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Hilary Duff might be most famous as the teen star of Lizzie McGuire, or for the multiple albums she’s released, or for the novels she’s written, or for her six-year marriage to an NHL star, or for her activism against paparazzi taking pictures of celebrity kids, or her clothing & fragrance lines, or for singing the theme song to Laguna Beach, or any number of other things, but Hilary Duff has actually done all of these things, and what amazes me about her is that she seems to have reached adulthood without going completely nuts (as far as I can tell) or (as far as I can tell) having her reality distorted to the point where she can’t possibly function without a bubble of handlers spoon-feeding her every minute of the day. Which makes her stronger than me; if I was a child star who became suddenly famous at 13 for starring in my own sitcom, and immediately branched out into music, movies, books and who-knows-what-else, I’d have lost my damn mind.

But Hilary has stayed out of the gossip rags, for the most part, and seems to have something meaningful to say, even if it’s not in the standard Disney fluff that made her famous. We can’t all be Tolstoy, fergodsake.

Born to a convenience store magnate in Texas, Hilary (and her big sister Haylie, who you’ve possibly also heard of) got into showbiz very early, and the family moved to California when Hilary was six. From there, the usual grind of auditions and bit parts didn’t wear the kid down. It’s possible that she didn’t know any better, but still, I think of that kind of life, and of the friends I know who are in it & still trying to make it at twice her age, and I shudder. Good on her.

Lizzie McGuire came in 2001, when she was 14, and it was more or less an instant hit. The animation-to-live action sequences, the breaking of the fourth wall, the tackling of actual issues, all connected with preteens immediately, and Duff became famous nearly overnight. She started dating Aaron Carter, and then Joel Madden, because what else does a teen idol do, except date other teen idols? You can’t exactly meet someone during chemistry class or lunch period like everyone else does. Besides, she was busy. She sang a few songs as a goof, which turned into a Christmas album, Santa Claus Lane, in 2002, and then three more albums in the next five years, all while starring in Lizzie McGuire, the Cheaper By The Dozen film series, Agent Cody Banks, and a slew of other smaller films.

Eventually, she turned to writing, which makes sense — she’d succeeded at basically everything up to that point in her life, and she had the work ethic. Her first book, Elixir, a paranormal romantic piece, got decent reviews from YA people, and the sequels, Devoted and True, seem to be plenty popular enough as well.

I don’t want to go too much into her personal life — she had a six-year marriage to former Edmonton Oiler Mike Comrie, and in showbiz terms, six years is plenty — but it’s worth mentioning that the current crop of pop stars — Miley, Ariana, Selena — all shout her out as an example of how to get through teen stardom properly.

Is she going to win a Nobel Prize or complete the EGOT? Not a chance. But she does what she does, she has a charm, she’s nobody’s fool, she works hard for the money, and you know, her music was often pretty catchy.

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Ten Thousand Sexdecillion. It’s not just the name of the some huge monster army from a future episode of Game of Thrones, it’s one way to describe the number 10¹⁰⁰. And although the reason you might know it comes from a site that officially went live 18 years ago today, the name “Googol” was first thought up in 1920, by a 9-year-old kid.

The mathematician Edward Kasner was looking for a number to describe something incredibly large, but not infinite. There’s nothing special about 10 to the hundredth power for mathematicians; it’s just a nice round big number. It’s supposedly the number of years we have left before the heat death of the universe, it’s the number of atoms that are estimated to exist, it’s a decent yardstick for the biggest practical numbers that most people (even most astrophysicists) will ever really need to use.

Milton Sirotta, Krasner’s 9-year-old nephew, came up with the word googol when asked for a nonsense word. It’s stuck ever since, especially among casual math nerds like yr host. Actual mathematical types might go with the abovementioned, or “ten duotrigintillion” or the oddly alluring “ten sexdecilliard,” but when Sergey Brin and Larry Page were looking for a name for their new search engine to indicate that you could find a near-infinite amount of information through their website, they chose a more-standardized version of Milton Sirotta’s nonsense word.

Edward Krasner, 1907. He was the first Jewish person to become a faculty member in the sciences at Columbia University. And I like the moustache.

