The non-obvious blog

Dedicated To Helping Readers
Be More Interesting Since 2004.

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04 2025 December

The 2025 Non-Obvious Holiday Gift Guide

Today we continue with my annual Non-Obvious Holiday Gift Guide, featuring a few products that caught my eye throughout the past year. 7. Delayed Gratification...

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03 2025 December

The 2025 Non-Obvious Holiday Gift Guide

Today we continue with my annual Non-Obvious Holiday Gift Guide, featuring a few products that caught my eye throughout the past year. 5. Montblanc Digital...

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02 2025 December

The 2025 Non-Obvious Holiday Gift Guide

Today we continue with my annual Non-Obvious Holiday Gift Guide, featuring a few products that caught my eye throughout the past year. 3. The U.S....

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01 2025 December

The 2025 Non-Obvious Holiday Gift Guide

This week, you’ll see my annual Non-Obvious Holiday Gift Guide with a few products that caught my eye throughout the past year. As I share...

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27 2025 November

Math Skills Are Plummeting. Can Testing Reverse the Trend?

Across the US, there are students bound for college who are below a middle school level with basic math skills. For years, the criticism of advanced...

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26 2025 November

Why Young People Have Nostalgia for a Time Before They Were Born

Here’s an oxymoron for you: people are using AI generated images to evoke the nostalgia of the 90s—the last human decade without ubiquitous technology. This idea...

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25 2025 November

The Non-Obvious Book of the Week: The Trend Forecaster’s Handbook by Martin Raymond

As the end of the year nears, I’m thinking about trends and big picture ideas from the year. Though I no longer produce my annual...

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24 2025 November

How AI Is Helping Reduce Accents, But Could Do Much More

Thanks to AI there are a number of new services that are designed to help language learners learn a new dialect and reduce their accents...

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21 2025 November

The Truth About Toxic Words and Why Word Policing Doesn’t Work

In closed meetings leading up to the G20 Summit happening in South Africa this weekend, early reports note that in addition to the Trump administration...

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20 2025 November

Does the World Still Need Car Keys? I Hope the Answer is Yes.

Writing about innovations that I hope die quickly isn’t usually my style … except for today. A recent piece in WIRED magazine asks whether we should still...

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