Why you’re here: https://mathewingram.com/work/2025/11/07/why-youre-here/

During his student days, Sam started to experiment with the idea of an artistic alter ego – a character to accompany his work. mathewingram.com/work/2025/11...

His doodles made him famous then put him in the psych ward: https://mathewingram.com/work/2025/11/07/his-doodles-made-him-famous-then-put-him-in-the-psych-ward/

A computer game-style drone attack system has gone viral among Ukrainian military units and is being extended to reconnaissance, artillery and logistics operations, the nation’s first deputy prime minister has told the Guardian. mathewingram.com/work/2025/11...

Ukrainian drone operators win points they can use for weapons: https://mathewingram.com/work/2025/11/06/ukrainian-drone-operators-win-points-they-can-use-for-weapons/

Is AI like the slide rule or is it the Industrial Revolution?: https://mathewingram.com/work/2025/11/06/is-ai-like-the-slide-rule-or-is-it-the-industrial-revolution/

MaryBeth was 25 when she married a pilot named Bob Lewis. The couple had five daughters. When the girls neared adulthood and empty-nest syndrome kicked in, MaryBeth wanted more children. In her late 40s, she used in vitro fertilization to give birth to twin girls. mathewingram.com/work/2025/11...

She wanted a 15th child and then came the felony charges: https://mathewingram.com/work/2025/11/05/she-wanted-a-15th-child-and-then-came-the-felony-charges/

Never calling them cemeteries again, necropolis is way cooler and more accurate 😜

Training a state-of-the-art AI requires less water than a single acre of farmland uses in a year www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

It's called "Dirona Around The World." Never heard of it? Not surprising. It's just some guy's blog. Except that the guy in question is James Hamilton, a senior Amazon engineer who until recently lived full-time on a yacht -- specifically a Nordhavn 52. mathewingram.com/work/2025/11...

One of the most interesting sites on the internet belongs to this Amazon staffer: https://mathewingram.com/work/2025/11/04/one-of-the-most-interesting-sites-on-the-internet-belongs-to-this-amazon-staffer/

A once in a century discovery of a cache of long-lost letters has revealed how the English poet WH Auden developed a deep and lasting friendship with a Viennese sex worker and car mechanic after the latter burgled the Funeral Blues author’s home and was put on trial. mathewingram.com/work/2025/11...

Poet W.H. Auden’s lover was a sex worker who stole from him: https://mathewingram.com/work/2025/11/04/poet-w-h-audens-lover-was-a-sex-worker-who-stole-from-him/

The second time I met Rodney Alcala was on March 23, 2013. mathewingram.com/work/2025/11...

James Joyce would rise late, after an inebriated evening spent belting out songs at the local boozer, and get his writing done in the early afternoon. Cheever did much the same, but got out of bed earlier.  mathewingram.com/work/2025/10...

The (new) New York Times Standards Memo on Gaza open.substack.com/pub/shyrobot...

These authors liked to write while they were hungover: https://mathewingram.com/work/2025/10/31/these-authors-liked-to-write-while-they-were-hungover/

Wikipedia is the best thing the internet has ever made, and we should defend it mathewingram.com/work/2025/10...

He thought his sentence was too light so he built his own prison: https://mathewingram.com/work/2025/10/30/he-thought-his-sentence-was-too-light-so-he-built-his-own-prison/

Wikipedia is the best thing the internet has ever made: https://mathewingram.com/work/2025/10/30/wikipedia-is-the-best-thing-the-internet-has-ever-made/

It's the fall of 1864. The war is going very badly for the Confederates. John Wilkes Booth is kind of the Brad Pitt of North America. He was a famous, dashing young actor, a committed supporter of the Southern Confederacy. A man who despised Lincoln. mathewingram.com/work/2025/10...

