Remember Covid?

During covid lockdown – when my engineering teammates were confined to their homes, just trying to deal with long stretches of boredom and depression – the preambulatory chitchat of agile standups took on greater importance. So I took it upon myself to always have a few well-researched items of miscellany in my back pocket – which I’d introduce as one useless fact.

Some of these facts were more like tiny stories; others were spectacularly weird statistics or probabilities of unlikely events. But the point wasn’t to educate my teammates; it was to show them that I cared about their state of mind; that I wanted our time together to be enjoyable. It was a small gesture, but one that I carried out with at least as much good intent as all those people stupidly clapping and whistling out of New York City apartment windows at 7pm for healthcare workers.

And…?

Vaccines were developed. And then I left my job. But useless facts (like these) are pretty interesting.👇🏽

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Examples of Useless Facts

Below is the first roundup of useless facts.

Primary Sources of Useless Facts

I love reading, so once in a while, an epically useless fact crops up in a real live book (eg: economics, philosophy, psychology, history, or a topic related to computers). And when that happens, I AM ON IT! Mostly though, my facts are extracted from the sources below:

• Don Voorhees’ wonderful series: The <insert adjective here> Book of Useless Information

• Content from Harper’s Index, The Atlantic, the New York Times, and the New Yorker

• Government sources like: US Census bureau, Social Security Actuarial tables, Police blotter reports, and CIA’s World Fact Book

• Stuff my wife tells me (news from within a major New York City trauma center)