How Y’all, Youse and You Guys Talk. The NYT put this U.S. dialect quiz out years ago, but I only stumbled onto it recently. It asks twenty-five questions about the words you use and how you pronounce them. Do you say y’all or you guys? Crawfish or crawdad? Is it a garage sale, tag sale, or yard sale? Then it draws a heat map of where people talk the most like you do. It pegged me as being from Oklahoma City and Tulsa, which is exactly right. The only two places I’ve ever lived. When I shared the quiz on Substack Notes, a bunch of folks said it nailed them, too. But it wasn’t accurate for all; it may be less so for people who’ve lived for substantial parts of their lives in different parts of the country. See if it pegs you right: the quiz takes just a few minutes and it’s a lot of fun.

Woolaroc. This week our family drove an hour north from Tulsa to Woolaroc. It’s a ranch built by oilman Frank Phillips (of Phillips 66 fame) in the Osage Hills back in 1925. It’s a real hidden gem. Will Rogers once called it “the most unique place in this country.” We try to get up there at least once a year. You drive in through a 3,700-acre wildlife preserve with buffalo, deer, elk, and longhorn cattle. There’s a museum with one of the best Western art collections anywhere, the most complete collection of Colt firearms in the world, and, a few shrunken heads to boot. During the summer, they have a mountain man camp staffed by re-enactors who give you history lessons on 19th-century hunting and trapping. Gus got to fire a replica of an 1820s flintlock rifle. If you’re ever in OK, definitely pay a visit to Woolaroc — I dare say it’s our state’s most Oklahoma-y destination.

Daylight Computer Tablet. I’ve owned this for over a year now, and it’s become one of my favorite work tools. It’s an e-ink tablet, and I use it for reading Kindle books and PDFs. When I make notes on it, it feels like writing on paper. With no blue light, it’s easy on the eyes, and you can use it outdoors.

The Art of Thinking by Ernest Dimnet. I’m not sure how I stumbled onto this old book, but I’m glad I did. Dimnet, a French priest, wrote it in 1928, and it was a big hit back in the day. It sat on the bestseller lists right next to Dale Carnegie before sliding into obscurity. It’s jammed full of practical advice on thinking better. He’s got chapters on how to read and write for better thinking, how to deal with distractions, and how becoming who you are requires a “stiffening of attention.” Highly recommend. Kindle version is only $.99!

On our Dying Breed newsletter, we published Sunday Firesides: You Are Not the Exception and The Paradox of Skill.

Quote of the Week

This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.

MET-Rx Big 100. These are one of my four favorite protein bars, and my go-to when I’m on a road trip. I told Michael Easter about them, and they became his go-to on an 850-mile hike. Vitamin-fortified and hefty in size — they come in at 410 calories and 32 grams of protein — they’re more of a meal replacement than a snack. They’re pretty cheap, and for a protein bar, they taste good. My favorite flavor is the cookies and cream. Peanut butter pretzel is becoming a new favorite of mine. You can find them at most gas stations. 

Dad Brain by Darby Saxbe. Saxbe is a USC psychologist who’s spent more than twenty years studying fathers and families, from hunter-gatherers in the Congo to suburban dads at Little League baseball games. Her research shows that men’s physiology significantly changes when they become fathers. Your brain rewires and even your testosterone drops so you become more nurturing and better able to take care of little humans. The relationship with your kids becomes a two-way street: you have a huge impact on the well-being of your children, and your kids help you maintain a more youthful brain later in life. A great Father’s Day read to help you appreciate the joys and pleasures of being a dear old dad. For more about the unique nature of dads and their influence on kids, check out Podcast #998: Dad’s Essential Role in Making Kids Awesome and “The Importance of Fathers (According to Science).”

You’re probably taking the wrong painkiller. I’ve always been leery of Tylenol because of what it can do to your liver. OD on Tylenol, and you’re cooked. Advil? I’ve popped that stuff like candy during bad tendonitis flare-ups, figuring it was the safer and gentler option. This piece makes the case that maybe I’ve got it backward. Used as directed, acetaminophen is safer than ibuprofen for most people in most situations. That’s because ibuprofen acts on the whole body and can be rough on the stomach, kidneys, and heart, while acetaminophen has an overall gentler effect. It’s only dangerous if you take too much. Give it a read. It’s meticulously researched and provides some food for thought. Obligatory disclaimer: This isn’t medical advice. Talk to your doctor. 

