The Dictionary Of Obscure Sorrows

Maria Popova | Marginalian | 12th April 2024

John Koenig’s “imaginative etymologies” supply words where we lack them, to match the complexity of our experiences. Examples: Craxis — the unease of knowing how quickly your circumstances could change. Zielschmerz — the dread of finally pursuing a lifelong dream. Anoscetia — the anxiety of not knowing “the real you”. “Despite what dictionaries would have us believe, this world is still mostly undefined” (1,200 words)

Browser classified:

Generate custom RSS feeds from web pages or existing feeds with Feed Control. Find out more at https://feedcontrol.fivefilters.org

Revolutionary “Maps” Of Time

Alyson Foster | Humanities | 11th April 2024

Joseph Priestley’s 1765 Chart of Biography “offered a never-before-seen picture of time itself” — a scroll of famous figures dating back three millennia. “Anyone could run his eye across the chart and immediately gain a sense of the temporal lay of the land. Who came first: Copernicus or Newton? How many centuries separate Genghis Khan from Joan of Arc? The chart was a masterful blend of form and function” (3,700 words)

Why Don’t Rich People Eat Anymore?

Serena Smith | Dazed | 11th April 2024

Ozempic, intermittent fasting, biohacking — where once the rich signalled their status with opulent dining, now they work very hard to eat as little as possible. Today, food is readily available to more people, so the class signifiers are reversed. "It’s a way for the moneyed classes to signal their wealth and status and posture as above us mere mortals who debase ourselves by eating" (1,400 words)

Browser classified:

How to discover and consume 6,500+ podcast episodes without subscribing to any podcasts? Wenbin Fang shares his episode-centric listening approach with Listen Notes.

The Difference Between Morals And Ethics

Eli Burnstein | LitHub | 11th April 2024

Extract from an intriguing volume: the Dictionary of Fine Distinctions. It uses illustrations to elucidate the difference in definition between easily confused word pairings, such as parable vs fable, maze vs labyrinth, and ethics vs morality. For the latter, ethics is "rational, explicit, and defined by one’s community; the other is emotional, deep-seated, and dictated by one’s conscience or god" (700 words)

The City And The Limiting Virtues

Sara Hendren | Undefended/Undefeated | 6th April 2024 | U

How to notice limiting virtues in built spaces: the things you can and cannot do, by design. Libraries have a “gradation of limiting virtues”: meeting spaces, really quiet rooms, floor-to-ceiling windows and activity rooms for children, high-backed chairs and booths for teens to do “semi-sedentary socialising”. Cafés outlaw laptops to avoid becoming offices and chapels provide “that rarest limiting thing: silence” (1,600 words)

Who Gets To Live In Techno-Utopia?

Victor Zhenyi Wang | Mathbabe | 8th April 2024 | U

“Liberal” eugenics is group-level genetic manipulation without harming existing people. But what traits should parents be allowed to eliminate? Are people with disabilities “worse off”? Seemingly objective wellbeing metrics are based on surveys of typically abled participants’ subjective accounts. “This metric is going to inherit all the biases society already has against disabled people” (1,600 words)

How Deep Does Life Go?

James Powell | MIT Press Reader | 8th April 2024 | U

History of deep-sea explorations, prior to which, scientists believed that photosynthesis was essential to support life — hence, no living creatures in the dark ocean depths. In 1977, 24 dives along the Galápagos Rift revealed many life forms far beyond sunlight’s reach. The answer was chemosynthesis, by which bacteria oxidise inorganic materials, like hydrogen sulphide, to sustain higher life forms (2,900 words)

The Forgotten War On Beepers

Louis Anslow | Pessimists Archive | 10th April 2024 | U

Decades before anyone was worried about smartphone addiction, the same discourse surrounded beepers. The "pager panic" of the late 1980s stemmed from their adoption by both teenagers and drug addicts — and the concern was that one group might use them to maintain contact with the other. New Jersey even passed a law banning them. A reminder that everything is cyclical (1,000 words)

Africa’s Democratic Dividend

Mohamed Kheir Omer & Parselelo Ole Kantai | African Arguments | 10th April 2024 | U

The post-colonial implementation of Western-style democracy across Africa has created fascinating hybrid models. The Gada system in Ethiopia likely predates most other forms of governance and prioritises term limits. In Somalia, the "4.5 formula" enables power sharing between clans. Rwanda, Senegal, Madagascar, Lesotho and Morocco incorporate proportional representation (3,100 words)

Shortcode Glossary:
U = Ungated, free. M = Metered paywall. B = Metered paywall can be bypassed using private/incognito browsing. Full details of our shortcodes here.

This post is only for paying subscribers of The Browser, but please do forward it to any friends who deserve a treat today, especially if you think they might be interested in becoming Browser subscribers in the future.

