and Peter Schmidt's Oblique Strategies. / It's Simply a Matter of Work

NASA astronauts will search for life that can thrive in harsh environments by checking if there's any clinging to the exterior of the International Space Station. / Gizmodo

See also: "You never know true beauty until you see Earth from space, or true terror until you hear someone knocking on the space station door from outside." / Clickhole

Over 100 medal winners at last summer's Paris Olympics have complained their medals are crumbling. / Semafor

A round-up of President Trump's first day back in office, playing "ping-pong between the serious and the stunning." / The Wall Street Journal [+]

Trump's political urgency may be slowed "by a more languid Congress." / Semafor

The United States military debates possible deployment on US soil. / Politico

Molly White: No, Trump didn't make $50 billion from his memecoin. / [citation needed]

Democrats have in key ways helped expedite the formation of the tech oligarchy they are now decrying. / Blood in the Machine

Each time you see a targeted ad online, your personal information is exposed to thousands of advertisers and data brokers through a process called "real-time bidding." / EFF

See also: "FTC Surveillance Pricing Study Indicates Wide Range of Personal Data Used to Set Individualized Consumer Prices." / Federal Trade Commission

Some thoughts on how to "escape the algorithm." / escape the algorithm

Schools are using an AI simulation of Anne Frank that urges kids not to blame anyone for the Holocaust. / The__Byte

Related: A conversation with a virtual Anne Frank. / Bluesky

Trend experts attempt to predict the late 2020s. "Sports and wellness have not reached their apex." / The Trend Report 

A new sport takes off in the Bay Area, involving tricycles. / The San Francisco Chronicle

Fire rebuilding in Southern California may be on a collision course with Trump's immigration crackdowns. / The Los Angeles Times

From Los Angeles, some thoughts about how the past is not as easy to recover and rebuild after disaster strikes. / National Geographic

What happens when someone in a crowded LA movie theater yells "rape" at the screen? / Meditations in an Emergency

A 2016 documentary about David Lynch is free for anyone to watch through the end of January. / The Criterion Channel

The CDC is urging labs to accelerate testing patients hospitalized with flu to determine whether they have seasonal influenza or bird flu. / NBC News

The future of the West Coast is "hydroclimate whiplash," where, for example, mudslides are the result of wildfires followed by intense storms. / Defector

See also: In vast numbers, more homeowners who are eligible to do so are dropping their home insurance policies, even as climate risk increases. / The New York Times [+]

Imperialists who say America should annex Greenland or Canada also envision a world that's going down in flames anyway, so they may as well get rich off it. / Thinking about...

"In the spring, when it rained, I thought the rain was good. But it isn't good." Colm Tóibín on Gary Indiana's personal library, newly arrived in LA and lost to wildfire. / London Review of Books

Looking back at The Last Whole Earth Catalog: "How did all these good ecological intentions linked to tools go so wrong?" / Dada Drummer Almanach

Unrelated: "Hey man, didn't you just give the Presidential Medal of Freedom to a private equity billionaire?" It's looting season in America. / How Things Work

Reviewing a phone Interview you recorded with David Lynch only to hear dead air where his voice is supposed to be is about as Lynchian as it gets. / The Ringer

When David Lynch decided to live "the art life," he began a journey that left few creative mediums unexplored. / Welcome to Hell World

See also: From last August, "The Sound World of David Lynch." / The Wire

A 100-year-old piano virtuoso is the last surviving pupil of Sergei Rachmaninov. / Classic FM

TMN's Andrew Womack on the year in under-appreciated albums. / Andrew Womack's Newsletter

Younger fans empathize with how Joan Baez's toxic relationship with Bob Dylan is depicted in A Complete Unknown: "It's currently happening to girls everywhere." / The Guardian

See also: Bob Dylan joins TikTok days before it may be banned. / Consequence

On living in the West Village today: "We were essentially living in a museum—self-consciously, nostalgically, hopefully." / First Things

"I mean, yeah, you can have your 'story' about why you're on a walker." Catching up with a guy who had his legs surgically lengthened by three inches. / Heavies

From the archives: Photographs from a cross-country trip to document streets named after Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. / The Morning News

Qatar, Egypt, and the United States announce a cease-fire deal, though Israel has yet to convene ministers to discuss it. / Reuters