“Rayando el Sol” by Maná. I’ve talked before about my love for rock en español. One of my favorite bands in this genre is Maná, out of Guadalajara, Mexico (they opened this year’s World Cup). They’ve been at it four decades and are huge across the Spanish-speaking world. They’re like Mexican U2. My favorite song of theirs is “Rayando el Sol,” their first hit, from 1990’s Falta Amor. It’s a love song about a guy whose girl won’t call him back. He looks for her everywhere (en el parque y el cine, for example) and can’t find her. Finally he gives up. It’s easier to reach the sun, he sings, than her heart. If you don’t speak Spanish, it sounds a lot like The Police. Think “Every Breath You Take.” 

On our Dying Breed newsletter, we published DB Dialogues: The Friendships, Rivalries, and Extraordinary Minds of the Emerson Circle and Sunday Firesides: In Your Element. 

Quote of the Week

The words that a father speaks to his children in the privacy of home are not heard by the world, but, as in whispering galleries, they are clearly heard at the end, and by posterity.

—Johann Paul Friedrich Richter

Looking for more quotes on dads and fatherhood? Check out our collection of them.

This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.

Your dad bod could raise your kids’ risk for obesity and disease. You’ve probably heard of the “dad bod.” It’s the body shape of a guy who’s not super fat, but not in particularly good shape, either. It’s gotten a friendly rebrand over the past decade with articles saying that some women prefer the soft dad bod over a super shredded physique. But a new review out of UC Irvine, published in Current Obesity Reports, complicates the dad bod’s innocuous reputation. We usually talk about a mom’s health before and during pregnancy shaping outcomes for her future kid, but researchers found that dad’s health plays a role too, and earlier than you’d think. A father’s weight and habits before conception can change his sperm quality and the epigenetic markers that switch on early in a child’s development and influence their metabolism, appetite, and disease risk down the road. Obesity, it turns out, is estimated to be 40 to 70 percent heritable. The encouraging part is that a lot of it looks reversible. Drop the weight, clean up your habits, and the markers you pass on improve. If you’re planning on becoming a dad soon, take this as a nudge to start eating better and hitting the gym. 

In Defense of Sunlight by Rowan Jacobsen. We had Rowan Jacobsen on the podcast two years ago to talk about the health benefits of sunlight, and his new book dives even deeper into the research-backed evidence of just how good it is for us. His argument is that we’ve spent decades living under what he calls a “zero-sun” policy: slather on sunscreen, dodge the sun whenever you can, and take a vitamin D pill to cover the difference. And he makes a strong case that we’ve got it mostly backwards. Yes, too much sun causes skin cancer, but skin cancer kills relatively few people, and the cost of avoiding the sun shows up everywhere else, like high blood pressure, depression, poor sleep, autoimmune disease, and even all-cause mortality. Ever since I went down this rabbit hole myself several summers ago, I’ve tried to get a little sun daily. It feels good, man. Jacobsen boils his advice down to seven words: Get sun. Not too much. Go outside. The book releases to the public next week.

Douk-Douk Folding Knife. I’ve had one of these in my pocket knife arsenal for years. It’s a simple folding knife with a single blade that tucks into a housing of stamped steel. The simplicity is exactly what I like about it. Douk-Douk has an interesting history. It’s been made by the Cognet family in Thiers, France, since 1929. Gaston Cognet designed it for France’s Pacific colonies. It didn’t take off there, but became the unofficial national pocketknife of Algeria instead. It’s a good beater knife to have around for everyday knife needs. 

The Endless Summer. My dad surfed in Corpus Christi as a teenager. The surfing isn’t great in the Gulf of Mexico, but it was a big part of his young life. He’d watch The Endless Summer from time to time when I was a kid to re-live his glory days. This 1966 Bruce Brown documentary is about two guys chasing summer around the world so they never run out of waves. It’s an incredibly relaxing movie to watch. I’ve never surfed, but I come back to this movie every few summers because it gives me a peek into a subculture — and a part of my dad’s life — that I don’t know much about.

On our Dying Breed newsletter, we published The Four Faces of Envy and Sunday Firesides: Exercise, Man’s Most Faithful Companion.

Quote of the Week

What is difficulty? Only a word indicating the degree of strength requisite for accomplishing particular objects; a mere notice of the necessity for exertion; a bugbear to children and fools; only a stimulus to men.

