Desperately Seeking Squircles

Daniel Furse | Figma | 3rd April 2018

Engineer embarks on a mathematical odyssey to try and understand the "squircle" shape that Apple uses for its app icons. "This may seem trivial, a cool story, but subconsciously it really makes a big impact: a squircle doesn’t look like a square with surgery performed on it; it registers as an entity in its own right, like the shape of a smooth pebble in a riverbed, a unified and elemental whole" (5,900 words)

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The Death Of Mastery

Tam Hussein | New Lines | 14th January 2026

Logan Paul, a YouTuber, should not be boxing against Anthony Joshua, former two-time world heavyweight champion and Olympic gold medalist. It's a circus act, not a contest of skill. Such a fight shows that in many spheres we are living through the death of mastery at the hands of entertainment. Paul ended up with a broken jaw, but his fame means he can keep cutting ahead of those with real expertise (2,200 words)

The Untameable Victor Osimhen

Solace Chukwu | Africa Is A Country | 14th January 2026

In praise of an impetuous yet brilliant Nigerian footballer. Victor Osimhen is arguably the best striker currently playing, who publicly aired his frustration when Nigeria did not qualify for this year's World Cup. Born "into the miasma of a giant, odious landfill in Olusosun" as the youngest of seven, he worked as a water-seller in the Lagos traffic after his mother died. His "unruliness" is crucial to how he plays (1,200 words)

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'I Swear To Chairman Mao!'

Jung Chang | LitHub | 13th January 2026

Wild Swans memoirist recalls her teenage years in Chengdu during the Cultural Revolution. Too soft-hearted to join her school's Red Guards, she was accused of "warm-feelingsism". She watched fellow pupils smash the ancient Confucian temple and beat its gardener to death. Teachers were physically punished at "denunciation rallies". Still, at 14, she never thought of rejecting Mao outright (1,800 words)

The Rare People Who Are Solid

Sasha Chapin | 12th January 2026

“If you are highly congruent, you disown none of your experience. You accept the stubborn approach of death, the arbitrariness of your fortune, your unimportance on the cosmic timescale, your potential importance for the local environment. Although congruence is a source of endless happiness, the path there can be devastating. You may have to finally give up on experiencing a better past” (1,500 words)

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How Should A Book Stack Be?

Tyler Watamanuk | Prune | 10th January 2026

Perhaps a single steel tower of books, five feet tall — a bookshelf essentially “designed to disappear”. Bookshelves have always been real estate for one’s personality. The rise of Pinterest and Instagram turned the bookshelf into a stage where one would artfully display a book as a conversation piece or accessory. But avid readers have long known that “a simple stack of books is pretty chic” (1,000 words)

Very Good Music Facts

Go Jeff Go | 9th January 2026

If you’re at a party and need something to talk about, this compendium of music trivia should come in handy. Bruno Mars was nicknamed after pro-wrestler Bruno Sammartino because he was a chubby baby. Coldplay sent a formal request via lawyers to Kraftwerk to use the “Computer Love” melody. Weeks later, they received a reply from Kraftwerk’s Ralf Hütter, containing only a handwritten “yes” (1,400 words)

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Why The Iranian Regime Seems Invincible

Anonymous Iranian | Persuasion | 8th January 2026

The Islamic Republic is a maze of power with two parallel governments. Over the years, it has created a class of people who benefit from the regime and another class who enforce it. “Leaderless protests are brave, but fragile.” Potential leaders are arrested or killed immediately. Much of the world has a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. Iranians distrust foreign intervention, with good reason (1,400 words)

How Markdown Took Over The World

Anil Dash | 9th January 2026

Admiring history of the simple, free text formatting language that underpins the vast majority of what is published on the internet today. Including the words you're reading right now. "The trillion-dollar AI industry's system for controlling their most advanced platforms is a plain text format one guy made up for his blog and then bounced off of a 17-year-old kid before sharing it with the world for free" (4,500 words)

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I Counted All Of The Yurts In Mongolia

Monroe Clinton | 17th June 2025

If visiting a country is not possible, exploring it via the satellite images on Google Maps can be the next best thing. This programmer got curious about Mongolia and ended up training a machine learning model to find out how many yurts there were in the whole country. Answer: 172,689. The yurt, or "ger", is still used as a temporary dwelling by rural Mongolians who have recently relocated to a city (4,000 words)