Ilan Goldenberg: The most realistic scenario is that Hamas and Israel paper over their differences on post-conflict governance. / The Contrarian

Fires continue to burn in Los Angeles, and conspiracy theories continue to emerge. / The Guardian

Unrelated: "The impulse to do a smash and grab with one's audience, to retreat to some precarious platform or another, to exit the polity, is overwhelming." / The Late Review

LA's rebuilding will rely heavily on immigrants. / The Washington Post [+]

Also impacted by the fires: The livelihoods of nannies, housekeepers, and gardeners. / The Los Angeles Times

Meanwhile, so-called wellness influencers are hawking tinctures, detox products, and "parasite cleanses." / Mother Jones

The FDA's new nutrition labels may push the food industry to get healthier. / STAT

President Biden's green jobs program, the American Climate Corps, is now done. / Grist

Abortion rights supporters prevailed on ballot measures in seven of the 10 states this year, but matters may come down to judges. / KFF Health News

Dutch psychiatrists are seeing an upswing in requests for medical assistance in dying on psychiatric grounds. / Undark Magazine

"Russian roulette" may have been invented by Russian officers, but a Swiss author made it famous. / Swiss National Museum

If you wanted to store data for a century, where would you even start? / Harvard Law School Library Innovation Lab

For your weekly wanderlust, some photos and a report from a four-day bike trip through the Namib desert. / The Radavist

A new coffee machine draws water from the air. / Techradar

Yoon Suk Yeol becomes South Korea's first sitting president to be arrested. / BBC News

Stories from inside "Shein village," factories that supply the world's largest fast fashion retailer. / BBC News

Spain has experienced a migration of outsiders thanks to its golden visa program, which will expire in April. / Robb Report

Qantas delays several flights due to falling debris from SpaceX rocket launches. / Semafor

Donald Trump's former personal lawyer is said to be on "a glidepath" to becoming the next attorney general. / Politico

Unrelated: Apparently everyone who works on Capitol Hill drinks Celsius. / The Washington Post [+]

A profile of a Los Angeles man who spent years helping the homeless, who is now homeless. Meanwhile, how to spot GoFundMe scams. / The Los Angeles Times

Remembrances from growing up in Pacific Palisades, where fire was always a threat. / Mike Industries

Watch: An excellent monologue from Jimmy Kimmel about his Hollywood return. / YouTube

"I found this new encounter with social media surprisingly heartening." A man who's been off social media since 2016 downloads TikTok. / The New Yorker

Girls have been found to be losing ground in reading, math, and science "at a troubling rate." / The Wall Street Journal [+]

Some names for reasons why knowing things is hard. / Book and Sword

An AI app for creating nonconsensual nude images is getting most of its traffic from Meta platforms. / 404 Media

Casey Newton: Meta just flipped the switch that prevents misinformation from spreading in the United States. / Platformer

Zeynep Tufekci: Zuckerberg's macho posturing looks a lot like cowardice. / The New York Times [+]

The last surviving pupil of Sergei Rachmaninoff turns 100. / Classic FM

The National Weather Service issues a "particularly dangerous situation" warning for Southern California. / NPR

Since 2021, state authorities have declined to fund wildfire prevention efforts in communities devastated by the Palisades fire. / The Los Angeles Times

"Altadena Girls," a recovery fund for LA teenagers, is run by a 14-year-old whose school burned down. / TIME

See also: In national parks, "resource advisors" on fire crews protect sensitive habitats and cultural resources. / High Country News

Beijing is discussing selling TikTok's US operations to Elon Musk. / The Wall Street Journal [+]

American economists worry that nobody in government listens to them anymore. / The New York Times [+]

The US Army achieved its recruitment target last year for the first time in a decade—thanks to women. / Military.com

Global electric-vehicle sales rose 25% to a record 17 million cars in 2024. / Semafor

Things we learned about large language models over the course of last year. / Simon Willison's Weblog

Health and development experts pick buzzwords for 2025: "techquity," "enchantment," "belonging." / Goats and Soda

Themes expected to define the art market include gallery collaborations and crypto. / artsy 

Related: A judge ends a man's 11-year quest to dig up a landfill and recover $765 million in Bitcoin. / Ars Technia

