Things I Learned - February 2025

Hello from New York City. This is February’s edition of Things I Learned (+ a professional update at the end).

Things I Learned

1. In the US, you must be under the age of 31 to become an air traffic controller. (source)

2. Flamingos get their color from eating shellfish. (source)

3. Two thirds of all train trips in the entire country take place in the NYC area. (h/t, source)

4. Wagering on the outcomes of papal conclaves was automatically punishable by excommunication from 1591-1918, and was illegal in the US from 1961-2011. (source)

5. As of 10 years ago, the world’s largest purchaser of caviar was Lufthansa Airlines, which accounted for 5% of global caviar demand. (source)

6. Brunei is the only country in the world that has a non-contiguous working week, consisting of Monday to Thursday plus Saturday. (source)

7. In 1900, railroads accounted for 63% of total U.S. stock-market value. (source)

8. The line chart, pie chart, bar chart, and area chart were all invented by the same person, William Playfair (who had some other cool adventures as well). (source)

9. The average US resident will eat about 270 eggs this year. (source)

10. The largest space impact in human history occurred in Siberia in 1908 when an asteroid exploded with 1,000 times the force of the Hiroshima bomb, incinerating 770 square miles of forest. Due to the remoteness of the region, only 3 people died. (source)

11. Roughly a third of global trade is invoiced in US dollars despite not being destined for the US. (source)

12. A philatelic cover is an envelope prepared with a stamp and address and sent through the mail delivery system for the purpose of creating a collectible item. (source)

13. Until 1956, French schoolchildren were served wine during lunch (source)

14. The Superbowl halftime show in 1975 was a “Tribute to Duke Ellington” concert. (source)

15. The 1667 agreement in which the Netherlands ceded control of Manhattan to the British was done in exchange for the Indonesian isle of Pulau Rhun, in order to preserve the Dutch nutmeg monopoly. (source)

16. Veterans represent 6% of the population but 30% of civilian federal employees (source).

Corrigenda

• In last month’s post I wrote than only 5 other horror movies, beyond Silence of the Lambs, had been nominated for Best Picture. The number is actually 6 (The Exorcist, Jaws, The Sixth Sense, Black Swan, Get Out).¹

Graphs I Liked

• Weights of Offensive Linemen in the Superbowl

• Average number of words in Oscar speeches

  

• Apparently men seem to pay down student loan debt much more quickly than women(?)

  

• The (fairly nonlinear) percentage of children going to public school by household income

  

• Software Development Job Postings on Indeed.com in the US²

  

Articles I Liked

• A blog post is a very long and complex search query to find fascinating people and make them route interesting stuff to your inbox

• Ancient Rome Was So Polluted With Lead That IQs Dropped

• 50 Years of Travel Tips

• Was Harvey Weinstein thanked more often than God at the Oscars?

• India’s Most Reliable Retirement Plan: Selling Grandma’s Jewelry

Finally…

Some professional news: I’m pleased to announce that I have been awarded the Marjorie Deane Fellowship in financial journalism at The Economist, where I’ll spend a couple months writing on topics in financial markets and the economy. If you’re in London or NYC and would like to grab coffee (whether or not we’ve met before!) please feel free to reach out.

1. Thanks to Cason for the correction.

2. While it is true that all types of job posting are also down, the decline of software development jobs tends to be the largest.