Thursday Things: 300th Edition!
8 May 2025. Vol 7 No 19. By Dan McGirt. #300
Thursday Things is here! This week we celebrate reaching 300 issues, try a snakebite cocktail, find gold in the hills, remember to drink coffee, throw down the gauntlet, and more!
If you enjoy this edition, please click the heart icon in the header or at the end of the post to let me know.
300 issues! Image: Sora
300th Edition! Thank you, Happy Subscribers!
This is the 300th edition of Thursday Things! Truly a red letter day. Thank you to all the scores and scores of Happy Subscribers who have been here from the start or who joined us along the way.
The First Issue of Thursday Things went out on August 15, 2019.
In that inaugural issue we covered the human bias toward bad news, a techno-optimistic book I had recently read, rat-human hybrids, how first class flying ain’t what it used to be, virtual fitness classes, a Brazilian bank robbery, and, of course, a dog mayor!
I really packed in the content in those early days! Now you’re lucky if I include three items in a single issue. On the other hand, I give more rambling commentary now, whereas in those early issues I only penned a line or two about each item. Which format do you prefer? I have no idea! Do you know why? Because only a handful of Happy Subscribers ever write in to tell me what you like, don’t like, want more of, or want less of. So I just improv it!
Most Popular Edition — Gone to the Dogs
The top edition of Thursday Things — according to the Archive page, which ranks the posts by total likes and other interactions — was the Gone to the Dogs Edition, published on November 12, 2020.
Thursday Things: Gone to the Dogs Edition
Welcome to Thursday Things! If you enjoy this edition, please click the heart icon in the heading or at the end of the post to let me know. You can also post a comment by clicking the dialog bubble next to the heart.
This one featured another dog mayor, the Stalin Digital Archive, biomedical 3-D printing, new cancer drugs saving more than 1.2 million people, the physical vs. digital media debate, and why you should not cook chickens in a Yellowstone National Park hot spring.
Retro news bites
In honor of our 300th issues, I’m going pack in a few items First Issue style. Let me know what you think. Should I ramble more or go back to retro style?
And I’ll start with this: A new antivenom cocktail protects against 19 of the world’s deadliest snakes. “Scientists have used antibodies from a human donor with a self-induced hyper-immunity to snake venom to develop what they claim is the most broadly effective antivenom cocktail to date.” The anti-snake bite protection includes black mamba, king cobra, and tiger snakes and is a step towards developing a universal antiserum. I take my antivenom cocktail shaken, not stirred!
Deepfake videos of human faces are getting way too convincing. So much so that they can fool deepfake detection technology that looks for subtle skin color changes caused by the human pulse. The best deepfakes now (apparently inadvertently) include those changes. Oops.
Hiking pays off. The benefits of spending time in nature are golden. Sometimes literally, as hikers in the Czech Republic’s Podkrkonosí Mountains stumbled upon a trove of golden jewelry, artifacts, and nearly 600 gold coins estimated to be worth more than $340,000. Many of the coins date to the late Austria-Hungarian empire, with dates from 1808-1915. One hypothesis is that the treasure was hidden in the mountains when Germany annexed the region in 1938 after than whole “peace in our time” Munich agreement that did not work out so well. The honest hikers turned it all over to a museum, but are entitled to a reward of 10% of the value of the find under Czech law.
Look, if you can’t trust Daily Coffee News to give you the unbiased truth about coffee’s many health benefits, who can you trust? Along with everything else the miracle brew does, there is new evidence that drinking coffee reduces the risk of dementia. The benefits seem to apply to both caffeinated coffee and decaffeinated coffee, if for some reason you want to drink decaf. Similar reduced risks of dementia were associated with moderate tea drinking — but only for caffeinated tea. Further research is needed, and so is more coffee!
History listicle
Three recurring themes in Thursday Things over the last 300 editions have been my love of listicles, history, and language. So I am pleased to share this listicle of Ten Phrases that Originated the Middle Ages:
1. “The apple of one’s eye”
In early medieval England the pupil of the eye was known as the apple (Old English æppel) since it was thought to be an apple-shaped solid. Since the delicate pupil of the eye is essential for vision, it is a part that is cherished and to be protected. Thus apple of the eye was used as a figure for a much-loved person or thing. Even King Alfred the Great used this phrase.
2. “Baker’s dozen”
This phrase arose from a piece of medieval legislation, the Assize of Bread and Ale of 1262. Bakers of the period had a reputation for selling underweight loaves, so legislation was put in place to make standardized weights. To make sure that they did not sell underweight bread, bakers started to give an extra piece of bread away with every loaf, and a thirteenth loaf with every dozen.
The rest of the list are below. Click over to Medievalists.net for the explanations of each.
“To curry favour”
“To play devil’s advocate”
“To throw down the gauntlet”
“By hook or by crook”
“Hue and cry”
“A nest egg”
“A red-letter day”
“To sink or swim”
All of these phrases sound so familiar and so common as to be tired, worn out clichés.
Of course they’re worn out — they’ve been around since the Middle Ages!
So show a little respect and try to work one or more of these well-worn phrases into your conversation today. If you’re really ambitious, try to use all ten!
This week’s edition is brought to you by Dan’s Advice: Take control of your digital life.
Thank you for reading!
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