Have you heard of Edward Bernays?
The ‘Father of Public Relations’ was Sigmund Freud’s nephew, and is credited with creating the field of PR. His resume is long and impressive (although not always great for the public), including this: “He was instrumental in making it acceptable for women to smoke in public.” | learn more
The chronological history of avocados 🥑
You probably have only eaten Hass avocados. They’re delicious, and all originate from one O.G. tree in California. Learn that story and more, dating back to the 1500s. | learn more
The structure of stand-up comedy
The Pudding dissects Ali Wong’s show Baby Cobra line by line and joke by joke to understand its genius. So cool! | learn more
On the little dot on top of the i and j
It’s called a tittle. | learn more
A fake trip to Coachella on Instagram
Never trust the internet! “London-based YouTuber Byron Denton fooled many of his Instagram followers by pretending to be at Coachella, though some caught onto his prank.” | learn more
Kidnapping: a very efficient business
Reading this, I learned a lot about both kidnapping as a business and the insurance product that’s been created around it. As you might guess, it’s a complicated relationship. | learn more
Animating URLs with emojis
This man is a true innovator! A programmer figured out how to make emoji animations in the URL box of your browser. | learn more
A map of the unknown world
“A Ghurka rifleman escaped from a Japanese prison in south Burma and walked six hundred miles alone through the jungles to freedom. The journey took him five months, but he never asked the way and he never lost the way…” The end of this story is both surprising and interesting. | learn more
The curious border dividing pizza and Mexican food popularity
There’s a strong geographic boundary between food preferences. This post also includes an interactive map so that you can compare other great food categories like BBQ, Seafood, Steak, and Sandwiches. Now I’m hungry. | learn more