Unrelated: The CEO behind a song-generating AI says most people don't enjoy most of the time they spend making music. / Futurism

From November, "The Silurian hypothesis" won the title of "most interesting hypothesis most likely to be false" in science. / Pacificklaus

What it was like being trapped on a train in the Sierra Nevada in 1952. / Smithsonian Magazine

Fans of the new vampire film Nosferatu aren't happy about young people laughing during scenes not intended to be funny. / Daily Dot

There are now at least 24 dead in the Los Angeles wildfires, with increasing winds bringing the potential this week for "explosive fire growth." / Los Angeles Times

"We're feeling the magnitude of shared suffering." TMN's Rosecrans Baldwin on the injustice of the LA fires, and the injustices that will surely follow. / GQ

Southern California is dangerously dry right now, and maps tell the story of just how parched the region is. / The Conversation

See also: How to build your own air purifier. / NPR

"Perhaps it wasn't Facebook's fact-checking systems that had a liberal bias, but reality." Elizabeth Lopatto endures three hours of Rogan and Zuckerberg. / The Verge

It's easy to remember the internet of old as always good, but it's more accurate to see it as a pendulum: "At first it disappoints you, but then it gives you hope again." / El País

Recent Gallup data show most US full-time workers want to change jobs this year, a third plan to quit no matter what, and "employees' life evaluations have reached a record low." / User Mag

See also: Is HR your friend? Probably not if they have to choose between you and your boss. / The New York Times [+]

Elon Musk's Boring Company is constructing a 68-mile tunnel system under Las Vegas—because it's privately funded, the project is moving ahead with little government oversight. / ProPublica

"It felt like an act of service." On the unspoken solidarity of flashing your brights to warn other drivers of a speed trap. / Texas Monthly

In an analysis of 160 protein powders, 47% were found to exceed safe amounts of heavy metals, including arsenic, cadmium, lead, and mercury. / Axios

See also: An exhaustive list of the yogurts, coffees—and even water purification tablets—that contain surprising amounts of plastic chemicals. / PlasticList

Walter White's house is up for sale. The owners lived there throughout the filming of Breaking Bad, and had to deal with an occasional pizza thrown on their roof—here's the listing. / Neatorama, Walter White's House

"Each book prescription is tailored to help clients understand emotions, gain insight, and discover new perspectives." On bibliotherapy as a means to treat depression. / Dazed

Jimmy Carter loved John Lennon's "Imagine," which was played at Carter's funeral and is hardly the anti-faith anthem critics try to make it out to be. / The Nation

Marking the beginning of a new phase of life and work by selling off a treasured eight-track collection. / Here's Where the Story Ends

A rare alignment of all the planets in the solar system will happen at the end of February. / ScienceAlert

Even as calm winds are providing firefighters in Los Angeles a chance to get ahead of the wildfires, forecasts show more rounds of wind are on the way. / Accuweather

As bad as the stress is right now for Angelenos, erroneous emergency alerts urging evacuations are only adding to the trauma. / Los Angeles Times

The Eaton Fire has devastated historic Altadena, displacing many Black families and destroying legacies. / BET

Joan Didion, 1989: "Anyone who has ever spent fire season in Los Angeles knows some of its special language." / The New Yorker

After hearing arguments this morning, the Supreme Court appears likely to uphold the TikTok ban, requiring ByteDance to divest or shut down the app in the US by Jan. 19. / Axios

See also: Local news just invented yet another fake TikTok trend: the door-kicking challenge. / User Mag

How the TikTok ban in the US would actually work: New installs of the app would be prohibited, effectively ending bug fixes and slowly eroding the app. / WIRED

Trump's advisers are looking for a public health emergency that can be used to justify plans for invoking restrictions on border migration. / The New York Times [+]

"As the argument might go, the threats that such non-physical violent acts pose are not only dire but also constantly imminent. Hence, every act of resistance is a matter of self-defense." Why did Luigi Mangione claim self defense? / Duke Center for Firearms Law

Canada is finally recognizing the life-saving work of Indigenous people, who for centuries have often been the first to help when disaster strikes British Columbia's coast. / Hakai Magazine

The science behind why bad sleep impedes the brain's ability to discard intrusive thoughts. / Scientific American

