The Interesting List

“ A small building prevented Macy’s from building on an entire block, so they built around it and leased billboards on it for a century. ”

“ A small building prevented Macy’s from building on an entire block, so they built around it and leased billboards on it for a century. ”

“ An explanation of why a quirk of legislation has caused ambulances to cost so much ”

“ A detailed history of how a destructive pest was neutralized through sicence and geography. ”

“ For a couple of decades, there was a bus service from London to Calcutta, India. It took almost two months. ”

“ There’s a specific font that has become associated with the early stages of neighborhood re-development. ”

“ A man opened a bookstore in a downtown building and set off a multi-year conflict over a homeless encampment. ”

“ Uber drivers in London are embarking on a multi-year journey to pass the black cabbie test, whcih requires them to memorize most of the street in London. ”

“ A random, bizarre will for a half-billion estate was ‘discovered,’ and no matter how ridiculous it seems, the court is forcing lawyers to adjudicate the matter. ”

“ Scam call center operating from East Asia hold victims’ passports and keep them in debt bondage, while presenting themselves – and even internally operating – as legitimate businesses. ”

“ For various reasons, older books were created or bound with materials that are poisonous. There is a project to find and catalog them all, and research ways to safely store toxic books ”

“ It gets so cold in Siberia, that you can repair a ship’s hull by letting it freeze in a river, then cutting out the ice around it. ”

“ A look at actual representatives of body fat percentages about what’s good, reasonable, and safe. ”

“ There’s a house just north of New York City that has become a magnet for film and TV shoots, including almost all pre-recorded videos for Saturday Night Live. ”

“ A couple of Dutch brothers started filming marble races and now it’s how they make a living. ”

“ A baby was stillborn to a surrogate, so the biological mother embarked on a campaign of harassment and accusations. ”

“ There’s a unique architecture to keeping the South Pole research station running. ”

“ A photo gallery of ad hoc graves found in the American desert. ”

“ A settlement in Antarctica is so remote and isolated, that you can’t still have your appendix and live there because the nearest hospital is so hard to get to that a burst appendix will kill you. ”

“ A study examined the paths created by consistently following the first link in a Wikipedia article. Ninety-five percent (95%) of them eventually led to the page on Philosophy. ”

“ A collection of amazing patterns generated by Conway’s Game of Life. ”

“ Higher education does lead to more liberal political viewpoints, but the gap isn’t as large as many claim it to be. ”

“ Turns out that the environment inside a plane in flight makes us subconsciously crave certain foods and drinks. ”

“ A look at bad college degrees and an examination of what makes them that way. ”

“ A explainer of how LEGO sets are invented and what rules apply to building them. ”

“ Statistics from analyzing the content of 2,000 Oscar acceptance speeches. ”

“ A humorous rap video about how a cartoon is animated turns out to be quite informative. ”

“ An NFL player has three Super Bowl rings in three seasons, despite only playing in three games. ”

“ There is a specific shade of green used in Disney parks to reduce the attention and ‘notice-ability’ of buildings they don’t want to be seen. ”

“ A compilation of examples of when movies broke the fourth wall, and spoke to or looked directly at the camera. ”

“ Employers who took the effort to find and install an alternative web browser performed better on every metric and stayed in jobs longer. ”

“ When women enter a profession or institution in greater numbers, men leave. The latest example is college. ”

“ A new way to hammer together roofing trusses completely changed how they were built, and by extension, how homes were designed. ”

“ A discussion about how car chases are staged and filmed. ”

“ A specialized branch of crime investigation using writing patterns to solve crimes. ”

“ Prevailing winds and historical poor sanitation have caused the east side of cities to be generally less wealthy than the west sides. ”

“ A short examination of how NASCAR regulates the shape of its cars. ”

“ During a live taping of Friends, the producers weren’t sure if the viewers would understand a joke. So they polled the studio audience. ”

“ Of the coast of Brazil is a small island which has evolved to become the home of one the most venomous snakes in the world. One bite will cause you to ‘die screaming,’ and there are thousands of them on the island, preying on migrating birds. ”

“ There is a sport where competitors alternate three-minute rounds of boxing with chess. They can win by checkmate or knockout. ”

“ In Spain, teams compete to build the tallest structure made out of humans. ”

“ When the Redbox DVD rental company filed bankruptcy, it ‘orphaned’ 24,000 machines around the country. No one seems to want to remove them. ”

“ A professional drummer hears a song for the very first time – with the drums removed – and invents up a drum part on the spot. ”

“ A researcher found that many records of people living over 100 years were concentrated in places that had no birth records and high rates of pension fraud. ”

“ A group of nuns invests in various companies then use their status as shareholders to lead activism campaigns against the companies. ”

“ It’s a lot harder than you think to calculate how many marriages end in divorce. ”

“ A fascinating look into how a new LEGO set is born, and all the challenges that go into engineering and marketing it. ”

“ In order to fulfill a contractual requirement, a movie was shown a limited number of times, at odd hours, in a single theater, prior to being released overseas. This technically made it the lowest-grossing movie ever. ”

“ Humans have a natural instinct for music, and a musician demonstrates this by making music using an unwitting audience. ”

“ At a testing center in Upstate New York, the US Air Force has mounted a bunch of planes upside down to test their antennae and communications systems. ”

“ A long explainer and background article about planning and maintaining the maze of undersea data cables that make the Internet possible. ”

“ For decades, the United States has regularly dropped hundreds of millions of sterilized insects from planes over Central America to prevent a scourge from migrating north. ”

“ A man on the run for robbery romanced a local woman while living in an improvised space inside a retail store. ”

“ In 1972, an Italian singer recorded a song which lyrics that were meant to sound like English, but were in fact nonsense. He sought to prove that Italians would love anything that sounded like English. ”

“ Details of a brazen hack of the multi-state lottery system by one of the key security employees that resulted in multiple lottery winnings. ”

“ Noise and space requirements make it very hard to build new airports, but we still manage to increase passenger capacity through bigger planes, faster turnarounds, and better air traffic control. ”

“ Winning an Oscar often comes down to very shrewd awards marketing by film studios. ”

“ Swiss mapmakers have an odd habit of hiding secret images in maps, for no particular reason. ”

“ A group of Wikipedia editors broke off, and the reasons why give an interesting look into how Wikipedia works, and how different people and subjects can come into conflict. ”

“ An enlightening interview with the head of a firm that recruits home staff for billionaires. ”

“ With the help of Red Bull, a team builds a camera fast enough to follow an F1 car around a very fast track ”

“ There are ‘bar codes’ printed on the ground in multiple places around the United States, used to calibrate spy satellites. ”

“ Pretending to have native heritage is not uncommon in Canada, where financial incentives are often involved. This is the story of how a mother and her two daughters played the system for gain. ”

“ Due to a change in investigative policy, it’s become much easier to determine the root cause of air incidents. The key was to not try and blame anyone. ”

“ Some US currency have a star a the end of the serial number because they were reissued to correct a manufacturing error. ”

“ This news report from 2009 is an experiment that proves short men have significant challenges romantically compared to taller men. ”

“ For various reasons, some actors who appear to interact in the same movie, never actually meet each other. ”

“ When movies and TV shows need to do a close-up of some object, they often have the object created or printed at two or three times the size. ”

“ A domain name forever enshrined on license plates accidentally expired and was picked up by a very different organization. ”

“ In 2016, a single hedge-fund manager moved from New Jersey to Florida. He made so much money, and paid so much in taxes, that this move threatened to throw the NJ budget out of whack. ”

“ Gold from a lot of different countries is stored in a vault under New York City. Exchanging funds many countries therefore just involves moving gold from one shelf to another. ”

“ A group of artists collaborated with the showrunner of Melrose Place to insert Leftist political art as props in the show. ”

“ Wales has a library combined with a hotel, so you can sleep next to the books. ”

“ Breeding chili peppers for hotness has resulted in the hottest food known to man, yet people some people just love to eat them. ”

“ A solid backstory about the undersea cables that you don’t think about, but that move all your data and make your digital life possible. ”

“ Judi Dench recites a Shakespearean sonnet, on the spot, from memory. ”

“ In 1954, a Japanese finishing boat accidentally wandered into an active U.S. nuclear test. One crew member died in the immediate aftermath, and the rest suffered health problems, mostly dying young. ”

“ A mass migration and a glass building in the flight path were not a good combination. ”

“ It takes a lot to launder the linens products by the largest hotel in the United States. ”

“ In 1986, the Air Force flew a human heart a long distance, very, very fast, so it would survive until it got implanted. ”

“ People aren’t only poor because they make bad decisions. Often, they make bad decisions because they’re poor. Poverty affects a person’s ability to make rational decisions. ”

“ The Jungle Gym was designed to help kids think in three dimensions. But kids just liked to climb on them. ”

“ A teenager was denied alcohol at one of NYC’s most prestigious establishments, so he embarked on a dumbfounding sidewalk campaign to claim antisemitism and Holocaust denial. And somehow a hip-hop star is involved. ”