And now, of course, the compound in Mountain View, California, where their empire has taken root, shares its name with the number that is 10 to the power of a googol, or 10^10^100, or a Googolplex. That wasn’t the original definition, though. According to Krasner’s notes:

It was suggested that a googolplex should be 1, followed by writing zeros until you get tired. This is a description of what would happen if one actually tried to write a googolplex, but different people get tired at different times and it would never do to have [then heavyweight boxing champion Primo] Carnera a better mathematician than [Albert] Einstein, simply because he had more endurance.

Sirotta died in 1981, so he never lived to see his most famous word reach its zenith of fame, but we’re all grateful for the fact that it’s such a great word. I mean, if Google (the name) never existed, then what would we call it instead?

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Nike’s current ad campaign centering around Serena Williams calls her the “Greatest Female Athlete Ever”, and right now, it looks like there’s a solid case for that.

I remember when we first started hearing about Venus Williams, when as a teenager she started winning major tournaments, and people were all delighted that a poor kid from the same neighborhood as NWA was taking apart the lily-white culture of professional tennis. (Well, some people were less than delighted, but history is proving those people to be horribly wrong, and I’ve resolved to stay positive this week, so we can safely ignore those whom history will leave behind.)

In interviews, people would ask Venus how she got to be so good, and how good she thought she could become, and she would often reply, “I expect to win a lot of majors, but my little sister is going to be better than I am.”

At that point, no one even knew that Serena Williams existed yet. We know now.

Her tennis exploits rank with the greatest of all time, and even if she decided to retire today (and there’s no sign that she’s done), she’d rank right up there with the titans of the sport, along with Billie Jean King, Bill Tilden, Martina Navratilova, Rod Laver, Roger Federer, Chris Evert, and Steffi Graf. “Best athlete ever” is close to unmeasurable, but it’s a hell of a fun conversation to have, and she gets to be a part of that discussion. (Who belongs in that list, anyway?)

Certainly, no one playing today can touch her, and she’s earned every plaudit she’s received, and then some. She’s going to be an icon for the rest of her life at this point, not just for what she’s accomplished, but for how she’s done it. She’s a multifaceted and versatile player, but she leads with her astonishing strength, and then her grace and touch follow close behind. That’s not the traditional definition of “ladylike,” but you know, that definition was never accurate to start with, and it sure as hell isn’t now.

As she enters the twilight of her playing days, she’s branched out. She’s doing a little acting, she’s been designing clothes through her Aneres line (that’s “Serena” backwards), she’s written a book, she & Venus both own a piece of the Miami Dolphins, and her list of charity work is as long and varied as anyone’s.

If being a great athlete is solely about winning matches, then Serena has few peers, and no superiors. If it’s about the sum of a person’s life, she only grows from there. Happy birthday, Serena.

It’s Bruce Springsteen’s 67th birthday today, and at his age you should be so lucky as to be able to still move at all, let alone bang out 4-hour sets every night in front of millions of people a year. The man is a straight-up legend, and even if you can’t stand his music (which, well, you’re wrong), you have to respect his work ethic and his commitment to doing the thing he does.

One nickname Bruce always hated was “The Boss.” Given his original artistic influences, anti-authoritarians like Bob Dylan and Woody Guthrie, it makes sense that he’d resist taking on the role that those (and other agitators) fought against. But the nickname has stuck, and so he shares it with a mess of people, including George Steinbrenner, Diana Ross, Lance Armstrong, Rick Ross, the Sheriff of Hazzard County, Georgia… and the head of New York’s political machine in the late 19th century, William Magear “Boss” Tweed.

From his election to the 5th District of the New York State House of Representatives (the Fightin’ 5th!) in 1852, he built an iron grip on the purse strings of the state and the city of New York, and by 1869, he had placed his people in every meaningful office in the area, enforcing laws that catered to his interests and extracting millions in development contracts and graft for him and his cronies.

Boss Tweed wasn’t all bad, to be sure. Some of the money he siphoned off did go toward feeding the poor in New York City, and he did help secure financing for the Brooklyn Bridge and the New York Public Library, regardless of how the money appeared. But he’ll always be remembered as the archetypical crooked political operative, and when he died in prison in 1878, New York Mayor Samuel Ely insisted that the flags not be flown at half-staff, like they normally would.

So, you know, it’s all good to live your life like a boss, but be sure you pick the right boss to be like.