See also: A new study shows drinking coffee in the morning is associated with a lower risk of cardiovascular disease. / The Independent

"It could help with grief and death anxiety, and, you know, hopefully help people treat each other a little better." The scientists studying life after death. / The New York Times [+]

A history of women using thread—such as in embroidery, knitting, and crochet—as a medium for resistance. / Aeon

You must continue clicking for stimulation. / Neal.fun

California Governor Gavin Newsom says "there's no fire season—it's fire year." / The Los Angeles Times

A climate reporter in Pacific Palisades relates what it was like to lose her home. Similar: watching your home burn on a Ring camera. / New York Magazine, Curbed

Bandsplain's Yasi Salek pays emotional tribute to her burned house in Altadena. / Instagram

From 2022, a profile of the billionaire couple who use 150 billion gallons of California's water each year. / More Perfect Union

Homeowners in risky parts of California can't obtain adequate coverage as insurers flee the state. / Bloomberg 

Some of the world's biggest shipping nations back a flat tax on the industry's carbon emissions. / Semafor

"I knew nothing much about geopolitics before I left home." Interview with a war photographer. / China Underground

Remembering the panic over "political correctness" as a major American export in the 1980s and 1990s. / Slate

People in the US, UK, and Australia say they've noticed a rise in "flaking." / The Guardian

At the end of December, nearly 23 percent of people tested positive for norovirus at a sampling of clinical laboratories around the US. / Vox

Louisa Thomas explains why Magnus Carlsen, the best chess player in the world, got in trouble for wearing jeans to a tournament. / The New Yorker

Related: Jimmy Carter projected authenticity through denim. / The New York Times [+]

Unrelated: Photographs of Georgia O'Keefe at home. / The Atlantic

Migrants who successfully reach the United States use TikTok to document their new lives. / The New Yorker

A new cache of documents reveals how the CIA monitored Latino civil rights pioneers. / axios

The Heritage Foundation plans to "identify and target" editors at Wikipedia who it says are "abusing their position." / The Forward

In North Carolina, Democrats say they're experiencing "a nonviolent version of January 6." / Mother Jones
 
Wildfires spread through LA's Pacific Palisades, Altadena, Pasadena, and Sylmar. / The Los Angeles Times

"I really think this is a precursor for genocide." A former safety employee responds to Meta's new policies on speech. / Platformer 

An essay recalls the early dot-com days in San Francisco. "It seemed like everyone—in the Bay Area especially—was trying to get a piece of the action." / User Mag

Conspiracy theories swirl around the death of a software enegineer at Open AI. / The San Francisco Standard

Gisèle Pelicot doesn't see the men who raped her as aberrations, but as products of a "macho and patriarchal society." / The London Review of Books

New lithium discoveries have been made in both the US and China. / Semafor

Divers will soon move into an underwater shelter meant to be "a stepping stone to a more permanent modular habitat system." / IEEE Spectrum

Unrelated: 102,343 stuffed toys descend on an ice rink in a moment of "sweet, cuddly mayhem." / BBC News

A "hyper-realistic" robotic puppy is meant to comfort dementia patients. Meanwhile: a yakitori grill that resembles a toaster. / dezeen, Spoon & Tamago

Coming soon, a robot cat that will blow on your coffee. / TechCrunch

See also: After ruining the macchiato, Starbucks introduces a gigantic cortado. / Sprudge

With all the doomsday headlines, why continue to drink alcohol? "I enjoy doing dangerous things, and there's nothing more dangerous than defying fate." / Trying!

An Italian village forbids its residents from becoming ill—to highlight the country's decimated healthcare system. / BBC News

Unhoused people explain what it's like when city workers trash their belongings. / ProPublica

New and ongoing programs may be solving Los Angeles's biggest problems: traffic and homelessness. / The Atlantic [+]

A man was trapped in a Waymo while circling LA's airport, apparently causing him to miss his flight. / The Los Angeles Times

Unrelated: A new study finds California's squirrels beginning to eat other rodents. / CNN

Meta abandons fact-checking on Facebook and Instagram likely as a way to please President-elect Trump. / Kottke

Highlights from a trove of documents sent by a mole inside right-wing militias. / ProPublica

