Can a town function with no time? Can the world function with no sand?
Here's the best things I found on the internet this week!!
Happy new year newsletter friends!
Hope your resolutions are set and off to a great start—for me, reading more and giving fiction writing a real shot—but don’t worry, nothing is changing about newsletter format going into 2026. It’s still “conversation starters” on Tuesdays and movie and TV recommendations on Fridays.
I read and watched a lot of great stuff over the break, so this rundown of the best, most interesting and most entertaining content I found on the internet reaches back over the last couple of weeks. Hope you enjoy and then up your small talk game this week!
What’s the coolest story or thing you found on the internet this week? Reply to this email and shoot me a link. Would love to hear from you!
One town above the Arctic Circle is a “time free zone,” where there are no clocks and at various times in the year it is completely light or dark for 24 hours a day. A writer for The Atlantic experienced life without time for nine days and found out the psychological difference between “clock time” and “event time.”
My jaw is on the floor. In a world where the rich only get richer, this man is a hero. He sold his company for $1.7 billion, then gave his employees $240 million in bonuses—the average was $443,000 per person!
I can’t stop getting annoyed at the ridiculous of prediction markets, not just because they continue to claim they’re not gambling, but because they practically encourage insider trading. The latest example? An anonymous Polymarket account was created last week and wagered tens of thousands of dollars on the U.S. removing Maduro from power in Venezuela, pocketing hundreds of thousands in profit. It’s so corrupt!
Judah Smith has been an object of fascination in the Christian world for a long time, after parlaying his relationship with Justin Beiber into celebrity pastor status. I think a lot of us wonder…is this guy full of it or the real deal? And while my takeaway from this extensive New York Mag profile is that it’s more column B than A, there’s still about five things I can’t help but roll my eyes at.
Can money buy happiness? Good Works’ Dan Toomey investigates.
Within the restaurant world, New York City fine dining destination Eleven Madison Park is seen as the almost unobtainable standard of precision, maintaining three Michelin stars for a decade with a staff of 200+. Bon Appetit takes us inside arguably the best kitchen in America.
Apparently there’s only one correct way to go see Avatar: Fire and Ash—while insanely high, as this IG creator hilariously explains.
Organized crime groups throughout the world are stealing…sand?? Apparently it’s the second most-used material behind water, and the world is running out. It’s becoming a precious resource people are willing to kill over, says Popular Mechanics.
Thanks for reading and sharing! I caught up on a bunch of movies this week that I can’t wait to tell you about on Friday, so come back then!!