Dovi’s Digest Volume 98
A weekly newsletter for all your intellectual, spiritual, and physical needs
Bonjour mes amies!! Welcome to Volume 98 of Dovi’s Digest.
We’ve all had those conversations. When someone goes on and on and on about something that just doesn’t grab you. And when prompted to speak answering with “that’s SOOOOO interesting”. Or possibly when one’s partner is forcing you to go to a family gathering. Your attendance is often coupled with an eyeroll and an “I’m VERRRY excited to be here”. When it comes to sarcasm, context matters. You, dear reader, can tell from the set ups (and elongated capitalised words) that sarcasm is being used. It’s even easier to tell when physically taking to someone as most of us pick up on subtle visual signals, whether it’s an expression or a hand movement. But what happens when that conversation is taking place entirely over text? There isn’t exactly a sarcasm font. And an ironic statement can very easily be taken as offensive when we don’t have any of those cues to guide us. A flirty message can become flippant. A joke can become an attack on one’s personal character.
These are all pits that I have mistakenly fallen into at one point or another in my day-to-day interactions with friends. With certain people I’ve stopped being my usual, delightfully funny, playful self when it comes to text as it was so often misconstrued (you know who you are, and I think this lack of humour adds to our chats sooooo much).
I’ve often heard it (well, read it) decried on the internet that there is no way to do this with strangers and acquaintances. Fonts don’t work as our operating systems are all different. Getting to know the person first so they appreciate your nuance sounds horrifying. So, what could those of us who used this humour to hide our inner turmoil do? Luckily, Doulas Sak came to the rescue. In 2008, after writing an email to a friend and wondering the same thing, he decided to do something about it. And so, the SarcMark was born. The basic idea is that it’s a symbol that conveys that a sentence was sarcastic. But it failed pretty spectacularly despite the fact the world was pleading for it. Why? Well, you’ll have to read this week’s headline article to find out more.
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There was ONE correct answer to two weeks’ ago brainteaser. Well done to Ariel Subotzky. There were also SIX correct answers to last week’s brainteaser. Well done to Ariel Subotzky, Chaim Ehrlich, Daniel Rabinovitch, Yona Kessler, Stan Wolberg, and Geoff Levy. The answers and this week’s riddle are below.
I know that obscure punctuation is not everyone’s thing as some of you are just too darn cool (insert SarcMark here, punctuation is ALWAYS cool). So, to make up for it, there is a freshly baked batch of articles chosen just for you. You can read about why a lady let a bird nest in her hair (even I found this one a bit odd), how clean energy doesn’t have a clean source, the patterns discovered by maths lurking in some of art’s greatest masterpieces, why honey is more than a by-product for bees, why we enjoy music even if we don’t understand the words, and the migrant workers stuck in rural China who would rather be anywhere else. Enjoy (not the sad workers, but the articles).
Keep those articles (and everything else) coming,
Have a great week,
Dovi
And now, the articles:
The Rise and Fall of the Infamous SarcMark
Instead of a font, why don’t we just have a symbol?
I Let a Baby Bird Nest in My Hair For 84 Days
He fell asleep in my palm. As far as he was concerned, I was his mother.
A Power Struggle Over Cobalt Rattles the Clean Energy Revolution
The quest for Congo’s cobalt, which is vital for electric vehicles and the worldwide push against climate change, is caught in an international cycle of exploitation, greed, and gamesmanship.
Math Uncovers Hidden Patterns in These Historic Masterpieces
Art historians have missed something incredibly important lurking behind the canvases of art's greatest works.
Bee Gold: Why Honey Is an Insect Superfood
From pesticide detox to increased longevity, the benefits of the sweet stuff for bees go well beyond simply nourishing the hardworking insects in the hive.
Why We Listen to Music with Lyrics We Don’t Understand
A musicologist and music therapist-in-training explain why the language of song lyrics doesn’t always matter.
“Sit, Eat, Wait for Death”: Life in the Shenzhen Sticks
The migrant workers at the Sanhe job markets have a motto: “Work for a day, party for three.” As romantic as it sounds, the reality is many would rather be almost anywhere else.
Quote of the Week:
“We write for the same reason that we walk, talk, climb mountains or swim the oceans — because we can. We have some impulse within us that makes us want to explain ourselves to other human beings. That’s why we paint, that’s why we dare to love someone- because we have the impulse to explain who we are. Not just how tall we are, or thin… but who we are internally… perhaps even spiritually. There’s something, which impels us to show our inner-souls. The more courageous we are, the more we succeed in explaining what we know." — Maya Angelou
Facts of the Week:
Animals and humans prefer music that is close to their own vocal range.
A mathematical study of 50 years of hit singles concluded that The Beatles had no influence at all on the history of pop music.
Ozzy Osbourne's 1992 tour was called “No More Tours”. His 2018 tour was called “No More Tours Two”.
The Tour de France hasn't been won by French cyclist since 1985.
Chinese tourists can pay $50,000 to shoot a polar bear in Canada.
A Chinese robot named Xiaoyi. (“Little Doctor”) has passed the written state of the national medical licencing exam.
Ford has a robot called Robutt that simulates a large man sitting on its car seats.
Cartoon of the Week:
Tweet of the Week:
Headline of the Week:
Brainteaser of the Week:
Each of the following words appears either in the middle of or at the end of the name of a country. For example, ACED is in Macedonia. What are the countries?
1. DIVE,
2. DONE,
3. GLAD,
4. HAIL,
5.HELL,
6. LAYS,
7. NAME,
8. OVEN,
9. RUNE,
10. SCAR,
11. SWAN,
12. TENS,
13. WAND.
Last Week’s Brainteaser and Answer:
I am a fire. Change one letter and I am a knife. Change another letter and I am a clearing. Change another letter and I am a rank. Change one final letter and I am a fruit. What was I and what did I become?
Answer:
Blaze>blade>glade>grade>grape
Last of Last Week’s Brainteaser and Answer:
Your friend chooses at random a card from a standard deck of 52 cards, and keeps this card concealed. You have to guess which of the 52 cards it is.
Before your guess, you can ask your friend one of the following three questions:
is the card red?
is the card a face card? (Jack, Queen, or King)
is the card the ace of spades?
Your friend will answer truthfully. What question would you ask that gives you the best chance of guessing the correct card?
Answer:
It doesn’t matter. In all three cases, your chance of guessing the correct card is 1 in 26.
It’s a wonderful little puzzle because the result seems so counter-intuitive. Any question about the type of card gives you exactly the same help, which is to double your chances of getting the correct card.
Case 1. Once your friend replies, you will know if the card is red or black. There are 26 red, and 26 black cards, so you have a 1 in 26 chance of guessing the correct one.
Case 2. There is a 12/52 chance the card is a face card, and a 40/52 chance it isn’t. If your friend replies that it is a face card, you have a 1/12 chance of guessing the correct card, and if your friend replies it isn’t, you have a 1/40 chance.
Thus, the probability of guessing the card when it is a face card is (12/52) x (1/12) = 1/52, and the probability of guessing the card when it isn’t is (40/52) x (1/40) = 1/52.
The overall probability of guessing the card is the sum of these two probabilities, which is 1/52 + 1/52 = 1/26
Case 3. The same argument applies. If the card is the ace of spades, you will be told this fact by your friend, and this outcome has a 1/52 chance of happening. If the card isn’t the ace of spades, which has a 51/52 chance of happening, you must then choose 1 card from the remaining 51. This outcome gives you a probability of (51/52) x (1/51) = 1/52. Again, the sum of both possible outcomes is 1/52 + 1/52 = 1/26.