Ross Rosenfeld says it's a weird time in American politics to be a libertarian. / The New Republic

The Pentagon apparently tried to produce content last year with MrBeast, Kelly Clarkson, and Guy Fieri. / Rolling Stone

"Where does Taylor Swift meet the mythic?" An interview with TMN favorite Jamieson Webster, author and psychoanalyst. / Trebuchet

American dudes are visiting bookstores to read crime novels connected to hunting and fishing. / The Wall Street Journal [+]

A list of the most popular gifts received by Gen Z for Christmas this year: digital cameras, Ugg boots, peptide lip treatment. / After School

Headline of the week? "People Are Eating Their Christmas Trees, and You Can Too." / VICE

See also: A website to send yourself a letter that'll arrive on the next New Year's Eve. / Letter to 2025

"Technically, all pandemic flus start as bird flus." Everything you never wanted to know about H5N1. / Astral Codex Ten

Following the user exodus from X, Russia's "Matryoshka" disinformation network heads to Bluesky, posting videos to undermine US support of Ukraine. / The Insider

A violent criminal hacking ring has been targeting an unexpected wealth of non-public data: U-Haul user accounts. / 404 Media

"The popular vote result was almost entirely a collapse in support for Harris and Democrats, not an increase in support for Trump and MAGA." America didn't swing right, according to a new electoral analysis. / Weekend Reading

From 2021: If war correspondents reported on the MAGA riots in the same way they reported on coup attempts in other countries. / McSweeney's

Perhaps whether we are free or fated, morality and politics, science and medicine, art and literature will all go their merry or melancholy ways, unaffected. New books on free will. / The Hedgehog Review

A new documentary and book chronicle how New Wave music played a vital role for Vietnamese Americans growing up in Orange County in the 1980s. / Hyperallergic

Thanks to Illinois's newest and largest solar farm, all of Chicago's city buildings now run on 100% clean power. / Grist

When a geologist fought with cartographers over how to accurately shade relief maps in order to account for natural sunlight. / Swiss National Museum

How to ditch Duolingo and actually learn Japanese: First, you're going to need a grammar guide. / Unseen Japan

See also: Why Japanese cities are truly awesome. / Noahpinion

Ana Gavrilovska's favorite jazz albums of 2024. / Sick Sad Motherslug

An advent-style calendar of everything entering the public domain in 2025. / The Public Domain Review

Where every line is exposition: a very Hallmark supercut Christmas. / YouTube

"Of those 200 casualties, only 10 were confirmed as known Hamas operatives." Interviews with active-duty IDF soldiers about what's really happening in Gaza. (Content warning) / Haaretz

See also: 10 conflicts to watch in 2025. / International Crisis Group

As Biden departs office, a federal appeals court strikes down the FCC's authority to impose net neutrality rules. / The Verge

Right-wing attacks on Wikipedia follow a familiar playbook—from cherry-picked claims of bias, to questionable demands for balance, to attacking the entity's right to exist. / Citation Needed

When viral memes of drones doing amazing things are really just demonstrations of military capabilities. / Joshua Citarella's Newsletter

Climate change and increased Arctic development increase the risk for the thaw and spread of microbes that are more diverse and complex than the viruses we know. / Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

This week, Australia's new climate legislation takes effect, requiring business owners to disclose their emissions and deliver plans for how they'll approach future risks. / ABC

See also: "We are often pushed to equate 'climate action' with buying different stuff, when what we really need is to step off the treadmill altogether." / Slate

Mexico says it's creating a phone app for migrants to alert relatives and the nearest consulate in case they're detained by US immigration. / Axios

The Year That Was and Wasn't: We asked some of our favorite journalists, writers, and thinkers: What were the most important events of 2024, and what were the least? / The Morning News

See also: Links galore in 2024's Year in Weird and Stupid Futures. / Read Max

"In the search for the invisible components of the universe, dark matter reached a discouraging milestone." The year in physics. / Quanta

Compared to women, do American men really read less fiction? "It doesn't look like anyone has actually fact-checked this question in quite a while." / Vox

"A typical shot frames two characters, waist up, in profile as the camera slowly dollies across them, a slow and constant whir meant to inject motion into an otherwise inert frame." Why Netflix looks like that. / n+1

In 1900, a tinkerer set out to improve the light bulb's illumination abilities, and accidentally ended up inventing the snow globe. / Smithsonian Magazine

Tis the season... for a list of causes favored by TMN and friends. We'll see you again on January 3, 2025. Peace.

