A life measured on the backs of coffee receipts

Explore this animated story about loneliness that situates modern statistics about isolation

This beautiful "scrollytelling" story—weaving together animations and text as a user scrolls down a page—takes a reader through a typical weekend day in 2021, drawing data from the American Time Use Survey. It underscores the loneliness that many people may experience, highlighting potential unaddressed mental health needs.

Salvador Dalí apparently conned Yoko Ono

Dalí often drew on the back of restaurant checks as a form of payment to avoid spending actual cash. He even ripped off his friend, Yoko Ono. Ono reportedly asked for a strand of his mustache. Dalí feared occult activity and sent a blade of grass, receiving $10,000 for it.

A list of one guy's hundreds of fortune cookie fortunes

Simple idea: Eat lots of Chinese food, collect wisdom in the form of fortunes. Josh Madison held onto hundreds of these and lists them here, noting the ones he received more than once with a number.

Wafaa Bilal had a camera surgically implanted in the back of his head

The artist programmed the camera to capture one image per minute of his daily life. He explained that the project was meant to document his past—in a rather literal way—as it slipped away from him, in a mode that gestured at both surveillance and the radically objective nature of photos. Viewers can expect an immersive installation featuring thousands of mundane images transmitted to a website, challenging traditional photography and exploring the intersection of public and private information.

Charting 4,000 years of human history

Care to hang all of human history on your wall? This data visualization charts 4,000 years of humanity. This "histomap" was originally published in 1931 and sold for $1 per copy of the 5-foot-long chart. It was said to detail the course of...

Explore how far you've traveled through space while living on Earth

Using the "Cosmic Odometer," users can enter their birthday and learn how far they have moved through space due to the combined effects of Earth's rotation around its axis, the planet's orbit around the sun, the solar system's trajectory through the Milky Way, and the galaxy's motion through the universe.

The 'Where's George?' project tracked a trail of $1 bills across the US

Over a decade ago, a group dedicated its time to tracking $1 bills in the US. They would stamp single bills with the phrases “currency tracking project” and “Track me at WheresGeorge.com” in a practice they dubbed “Georging.”

Japanese artist Tatsuo Horiuchi creates masterpieces using Microsoft Excel

Upon retiring, he wanted to get into art, but found the materials to be expensive. Since 2000, he has created art pieces using the line tool and other features the software provides before printing and taping together various spreadsheets that make up a completed work.

Inside a company making millions on retro, refurbished technology

Retrospekt is one of the many companies flipping old, fan-favorite technology like Polaroids, cassette tapes, and Tamagotchis. Studies show that nostalgia can make people spend money and is one of the driving forces behind the demand for second-hand gadgets.

The Grateful Dead's online bulletin board system inspired the early internet

The legendary countercultural band the Grateful Dead had a popular hub on The Well, an online extension of the Whole Earth Catalog, a popular hippie magazine in the '60s and '70s. Users included Craig Newmark (founder of Craigslist), Steve Case (founder of AOL), and Steve Wozniak (cofounder of Apple).

A creator economy timeline

Long before anyone memorized a TikTok dance, the creator economy began with regular people blogging about their personal lives. Eventually, it snowballed into the creator economy we know today. The Washington Post created an interactive timeline to help visualize how the creator economy got from point A to point B.

A historical deep dive into everything coffee

Can’t get enough coffee? Join documentarian James Harper and historian Jonathan Morris for an immersive dive into the history of everyone’s favorite beverage. From the highlands of Ethiopia to the streets of Vietnam to Viennese cafes, you’ll travel with the humble coffee bean as it spreads across the globe.

Later in life, the clock in Grace Hopper's office ran counterclockwise

Acknowledging that most people have "an enormous tendency to resist change," Hopper's clock served as a reminder for the computer scientist that just because things have been done a certain way does not mean they should forever remain that way: "They love to say, 'We've always done it this way.' I try to fight that." (Some users may experience a paywall.)

Inside a FIRE follower's money diary

This podcast episode details a few days inside the bank account of a woman in Australia who set out to retire by age 35.

The story behind one iconic meme

The 2012 post titled "Just a book owners smile" shows 11-year-old Maggie Goldenberger—resplendent in her braces, pigtails, and treasure map-like vest—holding a trio of Goosebumps books and grinning wildly at the camera. Another user quickly captioned it, "GERSBERMS. MAH FRAVRIT BERKS."

The calendars of the 'Lord of the Rings'

JRR Tolkien's epic fantasy trilogy "The Lord of the Rings" is a seminal work in the history of literature partly due to its creator's obsessive focus on systematic detail—including the calendars used in the world. Take a fantastic dive into the minutiae of Tolkien's creation by learning the different approaches to time organization in the Shire or Rivendell with this dense, comprehensive resource based on Tolkien's appendices.

An anthropologist spent years riding garbage trucks to understand what our trash says about us

Robin Nagle rode with New York City sanitation workers to trace the hidden life of what we throw out. Her research explores what the things we discard reveal about who we are. 1440 explores the hidden life of trash.

Ledgers—what are they good for?

It might seem strange that a ledger—a dull and practical document associated mainly with accounting—would be described as a revolutionary technology. But the blockchain matters because ledgers matter. Read (or listen to) this 14 minute breakdown on why ledgers matter.

