Breaking Through Depression

David Robson | Guardian | 10th September 2023

Recent research suggests that there is no clear evidence for the theory that depression is caused by a "chemical imbalance" in the brain. The two books reviewed here offer alternative explanations. It could be "a stress response that has run awry" that leads to "total-body illness" felt in the mind. Another expert proposes that the source is in a malfunctioning immune system (1,330 words)

The Best Ukrainian Literature

Chenxin Jiang | Five Books | 5th September 2023

Ukrainian academic offers a wide-ranging reading list for those curious about her country's literature. It encompasses the work of late 19C writer Lesya Ukrainka, who is "at the very top of the national canon" for writing in Ukrainian while the language was banned by Russia, as well as a memoir from 2020 by a journalist about his time in a concentration camp in occupied Donetsk (3,100 words)

Atoms And Emptiness

Mario Barbatti | Aeon | 24th August 2023

The textbook model of an atom consists mostly of empty space within which tiny electrons orbit a central nucleus. But even conceptually, this model is wildly wrong. There is no empty space within an atom, nor any clearly defined particles. Nuclei and electrons are like "majestic, stable, structured, closed-packed clouds". An atom is better visualised as a localised patch of swirling fog (3,300 words)

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Apocalypse-Proof

Zach Mortice | Places Journal | 12th September 2023

Cultural history of the windowless tower-block at 33 Thomas Street in Manhattan, built for AT&T in 1974 as a “skyscraper inhabited by machines”, and now a hub of the NSA. It may well be the "densest inhabitable object in New York City”. Long a lodestar for conspiracy theorists, the tower is blast-proof, riot-proof, fallout-proof, and stocked with enough food and fuel to see off an apocalypse (7,600 words)

Conserving A Burmese Offering Vessel

Maxim Chesnokov | British Museum | 13th September 2023

Diary of a restoration. This ornate 19C hsun-ok, made from bamboo, lacquer, and coloured glass was extremely dusty and damaged in places. Obviously it can't just be wiped down and refinished like a less precious object would be. But with painstaking effort over six weeks and the use of unlikely tools like vulcanised rubber, putty, resin and a hypodermic needle, it shines again (1,340 words)

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Direct Solar Power

Kris De Decker | Low-Tech Magazine | 25th August 2023

The batteries used to store renewable energy are a problem. They are expensive, carbon intensive to make, and need replacing regularly. Can we do without them and use solar energy directly without storage? Trials suggest that the answer is yes, albeit with some lifestyle alteration. Chargeable devices, using appliances only during the day and better insulation make it possible (4,380 words)

The Pirate Preservationists

Jesse Walker | Reason | 10th September 2023

As streaming platforms downsize their offerings, works are disappearing, perhaps forever. Albums, films and shows that were never released on DVD or CD exist at the whim of cost-conscious executives. Amazon can even alter or delete books from your Kindle without your consent. Those who pirate media are now "accidental preservationists", keeping our collective cultural archive alive (3,920 words)

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The Lost Lifting Stones Of Ireland

Alyssa Ages | GQ | 28th August 2023

In pre-19C Ireland, lifting very heavy stones was a kind of spiritual practice. Rocks were hefted "in tests of manhood, hoisted at funerals to honour the dead, carried at weddings in celebration of the couple, and used to determine whether a man was strong enough to earn work as a farmhand". The custom died, but the stones remain in churchyards and fields, waiting to be lifted again (2,080 words)

Life After A Total Glossectomy

Jake Seliger | The Story's Story | 9th September 2023

Terminal cancer patient's unvarnished yet elegantly-written account of having his tongue and lower teeth surgically removed to halt the progress of a cancer. There is now a flap made from quadricep muscle installed in his mouth. He has relearned how to walk, swallow, taste and speak. Most fascinatingly, his internal monologue went silent after the surgery and did not return for 12 days (4,770 words)

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Having Nun Of It

Molly Olmstead | Slate | 5th September 2023

Tale of mutiny in a Texas convent. Ten cloistered nuns are suing a bishop over a supposed confession their prioress made while she was on seizure medication to a consensual sexual encounter with a priest. The bishop's investigation turned ugly. Allegations involving sex, drugs and excommunication were made. Amid the row, the nuns defied Pope Francis and began celebrating Mass in Latin (3,020 words)

Credit-Card Debt Collection

Patrick McKenzie | Bits About Money | 11th August 2023

It isn't your bank that's chasing you. The median US credit-card default of around $750 is too small to hold any big bank's attention for long. The bad debt gets rolled into a spreadsheet of bad debts, which gets sold at five cents on the dollar to a debt-collector, who bombards penniless people with empty threats in the hope of striking lucky. A miserable business. But do you have a better way? (5,500 words)

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from The Browser thirteen years ago:

A Well-Travelled Man

Simon Calder | Independent | 4th September 2010

Interview with veteran travel journlist and national treasure Alan Whicker. Every sentence a gem. "Papa Doc was never vile to me." "I am pleased to say I have hardly ever been shot." When his death was incorrectly announced in the press while he was serving as a war correspondent in career, he sent the following telegraph of correction: "Unkilled. Uninjured. Onpressing" (2,060 words)

Why Not Punish Families?