“ The US Navy owns an entire forest to source a rare wood to repair the historic USS Constitution. ”

“ A professional athlete walked away to indulge his love of Pokemon and create a business around it. ”

“ An building catering to the diamond trade in India has surpassed the Pentagon to become the largest office building in the world. ”

“ A company uses never-ending video of a wall of lava lamps to generate unpredictable encryption keys for their software. ”

“ The largest city in Brazil banned all outdoor advertising in 2006. ”

“ Many charts seem to show that something dramatic happened to the U.S. economy in 1971. No answers are provided. ”

“ Maps throughout history show how a 100-million year old coastline predicts voting demographics in modern-day Alabama. ”

“ On the eve of the 1996 election, the NY Times crossword had a clue based on the future outcome which could solve the puzzle in two completely different ways. ”

“ Early PC computers – before the advent of secure software – often had physical keys to lock the case or the keyboard. ”

“ The architect who built a concept for modular housing for a 1965 world’s fair in Montreal has ‘completed’ the project with the help of a video game 3D rendering engine. ”

“ Before Major League Baseball uses a new ball, it is rubbed down with special mud to make it less slippery. The mud is harvested from one location, by one man. ”

“ A long analysis of the disappearance of Malaysia Air Flight 370 provides evidence that pilot suicide is the most likely scenario. ”

“ In the last 20 years, there has been a significant decrease of dead bugs on car windshields. This might be a result of a massive decline in the number of insects in the Earth biome. ”

“ There is a sentence that uses every phonetic sound which differences between British and American English. Hugh Jackson says it before each take in which he has to play an American. ”

“ A fictional airline has been used in dozens of TV shows and movies, often in situations where something bad happens to one of its planes. ”

“ A massive home Mike Tyson lived in during the 90s was turned into a church after being abandoned for almost 20 years. ”

“ Twenty years ago, the way the sound systems at outdoor music concepts was completely changed. This changed how the music sounds, but also how the stages were designed. ”

“ Humans are not generating enough replacements to maintain the world’s current population. ”

“ A South Korean company is bottling water from the demilitarized zone between North and South, claiming purity because that land has been uninhabited for almost 70 years. ”

“ Julia Roberts’s parents ran a theater school in Georgia and became friends with Martin Luther and Coretta Scott King. ”

“ In 1985, the DC police sent an offer for free tickets to the Superbowl to the last known address of 3,000 criminals. When they showed up to claim them, they were arrested. ”

“ The U-2 spy plane is so difficult to land that they need fast chase cars to follow it down the runway to tell the pilot how things look. This is a video from one of those cars. ”

“ We’re still not totally sure why we find things funny, but scientists are (very seriously) studying it. ”

“ Barbie’s Dreamhouse is 60 years old. Its style has changed to match the evolving architecture styles of the times. ”

“ Russia would absolutely love an independent Scotland, because its withdrawal from the NATO has a shockingly large impact on world security and the world’s economy. ”

“ The Hallmark Channel filmed a story about two sisters and edited it into two movies. Each one is told from the perspective of a different sister, and they share footage where the sisters interact throughout their respective stories. ”

“ Elephants might be adapting in real-time to limit their danger from poachers. ”

“ The IRS is likely running on software code that is 60 years old. ”

“ In 1978, a BBC science show pulled off a shot for which timing was critical, and for which there would be no second chance. ”

“ A look at how toy companies got around laws limiting child advertising by creating cartoons for toys, so that the toys promoted the cartoons, which in turn promoted the toys, and kids couldn’t really tell the difference. ”

“ A detailed look at how movies capture human motion for CGI. ”

“ A wide-ranging look at if people used to look older for their age, and why people tend to look how we think they should, or vice-versa. ”

“ It’s not quite what the title promises, but this is a quick look at how cats have benefited humans over the years, and how little they differ from the cats of ancient times. ”

“ A retrospective and examination of the ground-breaking interactive fiction series from the 1980s. ”

“ This site lists the days since something bad happened, from an earthquake of any kind (zero, because one happens every day) to things like a ‘Teraton Asteroid Impact’ (last happened 35 million years ago), and everything in between (example: someone last lost a nuclear weapon in 1989). ”

“ A remote town in Alaska is only accessible via a single tunnel, and the entire population lives, learns, worships, and socializes in a single high-rise apartment building. ”

“ A detailed look at the planes, helicopters, and ground vehicles used to transport the president, and how they themselves are transported. ”

“ The director of The Godfather discusses the physical binder and notes he used to adapt the novel. ”

“ The Ghana aviation authority got upset at the continued mechanical issues of a single airliner and banned it from being flown into their country. ”

“ A discussion of the Nike Vaporfly, why it dominates elite running, and how technological advancement disrupts athletic record-keeping. ”

“ An artist has finally revealed a massive sculpture he spent half a century working on. ”

“ An examination of the motives and economics behind the wealthy and their super-yachts. ”

“ A man with access to a lot of classified information disappeared in 1983. He was finally found and arrested in 2018. ”

“ The act of preparing for or mitigating a disaster or pandemic sometimes reduces the effects to the point where we’re convinced the threat never existed or that we overreacted. ”

“ An annotated photo gallery showing the detailed process by which a physical book is produced. ”

“ A damaged plane jettisoned a nuclear bomb off the coast of Georgia in 1958. It has never been found. It has been confirmed to contain enriched uranium, but may or may not be capable of detonating. ”

“ Throughout the 20th century, leaded gasoline additives likely have caused more deaths, crime, and intellectual disabilities than almost any other invention. ”

“ There’s actually a lot of information embedded an interstate highway’s number. ”

“ The title gets fact-checked, but is mostly true: the vast majority of the population of the world will experience sunlight at the same time during a 1-minute period every July 8. ”

“ The least safe car sold in the United States is a whole lot safer than the least safe car sold in Mexico. This is very apparent when you run one into the other. ”

“ A guy builds an obstacle course for the squirrels in his backyard. In the (very entertaining) process of watching them solve it, he explains some of the physiology of how a squirrel moves. ”

“ Unfortunately, there’s not nearly as much energy in a lightning bolt as you probably imagine. The economics of trying to capture them are not good. ”

“ A game developer uses gaming software to build a realistic version of Flappy Bird. ”

“ This is the first video ever posted to YouTube. It’s 18 seconds of one of the founders talking about elephants at the zoo, ”

“ A deep dive into common formats of apartments in NYC, including the historical reasons why living spaces evolved that way. ”

“ A deep dive into the trope of the ‘bulletin board with things connected by string’ used in an investigation. ”

“ A former LEGO designer explains what an ‘illegal’ building technique is and provides several examples. ”

“ To test road surfaces, there’s a massive rotating machine in France that simulates years of tires traveling over the road. ”

“ An in-depth, minute-by-minute analysis of the infamous North Hollywood bank robbery shootout from 1997. ”

“ It turns out that one of the most practical ways to transport a jet engine is to simply bolt it under the wing of another plane. ”

“ A comprehensive tour of a full-size Boeing 767 turned into a private jet. ”

“ The psychological operations unit in the US Army produced their own recruiting video which explains what they do in a very unexpected style. ”

“ A journalist finds some strange circles on Google Maps. He goes down a research rabbit hole which culminates with adventurers driving out into the middle of nowhere, digging up dynamite, and bringing home sardine cans. ”

“ There are very few suspended railways in the world. ”

“ A murderer was burying a victim when he had a ‘cardiac event’ and collapsed onto the grave. People called 911 for him, and responders found both murderer and victim. ”

“ When you win a hole-in-one contest (or any other longshot contest), the organizer isn’t sad, because they paid a fee to ensure they didn’t have to pay out the prize. ”

“ Some oil drilling wells in California are disguised as other structures. ”

“ There were some strange airlines in the past, that catered to very specific passenger demographics. ”

“ In 2004, two pilots tried to push an empty airliner to its performance limits. It did not end well. ”

“ An Iowa TV station converts from black-and-white to color, live on the air, in 1967. ”

“ There is a shadowy Soviet system that can automatically launch nuclear missiles if it detects a nuclear explosion on Soviet soil. It is still in operation today. ”

“ Mesmerizing time-lapse video of the complete build of a Porsche 911 GT3, from first weld to first track run. ”

“ Japanese-speakers imitate English-speakers without speaking English, showing how they interpret the inflections, tone, and cadence (and often hand movements) of the Anglo world. ”

“ A side-by-side analysis of two Formula One drivers on the same track showing the tiny choices that separated their lap times by 0.35 seconds. ”

“ A look into why a pop song probably wasn’t plagiarized which becomes a lesson on music history and the creative process itself. ”

“ U.S. anthropologists will sometimes refer to ‘America/American’ by another word in order to maintain professional distance and objectivity from it. ”

“ A specific shade of greenish-brown has been deemed ‘the ugliest color in the world,’ and is specifically used for cigarette packaging in many countries. ”

