On October 16, 1846, at Massachusetts General Hospital, Morton administered his gas through an inhaler in the mouth of a young man undergoing the excision of a tumor in his jaw. The patient only muttered to himself in a semi-conscious state during the procedure. The following day, the gas left a woman, undergoing surgery to…
MIAMI—While passengers in the economy cabin watched the standard preflight safety video Monday, United Airlines flight attendant Kim Walters quietly informed first-class ticket holders aboard Flight 1173 of the location of the plane’s actual emergency exits, sources confirmed. “Ladies and gentlemen, if you’ll please give me your attention for a brief and important announcement about…
What is bullshit? Bullshit lies on a spectrum somewhere between ineptitude and outright deception. Bullshit can be characterized in a few different ways: Superfluous or unnecessary Cluttered, clunky, or needlessly complex Intentionally deceptive or insincere Popups, jargon, junk mail, anti-patterns, sensationalism, begging for likes, tracking scripts, marketing spam, dark patterns, unskippable ads, clickbait, linkbait, listicles,…
Apparently, the world is ending because the media says so. The source of much of this hysteria is that the media seemed to have discovered a tool known as the S&P/ASX200 VIX indicator which is also known as the fear indicator. One somewhat hysterical report claimed that it was the highest it had ever been, which…
As you can see in the chart above, the most competent individuals tend to underestimate their relative ability a little, but for most people (the bottom 75%) they increasingly overestimate their ability, and everyone thinks they are above average. I sometimes hear the effect incorrectly described as, “the more incompetent you are, the more knowledgeable…
This is an old piece – the author Linds Redding died in 2012 aged 52 from oesophageal cancer. This is one of his last pieces and it is a rant directed at the advertising industry but it can apply to any industry. And here’s the thing. It turns out I didn’t actually like my old…
Came across this and thought it apt for current times. Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth. Marcus Aurelius
…..I recently spent a few weeks immersed in Fast After 50, along with a few other books on the topic, including Margaret Webb’s Older, Faster, Stronger, Lee Bergquist’s Second Wind, and Bill Gifford’s excellent and entertaining Spring Chicken. My interest was both professional and personal. I was staring down the gun barrel at 50, the…
It’s 10 p.m. on a Saturday, and the low-fare overnight buses in Chinatown are idling in rows. Markets have long ago pulled down their metal gratings and thrown bags of pungent trash onto New York’s curbs. And directly under the Manhattan Bridge, on a desolate corner, here’s an unusual sight: men in sequined sports coats…
The record price for a Brooklyn home broke the $15 million threshold this summer, and by now it’s widely accepted that New York’s outer boroughs are not much of a bargain, growing further out of reach for the aspiring homeowner. The rush of new construction in gentrifying neighborhoods has pushed up the price of land, and…
ONE NIGHT IN 1940, a bomb tumbled out of the sky into a garden in North London, exploding into thousands of droplets of white-hot aluminum oxide, which cascaded over the lawn. The buckets of water that the inhabitants of the house at 37 Mapesbury Road—two Jewish doctors and their sons—poured on the fire only fed…
People around the world are living longer, but many are also living sicker lives for longer, according to a study of all major diseases and injuries in 188 countries. General health has improved worldwide, thanks to significant progress against infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS and malaria in the past decade and gains in fighting maternal…
