Free for ALL Friday!
It's Free for All Friday!
One last word before Mother’s Day from Life Story Magic …
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"I bought this as a gift for my parents, but it turned out to be a gift for us and our kids—something we will have for the rest of our lives. I can't imagine anything more special than being able to hear my parents laughing together, long after they are gone."
— Lisa M., New Jersey
If you’d like to give Life Story Magic as a Mother’s Day gift, use code UNDERSTANDABLY at checkout for $100 off our already-discounted rate.
It’s Free for ALL Friday! Each week I keep track of some of the off-the-path things I've found, and work extra-hard to make sure you never hit a paywall, using my own subscriptions, gift links, and other (legal) hocus-pocus.
Don’t Call Them Nuns. They’re Podcasters.
They pray, they play Ultimate Frisbee and they have unwittingly become a meme
In each episode, a host, typically Sister Miriam, 44, interviews a guest, usually another sister, about her life, covering subjects like her education — several of the women have Ph.D.s — or her conversion journey. While the topics themselves might sound weighty, the conversations are often quite wide-ranging, like a dialogue between two, well, sisters. Since the podcast debuted in January, the sisters have found viral success on TikTok, where clips from the show have garnered millions of views and comments from fans, both Catholic and non-Catholic, who find themselves mesmerized by the sisters’ soothing timbres and unrelenting positivity. In their most popular clip, Sister Miriam and another sister are discussing playing ultimate Frisbee. “Sister, and you are so good at that,” Sister Miriam says to her guest, complimenting her skills on the field.
Link: New York Times (Multiple reporters)
The Secret Team Blowing Up Ford’s Assembly Line to Make a $30,000 Electric Truck
3 a.m. tests and culture clashes: The automaker brought together Silicon Valley techies and industry misfits in a quest to beat China at EVs
The secret is now out as Ford races toward building its first model, a new truck it says will be nearly as fast as a Mustang, travel around 300 miles on a single charge and feature in-car technology to compete with Tesla and China. It’s aiming for a 2027 launch and a price tag of around $30,000, the cost of a Toyota Camry. Getting there means tearing up a century of manufacturing practices in a notoriously hidebound industry. At stake for Ford is securing a future beyond the gas-guzzling pickups and SUVs that have long defined its bottom line. To build these new EVs, the company must use fewer people and simpler parts, and dismantle decades of engineering inertia. Chief Executive Jim Farley is calling it Ford’s new “Model T moment.” Rival automakers say overcoming China on EVs can’t be done, given their advantages: extensive government backing, low-cost labor and a massive head start.
Link: Wall Street Journal (Sharon Terlep)
Inside Ashley St. Clair’s Trump Online Machine
How a 28-year-old social media influencer became one of the most powerful people shaping political discourse online
Ashley St. Clair has become one of the most influential figures in conservative media, running a network of social media accounts that collectively reach tens of millions of people. Her operation, based out of a suburban Virginia townhouse, employs a team of young staffers who monitor trending topics, coordinate messaging across platforms, and amplify pro-Trump content. The Washington Post obtained internal documents showing how St. Clair’s team orchestrates online campaigns, sometimes creating the appearance of grassroots support for administration policies. Critics say her methods blur the line between authentic political engagement and coordinated manipulation.
Link: Washington Post (Multiple reporters)
A New Kind of Van Life: $180 to Camp for Seven Months – and a Real Taste of Freedom
As the US sees rapidly rising housing costs, nomads flock to the public lands around Quartzsite, Arizona, where a person can legally live for more than half a year
For $180, a permit allows camping from 15 September through 15 April. At La Posa, that price includes trash collection, vault toilets and a dump station. It’s worth pausing on the math. For less than the cost of a single night in many American hotels, a person can legally live on public lands in the desert for seven months. Many LTVA visitors are traditional snowbirds: retirees who maintain homes elsewhere and migrate seasonally for warmth. But for a growing number of others, the permit functions differently: as a legal foothold in a housing system that has increasingly shut them out.
Link: The Guardian (Multiple reporters)
Freak Accidents, Suicides, Attempted Murder: The Dark Side of Skydiving
A recent wave of parachuting deaths in the UK is harrowingly familiar to our writer, who could have lost her life on a jump 38 years ago
There’s nothing like a near-death experience to clear the head. In 1988, I decided to do a parachute jump. I was young, it sounded fun, and it was for charity, so I signed up and pestered people to sponsor me for an HIV charity, which was a cause very much in the news at the time. We crashed – not body to body, but our parachutes tangled together. Some of the cords broke and the steering toggles dangled uselessly from my hands. Number eight was suspended in mid-air about 2ft away from me. I remember shouting, “You realise we’re going to die?” These were the first and only words I ever spoke to him. With our canopies depleted, we were hurtling towards the ground.
Link: The Telegraph (Jessamy Calkin)
Backup: https://archive.ph/DZmvQ
Music’s Next ‘Disco Sucks’ Moment Is Near
Do you really like that new song—or is someone manipulating you?
You’re scrolling TikTok, Instagram, or one of the many other apps where short-form video devours your time. You come across a stranger doing something amusing while a song plays in the background. A few swipes later, you hear the song again. Now it’s in your head. Now it seems like an interesting part of the zeitgeist. You save the song to your phone. A question flashes through your mind: Did you just discover new music, or, through the dark arts of algorithmic manipulation, did the music industry just bait a new customer? Quite possibly the answer is the latter, in which case you’ve fallen prey to “trend simulation”: the marketing tactic of paying people online to post opinions they don’t necessarily hold, endorsing music they don’t necessarily care about, so as to trick social-media algorithms—and users—into regarding a band as more popular than it really is.
Link: The Atlantic (Spencer Kornhaber)
The Latest Hero of the ‘Yimby’ Movement Is a Massachusetts Man in a Hoodie
One wealthy Massachusetts town’s housing plan won’t add much housing, and a local called them out. ‘Are we trying to do nothing?’
David Modica, headphones around his neck, hoodie sleeves scrunched up, took the mic at a Marblehead, Mass., meeting this week and asked the question facing every American town pushing back against new housing. “Are we kinda bein’ pricks?” His frankness about local housing opposition turned him into something of a hero for the “yes in my backyard,” pro-development movement. And his disheveled look, Massachusetts brogue and salty language was instant meme fuel. “Tedesco, that’s like a golf course, yeah?” Modica asked, addressing a planning board member. “So they’re not gonna build any houses there, cause it’s a golf course. So like, this is a way to comply with 3A without doing any of the 3A stuff?”
It is very scary when one person exerts such power over public opinion.
Even more scary to me? I picked up a book at a garage sale, not one I would normally read. Then today, I turn on my TV and the title of that same book pops up on “shows you might be interested I “. I have not posted the title of this book anywhere online, and yet there it is on the tv. I get that ads for the sandals I ordered a few weeks ago keep popping up in my newsfeed, but how on earth did that book do the same? I know, just a coincidence but it is still scary.
Is there a way to open the articles on “free for all “ Friday, and not have to make an account with every one of them?
Thank you