“ In 1987, thieves in Brazil stole a radioactive capsule from an abandoned medical facility. A week later, four people were dead and 250 were contaminated. ”

“ An Austrian man was a dwarf until the age of 20. Then he started growing to end up almost 8-feet fall. ”

“ The tiny subculture of coast-to-coast racers is accusing one of their own of faking a record run. ”

“ A tortoise living on a remote island is so old there are pictures of him 136 years apart. ”

“ Climate change has opened year-round shipping lanes along Russia’s northern coast. This will dramatically affect both Russia’s and the world’s economy and geopolitical balance. ”

“ A photo gallery and description of how the mothballed USS Kitty Hawk gets from Washington state to a salvage yard on the Texas coast. ”

“ The website of the Heaven’s Gate cult who committed mass suicide when the Hale-Bopp comet passed by Earth in 1997 is still online and unchanged. ”

“ The BBC obtained recordings of several phone calls made by Tunisia’s deposed dictator while he was on the run and trying to determine if he should, or even could, return home. ”

“ The world’s shortest scheduled commercial flight lasts 1 minute, 20 seconds and flies at 350 feet. ”

“ A professional basketball dunker breaks down his discipline and explains the science and physics behind dunking a basketball. ”

“ There is a single whale that emits a call at a different frequency than any other whale. No one has seen it – its lonely call has just been recorded multiple times over the last 40 years. ”

“ In 1913, parents were reunited with their toddler son who had disappeared eight months earlier. However, another woman claimed the child was her son. Almost 100 years later, DNA evidence proved the child was misidentified. ”

“ Multiple female Indian journalists were tricked into accepting teaching positions at Harvard which were entirely fake. No one knows who targeted them or why. ”

“ Airlines make little money on ticket sales. Most of their profits come from selling miles/points to marketing partners like credit cards, hotels, and car rental agencies. ”

“ There is an area of the Sahara desert that no country will claim because it would require affirming a border which would exclude more valuable land. So it belongs to no one. ”

“ A decade ago, a radiation source was detected inside a shipping container. No one knew what to do about it. ”

“ A grisly aquarium discovery leads to a sordid tale of murder and double-cross. ”

“ Chris Duntsch was a very, very bad surgeon. He killed or maimed 90% of his patients, but no one wanted to speak up and embarrass the hospitals where he worked. ”

“ A man in Wales was a very early Bitcoin miner. He has 8,000 Bitcoin in a wallet for which the only key is on a hard drive he accidentally threw away. ”

“ A Black woman appears to be White, and she details her upbringing, life experience, and some of what ‘other’ White people have said to her, thinking she was the same race as them. ”

“ A comprehensive legal analysis of the Kyle Rittenhouse verdict that digs into what ‘self defense’ means in a fluid, chaotic situation like the Kenosha riots. ”

“ Advances in technology haven’t really saved us any time. They’ve just given us more stuff and raised our expectations for how life should work. ”

“ A reflection on why we collect physical things and why the digital equivalents will never be the same. ”

“ Someone is using all sorts of email tricks to get early access to novel manuscripts. No one knows who they are or what they want, but everyone in the industry is paranoid. ”

“ A specific bird flew from Alaska to New Zealand, without stopping, and this is typical for the breed. ”

“ The Cambodian language is notoriously hard to type. So the speakers just…don’t. ”

“ Some gamers spent 13 years trying to improve the record time in a specific level of a video game, and seven years grinding away to exploit an obscure hack they were convinced was possible. ”

“ An island belonging to Alaska is so far to the west that it’s technically…east. ”

“ An interactive tool which demonstrates how incredibly vast the solar system is. (Hint: hold down your right arrow key.) ”

“ A 3D visualization of the depth of the oceans. ”

“ The U.S. president is allowed to issue commemorative coins into circulation, effectively creating small amounts of money. So, why not large amounts of money? ”

“ The backstory of how one of the most recognizable people in the world went out for an anonymous beer. ”

“ In the middle of the Great Smoky Mountains sits a train that’s not technically abandoned, but will likely never move again. ”

“ A lake town in Wisconsin is the only place mail carriers deliver mail from a boat that never stops moving. ”

“ Adherents of a new extremist movement simply claim that they own the rights to, well, everything, it seems. ”

“ A car company claimed to have driven their car at 331 mph. But some viewers proved they didn’t, using nothing a stopwatch and Google Maps. ”

“ The men’s javelin throw record is fully 25-years-old, and might be the hardest record to beat. ”

“ The story of a single handgun that traveled a long way and did a lot of damage. ”

“ In 2017, two people were shot at a ranch in Texas in an event that was blamed on illegal immigrants. However, an investigation suggests the victims were the only people there. ”

“ A woman was troubled by the subtle tone of Wikipedia articles about certain aspects of Nazi history. She embarked on an epic and controversial editing spree. ”

“ A programmer got in a dispute with someone, so he deleted this code from a communal repository. Problem was, lots of other systems depended on that code. ”

“ Several states have laws that require disclose if something bad happened in a house. Or if it’s…haunted. ”

“ Dan Brown might have written a weird humor book, but no one knows for sure, and you can’t seem to buy it, no matter how hard you try. ”

“ Professional chess players have to be in good physical condition. They burn a surprising amount of energy from mental exertion and stress. ”

“ In a sensational trial, a lawyer successfully defended his client with a shocking defense. Near death, he admitted the entire story was fabricated. ”

“ The relics of the 1984 Olympics in Sarajevo still stand. Some of them were used during combat and saw the horrors of war crimes. ”

“ Most Canadians live south of the northern border of the United States. The Canadian population is wildly undistributed. ”

“ A sizable city in Siberia is the coldest place in the world, with winter temps dipping to -90F. This is how they survive. ”

“ Although anyone can work to become a professional tennis player, the road is long and even a Top 200 player can expect to make about the same as an accountant. ”

“ Mythbusters proved that the climactic scene in the final episode of ‘Breaking Bad’ could have worked exactly as it was portrayed. ”

“ There’s a ridiculous ultra-marathon that goes through the Sahara. In 1994, an Italian competitor got lost in the desert for 11 days. ”

“ A record temperature that stood for 90 years was probably just human error. ”

“ In 2018, a woman figured out how to game the Olympic qualification system and competed in Pyeongchang despite limited skills. People weren’t pleased. ”

“ The player who was the first openly-gay athlete in the Major Leagues coincidentally also invented the ‘high five.’ ”

“ A European art thief was unsophisticated but effective, stealing hundreds of items out of under the noses of museums across the continent. He never sold any of them. ”

“ There’s a lot of food in a grocery store, but there’s an ideal order and process to make it last as long as possible. ”

“ Road barriers have been refined over decades of testing, trial, and error. There’s a lot more complication involved in their design than you might think. ”

“ Where the ‘summit’ lies on a tall mountain is a matter of debate. Consequently, many people think they’ve climbed to the top, but haven’t really. ”

“ Soldiers studying for protocol exams have inadvertently revealed nuclear secrets by creating online flashcards for them. ”

“ One of the greatest competitive shooters in history is an ordained Italian bishop. ”

“ Twice a week, a van makes a 16-hour, 500-mile drive from Fairbanks, Alaska, north to the Prudhoe Bay oil fields. ”

“ In 2017, a California dam almost failed over the course of several harrowing weeks. ”

“ A very niche list of science fiction stories that were originally set in ‘the future,’ but that real time has now surpassed, meaning the stories are now set in the past. ”

“ No brand appearance is accidental. Here’s how it works. ”

“ There’s a ‘wet spot’ in the California desert that started slowly moving in 2016, and no one knows why. It’s wiggling under highways, train tracks, and other infrastructure, which causes problems. ”

“ It turns out that ‘macaroni’ was a state of mind. ”

“ The ‘mirror shot’ is when a movie or TV show films directly into a mirror, yet you cannot see the camera. Turns out there are multiple tricks to making this happen. ”

“ Filmmakers use some tricky techniques to make you think they had thousands of extras on the set. ”

“ Limited range makes jet packs impractical for most uses, but they come in handy for boarding ships, as demonstrated in this training exercise. ”

“ Josip Tito, the former ruler of Yugoslavia, had a opulent luxury train built for his personal use. ”

“ A chess master identifies historical (and, in one case, fictional) chess games simply from a snapshot of positions on the board. ”

“ Some fascinating behind-the-scenes stories of working at a zoo. ”

“ A backstage view of the director of the Oscar broadcast and the decisions and pace the team has to maintain during a single award and acceptance speech. ”

“ ‘High explosives’ is a technical term, not a colloquial one. It means something specific. There is also ‘low explosives.’ ”

“ A woman knew of a family legend that there was a box of money hidden somewhere in her house. She hired a treasure hunter to find out for sure. ”

“ Out in the middle of the Arabian desert is a house disguised as a pickup truck. ”

“ A freighter was abandoned at the mouth of the Suez in 2017. Due to a legal quirk, a single sailor is stuck onboard and cannot return home. ”

