😋 The foods that swing from mind-blowing to catastrophic with one wrong move

Some foods are like Schroedinger’s cat; you don’t know what you’re in for until you look.

There’s food that some people love, and some people hate. There’s food that you have to be in the mood for. Then there’s food that just… hits or misses. The unreliable food that blows your mind one time and turns your stomach the next.

In this story by Mark Wales, Redditors break down the dishes with the widest taste gaps on Earth. We’re talking mac and cheese that ranges from silky, crunchy perfection to bland boxed heartbreak. Pizza that can rival a Naples trattoria or taste like sugary cardboard sadness. BBQ that brings people to tears of joy or tears of regret.

It’s not the ingredient list. It’s the preparation sorcery. The heat, the timing, the attention, the technique, or… well… the utter lack thereof. Which foods round out this inglorious list of inconsistent ingestables?

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Our GOOD Thanksgiving!

Monday, we chose the main dish and the first side. Tuesday, it was the second side and the dessert. What have we come up with?

GOOD readers are a tradition-loving lot! We’re serving…

• 🦃 Main (76.1% of the vote): Roast Turkey (as one reader notes “Made by mom!”)

• First Side (60% of the vote): Mashed potatoes and gravy.

• Second Side (53.7% of the vote): Stuffing (or dressing)*.

• Dessert (48.78% of the vote): Pumpkin pie!

Very traditional right down the line! I guess it’s called Turkey Day for a reason. Reader JMacy says, “There is nothing like good stuffing a little burnt on the edges.” While reader TarrieSullivan (hi mom!) says, “Can’t have a turkey without stuffing”. Couldn’t agree more. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

* - I just learned that it’s dressing if it’s baked outside the bird, stuffing if it’s done in the bird. Live and learn!

7️⃣ The seven-year friendship twist that decides who stays in your life for good

The science behind lifelong friendship might come down to one number you already know and one word you probably forget.

"BFFs! Class of '96 forever!" That's what you wrote in the yearbook, Brian, but I haven't heard from you since the Bush administration! Anyway. Sorry, what were we discussing? Ah, right, how long does a friendship have to last before it will, well, last?

In this story by Erik Barnes, we learn that Dutch sociologist Gerald Mollenhorst dug into decades of friendship patterns and found something quietly brutal. More than half of your friendships will fade within seven years. But the ones that make it past that seven-year cliff? Those tend to stick for life.

The culprit is less drama and more logistics. We age out of schools. We move for work. We pair off, have kids, lose time, lose proximity. The ones that survive it all do so for one big reason. Reciprocation. According to the psychotherapists Barnes cites, lifelong friendships need shared effort, flexible expectations, and tolerance for long quiet stretches.

It isn’t guaranteed. But every friendship you build today has the same shot at becoming your next decades-long classic. Brian, call me. Or don’t. Whatever. Totally fine.

💰 Michael Sheen bought $1.29 million in debt and forgave all of it

The not-for-profit angel just punked the entire debt industry.

Michael Sheen, best known for playing a literal angel in Good Omens, just pulled off a very human miracle. He personally bought up $1.29 million in local debt from 900 strangers in Wales, and then forgave every penny. As Erik Barnes reports, there was no catch. No cameras. Just compassion. OK, there were cameras, it was for a documentary, but the awesome is still awesome.

In Michael Sheen’s Secret Million Pound Giveaway, we learn how the actor used his own cash to create a debt collection firm. But unlike the vultures buying debt to profit off desperation, Sheen’s goal was to set people free and shame the system that traps them. “Once you’re underwater, it’s very hard to get out again,” he told The Hollywood Reporter.

This isn’t just a feel-good stunt, it’s a full-on rebuke of how the debt system works. And while banks post record profits, Sheen's throwing shade and lifelines.

So how exactly did he pull it off? And how much did it actually cost him?

Just before noon on November 26th, 2018, in California, NASA’s InSight Lander hit the top of Mars’s atmosphere going faster than a rifle bullet. It then had only seven minutes to slow to a gentle hop. Those “seven minutes of terror” were precisely what they sound like: a fully automatic, can’t-phone-home plunge involving a roasting-hot fall, a supersonic parachute, leg deployment, and a last-second engine burn… all happening completely out of human reach. Because Mars was so far away, engineers wouldn’t hear the outcome until after it was over. As mission control stared at their monitors, InSight had already either crashed or stuck the landing; they just didn’t know which.

And then the signal came through: “Touchdown confirmed.”

That quiet, perfect landing gave Earth something brand new, a robot that could listen to another planet’s heartbeat. Over the next four years, InSight detected “marsquakes,” mapped Mars’s interior, and revealed the size of its core, turning a once-mysterious world into a place we could finally understand from the inside out.

A personal note on this story: I worked with the team at JPL on Mars InSight. I provided animations for the landing broadcast, so this little rover holds a special place in my heart.  

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💬 From the group text…

Need something to be grateful for this Thanksgiving? How about being thankful your job doesn’t land you in a glass box beneath one of the only animals on the planet that thinks of humans as food!

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