—Samuel Warren

This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.

Quaker Oatmeal Squares: Brown Sugar. As I mentioned in last week’s article on what I eat in a day, my mid-morning meal is usually a big bowl of Fage yogurt and blueberries with some Kashi or oatmeal mixed in. The store was out of Kashi the other day, so I grabbed a box of these on a lark. Never had them before. They’ve turned into a Bob Ross happy accident. Love ’em. The flavor is hard to place. Kinda taste like waffles. There’s a decent amount of fiber in these too, which my gut appreciates. I’m going to ride with the oatmeal squares as the grain in my yogurt bowls for a while.

The Life of a Salesman. I love reading features about how people work. I enjoy them even more when they’re about jobs that have all but vanished. This LIFE photo essay by Cornell Capa is one of those. Inspired by Death of a Salesman, which had come out the year before, Capa spent four weeks shadowing Robert Brooks, a real salesman who rode trains out of Long Island through Cincinnati, St. Louis, Chicago, and Detroit, peddling umbrellas. Brooks fronted his own expenses and only made money when he closed a sale, and that year buyers were pinching pennies. No wonder Willy Loman was such a sad sack; the life of a traveling salesman was tough. The loneliness of Brooks comes through in the photos. 

1994 Interview With Eugene Sledge. If you haven’t listened to my interview with Henry Sledge about his father Eugene’s brutal war memoir, With the Old Breed, I highly recommend you do. After reading the book and talking to Henry, I went down some Pacific WWII YouTube rabbit holes and found this 1994 interview with Eugene about his experience on Peleliu. It was cool to see the man himself talk about his experience. One thing that struck me was how concerned he’d been about not wanting to let down his fellow Marines. He had a deep sense of manly honor. 

Survival in the Executive Jungle by Chester Burger. I stumbled on this one while poking around old books on the Internet Archive (I enjoy reading old ephemera). Published in 1964, the book reads like Machiavelli from the Mad Men era. It covers things like how to handle your boss, your colleagues, and your own ambition. Plenty of the advice has aged out (the world of the gray flannel suit is gone), but a fair amount still holds up. My favorite was the chapter “Time Worshipers and Clock Watchers.” It’s a nice kick in the pants about putting first things first by separating the work that actually matters from the busywork you do to look busy. You can read the whole thing for free on the Internet Archive.

On our Dying Breed newsletter, we published 5 Underexamined Consequences of the Declining Birth Rate and Sunday Firesides: Dying of Embarrassment.

Quote of the Week

Facts that are not firmly faced have a habit of stabbing us in the back.

—Sir Harold Bowden

This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.

The Complete Keys to Progress by John McCallum. I enjoy reading fitness advice from old fitness magazines. You’d think it’d be outdated, but it’s usually the opposite. Most of the advice is the timeless stuff that actually works: lift heavy, eat protein, be consistent. John McCallum is a perfect example of an old-school fitness guy who dispensed simple advice that works. From 1965 to 1972, he wrote a column called “Keys to Progress” for Strength & Health magazine. This book collects all of those columns and puts them in one place. He’d build each training lesson around recurring characters at the gym so you’re reading what amounts to a short story and walking away with a leg routine or a diet plan. The advice boils down to train hard on the basics, squat heavy, and eat to fuel your gains. Sixty years later, it’s still solid. Some of the nutrition stuff is dated, but most of the advice holds up. 

Dr Pepper Strawberries and Cream. This was an impulse buy on our last grocery run. We got the zero-sugar version because why waste your calories on liquids when they could go toward something you can chew? Tasted like Dr Pepper crossed with a strawberry milkshake. You’d think that wouldn’t taste good, but it really does. Our family went through a 12-pack in just a few days. This will probably have a regular rotation in our beverage selection this summer. 

The Quiet Crisis: Why Middle-Aged Men Are Dying. Anthony B. Bradley, who’s been on the AoM podcast, put together a tour through twenty studies on why middle-aged men in Western countries die by suicide at three to four times the rate of women, with the rate spiking hardest in midlife. What stood out to me is that the research doesn’t pin it all on depression. A bunch of things stack up at once for these guys: divorce, job loss, not seeing their kids regularly, and a lack of supportive friends. If you’re struggling, get help. Also, keep an eye out for your homies, and if you see one of them having a hard time, check in. Be sure to check out our podcast on the myths and truths around suicide.

