Popcorn Shorts
Cool stuff that’s too small for a big article
Just like it says, Popcorn Shorts is about the kind of things we think are really interesting but don’t really need a large article to explain them. From the sublime to the ridiculous, check in here for crunchy bits of info you’ll love to munch. By the way, much (but not necessarily all) of our delicious Popcorn comes from articles we’ve posted on our Facebook page. If you’re on Facebook, please stop by and “Like” us and we’ll keep a fairly-constant-but-not-frequent-enough-to-be-annoying stream of these coming to your virtual door!
Should you lie to your kids about Santa Claus?
(from Texas Monthly) “Like plastic flurries falling to the bottom of a snow globe, a great conspiracy settles across the land every December. Parents encourage their children to send letters with humble pleas to the North Pole. Lovingly decorated sugar cookies are left out by the fire, sweet offerings to an insatiable god. Hymns like “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” and “Here Comes Santa Claus” herald his arrival. He slips into our homes through our chimneys, and he slips into our psyches by a thousand other avenues. Santa Claus is our biggest collective lie. But at some point, typically between the ages of seven and nine, children see the truth. How, after being systematically misled for years by their parents and teachers and even their government (et tu, USPS?), are children meant to trust again? The question is as salient for a generation of psychologists as it is for anxious parents…”
The snail farm don: is this the most brazen tax avoidance scheme of all time?
(from The Guardian) “It is a drizzly October afternoon and I am sitting in a rural Lancashire pub drinking pints of Moretti with London’s leading snail farmer and a convicted member of the Naples mafia. We’re discussing the best way to stop a mollusc orgy… His method is simple. First, he sets up shell companies that breed snails in empty office blocks. Then he claims that the office block is legally, against all indications to the contrary, a farm, and therefore exempt from paying taxes. “They’re sexy things,” chuckles Ball in a broad Blackburn accent, describing the speed with which two snails can incestuously multiply into dozens of specimens if they’re left alone in a box for a few weeks. Snails love group sex and cannibalism, he warns. As the conversation drifts away from snail breeding he describes personal connections to a very prominent member of the House of Commons, his years hiding Italian mafia killers while they were on the run, and the potential market for snail salami. Almost everything he tells me seems improbable, yet everything I could later verify checks out. I’ve got little reason to doubt the rest…”
Let’s go find the Northwest Trolls.
You must have seen the pictures by now of gigantic, whimsical troll sculptures popping up across the Pacific Northwest. For the few who might not know what this is about, this article will bring you up to speed, but for the rest of us there’s only one question… where are they? Thomas Dambo’s projects are spread worldwide but in our area there’s one in Portland and five more around Seattle. If you’d like a great reason for a winter roadtrip then all six are within an easy weekend, and this map from Dambo’s website for the project will give you exact directions. Let’s go!
The economics of unused gift cards
(From The Hustle) ”The most popular item on wish lists this holiday season isn’t a pair of Airpods, the PlayStation Portal, or a Sabrina Carpenter vinyl album. Like just about every year for the last decade-plus, the present of choice will be the gift card. In 2019, Americans purchased an estimated $171B worth of these plastic cash substitutes, ranging from $500 prepaid Visa cards to grandma’s annual $25 Cheesecake Factory “nibble.” Gift cards are so popular that they account for 55% of the average shopper’s entire annual gift budget… In an ideal world, the gift card is a win-win: For the buyer, it’s a hassle-free gifting experience; for the recipient, it’s a cash equivalent that can be used at any store or restaurant. But gift cards aren’t always ideal. Oftentimes, they go unused — whether we lose them, forget we have them, let them expire, or fail to spend the full amount that was gifted. And when that happens, there’s only one winner: The companies that sell the cards…”
