A story in this week’s issue brings up an important legal issue. Let’s start with the story, by True contributor Alexander Cohen:
Explainer
Nominative Determinism
A phrase in a tagline in this week’s issue stumped several readers — who had enough curiosity to (gasp!) look it up! So let’s talk about it. First, the story.
A Gift to Women
A Couple of Editors asked me about what “incel” means, from the story about the 24-year-old college dropout who wants to be the governor of California.
Easy as ABC?
A Good Sleep Saturday night, as we were headed to Bonaire for a two-day stay, was great since I do most of my writing and editing of the stories on Sunday; other parts of the newsletter are done Monday, such as the Honorary Unsubscribe, and I send the newsletter late in the day Mondays as soon as it’s done.
Why You Don’t Want to Use Email Forwarding
This is complicated and geeky, but I’ll try to explain this in a way most of you can “get” it. You already have a problem if you automatically “forward” your email from an address like Newsletters [at] YourOwnDomain.com to, say, GMail.
Dan Sokol 3: Pranking Woz
Dan Sokol 2: Behind the Scenes of Personal Computing History
In Part 1 of my interview with Premium True reader Dan Sokol, I told you of Steve Wozniak’s long-time friend, how they met back in the earliest days of personal computing, and how he was the “World’s First Software Pirate”. This is the long-delayed Part 2.
Dan Sokol: a Barely Known Pioneer
Dan Sokol has been a This is True reader for more than 25 years. He’s a friend of Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak. (Woz, as of this month, is a 26-year True reader.)
Why Why Why Florida?!
Is Everyone in Florida Crazy?! The short answer: no, even if this week’s issue is all-Florida-based stories. The longer answer: read on.
The Evolution of True’s Logo
This post was inspired by a question from Premium reader James in Toronto, who asked about the logo after he read an old post about how the This is True title came about:
Bill Post for H.U.?
No, a junk food creator didn’t get the nod.
Who Knows Religion Best?
This post was triggered by a story this week by True contributor Alexander Cohen, who properly wrote the slug (story title) in the form of a question:
The Pillars of Creation
…and my idea for an art piece to celebrate it.
The Hubble Space Telescope took the first photo of the “Pillars of Creation” (a section of interstellar gas and dust in the Eagle Nebula, in the Serpens constellation about 7,000 light-years away from Earth) in 1995.
Chuck Shepherd: News of the Weird
Chuck Shepherd started “News of the Weird” as a newspaper column in 1988, and was picked up by the Universal Press Syndicate in 1989. Similarly, a year after I started I was offered a contract by their biggest competitor, Creators Syndicate, almost certainly as way to compete with the very popular NotW, but I turned it down.
My Interview with an AI Chatbot about… Thinking
What happens when you talk to an artificial intelligence language model about the value of something it can’t actually do? Thinking, I mean.
You Won’t Believe Your Eyes
Or maybe the second word in the title should be “Shouldn’t”!
Phishing Emails: Be Smarter!
“Phishing” is when scammers send you an email that’s trying to trick you into revealing information, or installing malware on your computer or phone. And a lot of you are falling for it.
How do I know?
When Scams Become Deadly
by Paul Myers
©2022 by Paul Myers, excerpted with permission from his Talkbiz News newsletter.
Memorial Day Story
Some years ago I saw this meme posted on social media on Memorial Day weekend. I didn’t make it, but I wanted to know the story behind it. No one who posted it ever said who James was, or who the woman is, so I researched it.
Zero Gravity Bureaucracy: The Real Story
When NASA first started sending astronauts to space, they knew ballpoint pens would not work in zero gravity.