Dear Reader,
It's issue number #500 for the Non-Obvious Newsletter this week! That's the equivalent of nearly ten years of weekly curated thoughts and the moment has me wondering about my longest active readers. So here's a question for approximately 42% of you who open this email every week ... what date did you first subscribe or start reading these insights on my blog (which started before the newsletter)? Hit reply and let me know - I'll send a signed book and offer a mention next week for the most loyal subscriber who's been reading the longest!
In stories this week, you'll read about one theory on how to save science in the age of disbelief, the curious rise of the cassette cafe and a primer guide on how to get excited for the 2026 Winter Olympics starting tomorrow.
Enjoy the stories and stay curious!
Rohit
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Saving Science In the Age of the Modern Believability Crisis
Among scientists and believers of science alike, there's a frustration with all the voices out there who question science. From conspiracy theorists to pseudoscientists, anyone with an idea to share (and occasionally attribution to offer) can find an audience of believers. Many of them have profited from it. Often, this is presented as a problem of manipulation. "Those people" are telling lies to advance their own agendas despite contradictory evidence. In Undark magazine, Yale professor C. Brandon Ogbunu offers a different perspective. Rather than casting blame, he suggests the problem may really come from how scientists communicate and the scientific method itself.
"While different issues have contributed to Trump’s low approval ratings, there is little evidence that attacks on science are among them. We can illustrate this with a fictional scenario: Take away college football tomorrow and watch college towns descend into chaos. But when they came for our pipettes and microscopes, almost nothing happened ... Science has gaping holes that have already been exploited by the ill-intentioned. We’ve run out of options, and there is nowhere to hide. It’s time to stop grieving over an imaginary golden age that never existed."
The more scientists argue among each other for attribution or funding or reproducibility, the more of a void builds that can be filled with whomever shouts their own theory the loudest. After all, the easiest theory to prove is one where you can make up the proof yourself or selectively pick the most convenient data to showcase. So what's the solution? It seems to start with scientists banding together to find more unity against the forces that aim to discredit them.
How To Get Excited About the 2026 Winter Olympics
Anyone who knows me already knows that I'm a big fan of the Olympics. There's nothing else in our modern world that aims higher to bring the world together as one. Usually, though, my excitement is reserved for the Summer Olympics. The Winter Olympics have always felt a bit harder to get excited about. For one thing, these Olympics don't really represent the world because many snow-less countries don't compete. Also, the competing athletes remain mostly white and most sports still require some level of wealth in order to grow up doing. Despite these shortcomings, I am excited for these Games and there were a few stories I read this week that helped.
One of the longstanding problems with the Winter Olympics is that it requires the host city to build all sorts of venues (like a Luge course) that have no usage beyond the Games so they often end up as abandoned wastelands. This year, Milan is pioneering a more spread out model for the Games where they are hosting in many different places across Italy. In theory, this should allow them to minimize the wastage and optimize venues for later reuse. The upcoming FIFA World Cup hosted across the North American continent is using a similar concept. If this works, the idea of diversifying large global sporting events across multiple cities and countries may become commonplace.
It was also fun to read about previous sports that did not make it into this year's games (such as sled dog racing and ski ballet) along with some of this year's new exhibition sports (like dual moguls and ski mountaineering), Vogue's picks for the best and worst Olympic uniforms (note - Mongolia's uniform is winning the most admirers so far), as well as the story behind the design of the Olympic medals. For a bigger picture context there were several stories this week about how climate change is threatening the Winter Olympics themselves. And finally of course, there are also several athlete stories to watch including the Bobsled team from Trinidad and Tobago that's aiming modestly with their Olympic dream of "not coming in last."
The Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony will be broadcast live in the US on Peacock at 2pm EST on Friday.
Friction and the Power of Tokyo's Popular New Cassette Cafe
After ordering your coffee at a Shibuya district cafe in the middle of Tokyo, you can browse a collection of cassette tapes to pick the one you like best and cozy up with a Sony Walkman in a chair. No, it's not the nineties—this is a retro concept cafe that is gaining popularity in Japan and turning heads around the world. There's a similar cafe devoted to vinyl lovers with actual record players available for use too. Aside from bringing back musical formats of the past, the interesting insight here is around the friction that is built into the experience.
You need to go and browse a bunch of music, and pick something and insert it to play and then (most crucially) live with your choice. You can't just skip to the next song or pick a new artist easily. As a result, you have to commit to your choice, live in the moment and make yourself happy with the situation you've put yourself in. For a world where it seems like there's an ever-present cancel button where people literally decline Uber rides for "taking too long" because the driver is more than 1 minute away ... this forced acceptance of a moment can feel almost joyful. I suspect that's why the concept is so popular. What do you think? Would you enjoy a visit to the cassette cafe? Hit reply and let me know what you think.