1950–1955 Universal Newsreels. In the mid-20th century, people not only got their news from newspapers and radios, but at movie theaters as well. These compilations of the newsreels shown between movies are like stepping into a time machine. You’ll see clips from the Korean War, Eisenhower-era optimism, sports, and technology, all narrated in that clipped, booming, supremely confident newsreel cadence that doesn’t exist anymore. That needs to come back. 

On our Dying Breed newsletter, we published Sunday Firesides: Life Bathing and Praised to Praiseworthy: Adam Smith’s Guide to Moral Development.

And this is your last chance to sign up for the Lonesome Dove book club — the reading starts tomorrow! 

Quote of the Week

Life is a romantic business. It is painting a picture, not doing a sum; but you have to make the romance. And it will come to the question: how much fire have you in your belly?

—Oliver Wendell Holmes

This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.

Dad Books Are a Dying Breed. The WSJ had a piece this week on how serious nonfiction sales are tanking. We’re talking WWII histories, shipwreck narratives, and the doorstop presidential biographies. They’re the kind of nonfiction books you’d give your dad for Father’s Day or Christmas. Sales for these books are down 8% this year, with politics and current affairs down 19%. Jonathan Burnham at HarperCollins blames podcasts. The guy who used to read a 700-page Chernow biography is now listening to The Rest is History on his commute. He’s scratched the itch. I don’t know if I buy that theory completely. Listening to podcasts about a nonfiction dad book usually nudges me to pick up a copy of the book for myself, but I’m a readerly guy so maybe I’m more the exception than the norm. I do think people spending more time online watching YouTube, scrolling Instagram, and the like has displaced time that would have been spent reading. This article made me think about my piece on 90s Dad Novels from a few weeks ago. The Grisham and Clancy mass-market paperbacks used to share the recliner end table with the Stephen Ambrose hardcover. Both a dying breed now. 

The Working Man’s Triathlon. This event recently crossed my desk. The Working Man’s Triathlon is an all-day event that’s been going on since 1992 in which guys get together to golf, bowl, and play pool all in one day. The pitch is that all three sports are things average guys can become adept at — no college or pro career required. The WMT has been held in different cities over the years, and this fall it’s coming to Dallas for the first time. It’s set up as a 501(c)(3), and each year they pick a local charity in the host city to support. I’m always for events or groups designed to get men together to do stuff and enjoy some camaraderie. If you’re in the Dallas area, check it out.

Flint and Tinder Slub Henley. Most of my wardrobe comes from Flint and Tinder, and this henley is one of my go-tos. The slub cotton has an irregular thread texture that breathes well in the summer, and it’s garment-dyed so it feels broken-in from day one. I have it in navy. Great casualwear staple that you can throw on with a pair of khakis. Fun fact: the henley gets its name from Henley-on-Thames, the English town where 19th-century rowers wore them as their uniform. So when you put one on, you’re basically dressing like a Victorian-era oarsman; it’s a garment that’s rugged and athletic with a dash of the gentlemanly. Check out our article on how to style a henley.

Kenneth Clark’s Civilisation. I’ve started watching this 1969 BBC documentary series during my Zone 2 cardio. Thirteen episodes of British art historian Kenneth Clark walking you through the history of Western art, architecture, and philosophy from the fall of Rome to the 20th century. He filmed on location across 13 countries, just standing there in his tweed suit explaining why the Roman Empire collapsed or what Erasmus was up to. It’s the opposite of how documentaries are made today. No dramatic music swells, no quick cuts. Just a smart guy leisurely telling you about smart stuff. You can watch the series for free on YouTube.

On our Dying Breed newsletter, we announced a summer book club (read Lonesome Dove with me!) and published Sunday Firesides: Self-Development Is a Duty.

Quote of the Week

“The body of an athlete and the soul of a sage, these are what we require to be happy.”

—Voltaire

This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.

Hondo by Louis L’Amour. We’re fans of Louis L’Amour round these parts. Guy was prolific. Hondo is my favorite Western novel of his. The story had an unusual path: L’Amour first wrote a short story that became the 1953 John Wayne film (a good flick!), then expanded the film’s narrative into the novel Hondo. The book follows Hondo Lane, a former cavalry officer who survived in Apache country by learning Apache ways. He stumbles onto a homestead where Angie Lowe and her young son are living alone, no husband in sight. Then the Apache warrior Vittoro enters the picture, and you get a story about love, war, and honor in the American Southwest. L’Amour’s prose won’t win any Pulitzers, but the man could spin a yarn. Great beach read! Make sure to check out the podcast interview I did with Louis L’Amour’s son, Beau L’Amour. 

