The non-obvious blog
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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...
Read Now18 2026 June
Your Ongoing Tech Problem: Haunted Updates and Software Death
We all know about the physical death of a device. The screen that is irreversibly destroyed or the battery that fails to hold a charge....
Read Now17 2026 June
The 14-Day Bikini and How Fast Fashion Really Works
Among the many misperceptions about Chinese manufacturing, one of the biggest may be that everything made in China is being created in megafactories with enormous...
Read Now16 2026 June
The Non-Obvious Book of the Week: How To Sell Out by Chad Sanders
Can you share your vulnerabilities, expose your race and write for an audience other than your own without selling out? This is the fascinating question...
Read Now15 2026 June
Can Communal Knowledge Be Automated?
In many countries across Central and West Africa, women known as “mammies” are a fixture at local markets, selling food to families in open air...
Read Now11 2026 June
The Chaos of the World Cup
This week the FIFA World Cup is coming back to North America and it’s hard to imagine a more “American” homecoming. There are reports of soaring...
Read Now10 2026 June
The World Is Losing Its Color
This is the definition of a macrotrend – our modern world has steadily been losing color over the past several decades. As culture writer Spencer Hardwick...
Read Now09 2026 June
The Non-Obvious Book of the Week: Business Beyond Borders by Dean Foster
“There is no excuse for cultural ignorance in the 21st century.” Except perhaps laziness. The moment I picked up this book during the judging phases...
Read Now08 2026 June
The Most Powerful Silent Keynote in History
Last month at the Hay Festival, author Sarah Wynn-Williams was invited to keynote and then sat in her chair and didn’t say a word. It wasn’t...
Read Now04 2026 June
The Accidental Truth About College (from Jensen Huang)
What’s the best thing to study for the future? As we continue through graduation season, it’s a relevant question for us all to think about...
Read Now03 2026 June
The Newest Olympic Sport Features Humans Jumping Instead of Horses
Many of you know that I’m a big Olympics fan. After attending 6 Summer Olympics so far, I definitely have some opinions about sports that...
Read Now02 2026 June
The Non-Obvious Book of the Week: Seven Eves by Neal Stephenson
The first time I read Seven Eves was on a two-week long holiday in Africa several years ago and it took me just about the...
Read Now01 2026 June
The Most Important Reminder About Tech Is Appearing Everywhere
Every week I read stories of a rising revolt against automation, evidenced by everything from workers posting trade secrets after being displaced by AI through to university...
Read Now29 2026 May
The Most Depressing Museum in the World Has a Message to Share
I’ve been to my fair share of depressing museums. The Holocaust museums in LA and DC and parts of the African American Museum in DC...
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