The world is more interesting than you think.
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A little more wonder
Tethering brightly colored paper to a long piece of string
Flying a kite depends on the wind cooperating while you hold the string and keep the fabric aloft.
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Aristocrats once settled disputes with pistols at dawn
Even minor disputes could end at dawn with inaccurate, single-shot pistols. A ritual meant to settle an argument made the outcome dangerously unpredictable.
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Placing heavy jeweled rings on the heads of royalty
A heavy jeweled crown made royal status unmistakable—and required a strong neck to wear.
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Winning shiny new appliances by answering trivial queries
The pressure came from having to answer questions on television to win a coveted free refrigerator.
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Yelling increasingly high numbers to win a useless antique
Once bidders start trying to beat one another, the vase can become secondary. Each higher bid is less about needing the antique and more about being the…
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Solving abstract equations for absolutely no reason
A suspension bridge carries its deck’s load through cables to towers, and each part must handle the force passed along to it. Engineers use equations to track…
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Sneaking illicit goods across borders in hidden panels
To get illicit goods past customs, smugglers may hide them behind panels built into a vehicle. The car itself becomes the concealment.
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A thermal receipt can fade without ever using ordinary ink
Many receipt printers darken a heat-sensitive coating on the paper instead of depositing ink from a cartridge. Heat, light, and storage conditions can alter…
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Paying a stranger in a tiny booth just to drive on a road
That booth is the road’s checkout counter: drivers pay a toll, and the money helps fund the route they’re using. The attendant collects a few seconds of your…
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Letting stern officials rummage through your personal bags
The checks are meant to keep unauthorized agricultural products from crossing international borders.
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Pet taxidermy preserves the appearance more than the body
A taxidermist generally prepares the animal's skin and arranges it over a shaped form, using artificial eyes and other finishing materials. Recreating a…
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Flipping silver spheres away from a dark drain hole
The goal is to keep each ball in play with the flippers; let one fall through the drain and you’ll need another quarter to keep playing.
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Concealing your body behind curtains while someone counts
Concealing your entire body behind a living room curtain while someone loudly counts to ten is the pinnacle of childhood stealth operations.
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Wrapping dead Pharaohs in miles of incredibly old linen
Mummifiers dried the bodies with salt, then wound them in linen layer after layer. The wrapping helped prepare the dead for the afterlife—and turned…
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Blaming dead livestock on a mythical vampire creature
In folklore, undines are bound to rivers or streams, so venturing far inland risks their dissolving.
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Stacking millions of heavy stones to build a giant tomb
Workers hauled the blocks across difficult terrain to build a monumental tomb for a ruler regarded as divine.
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Unplugging a flash drive is safe only after writing stops
A file transfer can appear finished while data is still waiting to be written to the drive. Safe removal asks the operating system to finish pending work…
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Why standing straight can make you look taller
Slouching bends your posture and makes your torso look more compressed. Straightening up lengthens the line of your frame, so you can appear taller without…
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Your loading bar may be making the time up
Many loading bars are estimates, not live measurements: they guess how long a task will take and animate a bar to match.
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Ancient baldness cures used pigeon droppings
Some ancient remedies called for rubbing pigeon droppings into the scalp, in the hope that the treatment would bring hair back. The striking ingredient tells…
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Broadway theaters leave a ghost light after shows
The bulb provides enough light to keep people from tripping onstage; actors also say it keeps the theater’s ghosts happy.
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A landmark emoji set fit each picture into just 144 pixels
Shigetaka Kurita designed 176 symbols for NTT DOCOMO's mobile service, released in 1999. Each used a twelve-by-twelve grid, yet the set conveyed weather,…
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Why crowds can leave introverts physically exhausted
At a party, an introvert may be quietly tracking who’s talking, when to jump in, and how to keep up with several conversations at once. That constant social…
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When bad jokes were answered with rotten fruit
Ancient audiences could answer a joke they hated by hurling rotten fruit and other garbage at the performer.
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