I’m not sure what it is with stories about drugs and drug-dealers. I have a dark fascination with the trade, the business of it, the illicitness of it all. I’m positive I would never be cut out for that world, but I enjoy getting glimpses of it from afar. The One-Man Drug Company is a…
I’ve got two stories for you to read about, both of which involve the sauce: one beer, one liquor. First off, let’s go with the strong stuff: Michael Dozois has an idea that’s as ingenious as selling bottled water: he wants to sell custom ice cubes to bars. A veteran bartender, Dozois strongly feels that…
John Noonan writes an incredibly interesting, first person account of what it means to man a nuclear missile silo. His article, In Nuclear Silos, Death Wears a Snuggie, is at once light-hearted and sobering. For decades, missileers (as we’re known in the military) have quietly performed their duties, custodians of a dying breed of weapon….
Man enters bank. Man robs bank. Man leaves bank with money… and with a bomb still locked around his neck. When captured by police a short while later, Brian Wells claimed he was assaulted, fixed with the bomb, and forced to rob the bank. Was this pizza deliveryman an innocent, caught in the wrong place…
Jay Caspian Kang writes an incredibly open and stark account of the gambling life in his essay entitled The High Is Always the Pain and the Pain Is Always the High. He talks about his gambling friends, poker celebrities like Mike Matusow and Phil Hellmuth, and what it feels like to lose $18,000 in 36…
Located in Michigan City, IN, the Indiana State prison is a maximum security detention facility, where approximate 70% of the inmates are there for murder. What started as a chance encounter with a litter of kittens has since transformed into an officially sponsored program. I have never once seen an offender kill his own cat….
There is something strange going on with the cocaine coming in to the United States. Typically, additional ingredients like sugar, baking powder or laxatives are added to pure cocaine, to dilute the potency and increase quantity. Known as “cutting agents,” it’s filler – stuff to make it appear as though there’s more drug than is…
GQ has a fascinating article about the classic gangster movie Goodfellas. Looking back on the film, it’s hard to believe it was made 20 years ago. The article features a mind-boggling number of brief interviews, with many (many) of the actors and folks behind the scenes. In addition to commentary from Scorsese, De Niro, Pesci…
Near the Johnson Space Center in Clear Lake, Texas, a group of programmers enter line after line of near-perfect code for NASA. Known as the “on-board shuttle group,” these coders make the software that handles over $4 billion in equipment – where a miscalculation that’s 2/3 of a second off can put the space shuttle…
In his Esquire article Invasion, Tom Junod writers a harrowing account of how Argentine ants invaded (and infested) his home. I’m a fan of ants, and am really awed at how they work as a collective. That said, there were still some cringe-worthy moments that had me shaking my head in disbelief. The sheer number…
The Japanese term hikikomori roughly translates to “withdrawal,” and refers to a person who has shut themselves in their rooms for six months or longer, with little to no social contact. More than just a phase or typical teenage brooding, the length and depth of withdrawal is incredibly alarming, particularly for those young men who…
The Turn is an incredibly compelling article about a procedure that seems routine to anyone who’s traveled by plane. But there is a great deal more that happens when a pilot executes a banked turn. Pilot and writer William Langewiesche tackles a complex topic, but does so in a way that makes it easily understandable…
In 1997, IBM created a computer named Deep Blue, and set up a chess match with the then world champion Garry Kasparov. After a mistake by Kasparov in the opening of the sixth game, Deep Blue became the first computer to ever beat a chess grand master. The latest computer to emerge from IBM is…
Terry Kniess did whaat no one else has done, in the thirty-eight years that the Price is Right gameshow has been on television: he came up with the perfect number. In the final event on the show (the Showcase Showdown), two contestants are shown different sets of items. They sometimes include vacation packages, cars, a…
Wow. Stop what you’re doing, and head over to Reality Trip, the blog of urban explorer that documents his findings in both images and words. There are some breathtaking shots on there, and entry after entry is incredibly compelling. You know how you just can get sucked in to a website – the more you…