“ A long-retired baseball player gets a nice paycheck every year because the owner of his former club thought Bernie Madoff’s financial gains were real. ”

“ In 1982, a billionaire set a goal to give all of his (growing) fortune to charity. It took him 38 years, but he completed the goal, closed his trust, and he and his wife now live in a small apartment. ”

“ A guy hardly anyone knew about set a record for the largest financial loss in the shortest amount of time. And he did serious damage to a couple of banks along the way. ”

“ Exactly who gets credit for writing a song is a complicated process and fraught with mild fraud and, occasionally, quasi-extortion. ”

“ A montage of 50-year-old cigarette television commercials. ”

“ Over a hundred years ago, Chinese immigrants settled in the Mississippi Delta. Their descendants still live in the Deep South. ”

“ There’s a very strict, technical rule on Wheel of Fortune that can cost a contestant a win. ”

“ A deep dive into The Texas Switch, which is a way of sneakily inserting an actor or stunt double into an unbroken shot. ”

“ In 1930, an eight-story office building was rotated 90-degrees and moved about 50-meters over the course of four weeks, while it remained occupied and in use. ”

“ Face-changing apps have gotten so good that a middle-aged man was able to pose as a young, attractive female and amass 16,000 followers just by using a filter on his phone. ”

“ A type of cheese from Sardinia is infested with maggots on purpose. ”

“ In 1977, a German tourist accidentally de-planed in Bangor, Maine, and spent three days thinking he was in San Francisco. When the truth was discovered, he become a brief sensation. ”

“ Explosions in the movies bear virtually no resemblance to real-life explosions, by design. ”

“ When geographic coordinates are empty – ‘0,0’ or ‘null’ – mapping databases use a fake placename called ‘Null Island’ to represent the thing that is not there. ”

“ An unexplained breeze in her bathroom caused an NYC woman to remove the mirror, which revealed an entire hidden apartment. ”

“ When Grand Central Station was cleaned up in the 90s, a small patch of grime was left so people would be reminded of how dirty it used to be. ”

“ In 1945, there was an hours-long Japanese ‘attack’ on Los Angeles that was very likely the result of wild imaginations and nervous trigger fingers. ”

“ An entertaining list of ‘celebrity paradoxes,’ which is where a story references a real person, and that real person has intersected with that story as a fictional character. ”

“ A large city is sinking, and the rate is surprising. One building is sinking – unevenly – at almost an inch-and-a-half each year. ”

“ There is a ‘forest’ of 47,000 ‘trees’ in Utah that is actually one massive tree, connected underground by a single root system. Each individual ‘tree’ is just a connected offshoot of the same, original tree. ”

“ There’s a special form of signage used in Los Angeles to discretely direct movie set workers and extras to filming locations. They’re written in code with a distinctive visual style. ”

“ In the 1920s, people kept smashing a traffic light in an Irish neighborhood because they objected to green being the bottom color. As a result, it is now the only ‘upside-down traffic light’ in America. ”

“ A new trend in art is the sale of encrypted files which are guaranteed to be unique and only have a single unencrypted copy. ”

“ Last year, Citibank accidentally sent half a billion dollars to a client’s lenders. But since the client owed the money anyway, the recipients kept it. Lawsuits ensued. ”

“ The Prague city hall has a style of elevator which is superior to traditional elevators in many ways…but also inferior because it might kill or maim you. ”

“ Marvel action movies are ‘pre-filmed’ in a kind of ‘draft mode,’ so that huge chunks of the films exist visually before any shooting starts. Sometimes this happens even before the director is hired or the script is finished. ”

“ A ‘building ghost’ is when a demolished building leaves the marks of its floors and walls on the adjacent buildings. ”

“ This is the first image ever posted to the web. It has been at this same web address since 1992. The image depicts a comedy musical group formed at CERN, where the web was invented. ”

“ During the 1800s, several Native American tribes held Black slaves. The slaves were freed and allowed to become members of their tribe. A hundred years later, that membership was revoked. The dispute wasn’t settled until 2017. ”

“ Researchers think they finally have an explanation for the chilling Dyatlov Pass Incident. ”

“ It’s very common for famous people to lie about their athletic accomplishments in an attempt to sound inspiring. ”

“ A story of the horrifying reputation damage one person can do on the internet, and how hard it can be to stop them, or reverse what’s been done. ”

“ An Asian restaurant in Montreal has achieved some notoriety for its menu, which warns customers that some dishes just aren’t very good. ”

“ When wealthy people buy art as an investment, they often never even see it. Special facilities exist to store the art, tax-free, under their ownership. ”

“ A composite video showing how a baseball pitcher can make pitches look similar until very late in their delivery. ”

“ In 2015, shipping rates were so low that it was cheaper to move your belongings around the world on a container ship than store them in a local facility. ”

“ A Japanese craftsman restores a book. (Turn on the closed captions for an English translation.) ”

“ A collection of stories from employees of dating apps which reveal they’re not as genuine as you might think. ”

“ A simple picture of Air Force One resulted in a long, forensic discussion about whether the plane was taking off or landing at the time. ”

“ The US government has a long history of wanting to be able to get in touch with you in an emergency. ”

“ An explanation of the long string of people and processes it takes to produce a cup of coffee. ”

“ There are still a tiny handful of polio survivors across the USA living significant portions of their lives in iron lungs which are slowly deteriorating. ”

“ Back in 2017, an incident in the Black Sea, and a bunch of Pokemon Go players, revealed that Russia can spoof GPS coordinates. ”

“ Very expensive self-published books on Amazon were likely used to launder money, purchased by people wanting to illicitly transfer funds to the seller. ”

“ A company in Rwanda delivers blood and medical supplies by drone. They can parachute a package of blood 50 miles away in 30 minutes, ordered via text message. ”

“ A travel agency for ‘ultra high net worth’ people reveals some of the absurdities involved with planning vacations for people with a lot of money. ”

“ A compilation of an Associated Press journalist reporting fluently in six different languages. ”

“ The US literally forgot how to make a critical component of nuclear weapons. This resulted in years of maintenance delays and cost tens of millions of dollars. ”

“ Streaming pays the artist by the song, not by the minute. So two shorter songs pay more than one longer song. ”

“ There’s a sunken WWII ship in shallow water off the coast of England. It contains over 6,000 tons of explosives. If it detonated, a tsunami would travel down the Thames. ”

“ A new study suggests that cardio interval training as short as four seconds has significant benefit for sedentary, middle-aged adults. ”

“ A short scene in the 1996 movie ‘Contact’ seems physically impossible and might send your brain into somersaults trying to figure out how they did it. ”

“ The story of Tom Seaver’s complicated relationship with the New York Mets. ”

“ This video is ostensibly about suspected cheating in a specific speedrun attempt, but it also explains and demonstrates some of the fascinating intricacies of that subculture. ”

“ There is a simplified version of English, consisting of just 850 words. After World War II, it was promoted as a universal language for the entire world. ”

“ On two occasions, Saab ran stock cars around a super-speedway at about 140mph continuously for several weeks just to prove their reliability. ”

“ Some people hate the last scene of ‘The Departed,’ to the point where they were fund-raising to digitally ‘fix’ it. (This eventually got shut down by the movie company.) ”

“ Just before the Great Depression, a man left millions of dollars to the family that could produce the most children in the 10 years after his death. ”

“ A profile of a premier homebuilder in Manhattan and some of the projects he works on. ”

“ Researchers have tracked almost a quarter-million cases of COVID back to a single conference in February 2020 which was attended by 200 people. ”

“ Humans need to assign causes to events that make sense to them. And if we’re not happy with the actual cause of something, we’ll invent one. ”

“ Hardly anyone lives in a big chunk of the United States, and that pattern is true for most countries. Where cities historically started and thrived comes down to geography and water. ”

“ A retired mathematician discovered a flaw in a state lottery game. He exploited it for a decade and won millions. ”

“ There was once a shoulder-launched thermonuclear weapon. ”

“ There is a standard written notation to describe juggling patterns and techniques, much like written music and written chess moves. ”

“ To remove a sunken cargo ship, the salvage crew cut it into pieces with a massive cutting chain. ”

“ A baby has been born resulting from an embryo fertilized 27 years prior. The baby effectively lived almost three decades before it was born. ”

“ The story of one man’s descent into, and recovery from, locked-in syndrome. ”

“ Two professional CrossFit athletes take on a U.S. Army obstacle course. ”

“ Many U.S. presidents have had close brushes with death, including an actual assassination attempt on George W. Bush that hardly anyone knows about. ”

“ The NYC libraries used to have live-in caretakers. Their abandoned apartments are still in many of the the buildings. ”

“ An irreverent documentary about the concept of conspiracy theories and why some people need to believe that there are grand, hidden secrets to the world. ”

“ Graying COBOL programmers still get pressed into service to modify programs that might otherwise run for decades without changes. Also, in many cases, the Y2K problem was never fixed, just deferred. ”