Bryan Caplan | Bet On It | 1st August 2023

A provocation from Bryan Caplan, who loves to tease because he knows it pleases. If systematically punishing criminals' families works to deter crime, should we do it? It may feel wrong; but if it deters greater wrongs, it is right. Caplan erects this straw man in order to knock it down with a counter-argument at least as shonky, that punishment should be retributive rather than deterrent (1,027 words)

From The Browser Twelve Years Ago

Pablo Fanque's Fair

Mike Dash | Smithsonian | 8th September 2011

When John Lennon wandered into an antique shop near Sevenoaks and found a circus bill advertising a show "for the benefit of Mr Kite" at Rochdale in 1843, Sgt Pepper took wings and Pablo Fanque took an encore. Born to African parents in Norwich, Fanque was the finest horsemen of his day. His circus, where William Kite was star acrobat, played to packed houses for 30 years (3,300 words)

Game, Set, Sell

Joel Drucker | Racquet | 1st September 2023

It was 1970. Philip Morris was poised to launch a new cigarette brand aimed at women. Richard Nixon was poised to ban cigarette ads from television. So Philip Morris looked to sports sponsorship for marketing possibilities, and saw a fit with women's tennis, where Billie Jean King was making waves. Good call. Virginia Slims wrote big cheques, and women's tennis conquered the world (8,500 words)

The Lindy Effect

Toby Ord | University Of Oxford | 23rd August 2023

The Lindy Effect holds that the longer something has been in business, the longer it will remain in business. It was coined as a rule of thumb for Broadway shows, and extended by Nassim Nicholas Taleb to the world at large. Ord seeks here to ground the conjecture in probability theory, claiming that "even things which are becoming less robust over time can display the Lindy effect" (8,200 words)

Absurdist Work In Progress

Eleanora Rosati | OUP Blog | 5th September 2023

Can you copyright a banana taped to a wall as a work of art? Would the copyright cover only that banana on that wall, or any banana on any wall? If you had taped a real banana to a wall, and then somebody else taped a plastic banana to a wall, would that infringe your copyright? If an AI had come up with the idea of taping a banana to a wall before you did, would the copyright still be yours? (880 words)

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Forming An Edge

T.W. Lim | Scope Of Work | 4th September 2023

How to make the sharpest possible kitchen-knife. Find the best artisan and find the best steel — probably in Japan. Cheap steel has a "gummy, stringy character”, but Japanese white steel "feels crystalline, and disintegrates into a fine powder when you sharpen it". Whet the blade initially to an edge-angle of 17 degrees, and optimise from there. Chopping chives is the best test of sharpness (1,800 words)

Where Do Fonts Come From?

Sara Friedman | Hustle | 25th August 2023

Mostly from one corporation, the aptly named Monotype. Founded in the 19C, the company was first built around the monotype machine that manufactured type more quickly. After a century of acquiring rivals, it is now "a kraken eating up the industry". It owns all the major fonts — Arial, Helvetica, Gotham, Times New Roman — as well as the primary digital marketplace for typefaces (2,030 words)

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What Should Men Do With Their Hands?

Hannah Carlson | Guernica | 5th September 2023

Extract from a history of pockets, dealing with the vexed question of what 19C men — who lack accessories like "the needle, the shuttle, or the fan" — should do with their hands. Even Darwin addressed the problem, theorising that restless hands were an evolutionary throwback. Putting hands in pockets was felt to be disrespectful and unhygienic, until it became cool in the 20C (970 words)

The Habitation Economy

Fred Block | Dissent | 5th September 2023

Economic analysis from the left is based on an outdated paradigm. Most of what we consume now is not standardised goods, which shifts power towards producers. "We have been relying on markets to equilibrate the supply and demand for things that do not resemble classical commodities. It is therefore hardly surprising that these markets do not work as economic theory claims" (4,470 words)

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Did You Even Know This Movie Exists?

Adam Nayman | The Ringer | 16th August 2023

Cinematically, we are in an "era of strays". Other than the pop cultural juggernauts of Barbie and Oppenheimer, lots of films are now being released without us even realising. In part this is due to the ongoing Hollywood strikes that keep union members from their promotional duties, but this phenomenon also speaks to "the fate of film as a popular art form in an algorithmic age" (1,750 words)

Star Trek And Socialism

Adam Kotsko | An Und Für Sich | 4th September 2023

Star Trek is held up as the archetype of progressive science fiction and interpreted as a reaction to late 20C "capitalist triumphalism". It provides a vision of "a post-scarcity world where a combination of automation and instant replication of consumer goods have eliminated need and toil". Yet it is "surprisingly incurious about the actual economic underpinnings of its utopian abundance" (1,480 words)

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When Wizards And Orcs Came To Death Row

Keri Blakinger | Marshall Project | 31st August 2023

Dungeons & Dragons is surprisingly popular among long-term prisoners in the US, including those sentenced to death. Playing can be difficult: with no internet, rules must be looked up in physical manuals that are banned in some states, as are the dice that are essential for play. But the productive escapism of inventing and then vanishing into a different world is worth the hassle (4,640 words)