Dovi’s Digest Birthday Volume 1! (or Volume 52)
A weekly newsletter for all your intellectual, spiritual and physical needs
Hey everyone! Welcome to the very first birthday edition of Dovi’s Digest (aka Volume 52)!!!
The Digest first came around because of my laziness. Not from all the reading, but that I couldn’t be bothered sending out dozens of separate emails a week to people with whom I exchanged articles. It was written at around 11:30 at night and was a quickly slapped together little note and a few articles I enjoyed. I threw in a cartoon and a brainteaser just for fun, thinking that it may spice it up a bit. The first edition (the pic below) was just text, a plain email with the subject line “Dovi’s Weekly Digest Volume 1”. It was sent to 20 unsuspecting victims, none of whom opted in.
From those 20 readers a year ago, we have grown into a real force, one of the most read weekly newsletters about everything and nothing in particular on the internet, with a readership of nearly 500.
The format has stayed largely the same, but moved from a text document to a well laid out email with embedded links (which was a nightmare, not the links, but making sure the formatting was consistent [Avenir, 15 point for body, 18 point bold underlined for headings]), a brief foray into Canva which didn’t work at all and made me very angry, to Substack which has streamlined the entire process (and saves me the hassle of sending out the emails basically individually).
Here’s what a draft looked like before Substack:
After a year of wringing my hands over which articles to include and whether to write an intro or not, many late nights because of my procrastination, pain because of the arthritis flare ups from the typing, I can honestly say I genuinely enjoy writing and compiling each edition.
I hope to write many more editions, with many more interesting articles that will hopefully expand your horizons, make you think, and occasionally say “how did he find this? What is he smoking? Can I have some?”.
Through all of it, there are a few people who were instrumental in making this happen.
Jade Weiner was the first person who read it, pushed me to do it again the following week (and the week after that), and was my very first editor. Without her this entire thing would never have happened.
Josh Hovsha was next to come on board, editing the text, honing and improving it, as well as making sure it scanned well.
Last, but not least, I added frequent contributor Isaac “Eagle Eye” Lipschitz, who catches nearly every misplaced comma, makes sure all the i’s are dotted and the t’s crossed, and taught me where to use a semi colon (although I still can’t work it out).
Over the next few months, there will be a number of new features added to the Digest, most of which I hope you’ll enjoy. Please don’t worry though! The format which you all love so dearly will remain the same.
There were FIVE correct answer to last week’s brainteaser, well done to Ori Tobias, Daniel Rabinovitch, Bianca Shulman, Hazel Levine and Rafi Moskovitz!!! The answer and this week’s very special themed riddle (courtesy of Myer Brom, who took the time to write this himself!) are below.
In this week’s edition, instead of new articles, I have chosen my top 12 articles from the last year (one for each month). These include my favourites, the editors’, and the ones which I’ve got the most engagement from YOU dear reader. I really hope you enjoyed them as much as I did.
Thank you all for continuing to read, to submit articles (and everything else), and for your feedback, all of which has made the Digest what it is.
Keep those articles (and everything else) coming,
All the best
Dovi
And now, in no particular order, the articles:
Thirty-Six Thousand Feet Under the Sea
The explorers who set one of the last meaningful records on earth.
Out in the Great Alone
The Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race pushes participants to the brink on an unforgiving trek to the end of the world. And, as one writer who tracked the race by air discovers, that’s exactly the point.
Swan Song
How a groundsman became British football’s most notorious mascot, Cyril the Swan.
Is it Ever Too Late to Pursue a Dream?
Is there room in the NBA for a 42 year old rookie?
A Good Life Doesn’t Mean an Easy One
A new study finds that for many, ‘psychological richness’ is more valuable than simple happiness.
Wikipedia, “Jeopardy!,” and the Fate of the Fact
In the Internet age, it can seem as if there’s no reason to remember anything. But information doesn’t always amount to knowledge.
Out of Thin Air: The Mystery of The Man Who Fell From the Sky
In 2019, the body of a man fell from a passenger plane into a garden in south London. Who was he?
The Strange & Curious Tale of the Last True Hermit
For nearly thirty years, a phantom haunted the woods of Central Maine. Unseen and unknown, he lived in secret, creeping into homes in the dead of night and surviving on what he could steal. To the spooked locals, he became a legend—or maybe a myth. They wondered how he could possibly be real. Until one day last year, the hermit came out of the forest.
The Sucker, the Sucker!
The octopus and the evolution of intelligent life.
The Man Who Runs 365 Marathons a Year
One day, Michael Shattuck started to run. He liked it, so he ran longer, sometimes for as many as 65 hours each week. He never wanted to stop. What was he running from?
The Race to Redesign Sugar
Forget artificial sweeteners. Researchers are now developing new forms of real sugar, to deliver sweetness with fewer calories. But tricking our biology is no easy feat.
How one hour of slow breathing changed my life
An introductory breathing class fixed my sleep and left me calmer than ever. It took me years to find out why.
Quotes of the Week:
“It is not enough to be busy…The question is: what are we busy about?” – Henry David Thoreau
“All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us” – Gandalf the Grey (from The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien)
Facts of the Week:
In Japan, people with thin, black, careful comb overs are called “barcode men”.
At Joan of Arc's trial, she was asked to comment on the hairstyles of the Saints who appeared in her visions.
A Tiger’s night vision is six times better than humans.
Humans glow in the dark.
In a desert, the naked eye can see the glow of a major city from 125 miles away.
Snowflake, Arizona, was founded in 1878 by two men whose surnames were Snow and Flake.
At the center of every snowflake is a single piece of dust.
Claude Monet paid a gardener to dust his water lilies before he painted them.
Cartoon of the Week: (Makes me smile every damn time)
Brainteaser of the Week:
Find the words hinted at using their initial letters to solve the following ditloids. Each one is a common phrase, trivia fact or familiar title. For example, 52 W in a Y = 52 weeks in a year, nudge nudge, wink wink.
For a winning submission, string together the 2nd letter from each bolded and italicised word to reveal the hidden message!
1) 64 S on a C
B
2) 54 C
in a D (with the J)
3) 3x108 m/s is A the S
of L in a V
4) 2 4 6 8, W D W A
5) 8 P in our S S
(excluding P)
6) A
Z is -273.15 D C
7) 88 K on a P
8) 32 D F at which W F
9) 13 S
on the A F
10) 46 P of C
in H DNA
11) 2001 a S O
12) 200 for P
G in M
13) 8 B in a B
14) 8 E
on a S S
15) 12 S of the Z
16) 6 B in an O
17) 3 B M
, S H T R
18) 1 P I
W 1000 W
19) 12 S P for A
20) 7 D S
21) J B, S A
007
22) 29 D in F
(in a L Y)
23) 42 I
the A to the U Q of L, the U and E
24) 3 S
and Y O
Last week’s Brainteaser and answer:
Which of the following groups of letters is the odd man out? The difference has nothing to do with vowels or consonants.
TTEN EVCA SEOUH KNLNEE
Answer:
KENNEL, the only shelter that people don’t live in (the others are TENT, CAVE, and HOUSE).
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