Things I Learned - May 2026

Hello from Tahoe. I think this is the most belated I’ve ever put out a monthly newsletter so (i) sorry (ii) thank you to the loyal readers who noticed. Here are some things I learned in May.

Things I Learned

1. Wi-Fi is not an acronym and does not stand for anything.¹ (source)

2. The cumulative net profit of the US airline industry from 1978 to 2025 was negative $37 billion. (source)

3. In the US, more people (~650,000) work in autism therapy than in mining and logging, telecommunications, or the US Postal Service. (source)

4. Kentucky Derby times have not improved since the 1960s (+ some interesting theories as to why).

5. Up until World War II, the majority of renters in NYC all moved at the same time on May 1st at 9am. (source)

6. 1967 was the first year that color movies overtook black and white in production. (source)

7. In imperial China, 3 percent was the maximum legal monthly loan rate; charging more was punishable by 40 to 100 blows with a light cane. (source)

8. The central opening hole in a CD was chosen to be exactly the size of a Dutch coin known as a dubbeltje. (source)

9. Meta earns 1 out of every 5 dollars spent in the global ad market. (source)

10. In 712 Harvard course offerings last year — roughly a third of all classes — every enrolled undergraduate received an A. (source)

11. The word boycott is named after the 19th century english captain Charles Boycott, who — after he refused to reduce the rent of his tenants by more than 10 percent — was shunned by his workers, local businessmen, and the local postman. (source)

12. Winston Churchill wrote a six-volume, 4700-page, 1.6-million-word history of World War II for which he won the 1953 Nobel Prize in Literature. (source, h/t)

13. 80 per cent of the value of US currency is in $100 bills, 70 per cent of which are held overseas (source).

14. China used more cement in three years between 2011-2013 than the United States used over the course of the entire 20th century (source).

15. The font used for road signs in the US was developed by the US federal highway administration and is colloquially known as ‘highway gothic’. (source)

16. Approximately 40% of Supreme Court decisions are unanimous.² (source)

From This Month in Previous Years

• (May 2025): White asparagus and green asparagus are the same exact plant; white asparagus is simply created by growing the asparagus without access to sunlight. (source)

• (May 2024): In 1912, Per capita Native American (indigenous) wealth in the US exceeded per capita white wealth (source, h/t).

Miscellaneous May Observations:

• I enjoyed these aerial photos of early NYC; as well as this photo of Cleopatra’s handwriting.

• Of the many post-mortems of Spirit Airlines, the best I came across was this one (“Why Did Spirit Fail While Ryanair Thrives”) by Ben Schlappig. Spoiler: it has nothing to do with “Americans being rich”.

• I was very sad to hear about the passing of John Sterling, the Yankees radio announcer. Among other things, Sterling had perfect attendance for 30 years, he called 5,060 consecutive Yankees games from 1989 to 2019, including ~3.0% of all games in MLB history and 28.7% of all games in Yankees history.³

Personal Updates

It was a busy May after a not-so-great April. I think my main accomplishment was completing my own version of a “75-hard” challenge⁴, where I committed to, for 75 consecutive days, (i) running 4 miles or biking 10 miles every day (ii) giving up alcohol.⁵ I started my challenge on March 12 and completed it on May 24; the final tally was 54 days of 4-mile runs (216 miles); 22 days of 10-mile bike rides (222 miles) + 49 other additional workouts (tennis, swimming, chessboxing, strength, baseball, etc). Two brief reflections:

• The no-alcohol component was much more challenging than the exercise component, mostly because of how ingrained drinking has become at so many social events. I did gain a deeper appreciation for how much mocktail culture has grown over the past decade, at least in New York City. I’m curious whether a similar trend has taken hold outside the United States..

• There is a lot of received wisdom out there that cutting alcohol “drastically” improves sleep quality. I’m always a bit skeptical of claimed large effect sizes in matters of personal health, so I wanted to test this out on myself (I think they call this “anecdata”, or “me-conomics”). At least according to my Oura ring data, I think my prior is validated?

  

Anyway, glad that’s done! Other things I enjoyed in May: a live cooking demonstration by J. Kenji López-Alt (including my first time trying pastrami dumplings); playing tennis at the US Open courts at Flushing; the JP Morgan Chase Corporate Running Challenge; my first in-person Yankees game of the season; the Knicks playoff run; a 3-day trip to Chicago. Lowlights: a very rainy memorial day weekend.

Have a happy June!

1. Wikipedia claims this is in dispute, but the person who invented the name, Phil Belanger, has claimed it stands for nothing.

2. This was added due to the popularity of last month’s fact about how the two Supreme Court justices least likely to vote together — Elena Kagan and Samuel Alito — still vote together 61% of the time, excluding unanimous decisions.

3. On a slightly more personal note, I had the chance to have a couple meals with him in 2022, when the analysts ate in the same cafeteria as the media. He was the only one in the Yankees organization who asked me to describe my grad school research in detail.

4. The actual challenge is a bit silly, you can read about it here.

5. There are a couple reasons why I did it, but I’ll just note that there’s a great blogger named Matt Lakeman who, during Covid, did a whole bunch of experiments, including a 24-hour do-nothing challenge, a blind, alone, and confused 24-hour challenge, a 96-hour no-sleep challenge. “Why am I doing this?” he wrote. “I have no good reason. I just want to see if I am capable of doing it and what will happen.”