Dovi’s Digest Volume 232
Feeling stressed? Try a 50ft bonfire 😖🪵🔥💆♂️
A weekly newsletter for all your intellectual, spiritual, and physical needs
Hello all! Welcome to Volume 232 of Dovi’s Digest!
Thank you to all your submissions about petty hills you’d die on! Keep them coming. Here is a selection of them:
Balloons are terrible for the environment and should’ve been banned before plastic straws. – Josh H
Movies should have intervals so we stretch our legs. – Tanya P
Oxford commas! – Craig N
People on the lift get to exit first, THEN you can get on (same applies for buses, trains, etc). – Al E
Any sound coming from your phone speaker in public. I don’t want to hear your rubbish music or your conversation. – Anonymous
You’re not the only person in a shop. Move your trolley to the side so people can get past. – Bea T
I will never get rid of the box of useless cables in my cupboard. It may come in handy! – Alwyn M
Drop your answer in the comments, or just reply to this email.
There is an oft quoted story about John Lennon as a child that goes something like this: The teacher asked the class what they wanted to be when they grow up. There was the usual collection of doctors, firemen, etc. Lennon answered he wants to be happy. The teacher told him he didn’t understand the question, to which Lennon replied that the teacher didn’t understand life. It’s a cute one, and nearly certainly made up.
However, the story does illustrate what most people really want out of life: happiness.
To me, it’s being out in nature with people that I love. Ideally watching a sunrise with a hot drink (and a rusk!) or a sunset with a cold drink. It’s peaceful, it’s beautiful, and I get to share the experience with others. Sure, it would be nice if it was at a five-star lodge with all the trappings, catering to my every need, both real and imagined, but that wouldn’t be the core of it.
I get that there’s of course no predefined meaning of the word. One person’s Eden is another’s nightmare (the same way that to cut costs, spider heaven is the same place as human hell). Some people find happiness in things, while others find it in experiences. Bliss can be a big family or space to breathe. However, one thing I definitely wouldn’t have put on my list of what would bring people happiness and peace would be the burning of a 50ft effigy. But that’s exactly what the residents of Santa Fe, New Mexico do every year. A fire is cathartic (in fact, I’d happily add a bonfire to my above vision), so I guess that the bigger the fire, the more one gets from it? Anyway, read all about this yearly tradition in one of this week’s articles.
In this week’s added extras:
Following up on last week’s article about blue being many people’s favourite colour, Test your colour perception.
Trekkies to twins: Eight photos of the quirkiest groups in 70s and 80s US
This game has you guess the hidden Wikipedia entry by uncovering one word at a time.
A very satisfying variety of latches.
Easy recipes for pasta sauce that aren’t your basic napolitana/marinara.
Do you enjoy the Digest? Would you like it to get better? Then please consider sharing it, as the more articles I’m sent, the better it is. It only takes a few seconds, and all you need to do is click here 👇. Thank you!
There was ONE correct answer to Volume 230’s riddle, and ZERO for last week’s brainteaser. Well done to Yisroel G! The answers for both are below.
Keep those articles (and everything else) coming.
Have a great weekend,
Dovi
And now, the articles:
Alone and Broken in the Desert (Audio)
Claire Nelson was more than a mile off the trail when she fell 30 feet in Joshua Tree National Park. As she lay there with a broken pelvis, she realised she had no cell service, and no one knew where she was. As three days alone and broken in the desert turned into four, she was forced to reckon with all of the choices that had brought her there, and ask: What does it mean to be truly alone?
One City’s Secret to Happiness: The Annual Burning of a 50-Foot Effigy
Every year, Santa Fe incinerates a giant puppet of Zozobra — a ritual meant to purge anxiety and promote a reset.
How Cereal Transformed American Culture
More than a century ago, Christian fundamentalists invented cereal to promote a healthy lifestyle free of sin. Little did they know, their creation would eventually be used to promote everything from radio and cartoons to Mr. T and tooth decay.
Inside the Life of Two Sets of Identical Twins, Who Now Live, Work, and Raise Children Together
Their children are genetic siblings, known as quaternary twins.
The Cochlear Question
As the hearing parent of a deaf baby, I’m confronted with an agonising decision: should I give her an implant to help her hear?
We’re Addicted to the Feeling of Being Right
Our craving for loud, divisive, identity-conferring opinions is poisoning politics.
The Weather Man
As climate changes continues to manifest in more frequent and more severe weather events, we need people we can turn to, to help us understand the deeper causes behind the cloudburst and the why behind the windstorm. Enter Daniel Swain, a physical scientist with a huge social media following who is earning a growing profile with the mainstream media for clearheaded weather context lay people can grasp.
Quote of the Week:
“It’s amazing what you can achieve if you don’t care who gets the credit.” – Harry Truman
Word of the Week:
(Courtesy of Alyssa F)
Bastion
ba·stee·uhn/ˈbastɪən/
Noun
plural noun: bastions
a projecting part of a fortification built at an angle to the line of a wall, so as to allow defensive fire in several directions.
an institution, place, or person strongly maintaining particular principles, attitudes, or activities.
"cricket's last bastion of discrimination"
Do you know a word you think others should know about? Submit it here!
Facts of the Week:
The bowl formed by capping one’s hands together is called a “gowpen”.
Rachmaninov had enormous hands: he could span 12 piano keys with either one.
Jimi Hendrix’s father told him his left-handedness meant he was born of the Devil.
The Jim Smith Society has over 2000 members worldwide, all called Jim Smith.
The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds was founded in 1889 by women denied membership of the British Ornithologists’ Union.
Beyonce's fans are called the Beyhive.
The WD40 fan club has over 100,000 members.
JRR Tolkien described his fans as “deplorable”.
One in every 160 New Zealanders was involved in the production ofThe Lord of the Rings.
Cartoon of the Week:
Tweet of the Week:
Headline of the Week:
Brainteaser of the Week:
A supervocalic is a word or phrase that contains every vowel exactly once, in any order.
We’ll give you a category, and you have to name the only supervocalic that fits in the category.
Example: US Cabinet departments → Education
1. Countries (hint: It’s in Africa.)
2. World capital cities (hint: It’s in the Caribbean.)
3. Mike Myers role
4. HBO shows
5. Writing utensils
6. US national parks
Last week’s brainteaser and answer:
A man has a bar of lead that weighs 40 kg, and he has divided it into four pieces in such a way as to allow him to weigh any number of kgs from one to forty. What are the weights of the four pieces?
Answer:
1kg, 3kg, 9kg, 27kg.
How we can measure all the weights using it:1 kg: 1 kg can be measured directly using a block of 1 kg.2 kg: To measure 2 kg, we can put 1 kg block with 2 kg and then put 3 kg block against these two, i.e., 2 + 1 = 3.Similarly, 5 kg : It can be done using 5 kg + 1 kg + 3 kg = 9 kg.7 kg : 7 kg + 3 kg = 1 kg + 9 kg.
Like this we can do for all the weights till 40 kg (40 = 1 + 3 + 9 + 27). Hence, the 4 weights required are 1 kg, 3 kg, 9 kg and 27 kg.
Brainteaser and answer for DDV230
Write down the name of a famous singer whose first name contains six letters and whose last name contains four letters. Remove from the singer’s name the first, third, fifth, seventh, and tenth letters. The remaining five letters in the singer’s name will, in order, spell out the repeating part of a well-known song. Who is the singer and what is the song?
Answer:
Singer: Celine Dion
Song: “Old MacDonald Had a Farm” (E-I-E-I-O)