Dovi's Digest Volume 22
A weekly newsletter for all your intellectual, spiritual and physical needs
Hi All, and welcome to Volume 22 of Dovi’s Digest.
Once again, it’s Thursday night and I’m putting the finishing touches on this week’s Digest. And once again, I’m wondering where the week has gone. I feel that as I grow older, time moves quicker. The weeks get shorter, days pass in the blink of an eye and my birthdays seem to be playing on fast forward. This is already the 22nd edition of the newsletter, which started as a quickly slapped together little mailer to 15 people, because I got too lazy to send out each article individually. Nearly six months later, there are over 300 people in 15 countries getting their dose of the arcane delivered weekly to their inbox. I don’t say this to brag, because frankly, that is purely up to each and every one of you dear readers, who have shared and passed on articles to friends who have then signed up and have passed on articles to friends who have then signed up and…you get the picture. No, I say this because the last six months have gone by in a flash and I’ve enjoyed writing every one (well, most) of these newsletters. I hope there will be many more six-month periods in the future.
As an aside, the best explanation I’ve found for the reason we think time goes quicker the older we get, is that the percentage of our lives that each period takes gets smaller and smaller. A year is 10% of a 10 year old’s life, but only 4% of a 25 year olds. If you have a better explanation, please drop me a line in the comment section, or by replying to this email. I’ll end with this aphorism from my late, fictional grandfather: “Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana.”
Go figure.
This week, quite a few notable people passed away. I’ll pay special mention to Herbert Kretzmer, who was born to Lithuanian immigrant parents in South Africa and who wrote the English lyrics to Les Mis (in that order), and to Bernard S. Cohen, the lawyer who won victory for interracial marriage in “Loving v. Virginia” in 1967, and who’s obituary I’ve linked here.
We have our usual hodgepodge of articles, from serial killers to superpowered AI, slavery compensation, recognising the good, why our understanding of how COVID spreads is flawed, and my personal favourite, very old, very shrivelled cheese (which is how all cheese should be.)
You may also notice I’ve added a new section “Headline of the Week”. As I can’t read every article from every news source, I’d appreciate you sending me odd, funny or downright just wrong headlines you’ve seen recently.
There were Four correct answers to last week’s riddle. Well done to Robin Nussbaum, Eli Berkow, Daniel Rab and Ori Tobias.The answer and this week’s one is below.
As always, please keep forwarding the Digest to people who you think would enjoy it, as building the base allows me to expand the digest too.
Keep those articles (and everything else) coming!
All the best
Dovi
And now, the articles:
Herbert Kretzmer, Lyricist for “Les Misérables,” Dies at 95
(Courtesy of Daniel Verblun)
A London theatre critic born in small town South Africa, he turned a little-known French musical into a global blockbuster, earning $20 million in royalties.
Hygiene Theatre is a Huge Waste of Time
People are power scrubbing their way to a false sense of security.
The Valley of the Cheese of the Dead
In this remote Swiss town, residents spent a lifetime aging a wheel for their own funeral
When France Extorted Haiti – the Greatest Heist in History
In the 19th century, the thinking went that the former enslavers of the Haitian people needed to be compensated, rather than the other way around.
4 Habits That Will Train Your Brain to Stop Worrying
(Courtesy of Cheryl Geliebter)
When you stop focusing on your worries, you can focus on all that is good in your life.
Navy F/A-18 Squadron Commanders Take on AI Repeatedly Beating Real Pilot in DogFight
Everyone has an opinion when it comes to the stunning results of DARPA’s AlphaDogfight trials. Now hear what the skipper of a fighter squadron thinks.
“I Knew Right Away It Was My Dad”
A conversation with the daughter of the serial killer BTK.
Quote of the Week:
“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.” — Albert Einstein
Facts of the Week (Spider edition):
The spiders used in Spiderman and Arachnophobia were social huntsman spiders and completely harmless.
Spiders tune their webs like guitars.
Every year, spiders consume more food than whales.
10% of spiders are missing at least one of their legs.
Ogre-faced spiders attract prey with their excrement.
Cartoon of the Week:
Headline of the Week:
Brainteaser of the Week:
A recycling dumpster holds a maximum of 27 bags of recycled materials. An apartment building puts out about nine bags of recycling every month. Two dumpsters could service how many apartment buildings in one month?
Last week’s Brainteaser and answer:
Firefighters Dean and Henry rescued a number of cats from trees in one week. Henry rescued twice as many cats as Dean. The total number of cats rescued is a perfect square. Neither rescued more than one cat a day. How many cats did each man rescue?
Answer:
Henry rescued six cats, Dean rescued three for a total of nine.
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Is there something you particularly liked or didn’t like? Let me know at dovisdigest@gmail.com