PicoBlog

Two great questions for this week’s post. Marko Filipović wants to know what the deal is with pronouncing the t in often. He’s a non-native speaker and was taught that the t is silent, but now notices many natives pronouncing the t. Truth to tell, Marko, while it certainly doesn’t hurt anything or anyone for often to be pronounced “off-ten,” it’s an example of how writing can inhibit natural language change and force people into what we might artfully call arbitrary reticences, where my “art” is in appealing to the fact that pronouncing it “off-ten” holds us back, technically.

Hi, we are Dapper Dan Gvozden and Mischievous Mark Ginocchio, co-hosts of the Amazing Spider-Talk podcast. With each newsletter we hope to give you greater access into our thoughts on the world of Spider-Man! On the latest Amazing Spider-Talk Podcast we just wrapped Season 6 and are reviewing the latest Spidey comics, but in this Substack we wanted to use this entry to discuss our thoughts on Jackpot #1 and the character of Mary Jane, plus we look back on some comics celebrating an anniversary, and Mark chronicles the manipulative powers of a redheaded woman.

One of our readers asked this question a couple of months ago, and I’ve taken longer than I intended to answer the question. But today - we will do our best to answer the question from God’s word. Jesus taught that marriage was created by God (Matthew 19:4-6). Therefore, mankind must follow God’s design for marriage rather than changing it to suit our desires or the demands of culture. A marriage between a man and a woman will never be all that it could or should be unless the example for marriage - Christ and His bride (the church) - is followed (Ephesians 5:22-33).

By A for Anonymous (thank you!) This is a great topic to revise, because it covers many of the main themes and both main characters of the play. MACBETH. Methought I heard a voice cry, “Sleep no more! Macbeth does murder sleep,”—the innocent sleep; Sleep that knits up the ravell’d sleave of care, The death of each day’s life, sore labour’s bath, Balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course,

Readers, I know many of you are in the midst of observing “dry January,” so I thought it might be good to post an open thread about drinking before the month is out—how drinking affects us as we age, and the ways we adjust our habits as a result of that. Me? Some time in 2018 I realized that I just can’t drink anymore. To clarify, I’m not an addict, don’t have a substance use disorder, am not in recovery.

We’re back in the archives this week, revisiting my 2005 interview with Evan Williams. Today, Ev is most well-known for being the co-founder of Twitter and founder/ceo of Medium. But back when this episode was recorded, Twitter hadn’t even been conceived of yet. When we spoke, Ev had just raised about $2 million in venture capital money for a hot new podcasting company he was about to launch called Odeo. Spoiler alert: Odeo didn’t make it.

Sometimes when I’m in a tall building or a plane, I wonder how far away the horizon is. Well, at least I do during days of better air quality and clearer skies… Or if there’s some mountain or something in the distance I’ll wonder how far away from it you can go and still see it before the curvature of the Earth hides it below the horizon. It might seem like a tough problem to solve since spherical geometry is a notoriously difficult aspect of university mathematics, and we’re talking about distances relative to a curving Earth.

Reading Glossy: Ambition, Beauty, and the Inside Story of Emily Weiss’s Glossier, a new book out today from author Marisa Meltzer, the same thought kept popping in my brain like so much pale pink bubble wrap: Glossier sold us nothing. Maybe it isn’t a new thought. I wrote last year about how the nine-year-old startup rebranded makeup minimalism for the millennial masses with products like Perfecting Skin Tint (an “imperceptible wash of color,” Glossier boasts on its website) and Stretch Concealer (which “looks like skin”), eventually scaling to unicorn status — all thanks to nothing, or at least the look of it.

To no one’s great surprise, record-breaking NCAA superstar Caitlin Clark declared for the WNBA Draft on Thursday afternoon, foregoing her final year of college eligibility at Iowa — and presumably paving her way to be taken by the Indiana Fever with the first overall pick this April. With Clark heading to the pros, I was wondering just what kind of impact we can expect her to make early in her WNBA career.