Still firmly in the not-crazy camp
Are people who send mass emails certifiably crazy? I am not talking about THIS kind of mass email, of course. Rather, I am talking about the gentlemen who -- every morning, without fail! -- send me, Obama, Oprah and like 300 other people 15,000-word missives about "truth" and the "old world order." Today I got to chat with a social psychologist about it, and the outlines of crazy are actually vaguer than I thought. (Though this newsletter is, for the record, still firmly in the not-crazy camp.) Anyway, to the links!
1. You can go home again ... on Google Maps. Saroo Brierley didn't even know the name of his town when, at age four, he got lost on a train and ended up in an orphanage 1,000 miles away. Decades later, he found his hometown, and his birth family, through online maps. (And if that's not enough of a testament to G-maps' power, Rose Eveleth has a nice essay on the subject too.)
2. Wikipedia *looks* like a free-for-all, but it's actually a bureaucratic mess. That sucks for Wikipedia editors, sure, but it also sucks for you. Research on the world's largest encyclopedia -- as well as internal accounts like this one -- suggest all the red tape is to blame for the site's recent atrophy.
3. David Sedaris is possibly insane. Everyone's favorite personal essayist once became so obsessed with his Fitbit that he once walked 60,000 steps in a single day. 60,000 steps = 30 miles = David Sedaris is mentally unbalanced. But you knew that already!
Adorable Internet child discovers eyebrows. <3 o_0
Pocketables: Jeff Bezos: the man, the myth, the disruptor. Also my boss, kind of. (4400 words/18 minutes)
Postscripts: Swearing shortcuts. Yoments. Me-mes. How to cure your hangover, according to science, and how your work ruins the economy, according to math. The 30 most-pinned places in the world. The death of online White House petitions. Do our pets need Prozac? Do Reddit mods need pay? I'm just hoping not to see any more of this today.
Until tomorrow!
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