Popular culture, culture that seems to spread beyond more than three people
Magnet Chess is an addictive web game where you drop different size and strength magnetic on to a board. You attempt to dispose of your pieces within 15 seconds without causing two or more pieces from connecting. First person to get rid of all their pieces wins or the first person to reach zero (0) loses.
As you level up, you receive different shaped pieces and differ board configurations that drive different strategies for placement.
Five years ago, the onset of Covid cracked a schism in time. CNN goes long, detailing stories of iconic photos from those early days.
“ No professional photographers ever have their photos on Wikipedia, because they want to make money from the photos,” said Jay Dixit, a writing professor and amateur Wikipedia photographer. “It’s actually the norm that most celebrities have poor photos on Wikipedia, if they have photos at all. It’s just some civilian at an airport being like, ‘Oh my god, it’s Pete Davidson,’ click with an iPhone.”
Dixit is part of a team of volunteer photographers, called WikiPortraits, that’s trying to fix that problem.
Life hits different after 40, even for princesses. Edith Zimmerman illustrates the covers, such as Silver Linings: Embracing Your Naturally Aging Hair by Rapunzel.
From Phil Lewis: A School District Rejected a Black Author’s Book About Tulsa for Its Curriculum. Then the Community Decided to Act
After the school board voted against adding Pink’s book to the Pine-Richland School District’s ninth-grade curriculum, the community decided it was time to act.
Macmillan, the publisher of “Angel of Greenwood,” sent Pine-Richland students 100 copies of the book to distribute to the community. Pink also traveled from her small town outside of Birmingham, Alabama, to come to Richland to meet with the community that had so fiercely supported her work.
“The supporters in the community were relentless in making sure I got there. Some people put in $5, $10, even $600. I waived my fee, but the community said, ‘Absolutely not. We’re going to pay you.’ I’m a single mother, so I had to bring my babies with me,” she said. “They said, ‘we’re going to pay for all your way.’
We need more communities to push back on book bans.
Dimension 20 is a show where Dungeons and Dragons plays out for an audience in real time. They recently sold out Madison Square Garden.
t’s a frosty January night in New York City, but Madison Square Garden is red hot. You feel the heat when pillars of flame spit out from black butane tanks that encircle a half-domed stage. The thunder of swag rock is drowned out by the dog-whistle cheers of 20,000 people alive with electricity. Under the tiled roof where Knicks and Rangers banners hang, between walls that often echo with Billy Joel and Taylor Swift, an epic game of Dungeons & Dragons played by Dimension 20 is about to get rolling.
Merriam Webster hosts their own Wordle clone, Quordle. The usual Wordle rules apply, but solve for 4 words at once in 9 attempts. Those first two or three guesses are key to knowing what vowels and common consonants you’re working with. As you can see, I didn’t solve this one. *sad trombone noises*
Roald Dahl’s daughter Olivia died from measles in 1962 before a reliable vaccine was available. In 1988, he wrote a letter published by Sandwell Health Authority in a pamphlet.
Olivia, my eldest daughter, caught measles when she was seven years old. As the illness took its usual course I can remember reading to her often in bed and not feeling particularly alarmed about it. Then one morning, when she was well on the road to recovery, I was sitting on her bed showing her how to fashion little animals out of coloured pipe-cleaners, and when it came to her turn to make one herself, I noticed that her fingers and her mind were not working together and she couldn’t do anything.
“Are you feeling all right?” I asked her.“I feel all sleepy,” she said.
In an hour, she was unconscious. In twelve hours she was dead.The measles had turned into a terrible thing called measles encephalitis and there was nothing the doctors could do to save her. That was twenty-four years ago in 1962, but even now, if a child with measles happens to develop the same deadly reaction from measles as Olivia did, there would still be nothing the doctors could do to help her.
On the other hand, there is today something that parents can do to make sure that this sort of tragedy does not happen to a child of theirs. They can insist that their child is immunized against measles. I was unable to do that for Olivia in 1962 because in those days a reliable measles vaccine had not been discovered. Today a good and safe vaccine is available to every family and all you have to do is to ask your doctor to administer it.
It is not yet generally accepted that measles can be a dangerous illness. Believe me, it is. In my opinion, parents who now refuse to have their children immunized are putting the lives of those children at risk. In America, where measles immunization is compulsory, measles like smallpox, has been virtually wiped out.
Here in Britain, because so many parents refuse, either out of obstinacy or ignorance or fear, to allow their children to be immunized, we still have a hundred thousand cases of measles every year. Out of those, more than 10,000 will suffer side effects of one kind or another. At least 10,000 will develop ear or chest infections. About 20 will die.
LET THAT SINK IN.
Every year around 20 children will die in Britain from measles.
So what about the risks that your children will run from being immunized?
They are almost non-existent. Listen to this. In a district of around 300,000 people, there will be only one child every 250 years who will develop serious side effects from measles immunization! That is about a million to one chance. I should think there would be more chance of your child choking to death on a chocolate bar than of becoming seriously ill from a measles immunization.
So what on earth are you worrying about? It really is almost a crime to allow your child to go unimmunized.
The ideal time to have it done is at 13 months, but it is never too late. All school-children who have not yet had a measles immunization should beg their parents to arrange for them to have one as soon as possible.
Incidentally, I dedicated two of my books to Olivia, the first was ‘James and the Giant Peach‘. That was when she was still alive. The second was ‘The BFG‘, dedicated to her memory after she had died from measles. You will see her name at the beginning of each of these books. And I know how happy she would be if only she could know that her death had helped to save a good deal of illness and death among other children.
When it comes to trusting media and information, Gen Z gives priority to the immediacy of influencers versus the authority of actual experts.
It’s not that Gen Z doesn’t believe in experts. Rather, it’s that social media has rewired the way they think about credibility. TikTok influencers are now our “friends.” The algorithm repeats and reinforces what we already believe. And a well-edited, engaging video is much more convincing than a long, complicated explanation from a professional. Credibility today isn’t about expertise but about who tells the most compelling story. This change is slowly reshaping how an entire generation decides what is true and what is not—sometimes with demonstrably negative results.
In today’s age, media literacy is a critical skill. Being able to read and write means nothing if you can’t discern good information from bad. Those skills also transfer to employment, the ability to grow a career and income.
Because everything is expensive now, especially housing. While the next article focuses mostly on Canada and their Gen Z population, it cuts to a basic reality of why young adults struggle to live independently–shit’s expensive, yo.
Renting is also largely off the table: as of 2023, the average rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Canada was about $1,700, a 35 per cent increase from five years ago. “Even my friends with high-paying corporate jobs are living at home because 90 per cent of their money would be going to survival,” says Liam Tully.
The Westminster Dog show occurred recently, and sportswriter Rodger Sherman visited to pet all the dogs. If you’ve ever wanted a visual guide to all the different breeds, this is it.