- Personal health updates;
- Big Think on the need for everyday rituals;
- Boing Boing on the origins of Calibri and Times New Roman, and stupidity;
- Short takes on approval ratings, European leadership, earning more, and Trump’s image.
It’s been a busy week of medical appointments, for blood work, to see the cardiologist (four and half years!), to see a new PCP (Y’s new insurance doesn’t cover my old one). Two of these involved long drives, into the city across the Bay Bridge, and down to San Carlos across the 92 bridge. Everything is fine, medically speaking. Today I managed to stay home all day today, though we’re going out to dinner in a little while. Another drive tomorrow, to Walnut Creek, for Xmas shopping.
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Think piece of the day. This might have profound implications.
Big Think, Anne-Laure Le Cunff, 10 Dc 2025: Why your brain needs everyday rituals, subtitled “Rituals serve psychological functions that go far beyond mere habit or tradition.”
Key Takeaways
• Rituals — repeated, meaningful routines — give the brain structure when life feels uncertain. • Their predictability can calm stress, reduce mental load, and improve social interactions. • You can design small, personal rituals to actively program your brain for resilience, clarity, and connection.
And
Most people think of rituals as elaborate religious ceremonies or ancient traditions. But your life is actually filled with them.
Waiting for everyone to be served before eating, giving presents for birthdays and holidays, saying “hello” and exchanging scripted pleasantries, clapping at the end of a performance — all of these are rituals woven throughout our days.
Since the dawn of time, humans have used rituals to acknowledge one another, signal belonging, mark beginnings and endings, and more.
In fact, I believe rituals are some of the most powerful technologies invented by humankind. Think of them as repetitive, patterned, often culturally transmitted “software” that serves psychological functions that go far beyond mere habit or tradition.
Well… says this reader. Isn’t this using “ritual” to describe cultural norms? Or personal habits? I’m guilty of “rituals” in this last sense. To this day, for example, I and my partner do certain things every week: take-out lunch on Wednesdays, dinner out on Fridays. I do a certain Locus task every Monday. Are those “rituals,” or just routine planning?
The article is discussing rituals as cultural events. Especially involving personal transitions.
Rituals also help us make sense of life’s most challenging moments. They mark transitions — such as birth, puberty, marriage, and death — and help us navigate events that feel overwhelming. They also support us as we forge a new identity through rites of passage. That’s why graduation ceremonies don’t just celebrate achievement; they help transform a person’s identity from “student” to “graduate.”
The article doesn’t quite get there, but I think that rituals in this sense are simply habits that we create in order to rely on them — so we don’t have to think anew every decision in familiar circumstances. They’re ways of simplifying the world, both personally and culturally.
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I appreciate this take on the font matter.
Boing Boing, Rob Beschizza, 10 Dec 2025: State Department to switch from “woke” default Microsoft font to old British newspaper typeface
The folks at Boing Boing provide background that mainstream sources have not.
Calibri, a modern sans-serif typeface designed to be readable on screen and page alike, was commissioned by Microsoft and made the Office suite default in 2006. Secretary of State Marco Rubio finds it too woke and has ordered diplomats to use the previous default: Times New Roman, designed for British newspaper The Times in 1931.
But Times New Roman is *traditional*.
The underlying problem, for Rubio and the Trump administration, is that Calibri was crafted to be more easily read by people with vision impairments and dyslexia, and is therefore is a “diversity, equity and inclusion” measure to be gotten rid of. Its use was formally standardized at the State Department under the previous administration of Joe Biden.
Because anything meant to help disadvantaged people is “woke” and must be eliminated.
And:
The problem with Times New Roman was that it was intended for newsprint, where the ink will spread into the fibers, thickening the letterforms. On smooth paper, its letterforms are thin and spindly. On older screens, pixelation mangles them entirely. If you wanted to switch to an old-fashioned, formal-looking serif typeface because you wanted to Make Typography Great Again, there are many better options than Times New Roman. Microsoft provided Constantia with Calibri. Sometimes, it’s important to remember that these guys are just plain stupid.
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Short takes from JMG.
- Trump Rages About His Cratering Approval Ratings
- He’s lying, or delusional.
- Trump: European Nations Want Me As Their Leader
- No, they don’t. He’s lying, or delusional.
- White House: ASL Interpreters Hurt Trump’s Image
- Yet again: Trump doesn’t want to be seen in any kind of context that implies that disadvantaged people are being helped.