“ In 1976, a young Bill Gates wrote a open letter to a computing newsletter imploring people not to make bootleg copies of his software. This letter is the source of much of the antipathy against Gates in the programming community. ”

“ A collection of submitted anecdotes about how small circumstances and decisions completely changed the course of someone’s life. ”

“ Memories of a physician who was in the emergency room where JFK was brought after he was shot in 1963. ”

“ A fascinating forensic analysis and re-enactment of the Beirut explosion video that demonstrates how and why it was so destructive. ”

“ Using just conference call video, researchers can reverse-engineer your shoulder movements to figure out what you’re typing with surprising accuracy. ”

“ A donor organ was rushed to its recipient in a Lamborghini police car. ”

“ A ‘full orchestral’ music box from the late 1800s that plays all instruments for a piece of music from an interchangeable cylinder. ”

“ During the late stages of construction, a Vegas hotel was found to have an engineering defect that could not be repaired. It was a total loss, but could not be imploded. It had to be dismantled, floor by floor. ”

“ A mysterious Bitcoin wallet has been dormant since 2015 and contained almost $1 billion. On election night, whomever had access to it suddenly moved all the money out. ”

“ An infographic showing the background and history behind the names of all the major candy bars and snacks. ”

“ There is a public Google Map on which someone has placed thousands of markers of shipwrecks visible in satellite view. ”

“ A son comes to terms with his late father’s secret career as a writer of pulp porn novels. He wrestles with the darkness that grew out it and that which it might have hidden from the world. ”

“ A guy plays with Photoshop’s new AI filters, and – while laughing hysterically – shows that Photoshop can estimate and apply how emotions might appear in a picture. ”

“ Some investigators took a redacted deposition, and using its own index, they cracked the redactions like a cypher. ”

“ In 1978, a young architecture student found a design flaw in a one-year-old NYC skyscraper which meant the building could collapse in a specific wind. Thankfully, the architect who designed the building listened. ”

“ Movies will make fake money as props. To work in the world of high-def, sometimes they make it too accurate, and they get in trouble with the Secret Service. ”

“ There are places where the original wagon wheel ruts from covered wagons in the late 1800s have remained undisturbed and are still visible. ”

“ There was a highly influential YouTube star before those were a common thing. But something happened, and he vanished. Completely. ”

“ In 1971, Iran threw itself a 2,500th year birthday party in the middle of the desert. It was undoubtedly the most expensive party in history. ”

“ With COVID having devastated the cruise industry, many companies are selling older ships off for scrap, thus clogging up ‘ship-breaking’ yards. ”

“ Footage from a communications tower during a forest fire. You can see how fast it spreads, and at the very end of the video, you can actually see the camera lens and housing melt before the feed cuts out. ”

“ A Minnesota grandmother snapped one day, killed her husband, then went on a road trip, and killed again. ”

“ While they’re a very trendy subject, shipping containers actually make terrible construction materials, and using them will probably result in more effort and energy than just building normally. ”

“ Some fighter jets have a false cockpit painted on the bottom of the fuselage to make it harder to figure out its orientation and direction. ”

“ A Canadian man has been playing the same role playing campaign unbroken for almost four decades. ”

“ A lonely stretch of railroad cuts hundreds of miles through the Sahara desert, taking iron ore from interior mines to the coast. ”

“ Microsoft’s Flight Simulator 2020 is so detailed that it’s hard to pick it out from real life. Here’s a side-by-side comparison. ”

“ The story of how one girl got famous literally overnight and how that affected her life and her mental health over time. ”

“ A father never knew for sure what happened to his firefighter son on 9/11. In 2010, they stumbled on the last picture ever taken of him, running towards the towers. ”

“ A monologue from ‘The Devil Wears Prada’ where a high-powered fashion critic caustically explains to an intern how the economics and trickle-down trendsetting of the fashion world works. ”

“ A plane attempting to land on an aircraft carrier snaps the arresting cable, thus demonstrating why pilots momentarily go to full power at the instant they catch the cable. ”

“ There was a viral headline all over social media for a couple of days. This article breaks it down, determines what was true and what wasn’t, and presents a larger look into how the news regularly gets twisted. ”

“ When the US military needs to move an active nuclear warhead, they take precautions. This was filmed in Great Falls, Montana. ”

“ Using anonymized cell phone tower data, watch how software can track all the Sturgis attendees as they move across the country. ”

“ The longest contiguous train ride in the world is from Porto, Portugal to Saigon, Vietnam. Unsurprisingly, it takes a long time, and costs a lot of money. ”

“ An FBI agent doggedly pursued Osama Bin Laden for most of the 90s. He retired in August 2001, and took a job as head of security for the World Trade Center. He died two weeks later on 9/11. ”

“ A long exploration of an abandoned agri-chemical research facility. It’s exactly like something out of a video game. ”

“ In 1980, an un-defuseable bomb appeared in a Lake Tahoe casino, setting off an elaborate extortion attempt and creating a legend inside the FBI. ”

“ There’s been an Easter Egg hidden in Windows 95 for 25 years. (The video is long, but you don’t need to watch the entire thing.) ”

“ There are several sunken Russian nuclear submarines – some with leaky reactors – in the Arctic Ocean that the country is going to attempt to raise and bring home. ”

“ A GIF that shows the difference in shock absorption between a truck with wheels connected by solid axles, and another with wheels independently suspended. ”

“ An entertaining yarn about a private investigator and his quest to find the body of a young murder victim. The backstory of the investigator is as interesting as the case he was working. ”

“ An oddly haunting performance art piece consisting of people acting on a spinning platform, set to Frank Sinatra. ”

“ An episode of a web series that focuses on hand-crafted goods. This one is about a dying breed of bookmaker. ”

“ The pandemic closed gyms but gave birth to ‘fitness speakeasies.’ Prohibition of anything has a long history of doing this. ”

“ There are some fascinating aspects to being a hand model. One of which is that you pretend to be other people’s hands a lot. ”

“ An absurd and sometime hilarious account of a Qatari prince who sort of attended USC…or didn’t, but somehow came away with a masters degree nonetheless. ”

“ A movie scene is broken down to show all the tricks a camera operator might use when they film a scene. ”

“ A documentary on how climate change is slowly sinking the Marshall Islands and how that population might be reestablished in the American South. ”

“ An interesting meditation on spelunking and how that morphed into a ground-breaking computer game. ”

“ Satellite and photo analysis shows the ship that brought the explosive chemicals to Beirut sank, just across the harbor, where it still lies. ”

“ Attractive people generally have easier lives. We all know this intuitively, but we rarely acknowledge it. ”

“ Ultimately, climate change is a migration problem. Humanity can survive it, but lots of people are going to have to move, and that causes other problems. ”

“ The Jewish community in NYC found a way to consider a large portion of the city their ‘home,’ which allows them to perform work on the Sabbath. ”

“ This reads like something out of a spy novel. ”

“ A survey that seems to prove that consuming news primarily via social media causes you to be less engaged and more likely to fall for conspiracy theories. ”

“ If you think Kirkland products are high quality, that’s because they are literally the best on the market, by design. ”

“ A hypothetical discussion of what might happen if Google got hacked. ”

“ A bodybuilder talks about what it’s really like to get and stay ripped for a competition. (Hint: it’s not fun.) ”

“ An analysis of Last Supper paintings show the depicted portion size growing, which likely parallels dietary trends of the time the painting was created. ”

“ A photographer on a game reserve in South Africa witnesses a lion die of old age. ”

“ The first ‘ethical hacker’ might have been a Frenchman who sabotaged the Nazi punch card system for storing data on citizens, thus preventing them from querying for Jews. ”

“ There is a specific height at which an aviator is considered an astronaut, at which point different laws apply. ”

“ When the Apollo 11 astronauts returned from the Moon, they completed a customs declaration form in Hawaii and declared moon rocks as cargo entering the country. ”

“ In the 1860s, several nations went to war over bat poop. ”

“ A solar-powered satellite has been in orbit since 1958. It is the oldest man-made object in space, and circles the earth every 132 minutes. Its orbit characteristics still constitute valid experimental data. ”

“ Research suggests that simply by being physically stronger, you’re likely to live longer. ”

“ There exists a low-frequency radio transmission of an alternating ‘buzz’ sound, sprinkled with the occasional Russian word. No one knows why this exists. It’s been going on for decades. ”

“ A bull from the 1960s was patriarch over a lineage of millions. It carried a faulty gene that wasn’t discovered for 40 years after hundreds of millions of dollars had been lost. ”

“ Ex-NFL players – especially offensive linemen – struggle to maintain weight during their careers and sometimes struggle to take it off when they’re done playing. ”

“ There’s a standard body of text which is used by linguists and speech pathologists to assess and compare accents when read out loud. ”

“ For over 12 years, one guy has been working on the same paper model of a Boeing 777. ”

“ There’s an airline that is forced to fly a single route by a decades-old treaty. It tries very hard to hide its own existence. ”

“ Examples of when missing or extra commas became painful legal judgments. ”

