Audience and jury
Author Ayn Rand wrote a play about a murder trial. Audience members were invited to play the jury and determine the end of the play – thus creating one of the first choose-your-own-adventure plots in history.
Earworm cure
An earworm is a piece of repetitive memorable music that gets stuck in your head. How do you cure it? Chew gum.
Smelly code
In computer programming, how do you know when a program is going bad? First, it begins to smell.
Metric martians
The Mars Climate Orbiter space probe cost 327 million US dollars – and it crashed because of a mix-up between the metric and imperial systems.
Dictator vs. rock music
Manuel Noriega was the CIA-funded dictator of Panama from 1983 to 1989. When the United States invaded Panama, they drove him out with The Clash’s cover of I Fought the Law.
Learned pig
Before television, people had to make their own fun. So they trained pigs to read.
Porky Pig swearing
In a 1939 short film, Porky Pig swears in the funniest way possible. It was not seen by the public until the 1970s.
The five million dollar comma
In 2017, because of a missing comma, a Maine company had to pay out five million dollars in a legal settlement.
Nadaism
In 1958, surrealism, the Beat Generation, and a decade of civil war in Colombia distilled itself into the Nadaist movement – a rejection of Colombian government, literature, religion, and orthodoxy.
Love and Wrestling
Mary and William Brewster, passengers on the Mayflower, had five children: Jonathan, Patience, Fear, Love, and Wrestling. Their descendants included Julia Child, Bing Crosby, Richard Gere, Katharine Hepburn, and Thomas Pynchon.
Update 1
A quick update on the state of this blog.
On the impossibility of final proof
It’s my 200th post! Time to talk about the nature of proof, using 18th century literary hero Baron Munchausen and his horse too.
Gut brains
The human gastrointestinal tract has half a billion neurons embedded in its lining. Often described as the “second brain,” it can act and react autonomously, and even has its own supply of serotonin and dopamine.
Drunk election
In 1984, the Prime Minister of New Zealand announced a snap election on television while extremely drunk.
Buddha would not play Jenga
Many Buddhist scriptures include a list of games that Buddha would not play. It is the first list of games in history.
