One of the most compelling reads of my week was this odd tale from the New York Times about a compulsion unlike any you’ve heard of before.
I like puzzles that are easy to state and don’t require a lengthy explanation. Today’s puzzle falls into that category.
The answer to each clue is the name of a well known person, where the last name of each answer gives the first name of the next answer (give or take a slight variation). The resulting sequence of answers forms a circular chain, where the bottom of the list connects to the first entry in the same fashion.
In what should surprise no one, human gender identity is more complex and nuanced than the conceptual frameworks on which most of us were raised. Expressing a preferred pronoun helps, but there’s a problem with that approach.
From longreads.com, I found this beautifully written short story, by William Torrey, about a man self-medicating his way through the pandemic, while attempting to keep his increasingly dysfunctional life intact.
Beginning around 2040, the US will experience a sudden jump in the crime rate, especially so in the red states.
By one second. On December 31, 2016, at 11:59:59pm UTC, one second was added to Universal Time Coordinated (UTC), which is the basis for the worldwide system of timekeeping.
I’ve been following this YouTube channel for a few years and it never ceases to amaze me.
I missed my Mom today. I think it’s the first time I’ve genuinely missed her since she died six months ago. That probably sounds harsh. Let me explain…
You and two of your friends (not facebook friends, real world friends, remember those?) are playing a game. The other players in the game are known to be perfectly logical people.
This puzzle is an original trivia quiz where the answers are linked together into a chain.
I wrote this document for internal use at Google, but I believe it has broad applicability, not just in tech but in any field where people undertake team projects.
If you had to guess, how many people would you estimate you could reasonably call friends? Of course, this will vary person to person and also depends on how we define “friend”. Think about it, take a guess, and read on to see how close you came to Dunbar’s Number.
Stop what you’re doing. Go get a cup of coffee or tea. Sit down in a comfortable chair. Okay, now take a few minutes out of your day to watch this beautiful animated short film. You’re welcome.
Do you remember when you first fell in love? Check out this dream-like, beautifully made short film about an intense romance between two American expats in Germany.
Imagine you have nine uniformly sized white balls, eight of which weigh precisely the same amount, and one is heavier or lighter than the others.
This creative video reshoots several short vignettes from the classic Alfred Hitchcock film Vertigo and shows us the originally filmed locations side-by-side with the current (circa 2019) views.
This piece from The Guardian was the best article I read last week. It makes a compelling case that we are collectively giving away our most precious commodity, our time, in order to generate untold riches for certain large companies.
Here’s a video I made this morning explaining the so-called Normal or Gaussian distribution. That esoteric name belies a fundamental law of nature.
Imagine tossing a coin repeatedly until you get a certain pattern, let’s say HTT (head, tail, tail).
Looking for something to take you away from your phone but tend to get bogged down by long novels? Try a short story! This article from one of my favorite literary sites, Longreads.com, features ten recommended short stories.
One of my favorite movies is Adaptation, in no small part because of the way it cleverly refers to itself. It’s a movie about a movie (actually it’s a movie about a movie about a book). If that doesn’t make sense, try watching it and you’ll see what I mean.
In no particular order, here are the best books I read this past year.
You’re a pharmacist and you’ve just taken delivery of ten bottles of 1,000 pills each. But before you have a chance to put them away, your supplier calls to inform you that, due to a glitch at the factory, one of the ten bottles is tainted.
Try this simple puzzle about the likelihood of gender distribution among four children.
If you’re a Beatles fan you already know this but Peter Jackson just released a new documentary on Disney+ featuring hours of never before seen footage of the Beatles writing and recording material shortly before they broke up.
This short video from Vox reports on a phenomenon I’d not heard about but, as a central London resident, is apparently happening all around me.
This is the most powerful and memorable article I read this week. Ostensibly about the fight over one man’s last request, it speaks to a much larger question.
Check out this fascinating and beautifully produced visual explaination of the wonders of your immune system. You’ll be amazed by the incredible things going on in your body every day, about which you are able to remain blissfully ignorant, unless they stops working.
