Erin and I have been binging Taskmaster on YouTube. It’s an absolutely delightful show full of British humour1 and absurd feats of… wit? Orthogonal thought? The show has remained precisely itself for years, yet each series is fresh; tasks are never repeated, and the new crop of contestants creates a different dynamic. The brain behind the show, Alex Horne, has managed to craft hundreds of unique challenges. Of course, there are recurring task types—Do the most “adjective” thing with this object is one of my favorites—but the combination of Alex’s inventive approach and the comedians actually performing the tasks ensures that you can always expect the unexpected. ...

The Department of Education1 released a toolkit for Safe, Ethical, and Equitable, AI Integration last October. I finally made the time to read it and love what I found. As with most things in education, if it’s sensible in that context, it is worth considering in every context. ...

From a recent Chalkbeat article by Erica Meltzer and Marta W. Aldrich: Former Tennessee Education Commissioner Penny Schwinn has been named to serve as deputy education secretary in the incoming Trump administration. President-elect Donald Trump announced the pick in a post on Truth Social Friday evening. […] He also misstated her name as Peggy Schwinn, rather than Penny. We again enter a period of time where The Onion has its work cut out for itself. The next paragraph of this article is also pitch-perfect in its matter-of-fact approach to reporting on how ridiculous everything is. ...

The great kind of insight someone outside the United States can provide. The tough thing when I discuss Trump & Co. with friends is the disbelief and necessity of accepting that a good chunk of the country likes what is happening. Guy English on Mastodon: The least you all could do is to refrain from using “unAmerican” to describe the distinctly American things that are going to happen.

I’m fortunate to have been in seventh grade precisely when I was. Every four years in October, my middle school’s seventh-grade social studies classes held an election unit. Students were selected to be presidential, senate, and gubernatorial candidates; there were campaign managers, Secret Service agents, lobbyists, fundraisers, and speech writers.1 It was good-natured, well-constructed, thoughtful, and impactful. Twelve years old was a good time for this, too: we were mature enough to engage with some of the policies but not cynical or set in our ways beyond whatever influence our parents had over us. I don’t recall any personal conflicts. Everyone focused on embodying their roles as best as possible, and I had a tremendous amount of fun. ...

I’m thrilled by how many books I’ve read over the last two years, enough to consider whether it behooves me to increase my typical goal of 24 books.1 I topped my 2023 result of 38 books with 41 in 2024, although there were a handful of novellas among what I tracked this year. ...

Choosing Year of Fitness as my 2025 theme wasn’t difficult, but it was intimidating. My previous themes have leaned philosophical and emphasized a change in mindset that would affect broader habits; this year’s theme is direct and requires a higher level of personal accountability. ...

Terence Tao is a gift to the mathematical community. He is an excellent collaborator, a talented communicator, and one of the broadest and sharpest minds working today. Eighteen years ago, when he was just past thirty years old, he wrote the essay What is Good Mathematics?. I discovered this when Steven Strogatz invited Tao onto his podcast The Joy of Why to discuss how well this essay holds up. Both of these are great, but start with the opening section of Tao’s essay, where he lists twenty-one ways to measure mathematics as being “good.” It displays his impressive clarity of thought and writing ability and evinces how the professional mathematics scene isn’t what one may have expected.

At the start of this year I wrote this about the Year of Opportunity: Characterized by a desire to explore and treat new experiences with more positivity and excitement, I hope to make the most of what could be our final year living in California while also increasing my appreciation for the life I’ve built. It certainly was our final year in California, and that shifted my mindset to focus not only on the opportunities in San Francisco but also any that would be available once we moved. ...

There are two separate issues with the technology I use at work that conspired to confound me earlier this year. Salesforce objects have two different unique ID constructions. Common lookup functions in Google Sheets are case-insensitive. ...