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Required Reading

This week: Esperanto on Duolingo, a Black Panther Party stud grandma, Arsenal and Africa, queer fish, the secret leftist history of Renaissance faires, and more.

The Life and Death of Sports Fans

Team Spirit is a wonderful short film for ESPN by Errol Morris about the funerals of die-hard sports fans. I love the Steelers fan laid out in a recliner under a Steelers blanket in front of a television with a Steelers game on as if “he just fell asleep watching the game”.

We Are Manipulating the Weather Every Day

Throughout most of human history, the weather has resisted humanity’s desire to change it . For thousands of years, we have sacrificed children, sung songs and danced, brewed alchemical concoctions, chanted prayers, fired cannons, and made many other futile efforts in the

USPS Reissues Popular Mister Rogers Stamps

Every so often, the US Postal Service reissues old stamps. This time around, they polled the public about which past stamp they’d like to see reissued and the results were decisive: the people love Mister Rogers . The Mister Rogers stamp, originally released in 2018, is new

Transparency and trust

In simple situations with obvious metrics, transparency earns trust. Voting, for example, benefits from audit trails and inspectability. But transparency can also undermine trust. Walking through the typical restaurant kitchen on the way to dinner probably won’t increase the