Darwin The Witness

Marco Giancotti | Aether Mug | 8th January 2026

Charles Darwin's Voyage of the Beagle is a snapshot of the world during a momentous time. "Half-unwittingly, Darwin immortalised a fast-transforming world — customs, political situations, and ways of life that were both new and just about to vanish into mostly-unwritten history." He was not an anthropologist or a geologist, but a witness to pivotal material in both fields (5,600 words)

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Defending Adverbs Exuberantly

Lincoln Michel | Counter Craft | 28th May 2025

"Avoid adverbs" and "show don't tell" are near-universal pieces of advice for writers. But is it really necessary to eschew any qualification or modification for your verbs? The answer is: it depends. Repeating information is bad writing. "Cheryl cheered happily" is redundant, because cheering is usually a happy activity. But "Cheryl cheered sadly"? That's more interesting and might be worth writing (1,500 words)

Podcast: The History Of Collecting | Moncrieff. On the dark side of collecting as a compulsive, dangerous urge throughout human history (9m 48s)

Video: Divers | Vimeo | Geordie Wood | 7m 00s

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Growing Up In '404 Not Found'

Vincent | 28th December 2025

Account of a childhood in China's secret atomic city in the Gobi Desert. Founded in 1958, "Factory 404" was initially inhabited by elite scientists. By the time this writer was born in 1991, the mystery of the bomb had long been solved, so it had shifted to become a major centre for processing nuclear waste. Sandstorms were common and water scarce. It was "a utopian bubble built on hollow ground" (2,300 words)

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I Need To Get Something Off My Chest

Sarah Lavender Smith | Mountain Running & Living | 1st January 2026

"Explant" surgery is the process of getting breast implants removed without replacing them, which otherwise needs to be done every decade or so. This ultra-marathoner, having got "the world’s smallest boob job" at the age of 34 to change the appearance of her "masculine chest", decided 22 years on to quit. Although society has normalised cosmetic surgery, it is "pretty freaking gruesome and expensive" (2,800 words)

The Paradox Of Failed Resolutions

Jillian Hess | Noted | 5th January 2026

On turning 59, Samuel Johnson resolved “to combat notions of obligation, rise early, drink less strong liquours, put books in order, scheme life”. In Octavia Butler’s notes: “my novels travel up to the top of the bestseller lists”, a goal she achieved posthumously. Robert Caro tallied the words he wrote daily; on some days it was zero. “Making resolutions you can’t possibly keep can be incredibly useful” (1,800 words)

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The Modern Peril Of The Availability Heuristic

Guy Hochman | Behavioural Economics | 6th January 2026

In times of information scarcity, the availability heuristic prevailed: people judged likelihood by memorability; familiar patterns felt more probable. With information abundance, this has evolved to dismiss what is unavailable as impossible. “Institutions designed to limit exposure, protect fairness, or filter noise now appear suspicious simply because they fail to provide visibility on demand” (1,100 words)

Operation Absolute Resolve

Dave Hartland | AV Geekery | 3rd January 2026

Aviation expert details the mission to capture Nicolás Maduro. “The word integration does not explain the sheer complexity of such a mission, an extraction so precise it involved more than 150 aircraft launching across the western hemisphere in close coordination, all coming together in time and place to get an interdiction force into Caracas while maintaining the element of tactical surprise” (2,000 words)

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The Blueprint For American Cities

Michelle Stacey | Smithsonian | 28th November 2025

In 1902, a train wreck in New York’s Park Avenue killed dozens of commuters, causing public outrage. A grand overhaul was planned by the railroad’s chief engineer, William Wilgus. The tracks would go underground with two levels, one for commuter trains and one for long-distance. To fund this plan, Wilgus proposed the concept of air rights — monetise whatever is built overhead as far up the sky as it goes (4,600 words)

Podcast: Garden Of England | Currently. Behind the scenes of the soft fruit harvest in Kent, where each summer thousands of temporary workers arrive to do the picking (28m 26s)

Video: Wild Summon | Vimeo | Karni and Saul | 14m 38s

Trippy, fantastical animated short that imagines a world in which humans exist on the dramatic life cycle of wild salmon, complete with river spawning, leaping and predatory fishing. Narrated by Marianne Faithfull.

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