Obituary For A Quiet Life

Jeremy B. Jones | Bitter Southerner | 6th June 2023

The conventions of the obituary form rarely capture "the sheer audacity of a quiet life". We expect lists of achievements and tales of adventure. Here, a quiet, private grandfather is remembered — who, it turns out, did military service overseas, remained married for 70 years, and was fired over and over again for leading a union at a textile mill. The lesson? "A quiet life isn’t a passive life" (1,610 words)

Mystified by cryptic crosswords? We at The Browser are here to help. Pick up the ultimate guide, by Dan Feyer and Uri Bram, and let us guide you through the meaning of those clues - so you can get on with puzzling.

Facts Don’t Change Minds

Anna Hennessey | Psyche | 23rd May 2023

The Latin root of "propaganda" — propagare — simply means "to spread" or "propagate". Stripped of its negative connotations, can the "intelligent use of words and images" to change a mindset be deployed for good purposes? Martin Luther King Jr thought so, as did W.E.B. Du Bois. Emotive techniques are much better at altering opinons. Time for some "positive propaganda"? (1,615 words)

Is Nature A Gigantic Cat?

Nikola Tesla | Letters Of Note | 21st July 2023

Tesla owed his fascination with electricity, according to this 1939 letter, to a youthful encounter with a cat. "As I stroked Macak’s back, I saw a miracle that made me speechless with amazement. Macak’s back was a sheet of light and my hand produced a shower of sparks loud enough to be heard all over the house." At the age of 83, he still has no answer to question "what is electricity?" (1,180 words)

Death: A Literary Guide

Ted Gioia | Honest Broker | 6th June 2023

Literary recommendations for those who would like to make a more enlightened and contented acquaintance with their mortality and inevitable death (a psychically beneficial exercise, we are told). Start with Plato, then proceed via Julian of Norwich, Herman Hesse, Joan Didion, Willa Cather and Leo Tolstoy. If you read well, you will no longer waste energy battling ageing (1,950 words)

Kafka Agonistes

David Mason | Hudson Review | 31st July 2023

The world is indebted to Max Brod, best friend of Franz Kafka, who did not burn his dying friend's work as instructed. Brod saved the manuscripts again when he fled the Nazis to Tel Aviv in 1939. Thanks to him, we have three extra novels and twelve diaries, which reveal an uncanny, surrealist mind always in motion as Kafka tried to depict the truth of his "dreamlike inner life" (3,600 words)

The Happiest Place Makes The Darkest Music

Tim Brinkhof | Big Think | 31st July 2023

Why do Scandinavian countries, which top global rankings for life expectancy and happiness, also produce so much more heavy metal music? Perhaps Nordic cultures use the genre to process emotions that are not welcome in everyday life. Or maybe it is a purely economic matter: starting a heavy metal band requires equipment, space and time that is inaccessible to the less well-off (1,090 words)

Internet Search Tips

Gwern | 22nd July 2023

Don't be fooled by the bland title. Everyone can learn from this magnum opus. Beginning with simple advice, such as on how to master Boolean operators and search hotkeys, Gwern takes the reader through increasingly advanced strategies for finding research papers, books, theses and other references online. Some of these tips may be known to you, others definitely will not (19,140 words)

From The Browser Eight Years Ago

Rule Of The Jogi

Amara Guriro | Dawn | 26th July 2015

A visit with the Jogis, a community of snake charmers in Pakistan. Each family keeps a stock of venomous snakes around the house, including cobras and vipers, which the children treat as playthings. "A snake cannot bite a jogi child, and even if it does, it will not harm our child since we administer a drop of snake venom as first food to our newborns. This establishes immunity for life" (1,450 words)

God Died in 1975

Charles Price | Conversation | 19th July 2023

The death of Emperor Haile Selassie in 1975 provoked an "existential crisis" for Rastafarian sects which believed him to be the Messiah. Some refused to accept his passing; others waited for God to issue further guidance. Half a century later, while no new doctrine has been proclaimed, Rastafarians seem to be more accepting of the view that Selassie was a king and a prophet but not a Messiah (1,000 words)

Walmarts And Small Towns

Addison Del Mastro | Discourse | 24th July 2023

A Walmart is the size of a small town — and perhaps that is the right way to think about a Walmart. It doesn't compete with individual shops, it competes with entire town centres, and it has the advantage of being pedestrianised. "If we could transpose the commercially vibrant walkability of a modern Walmart back to the downtowns it killed, those towns would be their old selves" (1,100 words)

Ornamental Hermits

Shoshi Parks | Smithsonian | 7th July 2023

Notes on the fashion among 18th century English aristocrats for keeping hermits on their country estates. Terms for a hermit might include a cave or hut, food and water, and a lump sum at the end of a seven-year term. The hermit's main job was to be silently picturesque, and thus to delight visitors. “By 1750, if you only put in one structure in your garden, it would have been a hermitage” (1,900 words)