“ A history of the credit card industry and the two biggest players, which were both named something else when they started. ”

“ Nigerian immigrants to the United States might be the most successful ethnic group in the country. ”

“ A photo gallery of a San Diego shipyard as it builds a pair of massive freighters designed to bring freight to and from Hawaii. ”

“ Not many people know about the 1973 Swedish bank robbery that coined the term used when hostages begin to sympathize and identify with their captors. ”

“ A 17-minute history of racism in America, from the period immediately following emancipation through today. ”

“ Controversy has followed this movie since it was released. Most people were unaware of the problems and are only now understanding how the movie is perceived by the black community. ”

“ An ordered listing of countries by actual landmass, not simply perceived size, which is affected by mapping distortions. ”

“ In 2016, a guy playing around with data discovered too many similarities between crossword puzzles, all centered around a specific editor. ”

“ A look at the occasionally ridiculous ways that countries will split islands, which sometimes just comes down to spite and national pride. ”

“ Japan escaped serious effects from both SARS and COVID. There’s a theory that this is because speaking Japanese outputs less air from the speaker’s mouth. ”

“ In the early 1990s. Pepsi accidentally created a contest where a million people were grand prize winners, and Pepsi couldn’t pay the total prize money owed. ”

“ Only 12 people have ever finished this 100-mile race through the backwoods of Tennessee, and even registering for it requires you to navigate a web of lies. ”

“ Due to several specific circumstances, up until this week, there was still a single person receiving a pension from the Civil War. ”

“ In shattered Venezuela, a shadow economy exists of people who play Runescape characters to higher levels of experience and wealth, then sell them. ”

“ This is an official term for ‘the variety of English natively spoken, particularly in urban communities, by most working- and middle-class African Americans.’ ”

“ Multiple studies have suggested that playing Tetris immediately following a traumatic event visually engages the brain in a way that can lower the future effects of PTSD. ”

“ All the details behind how the most famous flying gun in the world works. Hint: it’s as simple as possible, and designed to do one thing really well. ”

“ Some pictures of an abandoned train car used as an impromptu covered bridge somewhere in Georgia (the caucus, not the state). ”

“ In San Francisco, there’s a billboard ad from 1993 that’s occasionally revealed. People have started taking pictures of it on the rare times it’s visible. ”

“ If climate change continues as projected, humanity can survive, but most of the world will have to move. Also, Russia and Canada will be in charge. ”

“ Lack of road traffic has allowed the record for fastest cross-country run to be broken five times in seven weeks. It’s been lowered to a level likely only possible during a pandemic. ”

“ Morbidly, auto crashes are a good source of healthy organs for transplantation. Pandemic lockdown means fewer crash deaths, and therefore fewer organs for transplant. ”

“ There are five rules that govern our thinking about the risk of certain situations or activities. They cause us to dramatically over- and under- estimate risk. ”

“ An examination of why we’re predisposed toward conspiracy theories in general and how this is magnified by religion. ”

“ There are a stunning number of records kept about the Academy Awards. ”

“ Completing a contemporary baseball game in less than two hours is a very rare thing. One particular pitcher seemed to always be trying. ”

“ In 2012, a baseball announcer correctly predicted a player’s first home run, down to the exact ball/strike count, the type of pitch, and where the home run would leave the park. ”

“ A bizarre, mind-bending, and occasionally disturbing send-up of the intro from every network TV show of the 80s. Buckle up. ”

“ Lots of air cargo is carried in the holds of passenger flights, so it’s a problem when passengers stop flying. Here’s an analysis of how the industry has adapted. ”

“ A surprisingly informative comedy segment that mocks and meta-narrates a typical news report on the economy and explains why they are the way they are. ”

“ The inside story of a race where almost the entire field refused to compete. ”

“ A cellist plays a single part of the Inspector Gadget theme, records herself, then plays another part against the recording of the first part, until she has all eight parts played by herself. ”

“ A much-hyped martial arts bout in the 80s was won almost entirely on the strength of an unexpected and underestimated movement. ”

“ An AI researcher considers a single image and notes all the things a computer would have to understand to perceive the image the same way humans do. ”

“ A detailed history of the NC-17 movie rating. ”

“ A detailed description of how naval torpedoes actually work. ”

“ The story of the assassination of Alexander Litvinenko – why it happened, who might have done it, and why polonium is such an attractive murder weapon. ”

“ The size difference demonstrated between a Soviet-era Mil Mi-26 heavy transport helicopter and a more common passenger helicopter. ”

“ A history of the laugh-tracked sitcom, and why ‘The Big Bang Theory’ was the last major hit to use one. ”

“ A pretty hilarious recounting of a bizarre Olympics and an even more bizarre event for which no one was prepared and which was ‘run’ in only the loosest sense of the word. ”

“ It turns out that counting up a death toll for anything is more complicated than you think. Many deaths are very indirect. ”

“ There are seven countries ending in the suffix ‘-stan’ and they all share borders. What would happen if they all became one country? ”

“ A veteran voice actor looks at five drawings of cartoon characters he’s never seen before, and invents multiple voices for them on the spot. ”

“ In the early 2000s, gaming companies portrayed bullying as a feature of their platforms to be celebrated. ”

“ Video of a safe made several hundred years ago in France with multiple keys and a series of sliding doors which must be opened in a specific order. ”

“ A harrowing, humbling first-hand account from a contestant on the TV show ‘Naked and Afraid.’ ”

“ A compelling story about false accusations brought against a university professor and the investigation that followed. ”

“ Cheating in high-stakes chess is rampant, occasionally blatant, and sometimes conspiratorial. ”

“ The Coronavirus might be the thing that tips us into a vastly expanded world of remote work, where physical contact is deemed to be largely unnecessary. The long-term effects on society – both good and bad – might be considerable. ”

“ A vehicle was designed to move scientists around Antarctica in the 1930s. It performed poorly, was abandoned, re-discovered in the 50s, re-abandoned, and might now be floating around the South Pacific, encased in an iceberg. ”

“ Lots of novel viruses keep coming out of China because of unique factors that cause a wide variety of animal species to come into close physical contact. ”

“ The success of a product can be weirdly predicted by its affinity to a particular group of people who are drawn to failure. If they like it, it’s probably not going to survive. ”

“ A list and description of dozens of spreadsheet errors that had significant business impact. ”

“ A time-lapse of a Rammstein stadium show being set up over the course of a week. The logistics of this are just incredible. ”

“ Amateur video of the moment when Formula One cars come in from their warm-up lap, line up, and start a race. The sound is what I imagine a demonic chorus would sound like. ”

“ The front tires of Formula One cars are not normally pointed straight ahead, which sounds ridiculous, but this video clearly explains why. ”

“ A graphical look at how the stock markets reacted during the expansion and contraction phases of various pandemics. ”

“ There is a house in NYC that’s less than nine feet wide. The house has a storied history with several notable occupants. ”

“ Fascinating perspective from a bartender who watched several of her regular customers spin into self-destruction. A meditation on the culpability of forced, unwitting enablers. ”

“ There is a ‘tourist gaze,’ whereby history and cultural heritage is packaged for what the locals believe tourists want to see, and what tourists believe is ‘authentic.’ Local economies perpetuate this overemphasis and misrepresentation in exchange for tourist dollars. ”

“ Someone got a theoretical game of Monopoly down to seven rolls of the dice, which they claim can be done in 13 seconds. And it turns out that Monopoly is hated among board game aficionados. ”

“ A bizarre recounting of an almost mythical set of Ferrari F40s ordered by the Sultan of Brunei. It’s odd for both how carefully the F40 chassis are tracked, and for the absurd wealth and waste of the royal family. ”

“ In Africa, automakers are held to much lower crash test standards, so they make cheaper cars. This test shows an African version of a Nissan truck crashing into a European version. ”

“ A short memoir of a lesbian who transitioned, and what he learned about manhood in the process from the men in his life. Equal parts inspiring and heart-breaking. ”

“ A short cataloging of the sometimes dated ways that filmmakers created long takes, from Hitchcock’s ‘Rope’ through the more recent ‘1917.’ ”

“ There’s a particular spot over the Earth that disproportionately damages satellites because of a radiation field. We’ve come up with ways to account for when stuff malfunctions. ”

“ A tragic retelling of the decline of Robin Williams by his wife, as Lewy Body Dementia took its toll. ”

“ An examination of bizarre psychic martial arts, ending with a discussion of the practicality of MMA versus more traditional martial arts, and the implications on human psychology and national identity. ”

“ Often, people aren’t poor because they make bad decisions. Rather, they make bad decisions because they’re poor. ”

“ Newspaper headlines have informal language conventions called ‘headlinese’ that constitute a new and different dialect. ”

“ An unexpected tailwind got a 747 across the Atlantic a full 80 minutes ahead of schedule, breaking the five-hour mark. ”

“ A good explainer of ‘numbers stations,’ which are radio frequencies that broadcast series of numbers on a schedule. It’s assumed they’re communicating to spies in the field, but no one knows for sure. ”