Lincoln’s assassin planned the shooting while in Montreal: https://mathewingram.com/work/2025/10/29/lincolns-assassin-planned-the-shooting-while-in-montreal/

It started with a suitcase hidden under a bed. It was 2009, and Antony Easton's father, Peter, had recently died. mathewingram.com/work/?p=281992

An old suitcase and a family fortune lost under Nazi rule: https://mathewingram.com/work/2025/10/28/an-old-suitcase-and-a-family-fortune-lost-under-nazi-rule/

Japanese singer-songwriter Yoko Ono had an obsession with artist Salvador Dalí’s surrealism, and decided she wanted to buy a strand of hair from Dalí’s famous mustache. mathewingram.com/work/2025/10...

Salvador Dali sold a blade of grass to Yoko Ono for $10,000: https://mathewingram.com/work/2025/10/27/salvador-dali-sold-a-blade-of-grass-to-yoko-ono-for-10000/

The white marble headstone of Spc. 4 Richard Leroy McKinley may look like the other headstones in Section 31 but it marks Arlington National Cemetery's only radioactive grave and the story of America’s first fatal nuclear accident. mathewingram.com/work/?p=281973

Why one Arlington Cemetery grave has a lead-lined casket: https://mathewingram.com/work/2025/10/24/why-one-arlington-cemetery-grave-has-a-lead-lined-casket/

Albert Clarke was a rascally nine-year-old when he inherited the estate of Margaret Wise Brown, his next-door neighbour, who had no children of her own. mathewingram.com/work/?p=281970

He got $5M from Goodnight Moon’s author and lost it all: https://mathewingram.com/work/2025/10/23/he-got-5m-from-goodnight-moons-author-and-lost-it-all/

It's a truism – at least in my experience – that the coverage of new product launches often seems to focus on the minutiae of a product. mathewingram.com/work/?p=281955

OpenAI’s new browser is a small part of a much bigger plan: https://mathewingram.com/work/2025/10/23/openais-new-browser-is-a-small-part-of-a-much-bigger-plan/

Authorities are scrambling to find the gang behind the heist that targeted high-security display cases in the famous French museum. The criminals, who disguised themselves as construction workers on a cherry picker, are still on the run. mathewingram.com/work/2025/10...

Louvre robbers could be the infamous Pink Panther gang: https://mathewingram.com/work/2025/10/22/louvre-robbers-could-be-the-infamous-pink-panther-gang/

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem is one of the most important spiritual sites for Christians, so it may come as some surprise that the keys to the church are entrusted to the care of two Muslim families. mathewingram.com/work/2025/10...

Muslim families hold the keys to Jerusalem’s famous church: https://mathewingram.com/work/2025/10/21/muslim-families-hold-the-keys-to-jerusalems-famous-church/

For nearly a quarter-century he railed against slavery in one Quaker meeting after another in and around Philadelphia, confronting slave owners and slave traders. mathewingram.com/work/2025/10...

This Quaker dwarf made the end of slavery his life’s work: https://mathewingram.com/work/2025/10/20/this-quaker-dwarf-made-the-end-of-slavery-his-lifes-work/

The war zone in Portland is out of control.

NYT confirms our reporting from days ago - which the WH said was fake news - that Trump and Hegseth are pulling a stunt to fire artillery rounds over I-5 between SD and LA onto Camp Pendleton as a stunt, one of the busiest highways in America. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/18/u...

Weedhead tramp: https://mathewingram.com/work/2025/10/17/weedhead-tramp/

mathewingram.com/work/2025/10...

Journathan: https://mathewingram.com/work/2025/10/17/journathan/

It’s almost always the cocaine

There’s a Kodak camera in the novel Dracula: https://mathewingram.com/work/2025/10/17/theres-a-kodak-camera-in-the-novel-dracula/

She got a friend request and it was her long-lost identical twin: https://mathewingram.com/work/2025/10/17/she-got-a-friend-request-and-it-was-her-long-lost-identical-twin/

By accident

Hysterical outrage