Birth Of The Laffer Curve

Grace-Marie Turner | Bastiat's Window | 27th July 2023

Eyewitness account of the moment in 1974 when Arthur Laffer drew a curve on a Washington hotel napkin and gave it to another lunch guest, Dick Cheney. The curve purported to show that lower tax rates would produce higher tax revenues by encouraging taxpayers to work harder. Laffer's claim was speculative at best, but his doodle was politically irresistible. Voodoo economics was born (2,300 words)

The Greatest Scam Ever Written

Rachel Browne | Walrus | 26th July 2023

Profile of probably the most successful living copywriter — a convicted fraudster. In two decades, Patrice Runner made $175 million through a mass-mailing venture that was supposedly selling psychic services. During that time, nearly 1.5 million people across Canada and the US responded to his letters and sent money, hooked by the promise of greater knowledge about their future (5,260 words)

Reading Well

Simon Sarris | The Map Is Mostly Water | 17th July 2023

Sage advice on how to become "well read". Read slowly. Aim to be influenced by what you read. Start lots of books and only finish a few. Buy books on a whim. Re-read the ones you adore. Prioritise fiction over non-fiction. "Reading fiction helps you become an unsystematic thinker. It is easy to maintain an intellectual rigidity. It takes more care to maintain a loose poeticism of thought" (1,300 words)

The Persuaders

Dave Jamieson | Huffington Post | 24th July 2023

On the work of "persuaders", consultants hired by companies to dissuade employees from unionising. These "mysterious men" infiltrate the workforce, sowing doubt about what a union can achieve. It's big business: "Employers are now paying upwards of $3,000 a day, plus expenses, for each persuader. Amazon alone dished out more than $14 million to consultants last year" (4,200 words)

How To Sharpen A Scythe

Daegan Miller | Yale Review | 23rd May 2023

It is not easy. To "peen" the blade of a scythe — that is, hit its edge with enough force to thin the metal yet not so much that it tears — requires discipline and attention. "One hundred and fifty overlapping blows should complete one pass of the blade’s length. If you can avoid distraction and do the job well, the blade will be so thin that it will ripple when you run your nail beneath it" (1,800 words)

Braille Is Alive, Well, And Ever-Evolving

Sophia Stewart | Millions | 21st July 2023

Far from being superseded by new technology, the Braille system of tactile reading and writing is in more demand than ever. The publisher profiled here does brisk business producing manuals and menus for companies like Starbucks, as well as publishing more literary material. Reading with Braille, according to many blind people, allows for a more immersive experience than alternatives (1,500 words)

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The Power Of Smaller Countries

Veronica Anghel | Eurozine | 24th July 2023

The Ukrainian resistance to the Russian invasion has finally discredited the idea that the interests of "great powers" supersede those of small states. By fighting to win the war and insisting on support from the US and the EU to do so, Zelensky has changed the geopolitical game. To capitalise on this, wealthy nations will need to invest not only in the war but in Ukraine's reconstruction (1,960 words)

Sinister Strike

Lior Lefineder | 18th June 2023

Why are 8-12% of humans left-handed, given that left-handedness is in many superficial ways a disadvantage? Perhaps because left-handers can make good fighters and sports players; they can take right-handers by surprise. "The common custom of a handshake, likely invented to present peaceful intentions by showing the dominant hand is not carrying a weapon, fails with lefties" (1,090 words)

Chasing The Ivory-Billed Woodpecker

Lindsey Liles | Garden & Gun | 1st June 2023

The ivory-bill was last sighted in the United States in 1944, and is now on the point of being declared extinct, though devotees believe that a few survive in Arkansas. "Perhaps the ivory-bill was just too beautiful. With a sweeping suit of black and white feathers, dramatic crests in electric red on males and ebony on females, and a long pearly bill, its aspect inspired awe in all who encountered it" (4,400 words)

The Case Of Like

Anatoly Liberman | OUP Blog | 19th July 2023

"In grammar, popular usage almost always wins," but do we have to rejoice in its triumph? A curmudgeonly take on the modern usage of "like", which has overtaken "you know" as a default filler word. Why is this change, like, so irritating to this author, and many others? Its ubiquity: "There is a difference between a solitary pimple (which may even be 'cute') and a skin rash" (1,310 words)

Delts Don’t Lie

Ellie Rose Mattoon | JSTOR Daily | 19th July 2023

Many Renaissance artists used male models for their female figures, but only Michelangelo's look like "men with breasts". The musculature always gives him away. "In his Doni Tondo, the Virgin Mary’s biceps bulge as she lifts baby Jesus into the air, and the breasts on the sculpture Night look like a misshapen afterthought." Why? It seems deliberate; his work is too precise (1,417 words)