Hóngbāo, or traditional red envelopes, can now be shared digitally

The red envelopes people exchange during the Lunar New Year have a long history and plenty of lore. Symbolizing the triumph of good over evil, hóngbāo may be given to anyone from a grandparent to a favorite celebrity. However, never give an amount with a "4" in it, as the pronunciation sounds like the Chinese word for death.

Scroll through a 75-year timeline of Ogilvy’s iconic ads

From the brilliant Rolls-Royce slogan that David Ogilvy wrote himself (“at 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in this new Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock”) to Dove’s early 2000s campaign for Real Beauty, these 75 ads are among the best in advertising agency Ogilvy’s history.

Emily Dickinson was a prolific baker

Dickinson scholars have collected her recipes for gingerbread, doughnuts, and more, noting that she often wrote poems on the backs of them. The Emily Dickinson Museum says that the kitchen "was a space of creative ferment for her, and that the writing of poetry mixed in her life with the making of delicate treats."

Browse a database of every 'Simpsons' chalkboard gag

A key component of the intro for "The Simpsons" is Bart writing on the chalkboard as punishment for misbehaving. In nearly every episode, the message on the board is different. This fan-assembled repository allows you to view screencaps for nearly everyone.

Digital passports allow identity verification to be digitized

By scanning the security chip on the back of passports and capturing images or video of a person, apps like Google Wallet and Apple Wallet create a digital version of the document. Some states have also developed their own apps for digital driver's licenses.

Roy Lichtenstein popularized benday dots in his famous comic-inspired paintings

American newspaper publisher Benjamin Henry Day Jr. developed the "benday" printing and photoengraving technique to produce grays and colors with fine patterns of ink of equal size and distribution. The process would become widespread in newspaper printing and define the work of Roy Lichtenstein.

Rune Elmqvist forwent practicing medicine to invent the first inkjet printer

The Mingograph recorded real-time physiological signals from a patient's electrocardiogram, helping doctors diagnose heart and brain conditions. Eight years later, in 1958, Elmqvist worked with cardiac surgeon Åke Senning to develop the first fully implantable pacemaker.

This site reaches millions of visitors who are tired of AI chatbots and seeking human connection. Pretend to be an AI chatbot and ask questions, provide answers, and draw for people in real time.

A century of Billboard issues documenting the evolution of popular music.

Explore fun facts from the USPS, including unique post office buildings, a stamp that traveled past Pluto, and more.

Explore an interactive map built from more than 100,000 survey responses on where people find joy in their lives

Graffiti dates back to at least ancient Pompeii, where citizens scrawled messages to one another on public walls

A researcher recently discovered an interview from 1967 between groundbreaking journalist Joan Didion and the Grateful Dead, years before the band became an institution.

According to the physics of black holes, our 4D reality may be a hologram—a projection of information coded on a 2D surface on the edge of the universe.

How Amazon operates a 'flywheel' business model, a self-reinforcing cycle that drives continuous growth

Dorothy's famous entrance into Oz in 'The Wizard of Oz' relied on analog tricks, including a body double and sepia-toned paint, as much as it did on technology

Mid-century modern graphic designers, known for their bright colors and bold lines in advertising, also found success with children's books.

Use this calculator to find the dollar value of your mental load, from meal planning to coordinating after-school care for your children.

After NASA's Voyager 1 captured Earth as a single pixel as it left the solar system in 1990, astronomer Carl Sagan used the image to reflect on humanity's fragility and the responsibility to protect 'the only world we've ever known.'

Clever Hans was a 1900s horse that was believed to be able to solve math equations, tell time, and read and comprehend German, until a psychology student discovered how he got his answers.

See these 16 pieces of art evoking phobias of snakes, flying, spiders, and more. 

Some coin denominations have ridges etched on their sides, partly to prevent counterfeiting, in a practice called 'reeding.'

Sears sold DIY house kits starting at $600 in its famous catalog from 1908 through the 1940s, resulting in roughly 10,000 'Sears and Roebuck houses' being built.

Visualize the path of every solar eclipse from 1900 to 2099 and see what each looks like when observed from different locations on Earth.

In 2019, a laptop loaded with six of the worst malware in history and described as 'an exhibit of historical weaponry' sold for $1.3M.

Against his wishes, Albert Einstein's brain was removed before his cremation, and the pathologist responsible stored it for decades in mason jars within a beer cooler.

After the Boston Tea Party, colonists switched to coffee, which became the main morning drink for revolutionaries.

Up to a million Girl Scouts sell about 200 million cookie boxes every spring, generating $800 million, largely because refusing a child is frowned upon

In 2009, the nation was gripped by the story of a missing young boy who was believed to be floating over Colorado in a homemade balloon, until it was revealed that he was at home the whole time.

One of the most famous portraits ever taken is 'Afghan Girl' (1984) by Steve McCurry, yet the subject Sharbat Gula went much of her life without being identified or benefitting from the image's success.

Tattoos remain visible on your skin thanks to immune cells called macrophages

For centuries, it was common to sleep in two shifts: a few hours at the beginning of the night, and a longer period beginning around midnight