Things I learned while looking up other things, 2025.09.11
Dear friends,
It turns out that I am my own most prolific correspondent—while trying to clean out one of my email mailboxes I realized that the person who is sending me all this email is, in fact, me. If I find something on social media, or Wikipedia, or while walking around, or just Have A Thought, my first impulse is to send myself an email. Future Erin will deal with this, I think. (Future Erin is struggling with her inbox.) I suppose there are some Solutions to this problem I could use (please don't suggest Notion, I am somehow not a Notion Person) but email has the advantage of being in every single share interface and guarantees I will look at it at least once more (as I try to get it out of my inbox).
Here are some of the things I've emailed myself since the last time I did an inbox purge:
The Encyclopedia of Informality (in three open-access downloadable PDFs!). "[A] a voyage of discovery, to explore society’s open secrets, unwritten rules and know-how practices."
A really cool hack for making a tiny bag out of a long zipper. (Do I have roughly 1000 zippers just like this one? Yes. Have I made this yet? No.)
The Poppin' Fresh, the Pillsbury Doughboy, has a whole family, including a dog (Flapjack) and a cat (Biscuit)! "It is debated among collectors as to whether Poppie [a female character] is Poppin's wife, girlfriend, or sister." [Wikipedia]
Thermochauvinism is "the (often unconscious) assumption that it’s reasonable to live in cold places but unreasonable to live in hot ones."
Bones: the newest? oldest? accessory. Are you part of the 39% of people who have a fabella?
“After becoming famous and wealthy as a ventriloquist, Vattemare retired and spent the next 25 years as a philanthropist promoting free public libraries and the universal dissemination of culture.”
The metaphors of artificial intelligence.
“Agobard complains that in his region it is widely believed that there is a land called Magonia whose inhabitants travel the clouds in ships and work with Frankish tempestarii ("tempest-raisers" or weather-magi) to steal grain from the fields during (magically raised) storms.”
This was literally less than 10% of the links lurking in my inbox. (Hopefully none of these were included in previous TILWLUOT newsletters.) Wish me luck!
Stay well!
Your friend,
Erin