Dr. Justin McDaniel teaches at the University of Pennsylvania. One popular class that he teaches is called Existential Despair. In this class, 13 students arrive at his apartment where they are given copies of a short novel. When Vulture magazine visited his class, that novel was Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome.

The students silently read for a few hours. They are forbidden to talk or use their phones. They may not take notes. That's because they're not studying the novel--they're experiencing it.

McDaniel then conducts a discussion of what they've read with an inevitable emphasis on the despair of the characters and themselves. McDaniel, 53 and recently divorced, is intimately familiar with despair. He tells his students:

I always say, ‘I’m not concerned with their 19-year-old self.’ I have no interest in their 19-year-old self. They’re hopeful. They have their life ahead of them. I’m 53. I’m worried about their 53-year-old self. I’m worried about the midlife crisis. I’m worried about the divorce.

McDaniel is, fittingly, composing a book about the literature of despair titled This Will Destroy You: How Literature Teaches Us to Flourish in the Face of Existential Despair.

Photo: University of Pennsylvania

Watergate is the short-hand name for the political controversy that brought down the Nixon Administration. This Watergate is a card game from 1973 in which two to six players accuse each other of malfeasance and try to deceive each other. Bribery is not only permissible but encouraged. Everyone loses, but some players lose more than others.

The key to success in this game, as in so many other dimensions of life, is to lie persuasively.

In this video, Board Game Archaeology unpacks and plays this game.

Photo: eBay user Treasures Gallery

Elisa Rogers found these unique stained glass sculptures at an estate sale. The late artist, she learned from the daughter, made "ridiculous beautiful things" that sold well enough to pay for trips to Italy. Rogers was so inspired by them that she began making stained glass herself.

-via The Husky

Fox 13 News in Salt Lake City reports that the police department of Heber City has lately been using artificial intelligences to accelerate the report-writing process. These applications are called Draft One and Code Four. They transcribe the audio recordings from police body cameras.

Recently, during one investigation, an officer's recording picked up audio from the Disney film The Princess and the Frog. The AIs interpreted this information to indicate that the officer had transformed into a frog.

Fortunately, the transformation was temporary. The officer got better.

The AI tools save time. Sgt. Keel says that it shaves off about 6-8 hours a week of work. But attorney Steve Lehto says that defense attorneys could exploit these errors during trials.

Photo by Sarah Deer used under Creative Commons 2.0 license.

Cormac McCarthy is known for prose as terse as Coolidge's and punctuation as minimal as a bikini. William Faulkner, on the other hand, took his time to express his thoughts with great verbosity. In this video, comedian Jerry Wayne Longmire plays both writers arguing about the proper density of language in narrative prose.

"The dictionary ought to charge you rent." I'm with McCarthy on this one.

This video is one of Longmire's many parodies of Faulkner, my favorite of which is his Faulknerian reading of his home electric bill. Longmire has also offered 90s rap by Faulkner, a Fourth of July celebration, discount whiskey, responding to a HOA notice, complaining about Comcast customer service, and a complaint about a clogged toilet in a hotel room.

It's the first of January of a new year, so, under United States copyright law, sound recordings from 1925 and other creative works from 1930 are now in the public domain.

You're free to print copies of The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett and sell them. You can make a horror film adaptation of Watty Piper's children's book The Little Engine That Could without consulting the Piper literary estate.

The above video from the Duke University School of Law highlights some of the newest public domain works. They include the Marx Brothers' film Animal Crackers, Bing Crosby's first screen appearance, and the first film with John Wayne in a starring role.

-via Internet Archive

What makes Noah Verrier's paintings so enjoyable is that they juxtapose the rare with the commonplace. His still lives are reminiscent of Baroque depictions of food still lives. But his subject matter, such as this box of McDonald's French fries paired with a flute of champagne, seem out of phase.

Let's say that you passed on while alone at home, perhaps due to a fatal blogging accident. Would your dog or cat, cut off from outside support, eat you? How soon would they reclassify you from human companion to food source?

Popular Science examined the scientific literature and consulted animal behavior experts. Dogs in particular may start feeding immediately, as dogs are more natural scavengers. Cats tend toward predatory behavior, and so would hesitate before eating carrion.

Dr. Lena DeTar of Cornell University says that cats will likely to persist with hunting behaviors in these extreme scenarios, whereas dogs, who are wholly dependent on humans for food will just, uh, continue to depend upon humans for food.

-via Instapundit | Photo: PickPic

How reliable and safe is Tesla's autonomous driving program? The New York Post reports that one owner recently traveled in a completely autonomous mode from Los Angeles to South Carolina, thus completing the first coast-to-coast autonomous trip in the United States.

