Dovi’s Digest Volume 77
A weekly newsletter for all your intellectual, spiritual, and physical needs
Bonjour! Welcome to Volume 77 of Dovi’s Digest.
This newsletter was born in the depths of the first COVID lockdowns. It was a little bit of escapism, a way for me (and my readers) to get lost in interesting stories and forget about the world for a bit. Another way I did this was through Google Streetview. I would go to my favourite spots or explore famous landmarks. It seems that I was not alone in doing this.
This week’s headline article goes into what Google Maps means to people, and how/why they use it. Many use it the same why I do. But some use it to view how their childhood homes, or even to visit people who are not around anymore. I recall one story of a man whose late grandfather was captured on camera while doing his favourite thing: watering his garden. Most of the footage is mundane, but there are streets who organised carnivals for when the Google Streetview car came past. There is even a man walking down a normal road in full scuba gear (legend). After the article, you can go have a look at your old haunts, and you can even see how the areas have changed over the years.
Seeing as Streetview is mainly terrestrial (although there is some footage on the ISS), I thought that this map is a fun way of exploring the satellites and space junk we have circling around our planet (over 10,000 at last count). You can search by country of origin, type of device orbiting, or even their distance from earth. It’s a very interesting way of looking at our world.
There was ONE correct answer to last week’s and last of last week’s brainteaser. Well done to Daniel Rab for being the only person to get both correct! The answers and this week’s riddle are below.
In addition to unpaid plugs for Google there are a bumper crop of interesting articles. You can read about Fidel Castro’s personal executioner, the secrets of grapefruit, the massive asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs, the man who keeps finding bowling balls in his house, how to maybe remove the guilt some of us feel at feeling pleasure, and debunking the myth that I was told as a kid, that glass is actually a slow-moving liquid. Enjoy!
Keep those articles (and everything else) coming,
Have a great week,
Dovi
And now, the articles:
Memory Lanes: Google’s Map of Our Lives
Google’s Street View helps us navigate the world, but it’s also a portal on forgotten places and secret moments.
Grapefruit Is One of the Weirdest Fruits on the Planet
(Courtesy of Kai Goldsmith)
From its name, to its hazy origins, to its drug interactions, there’s a lot going on beneath that thick rind.
The Day the Dinosaurs Died
A young palaeontologist may have discovered a record of the most significant event in the history of life on Earth.
The Remarkable Story of a Man Who Found 162 Bowling Balls Under His House
In July, David Olson discovered 162 bowling balls had been buried under his house, but it was what came next (and what he got out of it) that really surprised him.
The “Glass Is a Liquid” Myth Has Finally Been Destroyed
By studying a glob of 20 million-year-old amber, scientists have proven once and for all that glass does not flow.
How To Think About Pleasure
Weirdly hard to define, much less to feel OK about it, pleasure is a tricky creature. Can philosophy help us lighten up?
The Butcher of Havana
How a drifter from Milwaukee became the chief executioner of the Cuban Revolution—and a test case for U.S. civil rights.
Quote of the Week:
“If someone is able to show me that what I think or do is not right, I will happily change, for I seek the truth, by which no one ever was truly harmed. Harmed is the person who continues in his self-deception and ignorance.”— Marcus Aurelius
Facts of the Week:
The Pope has eight titles, and not one of them is “the Pope”.
Pope Formosus died and was buried in 896, but was dug up, tried, and found guilty in 897.
Pope Francis has his own 68-page weekly magazine.
The person who writes about legal marijuana for Forbes magazine is called Judy Weed.
Only two land animals survive entirely on seaweed: the North Ronaldsay sheep and the Galapagos marine iguana.
Sea urchins wear dead hermit crabs as hats.
Straw hats in the US were traditionally worn after 15 September; any earlier and they will be snatched off your head and stomped on.
The earliest re-enactments of the American Civil War took place during the American Civil War.
Cartoon of the Week:
Tweet of the Week:
Headline of the Week:
Brainteaser of the Week:
In a bar, the bottle between the gin and the whisky is port.
The gin is next to the brandy and the rum is next to the vermouth.
The whisky is in the centre of the seven bottles.
The sherry bottle, which is next to the rum, is at the far end of the row of bottles.
What is the order of the seven bottles?
Two weeks ago’s Brainteaser and answer:
What letter should come next in this sequence?
O T F S N E ?
Answer:
T. The letters are the initial of the odd numbers from one. (One, three, five, seven, nine, eleven and thirteen).
Last Week Brainteaser and Answer:
Two vehicles set off from the same point, at the same time, to travel the same 90 kilometre journey.
One vehicle travels at 52 kph and the other travels at 40 kph.
How many minutes will there be between the arrival times of the two vehicles?
Answer:
31.1538