How 1990s Special Forces Guys Became Menswear Moodboard Staples. Charles McFarlane (who runs a great Substack called Combat Threads) has a piece in GQ on why photos of 1980s and 90s special operators (slim, mustachioed Delta Force guys in stonewashed jeans, fishing vests, and 1990s dad glasses) keep going viral on military moodboard accounts. He traces how special operators went from looking like your dad to the 21st-century tatted, bearded, jacked tactical guy and muses on the enduring appeal of the operator style from decades back. McFarlane thinks guys in 2026 like how it exemplifies a quieter, less-in-your-face version of masculinity — one capable of killing a bad guy while looking like an ordinary accountant. 

Pxton Walkie-Talkies. I bought a set of these last year for the teenagers I lead at church, so we could play “fugitive” at the Gathering Place, Tulsa’s sprawling, genuinely impressive destination park built by our fair city’s resident billionaire. Playing fugitive is a popular Wednesday night activity for our youth group; we just played it again this week. One group acts as the police and coordinates their patrols over the walkie-talkies, while the other group plays fugitives trying to make it back to the boathouse from somewhere across the park — without getting caught. The Pxtons are cheap, but they worked great over the long distances you need for the game. They’ve also got a less fun, but useful use case: in a grid-down, phone-down scenario, they’ll let you keep in touch with family around the neighborhood. Make sure to check out our article on walkie-talkies. 

Singin’ in the Rain. Last time I saw this flick was in music class at John Ross Elementary. The Cinema Humanities article we featured in O&E a few weeks back nudged me to give it another watch. Glad I did. It’s a funny, sharp critique of celebrity that holds up (“Dignity. Always dignity.”), and the cinematography felt shockingly modern for 1952. But Gene Kelly stole the show. His dancing has an athletic, virile quality I wasn’t expecting from a 1950s musical. I went down a Gene Kelly rabbit hole afterward and learned this was intentional. Kelly thought male dancing in movie musicals was too effeminate and set out to make it more masculine, muscular, and action-packed. He royally pulled it off. Donald O’Connor’s “Make ‘Em Laugh” dance routine was also incredibly physical. Doing backflips off walls and whatnot. It was so physical, in fact, that it put him in the hospital for three days. Talk about suffering for your art!

On our Dying Breed newsletter, we published Sunday Firesides: What You See, Shapes and Making a Living Online: The Affiliate Link Boom and Bust.

Quote of the Week

Luck is the tide, nothing more. The strong man rows with it if it makes toward his port; he rows against it if it flows the other way.

—Orison Swett Marden

This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.

The Machine Stops by E.M. Forster. Kate recently wrote a great piece on Dying Breed, pulling out seven insights modern folks can get from this short story/novella published in 1909. I’d known about “The Machine Stops” for a long time, but her piece finally nudged me to read it. The story takes place in a future where humanity lives underground in individual pods, each person isolated in their own room, every need met by a vast mechanical system simply called “the Machine.” People communicate through screens. They never travel because everywhere looks the same anyway. They’ve grown soft and pale and have developed a “horror of direct experience.” When the Machine breaks down, civilization, completely dependent on it, unravels. The story is incredibly good and incredibly prescient and will make you think about the role of tech in your life. It’s available for free online and short enough to knock out this weekend. 

The Monastery of the Damned: From the Ivy League to the French Foreign Legion by Nicholas Tobias. The French Foreign Legion has always fascinated me. The mystique of guys from 140 different countries forming up under the French flag, the notoriously harsh training, the willingness to take in men with messy pasts and forge them into something new. Tobias (a pseudonym) was a Princeton-trained Renaissance historian and a recent convert to Catholicism when he ditched his academic track to enlist. The book covers his twenty months in the Legion, including a six-month deployment to Afghanistan in 2009, and how the whole experience reshaped his romanticized notions of soldiering, manliness, and what he was looking for in the first place. Really enjoyed this one. 

