Two things are often very true of the modern world. No one wants to get sick, and no one wants to see the doctor. Getting sick makes you feel bad, so that’s a given. But there is ample evidence that people in need of doctors avoid care for a variety of reasons ranging from nervousness…
Author: Ian Fortey
The machine of progress can’t be stopped, but it does need to be tempered. You can’t go about innovating all willy nilly without testing your ideas. Whether it’s something as simple as a new recipe for brownies or as complex as quantum computing, we live in a world where everything needs to be (or at…
Pop culture has really exploded into a monster since the emergence of streaming technology and a million cable channels. There are video games, books, shows and films coming out constantly telling old stories, reimagined stories, rebooted stories and brand new stories. It’s all content, as some people say, and there is a lot of it.…
At a certain point numbers begin to lose meaning. The human mind isn’t good with large numbers and the vastness of large numbers and what they represent becomes too diffuse and too vague for us to conceptualize. That’s part of the reason why guessing how many jellybeans are in a jar is such a reliable…
There are a small handful of basic things we deem necessary for life. Food, water and shelter are often considered the basic three and, in a pinch, you might just get away with food and water. And even then, if you had to choose between the two, water is the one you need most. A…
It’s not every day that you run across a shrine in the Western or secular worlds but there are plenty of them out there. Many people in the modern world use the word in a joking fashion, like if someone is a fan of a certain celebrity or athlete they may have a shrine in…
There’s an old joke about how Twinkies and cockroaches will be the only things to survive a nuclear holocaust because they last forever. That’s obviously not true, but do you know how long a Twinkie does last? We’ll actually get to that shortly, but it brings to mind a curious question about the shelf lives…
They say that there are only two things guaranteed in life: death and taxes. And you can at least commit tax fraud for a while if you try. But that death thing has so far managed to catch up with literally everyone. If it were only as simple as one day being alive and another…
There’s something to be said for being humble and keeping your accomplishments and blessings to yourself. If you’re living well and doing good things, you don’t technically need to tell anyone in the world about it. But sometimes it’s hard to resist the urge to show off. Throughout history there have been people who said…
Of all the places in all the world you could hang out, the morgue has to be at the bottom of most peoples’ lists. Maybe as a visitor you’d be willing to breeze through but as a resident, well, that’s no fun at all. In general, the morgue is a grim place, but it turns…
It’s never easy to prove a negative, and it’s hard to pay attention to things you never notice. That’s kind of the point. But there’s a whole secret world around us that works because we don’t know it works. Things that happen in the background, under the cover of night, or well out of the…
Everyone wants to be healthy to some degree or another. Even if you want to eat nothing but pizza and beer every day, you’d still probably like to maintain your weight and an overall sense of good health when you do it. But the world doesn’t work that way. In fact, the world works against…
Every day, each one of us has to negotiate through a world that could kill us a thousand ways. From household chemicals that could poison you to bacteria in your food, accidents in the home, accidents on the street, diseases, violent attacks and unexpected acts of God, every day is a cornucopia of potential chaos.…
It’s human nature to want to be recognized and acknowledged. Kids want to show off their art to their parents. Employees want to stand out at work. And even citizens of towns or whole countries get some kind of a patriotic thrill out of their place of residence being known for being the best or…
The world is full of unnatural things that humans have created for better or worse reasons. We make plastic; we make Pepsi; we make poisons. Some of the unnatural substances we create make the world a better place, like medicines. Others, like your average chemical or nuclear weapon, are devastating. Good or bad, however, there…
Writers rarely, if ever, crank out a perfect story on the first try. More often than not they go through a few drafts and sometimes the final product is vastly different from the original version. In the modern age, with stories being translated and updated from much older texts, not to mention being adapted into…
Someone once said that “without rules there is chaos.” Not to be outdone, many others have suggested that rules are meant to be broken. So, to summarize, humans want order that they can, when deemed necessary, violate. No one ever said we were an easy species to understand. That aside, it’s true we do like…
Spite is a powerful motivator in life, even if it’s often employed with little thought or consideration and, in hindsight, comes across as something closer to ignorance. Nothing combines all of those elements better than our penchant, as a species, to childishly rename a thing if we become angry with whoever is most associated with…
What’s the most remarkable thing you ever did in a single day? Your proudest achievement, if you will. Many of us accomplish great things in our lives but they’re often the result of a process. The first person in your family to go to college. Writing a novel. Traveling the world. There are all kinds…
They say the human brain has a storage capacity that is in the range of 2.5 million gigabytes. That said, our memory can be rather selective. Fresh things are easily accessible. Over time, those memories, especially less significant ones, fade away. For instance, you can probably remember any of the conversations you had yesterday fairly…
It’s always impressive when something record breaking happens. The hottest day on record. The most expensive hamburger ever made. Even a personal record can be remarkable, whether that’s running your fastest mile ever or beating your taco eating record. And while these onetime achievements are very interesting, there’s something to be said for a sustained,…
They say everyone has one thing they’re good at. The same can be said for countries, too. There’s a country out there that has the most of something, the least of something, the biggest, the smallest, you name it. Now, no one said the things these countries are famous for have to be good or…
A trademark is something used to confirm and secure your intellectual property. You make up a delightful cartoon mouse that captains a boat; you trademark it so no one can steal it and then build an empire. It’s easy. But sometimes those who want a trademark have issues with what exactly constitutes intellectual property and…
In movies, war is often depicted in a very straightforward and well-regimented way, at least in terms of how it’s planned and implemented. Things get terrifying and intense on the field of battle, but behind the scenes it seems like there’s a well oiled machine driving the force. In reality, war is remarkably unpredictable, and…