David Moss, the owner of the Tesla FSD V14.2, never disengaged the autonomous mode--even to park during rest stops. He charged 30 times along the way for the 10,638.8-mile journey. Moss's trip also set a record as the first use of an autonomous Tesla FSD for over 10,000 miles. You can read his X thread about the voyage here.

-via Instapundit

Risk is a fun board game, but Instructables user madkins9 suggests building a spherical board for a "more frustrated, expensive, and time-consuming" experience. Fortunately, he's done the planning work, which is where most of the difficulty comes from.

madkins9 used steel hemispheres to make the globe and glued magnets to the game pieces from an original 1962 set. He then stained and polished wooden base comes with hexagonal drawers for each of the six player colors.

The final product must make for a more realistic game, as, for example, Alaska and Kamchatka are no longer on opposite sides of the board. Thus the spherical design provides for superior practical training for world conquest.

-via Hack-A-Day

In a fan-favorite scene of Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, Jones must flee from a huge boulder rolling toward him as he performs, er, "archaeological research" in a tomb.

That stunt came remarkably close to reality during a recent show at Disney World in Florida. The New York Post reports that a 400-pound rubber ball serving as the boulder fell off its planned track at an actor playing Indiana Jones and toward the audience.

Heroically, a staff member intercepted it, blocking its movement with his own body. He was injured but, Disney World asserts, is recovering. The show schedule is continuing unchanged.

-via Super Punch

A Highland charge was a traditional Scottish battle tactic involving wedge-shaped formations of Scots running toward enemy positions. Upon reaching effective musket range, they would fire a single volley, drop their muskets, and then run at the enemy with broadswords.

The last such charge was conducted two hundred years ago today in North Carolina during the American Revolutionary War. The Journal of the American Revolution describes the Battle of Moore's Creek Bridge.

General Cornwallis organized 1,600 Gaelic-speaking Scottish Loyalists in North Carolina under Brigadier General Donald MacDonald. The Scots marched inland through the swamps near Wilmington, not aware that their location was well-known and that Patriot militia were assembling into two bodies to trap them.

About half of the Scots deserted as MacDonald proceeded toward a crossing of the Black River, where they encountered a thousand Patriot militiamen under Brigadier General James Moore. MacDonald ordered his drummers and pipers to play "King George and Broadswords" and charge across the damaged bridge.

Effective Patriot musketry shattered the Scots, who fell back in confusion toward the coast. MacDonald himself and many of his troops were captured, as were their valuable supplies. The area remained firmly in Patriot hands for the next four years.

The Scots never tried a traditional Highland charge again.

I own a globe that could have only existed for 6 months in 1939 pic.twitter.com/IL6Slm4bOX

— DJ Branham🗽 (@DJBranham) December 30, 2025

X user DJ Branham shares a photo of an unusual globe that he found at an antiques store in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. He mentions that it would have been accurate for only about six months.

The globe shows then-recent annexations by Nazi Germany that were at least tolerated if not accepted by the major powers of Europe. Poland is still independent, but all of Czechoslovakia is in German hands, so the globe must date between March 16 and July 31, 1939.

One commenter dates the globe as prior to July 29, 1939, as it shows Hatay under the control of French Syria instead of Turkey.

Yesterday, French actress and animal rights activist Brigitte Bardot died at the age of 91. Her passing prompted this X post:

Brigitte Bardot’s death means there are now just three people mentioned in @billyjoel’s We Didn’t Start the Fire who are still alive.

— Jon Hollis (@JonHollis9) December 28, 2025

Billy Joel's 1989 song "We Didn't Start the Fire" contains lengthy lists of prominent people and major events from 1949, when Joel was born, until 1989. It's an anthem of Baby Boomer popular culture mixed with the politics of the United States during the Cold War.

Only three people listed in the song are still alive: Bob Dylan, Chubby Checker, and Bernhard Goetz.

Image: 20th Century Fox

It's common enough to get a couple fortune cookies delivered with the bill at the end of a meal at a Chinese restaurant. But TAO Asian Bistro goes much, much further. Its iconic fortune cookie is a complete dessert course. At a guess, I'd say that it's about eight inches across. Here's a video that shows how the chefs make it.

Furthermore, the bistro makes custom versions of its fortune cookie dessert for Christmas, Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and the Chinese New Year.

This fortune cookie is one of 15 huge desserts compiled by The Takeout, including huge sundaes, milkshakes, and a 25-pound apple pie.