Cloudhiker. Back in the late 2000s, there was a service called StumbleUpon. You hit a button and got sent to a random website based on your interests. I discovered a lot of weird corners of the internet through it, and I reckon a good number of you discovered AoM that way. Sadly, StumbleUpon shut down a few years back, and I’ve missed it ever since. Recently I came across Cloudhiker, which works basically the same way. Hit a button, get teleported somewhere you didn’t know existed. I’ve landed on a bunch of quirky sites like Stop Alien Abductions, a page of live airport webcams, and hypertext.tv, which is hard to describe but a lot of fun to interact with. Surf the web like it’s 2010 again.

Sergio Mendes and Brasil ’66. Mendes was the guy who brought bossa nova to American audiences in the 60s with his group Brasil ’66. Mixing Brazilian rhythms with English-language pop covers, his tunes make for great work music for when you’re grinding through email or filling out spreadsheets. It’s lively enough to keep you awake, but mellow enough to stay in the background. My parents had all the Sergio Mendes albums on vinyl when I was a kid, so I grew up listening to him. I still have those albums in my collection. If you’re looking for more bossa nova for your chill summer work soundtrack, check out Astrud Gilberto, Antonio Carlos Jobim, and Stan Getz.

On our Dying Breed newsletter, we published Memento Mori Not Working for You? Try Contemplating Your Immortality and Sunday Firesides: The Peace of Being One Person.

Quote of the Week

What the fool does in the end, the wise man does in the beginning.

—Spanish maxim

This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.

This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.

Pandora. This was my music player of choice when it launched in the late 2000s. Like a lot of people, I slowly migrated to Spotify and forgot about it. I’ve been souring on Spotify lately, for a variety of reasons. One is that the algorithm just keeps recycling what I listened to last year (no DJ X, I don’t want to hear my 2024 favorites again) or pushing new releases that are popular on the platform but I have zero interest in. The AI slop proliferating on the app and its slow decline as a podcast player haven’t helped. For some reason, this week I had a hunch that I should log back into Pandora after a decade of non-use. My account was so old it was still tied to my Hotmail address from high school. Pandora is a breath of fresh air. The Music Genome Project is amazing. I’ve already found new artists I like. You actually get a mix that feels random and novel. It never feels stale. My channels: Maná, the Killers (natch), and a jazz and classical channel for work. If it’s been a while since you’ve used Pandora, give it another look. Surf the web like it’s 2008 again.

Keychain Screwdriver Set. You’d be surprised how often you need a screwdriver. This cheap little two-piece set — a flathead and a Phillips, each about the size of a key — clips right onto your keychain. I’ve had the set on my keychain for years now, and it’s come in clutch more times than I expected. It came in especially handy when my kids were little and had toys that had a screwed-in battery compartment. Didn’t have to schlep to the garage to get a screwdriver. Just pulled out my keys. You can’t use these for jobs that need serious torque, but most screwdriving situations in daily life don’t. 

A Cinema Humanities Program. Last year, I became a cinephile. Watching good movies on the regular has become one of my favorite adult pastimes. Substacker Ted Gioia (The Honest Broker) started a 52-week self-directed humanities curriculum a couple years back that consists of great reading and music listening. But Gioia acknowledged that a cinema component was lacking. Kyle Worley took that as a challenge and built out a 52-film supplement — one great movie per week — to pair with it. The list is solid. I’ve highlighted several of its entries here on Odds & Ends over the years, including Citizen Kane, Seven Samurai (check out my article about the lessons from that film), and The Searchers. If you’ve been meaning to develop a more well-rounded film education, this is a good place to start. Worth checking out alongside Gioia’s original curriculum.

The Drunkard’s Walk by Leonard Mlodinow. I’ve been doing a series over on Dying Breed on the role of luck and chance in our lives, so I’ve been doing a lot of reading about the philosophy of luck and probability theory for the past year. Mlodinow’s book is an approachable introduction to both the history of probability and how it actually works. The central argument is that randomness plays a much bigger role in outcomes than we typically acknowledge, and that our brains aren’t wired to recognize it very well. You’ve really got to squeeze those mind grapes when you think about chance. This book can help you start that squeezing. 

On our Dying Breed newsletter, we published Making a Living Online: The Rise and Fall of Banner Ads and Sunday Firesides: It Will Stay With You (Until You Stay With It).

Quote of the Week

Better to be a strong man with a weak point, than to be a weak man without a strong point. A diamond with a flaw is more valuable than a brick without a flaw.

—William J.H. Boetcker

This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.