Cucumbers used to be called “cowcumbers.” “By the end of the 18th century, ‘cowcumber’ had become a standard pronunciation, and even spread to the U.S.” It later became a class marker, and Dickens used it to signal lower class characters. […]
An analysis of 200,000 similes from popular fiction. Dry as a….? “You’ll notice that the top 3 bone, desert, and dust make up 43% of all usage, and there is a pretty quick drop-off after that with a long tail […]
Who is C F Frost? It’s the name on all American Express cards in their ads. “Charles Frost–or Chuck, as we like to call him–is a real person.” American Express used his name on sample cards in the “Do you […]
Illinois wants more money and they’re coming for it. I shared a bit about this budget bill that passed the Illinois legislature. Well, it’s been signed into law. It includes several new taxes, including one on social media platforms. The […]
Midjourney Medical is building the future I want to live in. This is so cool. It reinforces so much of my optimism about the future for humanity. They call it “Ultrasonic CT” and say the scan takes as little as […]
How to earn a billion dollars. “Exponential growth is like magic. It generates outcomes that seem impossible.” Paul Graham does the math on what it takes to go from a few million to a billion, and then explains why the […]
Tokenmaxxing was a mass delusion. “Tokenmaxxing was a mass delusion, something like a commercial form of AI psychosis.” Markie Wagner argues companies should stop celebrating token spend and start measuring “Return on Tokens” like any other investment. ~ learn more
How entrepreneurs figure out what they want. Taylor Pearson argues that you get unstuck by inventorying your means first, then letting the goals emerge from them. “Assuming you have some vague goal or sense of which direction you’d like to […]
Blood cleansing for microplastics. “Among patients with the highest levels of circulating microplastics, average levels fell from 52.2 to 21.1 particles per 100 microliters of blood after a single treatment.” Therapeutic plasma exchange is an FDA-cleared procedure, but the study […]
Why do commercial spaces sit vacant? “in many cases, lowering the rent on a building will force the bank to foreclose on it.” The piece explains why a half-empty storefront can still make more sense to the owner and the […]