The Freedom to Read Foundation protects the public's right to access information and materials in libraries without limitations. / Freedom to Read Foundation

Survival International campaigns for the collective rights of Indigenous, tribal, and uncontacted peoples. / Survival International

GiveDirectly enables donors to send money to people in poverty with no strings attached. / GiveDirectly

Augusta Heritage Center brings music, art, and culture to students across West Virginia through summer camps and in-school programs. / Augusta Heritage Center

Raising awareness about the maternal health crisis—because so many deaths from childbirth complications are preventable. / Every Mother Counts

Supporting reproductive justice for marginalized communities. / Sister Song

We all know this one? Fighting the fight against gun violence. / Everytown for Gun Safety

United Palestine Appeal has a focus this year on medicine, food, and water. / United Palestine Appeal

See also: The Palestine Red Crescent Society. / PRCS

The ICLC is the only provider of legal services on Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles. / Inner City Law Center

Community Support Services provides training, life skills, and respite services for disabled individuals and their families in Chicago. / Community Support Services

The Chicago Food Depository distributes food and provides services to a network of food pantries, soup kitchens, and homeless shelters. / Chicago Food Depository

Dogs: They're the best! Wags and Walks rescues and rehabilitates animals that often get overlooked in shelters. / Wags and Walks

Related: Old Friends Senior Dog Sanctuary ensures older dogs get all the love and medical care they need. / OFSDS

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

Jamelle Bouie: It's time the Democrats take up the mantle of an opposition party, if they even understand what that means. / The New York Times [+]

Texas Gov. Abbott has purchased billboards in Mexico and Central America warning migrants they risk being raped if they cross the border. / San Antonio Current

Texas has been trying to build a border wall since 2021, but resistance from landowners has so far limited construction to just 6% of the length of the border. / The Texas Tribune

See also: After removing the Bible from school libraries as part of a ban on sexually explicit materials, a Texas school district reversed course once the state intervened. / KVII

The New European's person of the year is Gisèle Pelicot, who has "changed the rules, reversed the language, and given women permission to reject shame." / The New European

"An entity claiming to be United Healthcare is sending bogus copyright claims to internet platforms to get Luigi Mangione fan art taken off the internet." / 404 Media

See also: According to alleged editorial chats, the New York Times has been telling staff to "dial back" photos of Luigi Mangione. / Hyperallergic

Earlier this year, the Biden administration extended Medicaid and CHIP to cover some traditional Native American healing practices. / Cronkite News

"Questioning the science is seen as invalidating people's trauma." What the most famous book about trauma gets wrong. / Mother Jones

Researchers are using AI to detect and study bird calls, changing the ways we track, understand, and protect migratory bird species. / MIT Technology Review

Google Street View captured the moment a man was loading what is purportedly a body into the back of a car, helping police crack a murder case. / BBC News

The authors of a study on black plastic cookware acknowledge a math error that overstated the amount of toxins that can leach into food, but still conclude the utensils pose a danger. / Ars Technica

Some online casinos have set up shop on Roblox, where children as young as 12 have been gambling using their in-game currency. / Sky News

The first-known rip of Yukio Ninagawa's 1984 Medea performance "took about 6 months and at least 3 destroyed VCRs to do correctly." / Internet Archive

See also: "I feel like the Coffee Mate decision makers really took away the wrong message from these morality plays." On the White Lotus + Coffee Mate collab. / Sprudge

A fascinating math explainer of the Moon. / Bartosz Ciechanowski

The Department of Homeland Security says China, Russia, Iran, and Israel are spying on Americans through their phones. / 404 Media

Cybersecurity officials are worried about Trump's transition team relying on private emails that can be hacked. / Politico

An eye-opening look at how and why right-wing trolls are trying to blame school shootings on trans people. / Shatter Zone

Nicholas O. Stephanopoulos: One of the unnoticed themes of the recent election was our depolarization. / The Washington Post [+]

