[text_exch]

Each email contains the article's title, the genre, and an extended excerpt.

I'm not sure how to link to previous emails, but here is a sample of previous links: https://mix.com/thinkingaboutthings.

It started out as an every day email, but readers told me that every other day would give them time to read the articles.

[tgb]

I enjoyed the first post I read from this list [1], so I've signed up for the newsletter. But I do take umbrage with some of what it says! When someone asks "Was Brontosaurus an herbivore?" the right answer would be Yes even if brontosaurus as a category of dinosaurs had been removed. (It's still a valid genus name, so the point is doubly wrong. [2]) It is clear that if someone asks about brontosaurus, they mean the animals whose bones were called brontosaurus bones, which were in fact herbivores. The only other possible thing they could mean is "the well-known (but non-factual) dinosaur called Brontosaurus" which is an herbivore in much the same way that a unicorn is an herbivore.

Similarly, the author seems to mistake the difficulty in the question of "What country was George Washington born?" which is primarily the question of what does that even mean? The country that the spot of his birth became or the country which ruled the spot of his birth at the time? In fact, I'm not even sure what answer the author thinks is correct. Washington was a British subject (citizen? not sure) at birth but the "clue" the author provides seems to try to hint that Washington was born "in the US" whatever that would mean prior to the US's existence.

Nonetheless, I stand by the author's overall sentiment that facts should be connected together and not simply memorized, and the other examples were good.

[1] https://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2009/07/was_brontosaurus_a_h... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brontosaurus

[bryanrasmussen]

The only times I've ever seen the question "In what country was George Washington born?" it's always been a trick question with the answer "hah hah, it's Britain I bet you didn't think of that!" or some variation thereof.

[dmurray]

But he wasn't born in Britain, any more than someone born today in Gibraltar or Montserrat would be. He was born in Virginia, a British colony.

He was an officer in the British colonial army before he became a traitor and a revolutionary, though. That's fairly well known so maybe the "trick question" is that he was actually born in the modern day US?

[bryanrasmussen]

I'm not saying the people with the trick question are accurate, I'm just saying that's the way I've ever heard it.

[overlordalex]

Ah great! I like the mix of topics. It somehow reminds me of Arts & Letters Daily[1]. Definitely looks worth subscribing

[1] https://www.aldaily.com/

[iamericfletcher]

Interesting. Subscribed.