“ Some substances move very slowly. Experiments have been going on for almost a century that measure how many years it takes these substances them to form a single drop. ”

“ An excellent explainer of what the different cancer labels mean, from ‘Stage X’ to ‘Advanced.’ ”

“ Skyscrapers have a concept called ‘vanity height’ by which they increase their claimed heights drastically. ”

“ One of the players in the Super Bowl got his medical degree last year. He was drafted to the NFL during his third year of medical school. ”

“ A factual explanation of why helicopters crash more often than planes. ”

“ A man tried to cash in 7 million Pepsi Points for the harrier jet that a TV commercial jokingly offered. Pepsi refused, so he took them to court. The court had to explain, in legal terms, why the joke was meant to be funny. ”

“ There’s a waterslide in Poland that rotates, so different sections of the slide become ‘down’ at different times. It’s calculated to get you to the end in a full rotation. ”

“ There was an ethnic neighborhood underneath where Central Park now sits. It was destroyed to create the park, and NYC has finally started to acknowledge this. ”

“ When you have to renovate one of the most iconic jewelry stores in the world, moving all your inventory is a risky undertaking. ”

“ The U.S. ambassador to South Korea has a mustache that reminds Koreans of Imperial Japanese leaders. This has upset some Koreans. ”

“ A look at how Washington and Moscow have historically communicated and how Twitter might play a role in the future of crisis communication. ”

“ A news report from the early 70s showing how some audience members were physically traumatized after seeing ‘The Exorcist’ in theaters. ”

“ The moon is a lot further away from Earth than you probably think it is. ”

“ A full-length documentary about the establishment of an airport and commercial air service on the remote island of St. Helena. ”

“ There’s a movie theater in Celebration, Florida that AMC owns but has left abandoned for almost 10 years. Celebration is the artificial town created by Disney in the 90s, which makes it even weirder. ”

“ Some athletes who accomplished virtually nothing, from a guy who played in the NBA for 3.9 seconds, to an NFL running back who ended his career with minus-eight yards on one carry. (And there’s one surprise pick.) ”

“ An examination of the stylistic action scenes in the Jason Bourne trilogy, and how they changed the action movies that came after them, with particular emphasis on how Paul Greengrass structured his fight scenes and drove down the Average Shot Length. ”

“ A couple built a man-made island (really, a collection of floating modules), and has lived there for almost three decades. ”

“ A man tells the story of a ‘domestic’ who lived with his family for years and raised him and his siblings. Later in his life, he realized his parents were keeping her as a slave. ”

“ A screencast history of the Wikipedia page for the heavy metal umlaut which traces how the page was developed and changed over time. ”

“ A groundbreaking video from 2004 which describes a fictionalized future on what the media landscape might look like in 2014. ”

“ The children of Chinese immigrants are not planning to take over the family business. But that’s okay, because that was actually the goal for many Chinese parents. ”

“ When you just consider income taxes, wealthy people pay a higher percentage in taxes. But when you consider all the other taxes – payroll, property, and consumption – the curve starts to straighten out. ”

“ For a few years now, Ford has had headlights that use GPS to know when the road ahead is curving, then turn the beam to illuminate what’s around the bend. ”

“ Spoiler: no passenger has ever landed a large commercial airliner like in the movies, but it’s happened several times with smaller planes. ”

“ Content moderators at YouTube spend their days looking at the worst of human nature. Not surprisingly, some of them are suffering from PTSD. ”

“ When you buy stuff and return it, the retailer often just throws it away instead of repackaging it and reselling it. ”

“ Less than 10% of plastic is actually recycled. We’ve been told otherwise by companies who produce plastic to alleviate our guilt at buying it. ”

“ This is both an examination of how religion and politics merged in the last generation, and a personal story of the author’s widening gap with his own family over issues of faith. ”

“ An interesting model for defining what ‘wealthy’ means, and how wealthy you might feel at any particular stage of your life. ”

“ Mesmerizing video of industrial food processing machines at work. This is how your food gets made. ”

“ The story behind a viral photo of climbers waiting to summit Everest earlier this year. Multiple people died, and questions are being asked about the future of climbing the mountain. ”

“ Incredible scrolling visualization of what’s under the ocean. I scrolled for five full minutes to reach the bottom. ”

“ The story of a heartbreaking loss on the football field, and how it reverberated through two lives over the next three decades. ”

“ In late 2018, a photographer spontaneously captured a picture of Air Force One over the UK. He posted it to social media, and unwittingly revealed a secret presidential trip to Iraq. ”

“ A summary of the work of J.D. Unwin, who found a correlation between the sexual restraint of a culture and its productivity and ultimate survival. ”

“ When a domain name owner wouldn’t give it up, the thwarted buyer sent a gunman to his house and attempt to force him to transfer the domain at gunpoint. ”

“ Someone found a weirdly rare car abandoned in a parking garage. The article explains the history of the EV1 and why GM tried to kill them all. ”

“ A good explainer of Amtrak’s current status and how their new CEO might get them out of trouble (hint: he has no deep love for trains). ”

“ A series of wild, surreal stories describing what it was like producing content for Alex Jones during his heyday. ”

“ Addiction may be a universal problem, but rehab is very different when you’re absurdly wealthy. ”

“ The FBI doesn’t believe the two Boston Marathon bombers actually built the bombs they placed. So, who did, and what does it have to do with a weird arrest made after the bombings? ”

“ The details of a wildly irresponsible Cannonball run across the United States, from NYC to LA. They averaged 103mph. ”

“ Jean Calumet was supposedly 122 when she died. However, a Russian scientist has long-claimed that ‘Jean’ is actually Jean’s daughter, impersonating her mother. ”

“ An homage to the vanishing days when the big, black cars floated through the streets of NYC. ”

“ A haunting cartoon short about the crash at Le Mans in 1955 that left at least 80 people dead, and Mercedes’s ensuing decision to withdraw from the race. ”

“ A heart-breaking profile of Roger Ebert, written in the middle of his battle with the cancer that killed him. ”

“ A small town in Florida lost its only grocery store, so the town itself opened one. City workers help stock the shelves and checkout customers. ”

“ A family lives in the decaying ruins of a hunting lodge in India, claiming they are royalty, and demanding their land back. How much of the story is true? ”

“ A sales guy for the Sacramento Kings came ridiculously close to getting away with an audacious theft from the team. ”

“ A good explainer of how art gets to auction, how that market is structured, and how people spend eight figures on a painting. ”

“ In 2004, the Navy encountered something off the coast of California that it still can’t explain. And there’s video, despite what might be a cover-up. ”

“ Pixar faked camera features in the last Toy Story movie. It created shots using limitations of actual cameras even though it was an animated movies and didn’t use cameras. ”

“ There’s a difference between ‘show skating’ and ‘figure skating.’ What’s legal in the former might not be legal in the latter, and here’s why. ”

“ A heavy lift ship lifts another ship which is almost as big as it is. ”

“ An insightful look at how Oprah Winfrey so easily connects with people and uniquely persuades them to reveal themselves in ways other people can’t. ”

“ An argument that the Louvre should remove the Mona Lisa because it causes enormous logistical problems and disappoints almost everyone. ”

“ The actress who played Hilary Banks found Hollywood a tough place after Fresh Prince , but ultimately found other meaning in life. ”

“ The guy who played Jason in the Friday the 13th movies is actually a very nice guy. ”

“ I didn’t even know it was possible for trombones to do this. ”

“ An introduction to the sport of ‘tricking’ and the physics of how its participants do some pretty amazing things. ”

“ There was once an attempt to make a commercially viable autogyro. ”

“ Horrifying but ultimately triumphant story of a young girl who fought back and kept the secret for decades. ”

“ An interview with the head writer on Jeopardy! with lots of information on how clues get written. ”

“ Without electricity, the world is a very different place, as recent history in Venezuela has shown. ”

“ The description of the sad decline of a once-great news publication is very likely a mirror to the rest of the industry. ”

“ As the proof for the effectiveness of Nike Vaporfly shoes starts to mount, it’s becoming clear that the record books will never be the same. ”

“ Turns out the advice for lasting a long time in the NBA is pretty good advice for lasting a long time in anything . ”

“ A look into the psychology and drive of wealthy people who want more of everything, all the time. ”

“ Numerous studies seem to prove that the wealthier someone is compared to the people around them, the more antisocial behaviors they display. ”

“ Most of the value created by the Internet doesn’t involve people spending money, so it’s hidden from GDP measures. ”

“ A backstory behind a seemingly successful penis transplant, and the complications and ethical questions it raises. ”

“ For every kid who bribed their way into a college spot they didn’t earn, another kid lost a spot. This is one story. ”

“ A weirdly philosophical examination of what a ‘second-person’ video game could be, through the lens of a specific game from a few years back. The discussion might bend your mind a little. ”

“ Not surprisingly, living in a 240 sq. ft. house works better on a glossy TV show than it does in real life. ”

