Humor Me

the 80s tylenol murders. tl;dr: you know that tamper seal on new bottles of medicine everyone hates? those are there because in the 1980s, some freak went into a pharmacy and poisoned a bunch of tylenol. 7 people died in the initial crime, more in subsequent copycat crimes. they never caught who did it.

Even though they weren't doing anything differently from other medication companies that made them vulnerable to this--and it remains unclear whether the tampering was happening in the factory, the stores, or some other part of the supply chain--they moved very quickly to recall products and develop tamper-resistant packaging, and as a result they regained the public's trust a lot more quickly than you might guess. (And the new packaging they developed also became the industry standard.)

Also, more often than you might think, they’re not actually promoting bigotry so much as “didn’t consider all the implications of something” or just used words that were polite then but considered offensive now.

Over fifty years of data show a peak in PFAS (also known as "forever chemicals") content in seabird eggs in the 90s, followed by a decrease as regulations went into effect. The most recent findings show a 70% decrease of most common PFAS.

We are making genuine progress! Producers are dramatically altering how much they use PFAS and how much gets released in effluent, but also there's a lot better understanding of how to remove PFAS from the environment!

-St Augustine, on Alexander the Great

"What even is a war? Like isn't it illegal to kill people?"

Tired of normal kitchenware?

Well I've a thing that I must share.

It seems to be a normal fish,

that's destined for a fishy dish.

And yet, it hides a sharp surprise,

disgorging it before your eyes!

My latest, dearest Christmas wish:

The sharpest lad,

Younger folk are getting really good at spotting AI slop, to the consternation of marketing execs.

The good news is that if it persists and Gen Z and Gen Alpha continue to scoff at the generated stuff, then marketing departments aiming at them will just have to give up on using it because they won't be able to figure out how to fool their targets with it.

The bad news is that this won't apply to scams and campaigns aimed at older people, so once again we're going to have a situation where the kids will be the ones lunging across the coffee table to stop Mom from giving her financial info to that really obvious fake scam mom oh my god do NOT buy that it isn't even a real thing.