Edward “The Godfather” Thorp has been widely recognized as the “father of card counting” since the publication of his bestselling book Beat the Dealer in 1962. Today, at 70 years old, the man’s impact on the card game is ubiquitous, but perhaps nowhere moreso than at Las Vegas’ annual Blackjack Ball.
Where Everyone’s a Cardsharp
Know Your Facial Hair Etymology
Did you know sideburns got their name from the extravagant facial hair of a 19th century American soldier by the name of Ambrose E. Burnside?
●
●
All Jokes Aside
Over at Vulture, Jesse David Fox offers a retrospective of 100 years of jokes that shaped modern comedy.
Goodreads Recommendations
Goodreads has unveiled its new book recommendation feature. Unlike Amazon's feature, Goodreads' will draw data from every book you've read and logged, not just those you've purchased online.
●
●
On Fiction, On Envy
“Jealousy baffles me. It’s so mysterious and it’s so pervasive. … And yet I’ve never read a study that can parse to me its loneliness, or its longevity, or its grim thrill. For that, we have to go to fiction because the novel is the lab that has studied jealousy in every possible configuration. In fact, I don’t know that it’s an exaggeration to say that if we didn’t have jealousy, we wouldn’t even have literature.” New York Times Book Review editor Parul Sehgal takes listeners to church in her TED Talk, “Ode to Envy.”
●
●
Miles to Go before I Sleep
Our own Nick Ripatrazone writes for The Atlantic about the tradition of writers who love to run, from Haruki Murakami to Joyce Carol Oates. Pair with Ripatrazone’s Millions essay on writing as training.
●
●