Caroline Crampton, Editor-In-Chief; Robert Cottrell, Founding Editor; Kaamya Sharma, Editor; Jodi Ettenberg, Editor-At-Large; Dan Feyer, Crossword Editor; Uri Bram, CEO & Publisher; Sylvia Bishop, Assistant Publisher; Al Breach, Founding Director

Editorial comments and letters to the editor: editor@thebrowser.com
Technical issues and support requests: support@thebrowser.com
Or write at any time to the publisher: uri@thebrowser.com

Elsewhere on The Browser, and of possible interest to Browser subscribers: Letters To The Editor, where you will find constructive comment from fellow-subscribers; The Reader, our commonplace book of clippings and quotations; Underflow, our new serial fiction. You can opt in or out of any of our newsletters (weekday Browser, Sunday Supplement and more) at your Email Preferences menu. And you can always Give The Browser, surely the finest possible gift for discerning friends and family.

The Birthplace Of County Cricket?

Kit Harris | Wisden | 11th April 2024

The beginning of county cricket in England is murky: various matches played as the game evolved in the late 18C can claim to be the "first". But the lost ground of Laleham Burway has a better case than most — it definitely hosted two counties and the wickets "were not pitched on a whim". Unfortunately, "it is not quite possible to reach the enclosure now, on account of the cows" (1,600 words)

Browser classified:

NetNewsWire is like podcasts — but for reading. Get news from the sites you love — with no tracking, with no social media algorithms dialing up the outrage meter.

The Forgotten War On Beepers

Louis Anslow | Pessimists Archive | 10th April 2024

Decades before anyone was worried about smartphone addiction, the same discourse surrounded beepers. The "pager panic" of the late 1980s stemmed from their adoption by both teenagers and drug addicts — and the concern was that one group might use them to maintain contact with the other. New Jersey even passed a law banning them. A reminder that everything is cyclical (1,000 words)

Africa’s Democratic Dividend

Mohamed Kheir Omer & Parselelo Ole Kantai | African Arguments | 10th April 2024 | U

The post-colonial implementation of Western-style democracy across Africa has created fascinating hybrid models. The Gada system in Ethiopia likely predates most other forms of governance and prioritises term limits. In Somalia, the "4.5 formula" enables power sharing between clans. Rwanda, Senegal, Madagascar, Lesotho and Morocco incorporate proportional representation (3,100 words)

How to Stop Losing 17,500 Kidneys

Santi Ruiz | Statecraft | 10th April 2024 | U

The bad news: if you are an organ donor in the US, there is a one in four chance that your donation ends up in the bin rather than inside a human who needs it. "There are 17,500 kidneys, 7,500 livers, 1,500 hearts, and 1,500 lungs that go untransplanted every year." The US is also uniquely bad at this. The better news: this is a "fixable" problem that even politicians can agree on (5,700 words)

Who Is Portugal For?

Vasco Queirós | Palladium | 23rd February 2024

Increasingly, not Portuguese people under the age of 40. Portugal is the second-oldest country in Europe after Italy. Five million people live on state benefits, 35 per cent of whom are retirees. These seniors are shaping the nation: they vote, "effectively, to extract rent for themselves from young people through the state". Unsurprisingly, one in three people aged 15-39 has left for overseas (3,100 words)

Browser classified:

How to discover and consume 6,500+ podcast episodes without subscribing to any podcasts? Wenbin Fang shares his episode-centric listening approach with Listen Notes.

Consider The Pawpaw

Matthew Meduri | Belt | 15th February 2024

The pawpaw is "an enigma", unknown to most Americans. These fruits are "characterised by their oblong shape, delicate greenish-yellow skin, a creamy custard-like flesh that varies from white to a deep orange, a central row of large black seeds, and the way they typically grow in clusters, like bananas". Unlike the pomegranate, it has never attracted a billionaire fan to promote it (5,400 words)

On Letting Go Of The Idea Of “Keeping Up”

Molly Templeton | Reactor | 28th March 2024

About that dreaded question: “so, what have you read lately?”. “I suddenly wanted to hold my cards, and my books, extremely close to the chest. People stress about not having time to read — a fair complaint, but one that has a different tone when the subtext is “I’m getting behind”. Behind on what, and to whom? Who is served by this stress, by reading challenges and lists and shelfies and book hauls?” (1,200 words)

Browser classified:

NetNewsWire is like podcasts — but for reading. Get news from the sites you love — with no tracking, with no social media algorithms dialing up the outrage meter.

The Great Oxygenation Event

Ethan Siegel | Big Think | 1st April 2024

Two billion years into Earth’s existence, cyanobacteria began proliferating and producing copious amounts of oxygen — which destroyed atmospheric methane, causing global temperatures to plummet. The resulting ice age lasted 300 million years and nearly ended life on Earth. “The way this climate disaster came about is instructive to anyone who wishes to avoid a similar disaster in the present” (3,300 words)