Ever since Covid, "crunchy" has gone more individualistic and right-wing, and some old-school crunchy folks are bowing out. / The New York Times [+]

See also: How many Republicans know that RFK is an environmental lawyer? (Poll source.) / Bluesky, Quinnipiac

California declares a state of emergency over bird flu. / CBS News

Today's bankers are less inclined to cocaine, more to Adderall and other ADHD drugs. / The Wall Street Journal [+] 

Are today's inventions less interesting than those made during the Industrial Revolution? No, "but the focus of innovation has shifted." / New Cartographies

An argument that "timeless style" is nonsense. / Blackbird Spyplane

A tool searches works of literature for words that never appear in their texts. / Bewitched

Unrelated: A short novella by Fyodor Dostoevsky becomes a social media craze. / The Guardian

Among the year's worst food and dining trends: croissants that look like they were designed "by AI rather than human hands." / Eater

Photographs by Kelly Burgess explore the influences of Puritanical folklore on contemporary New England. / Booooooom

Home foundations in New England are found to be crumbling due to a mineral called pyrrhotite. / Undark Magazine

See also: A personal essay about a sunken neighborhood in LA. / Zocalo Public Square

A roundup of license plate numbers rejected in Indiana this year—including, yes, HWK TUAH. / Fox59

Deforestation of the Amazon in Brazil has been halved once again, thanks to president Lula da Silva. / Sustainability by numbers

New studies find our skin can generate antibodies, independent of the rest of our immune system. / Nature

Today's theories about the shape of the universe are thought to be "almost certainly wrong." / Port

As linked here last month (over here), the fall of Syria's Bashar al-Assad has overturned the Middle East's most profitable drug network. / The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal [+]

Palestinians explain how they struggle every day to find food for their kids. / Al Jazeera

See also: "The story of UNRWA indexes a different kind of war, one enacted through laws and lists which mobilize a politics of ban, sanction, and punishment on targeted entities." / Phenomenal World

For NBC's Tonight Show, social media distribution has become the new cultural currency. / The Hollywood Reporter

Vibes are perhaps "both bone-deep and ephemeral nonsense," but they're also replacing facts. / The Guardian

What it's like to stage Hamlet inside Grand Theft Auto. / The Face

Unrelated: Remembering a Sony Playstation created to celebrate Canada Day. / Obsolete Sony's Newsletter

Honda and Nissan are contemplating a merger to create the world's third-largest auto group. / CNBC

"How can something so simple be so mysterious?" Philip Sherburne's favorite albums of the year. / Futurism Restated

In case you missed it, we recently dropped the short list for the 2025 Rooster competition, presented by Field Notes. / The Tournament of Books, Field Notes

Some thoughts on reconsidering Cormac McCarthy's work in light of recent news. / Lithub

Some thoughts on Elvis Presley's worst songs. / The Oxford American

Some thoughts on gardens painted in December light. / Still Sketching

Public art installations in Oregon are being attacked by googly eyes. / Smithsonian Magazine

Ukraine claims the killiing of Russia's head of chemical, biological, and radiological weapons with a bomb attack in Moscow. / The Kyiv Independent

After many reforms, Argentina exits its deep recession. / CNN

Executives in the billionaire-protection industry say business is up. / Bloomberg [+]

Related: A brief history of superyachts—and how they explain the world. / Mother Jones

There are 700 million acres of forest in the continental United States. Of that, 40 percent is owned by private individuals. / Yale University Press

Five medical breakthroughs from 2024—preventive food allergy medication, schizophrenia treatment, etc. / Scientific Discovery

Nearly half of American teenagers say they are online "constantly." / The Associated Press
 
Starbucks is said to be "the new Venmo" for Gen Alpha teenagers. / Fast Company

Our favorite online game of the week? Ending a microwave-cooking time closest to zero. / Vercel.app

Anthony Lane on the history of risotto. / The New Yorker

A very long, "comprehensive-ish" guide to Chinese cookery. / Chinese Cooking Demystified

Related: "Ignore the wine snobs, granny sherry is delicious." / Drinking culture

A round-up of design-driven game designers figuring out how to balance aesthetics with playability. / It's Nice That

An essay about the life of professional wrestling by a wrestler. "I think about multitudes." / The Players' Tribune