“ An entertaining look at the problem of ‘cranks’ in mathematics. These are people who are convinced they’ve solved impossible problems, and refuse to be disabused of that notion. ”

“ War once closed the Suez Canal for eight years. Unfortunately, there were about a dozen ships transiting the canal when this happened. ”

“ For 15 years, there was a Wikipedia page about a fake concentration camp. The page is gone, but information taken from it is littered all around the internet. ”

“ The story of the E.T. video game for the Atari 2600 which, along with Pac-Man, destroyed then-mighty Atari. ”

“ When a coach is convicted of doping, what does that do to the legacy of the athletes that trained under them? How strong is that stigma? ”

“ A primer on the Dunning-Kruger Effect, written by Dunning. It turns out that ignorance often feels like knowledge. ”

“ This essay describes the ‘coordination problem,’ where spending money to solve a problem often requires coordination with other people to do the same, or the money is wasted. Conversely, spending money on yourself always leads to a benefit. ”

“ The story of a management theory that came and went, then sort of came back. Everything has a hype cycle, and Six Sigma was no exception ”

“ This is a medical procedure which might be an urban legend. ”

“ The opening number of the 2013 Tony awards with Neil Patrick Harris as host which will probably remain unequaled for sheer spectacle and tongue-in-cheek self-references. ”

“ A 1994 clip from the Today show where the hosts discuss the ‘@’ sign, and try to explain what ‘internet’ is. ”

“ A deeply uncomfortable truth is that many commercial aircraft are poorly maintained and pilots depend so much on automation that they simply don’t know what to do when something unexpected happens. ”

“ A video showing the usage of a ‘Berlin Key,’ which is a key that unlocks a door, then is pushed through, and has to be used to lock the door on the other side before it can be removed. This ensures the door remains locked after someone passes through it. ”

“ A librarian in upstate New York was the first to bring the Internet into libraries and coined the term ‘surfing’ to describe browsing the internet. ”

“ Wonderful documentary about the history and heyday of Studio 54, a disco in late 70s NYC that took the genre to new heights, before it all came crashing down. Told by Ian Schaeger, one of the two men behind the club. ”

“ A man’s recently-deceased mother had always kept a box in the very back of the freezer and refused to say what was in it. The box had been there as long as he and his sister could remember. He finally opened it. ”

“ Ever wonder how those big construction cranes get so tall? They build themselves. The crane itself is used to deliver the segments to make the crane go higher, as shown in this short video. ”

“ A video showing some common verbal riffs from various Aaron Sorkin shows. ”

“ An amazing video showing how Faber-Castell makes colored pencils. I literally could not look away. ”

“ A YouTuber explains, in detail, how much YouTube videos make. It’s not just views – the geographic location of the audiences matters, as does how long they watch your video. And then, in the second half of the video, she explains how she tripled her income. ”

“ A sobering look at how the publishing industry works, from the perspective of a promising author for whom things didn’t work out so well. ”

“ A touching retrospective of the careers of Chris Farley and Adam Sandler – two comedians who defined the 90s. ”

“ An SNL sketch where Jon Lovitz and Tom Hanks imitate Jerry Seinfeld without naming him, which is odd since this was right before Seinfeld launched and he was still a fairly unknown comic with just a couple TV appearances under his belt. Few people watching would have known who he was. ”

“ Some guy takes the normally-upbeat theme from Friends and turns it into a moody power-ballad. ”

“ The now-legendary acoustic performance at the 1989 MTV Music Awards which gave birth to MTV Unplugged. After the over-the-top glam rock of the 80s, this was nothing my generation had seen before. As a bonus, you get the see the strength of Sambora’s vocals, which are remarkable. ”

“ Keegan Michael Key provides the anger for Obama’s laid back speech, from the White House Correspondents Dinner in 2015. ”

“ A tribute to the greatest years of ESPN’s SportsCenter, with Dan Patrick and Keith Olbermann. ”

“ The process of ejecting from a fighter plane is far more intricate than you would think. More violent, too. ”

“ In 2003, a band of daring robbers proved that, sometimes, real life can be just like one of those totally unrealistic vault heist movies. ”

“ In 1991, the CEO of a British jewelry company made some jokes about the quality of his company’s product and effectively destroyed it and his own personal net worth. ”

“ Interesting look at how parking has defined Los Angeles and is the biggest impediment to additional housing. Los Angeles is a city built for cars, not people. ”

“ In the wake of Andrew Luck abruptly retiring from the NFL due to accumulated injuries, a former NFL lineman explains exactly what this is like – how NFL players work through injuries and engage in constant rehab during both the season and off-season. ”

“ An interesting look at what happens when media franchises expand past their core source, and how to juggle what is canon and what isn’t. When you create a fake world, there’s a lot to keep track of. ”

“ Lovely tribute to the first CD-ROM encyclopedia that many of us owned, and the sense of wonder that it brought us. Wikipedia killed it, but Encarta was a refuge for me for many years. ”

“ Starbucks has created a closed economy of gift cards and app purchases that it controls. It essentially has a secondary income stream of loaning money to its own customers as a specialty private bank. ”

“ A beautiful contemplation of the physical book as art object, with pictures of people who collection for no other reason than that books make them happy. ”

“ It turns out, sex scenes on film are very complicated things. There is such a thing as an ‘intimacy choreographer’ that’s like a fight choreographer for sex. ”

“ A fascinating conference presentation where a guy (sometime hilariously) explains the insane process of how to land a Space Shuttle. ”

“ A long, contemplative video of a single Mercedes technician hand-building a high-performance V8. I can’t believe I watched the entire thing. ”

“ In 1983, an inexperienced pilot in British Harrier couldn’t locate the aircraft carrier he was supposed to land on, and had to set down on a Spanish cargo ship before he ran out of fuel. ”

“ The convoluted tale of a missing car, and the guy who searches for it for a living. ”

“ An enormously entertaining documentary about the steroid era in baseball, and the lengths A-Rod went to avoid punishment. It takes the odd step of recreating scenes using child actors, but, amazingly, it works. ”

“ Interesting statistics and trends on the rise of ‘alt-beef’ and how it might challenge and topple real beef in the years to come. The statistics on how many feed calories, water, and land area it takes to generate beef are eye-opening. ”

“ A Twitter troll hijacks a picture and creates a meme. The women in the picture eventually find the meme, and their response is not what you would expect. ”

“ Riveting essay on what it’s like to do the back-breaking labor of a French kitchen, with a larger look at the future of French cooking and the Michelin rating system. ”

“Bill Hader tells some hilarious stories about his interactions with Tom Cruise while making ‘Topic Thunder.’ But what’s incredibly eerie is that when he does impressions, the face of his target is deep-faked over his own in such a smooth way that you don’t notice when it starts and ends. The effect…”

“ This short video of a landing at Gibraltar International Airport shows the only way a tiny, narrow country can fit an airport runway – by bisecting an active city street, at which cars have to wait for the landing plane to cross (at 0:43 in the video). ”

“ A small town in West Virginia was tired of being ignored for funding by their state, so, in the middle of the Cold War, they appealed to the Soviet Union for funding. A representative from the USSR actually visited to vet the request before the state finally relented. ”

“ Detailed dissection of the recent court case against Katy Perry, with lots of counter-examples and explanations of why this has broader implications to the world of art, and why the expert witness in the case might have done damage to musicians everywhere. ”

“ A big predictor of whether someone will live to age 110 seems to be their birth into a region lacking accurate, preserved birth certificates that could prove their age wrong. ”

“ Fascinating look at the logistics of flying NFL teams everywhere, and how this might play out if the league completes a rumored expansion to London. ”

“A wonderful six-part miniseries that chronicles the rule of Nicolas II, the last Czar of Russia, and the patriarch of the infamous Romanov family that was massacred in 1918. The episodes transition between a compelling, acted story, and historians and scholars who provide context to what is…”

“ A guy comprises the computers (including the webcams) of a scam call center in India. He shows how the scams work (they claim to have accidentally over-refunded people, then ask for money back), and ultimately disrupts the scam, hilariously. ”

“ A contemplation about the distraction of modern life. It’s long, but that’s kind of the point ”

“ Neat interactive feature that shows how hard it to define something – in this case an ‘assault rifle’ – in order to ban it. Every restriction generates a response and modification to evade the categorization. ”

“ Two kids out of college get a musical all the way to Broadway where it flops spectacularly. This is how it happened, and what happens after you flame out. ”

“ PBS documentary that explores the seven-year construction project to ‘re-enclose’ the destroyed reactor at Chernobyl. The project was incomprehensibly ambitious, and a million things might have gone wrong, but none of them did. At the climax, I almost cheered. ”

“Notable for a one-minute sequence in the middle where Rogen recollects the moment at an award show event when Hannibal Buress told him that Bill Cosby was a rapist, with Cosby standing just a few feet away. Rogan says that Buress started referring to this in his stand-up routine about a month…”