The non-obvious blog

Dedicated To Helping Readers
Be More Interesting Since 2004.

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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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07 2025 May

Virginia State Exposes What It Costs to Be in the Michelin Guide

The upcoming Michelin Southern Restaurant Guide will be missing locations from one state this year: Virginia. Rather than paying the $360,000 “partnership fee,” the state’s tourism...

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06 2025 May

The Non-Obvious Book of the Week: The Algorithm by Hilke Schellmann

Imagine a future where an algorithm reads everything from your facial expressions during an interview to everything you have ever shared on social media in...

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05 2025 May

The Dangerous Stupidity of “Doing Your Own Research”

In a recent interview, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. suggested that parents of newborn babies should do their own research before vaccinating their babies. Here’s the...

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02 2025 May

Why the Nike Backlash May Be Just the Beginning

When Jennifer and I wrote Beyond Diversity, one of the first things we talked about was blind spots. We knew that there would be things we...

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01 2025 May

UAE Becomes First Region to Experiment with Using AI to Write New Laws

Here’s a fascinating statistic about the recent state of AI regulation: “at least 69 countries have proposed over 1,000 AI-related policy initiatives globally, but these...

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30 2025 April

Should You Be Polite to Chatbots? Research Says Yes. Sam Altman Says It Costs Millions in “Wasted” Computing Power

How polite are you when you ask ChatGPT a query? According to Sam Altman, the human propensity to be nice when asking technology for solutions...

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29 2025 April

The Non-Obvious Book of the Week: True or False by Cindy L. Otis

This wonderfully useful book written by former CIA analyst Cindy L. Otis is actually meant for young adults to teach them about how to spot...

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28 2025 April

Inside the Marketing Savvy of the World’s Lightest Whiskey Bottle

Claiming that a product is the world’s most ___________ is the most common marketing gateway to empty hyperbole that is sure to inspire plenty of...

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25 2025 April

Earth Day, Environmental Hostility and The Blue Marble 50 Years Later

This past week was Earth Day and one of the efforts to commemorate the day was NASA recognizing the 50th anniversary of their iconic “blue...

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24 2025 April

The Complex Reality of “Girlbosses” In Space

This week the first all-female crew for a “manned” spaceflight headed to space—for ten minutes—on Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket. One of the passengers was...

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