Friday, February 20, 2026

Today's news and jokes

("The 33-year-old suspect is accused of stealing several valuable Buddhist items, including two 12-inch Buddha statues, from a senior officer’s home")

Walking through a series of doors inspired by the ingestion process (art roundup)

Found this spectacular interactive exhibit called Thresholds by Michel de Broin at the Arsenal Contemporary Museum this weekend. Utterly giddy to walk through it again and again in what felt like a theatre set of Coup de Grâce.

[image or embed]

— Sofia Ajram (@sofiaajram.bsky.social) February 2, 2026 at 1:16 PM
The artist's site with photos and details

Thursday, February 19, 2026

Clever tease for A'ja Wilson's new sneakers (and some photos of her dog)

The latest episode of Pablo Torre's podcast is fantastic

An incredibly-well-told life-affirming story about the two men who helped Magic Johnson when he was at his lowest. Also, a terrific story about how great journalists do their job. (They have some fun at the evnd about Magic's apparent unwillingness to participate in the podcast, but the man they interview at the very end was just announced as taking over business operations from the Lakers.)

New comic book Humble Bundle featuring the best of indie comics and comics-adjacent stuff like The Expanse RPG

$18 for 60 volumes. This is a weird mix!

Today's news and jokes





Reporter says he successfully manipulated ChatGPT and Google Gemini with a simple blog post

Thomas Germain for BBC:

It turns out changing the answers AI tools give other people can be as easy as writing a single, well-crafted blog post almost anywhere online

...

I reviewed dozens of examples where AI tools are being coerced into promoting businesses and spreading misinformation. Data suggests it's happening on a massive scale.

...

I spent 20 minutes writing an article on my personal website titled "The best tech journalists at eating hot dogs". Every word is a lie. I claimed (without evidence) that competitive hot-dog-eating is a popular hobby among tech reporters and based my ranking on the 2026 South Dakota International Hot Dog Championship (which doesn't exist). I ranked myself number one, obviously.