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Dedicated To Helping Readers
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Since 2004.

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post thumbnail for The Non-Obvious Future Word of the Week: Effortlux

13 2026 August

The Non-Obvious Future Word of the Week: Effortlux

An article in Fortune magazine this week points to the rise in “conspicuous waiting” as the new status symbol as people proudly share images of themselves in...

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post thumbnail for The Foreign Language Learning Problem in Schools

12 2026 August

The Foreign Language Learning Problem in Schools

I speak Spanish averagely well. Yet I would rank the four years I spent “learning” the language as one of the bigger wastes of time...

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post thumbnail for The Newest Dumbphone May Be Smarter Than Your Current Phone

11 2026 August

The Newest Dumbphone May Be Smarter Than Your Current Phone

As the popularity of so-called dumbphones has surged, the use case was pretty simple. It was a phone for anyone who wanted to avoid social...

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post thumbnail for Climate Scientists Save Important Data from Disappearing

10 2026 August

Climate Scientists Save Important Data from Disappearing

After the Trump administration shut down the official government source of weather data at Climate.gov last year, a group of scientists promised to save years...

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post thumbnail for The Non-Obvious Future Word of the Week: Abdicare

06 2026 August

The Non-Obvious Future Word of the Week: Abdicare

What’s the right amount of usage for AI when it comes to parenting? Open AI founder Sam Altman’s answer may be different from most of...

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post thumbnail for GAP Opens Influencer Programs to Their Own Employees

05 2026 August

GAP Opens Influencer Programs to Their Own Employees

This story shouldn’t feel revolutionary, but it still does. GAP opened up their online influencer program for their employees to become paid creators posting about Old Navy,...

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post thumbnail for Invisible Phantom Drones Are Here

04 2026 August

Invisible Phantom Drones Are Here

I wasn’t excited when I first read this week’s story about the Phantom Twist, a drone that rotates so fast that it’s effectively invisible to the...

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post thumbnail for What AI Generated Bird Photos Can Teach Us About Database Pollution

03 2026 August

What AI Generated Bird Photos Can Teach Us About Database Pollution

One of the engaging art concepts from AI artist Kelly Boesch features a collection of birds that don’t exist. The video is hard to stop watching,...

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post thumbnail for The Non-Obvious Future Word of the Week: Subscreep

30 2026 July

The Non-Obvious Future Word of the Week: Subscreep

Do you even know how many services you’re subscribed to and paying for monthly? As Henry and I were writing Future Words, Subscreep was easily one of...

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post thumbnail for The Beautiful Second Life of Decommissioned Buses

29 2026 July

The Beautiful Second Life of Decommissioned Buses

When London’s decommissioned New Routemaster buses leave the roads over the next four years, many of them will be repurposed into mobile playgrounds thanks to an award-winning...

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post thumbnail for The Non-Obvious Book of the Week: The Ultimate Future Words Collection

28 2026 July

The Non-Obvious Book of the Week: The Ultimate Future Words Collection

This week’s “book of the week” is a bit of an unusual share. For those of you who follow me on Linkedin, you might have...

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post thumbnail for The Secret of the Mississippi Miracle and How to Get Kids to Read Again

27 2026 July

The Secret of the Mississippi Miracle and How to Get Kids to Read Again

A featured story from WIRED this month takes a deep dive into the challenges of getting kids to read and how they are increasingly only reading in...

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post thumbnail for The Non-Obvious Future Word of the Week: Fauxstalgia & The Lost Goal of Pelé

23 2026 July

The Non-Obvious Future Word of the Week: Fauxstalgia & The Lost Goal of Pelé

Fauxstalgia – The ache for a memory that was AI-generated and never actually lived through. The most legendary soccer player in history once shared that the best...

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