Dovi’s Digest Volume 255
Packing Light 🧳👷♂️✈️
A weekly newsletter for all your intellectual, spiritual, and physical needs
Hello all! Welcome to Volume 255 of Dovi’s Digest!
Over the last few months, I’ve been privileged to have done a lot of travelling. In fact, in 2025 I’ve been out of South Africa longer than I’ve been in it. But this intro isn’t about my privilege. It’s about baggage, and not the emotional kind.
Traditionally, I don’t travel light. This meme encapsulates it quite nicely:
As a result, I usually check in a bag. As a kid the process fascinated me. How does this belt over here take my bag and another one far away spits it out? Magic! When I was about four this bubble burst when I saw through the terminal window people loading the bags onto the plane.
However, it’s not like one person takes your bag and lugs it individually onto the plane. It goes through a complicated series of checks, changing hands many times.
This week’s headline article follows your bags journey from check in to plane, it’s pretty short, but damn interesting.
In this week’s added extras:
The Top 10 Logos that would make the best playground slide.
AI animates children's drawings.
A website with everything you could possibly want to know about shoelaces.
The best way to cut an onion.
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 were SIX correct answers to last week’s brainteaser, well done to Josh H, Josh F, Chaim E, Jordan M, Jeff C, and Ariel S! The answer and this week’s riddle are below.
Keep those articles (and everything else) coming.
Have a great weekend,
Dovi
And now, the articles:
Your Bags Hidden Journey From Check-In to Plane
Checking a bag is an exercise in trust. The hope? That you will be reunited painlessly with your possessions after many labor-intensive steps involving heavy machinery and numerous workers, often across multiple airports.
“Jonah Hill Keeps His Teeth in a Safe”: Meet Hollywood’s Top Special-Effects Dentist
He made the “manky British” set for Austin Powers, droppable ones for Mrs Doubtfire – and fangs for Tom Cruise. Gary Archer on crafting amazing gnashers for stars.
When the World Connected on Skype
On the eve of its demise, Rest of World readers remember how Skype changed their world.
The Freestylist
Magnus Carlsen hated homework and blossomed when he no longer had to go to school. Today, he plays chess according to a new set of rules and is engaged in an ongoing battle with the World Chess Federation. What is driving him?
Is The Universe Really Infinite? Astrophysicists Explain
How we understand the wider cosmos from our tiny observable bubble of space.
Seven Historical Figures Who Disappeared Without a Trace
First, they made history, then they vanished from it.
My Boyfriend, His Best Friend, and Me: A Love Story
When Lily King fell for her boyfriend’s best friend, she caused a bitter rift. Decades later, an unanticipated reconciliation shifted her understanding of the whole affair.
Quote of the Week:
“All I ask is the chance to prove that money can’t make me happy.” - Spike Milligan
Word of the Week:
(Courtesy of Josh H)
Effulgent
i·FUL·juhnt /ɪˈfʌldʒ(ə)nt/
adjective
LITERARY
(of a person or their expression) emanating joy or goodness.
"Standing there was my father with the most effulgent smile on his face."
Do you know a word you think others should know about? Submit it here!
Facts of the Week:
Janis Joplin was voted “ugliest boy in the school”.
Noel Gallagher once broke Liam Gallagher's foot with a cricket bat.
The singer-songwriter Tom Robinson kept poison in his fridge for 10 years in case he needed to kill himself in the night.
Pop stars aged between 26 and 35 are ten times as likely to die as the rest of us.
Rolling Stone magazine named the Instagram feed of the US Transportation Security Administration the 4th best in the world.
Items confiscated by the Transportation Security Administration include a knife inside an enchilada and a dagger concealed in a replica Eiffel Tower.
The Leaning Tower of Pisa took 206 years to complete.
Cartoon of the Week:
Tweet of the Week:
Headline of the Week:
Brainteaser of the Week:
1. Which of these is NOT an anagram of a breed of dog?
- Nitrate
- Looped
- Tea garden
- Tester
2. Which pair of words are BOTH anagrams of countries?
- Moan and Planes
- Ignite and Chain
- Serial and Rabies
- Regalia and Candela
3. Which pair of words are NOT both anagrams of chemical elements?
- Ringtone and Groan
- Sliver and Deal
- Nit and Humidor
- Snuggest and None
4. Which of these has an anagram that has the opposite meaning to itself?
- Angered
- On the sly
- Twelve plus one
- Evil
Last week’s brainteaser and answer:
The dot above lowercase “i” and “j” is called a tittle. Your challenge is twofold:
1. Name a country that has three consecutive tittles in its name.
2. Name a global city that has three consecutive tittles in its name (it’s the capital of its country).
Answer:
Fiji and Beijing