100 Unanswered Questions

Plus: In praise of the dilettante (#594)

This is David, your human web crawler, and you're reading the Weekly Filet, the newsletter for curious minds who love it when something makes them go «Huh, I never thought of it this way!». As every Friday, I'm here to help you make sense of what’s happening, and imagine what could be. It's great to have you.

Before we begin, an invitation: Would you like to test an app I created? Over the past few week(end)s, I've built an iOS app for Dataguessr. If you'd like to be among the first to check it out, reply to this email and I'll let you in.

1. 100 Unanswered Questions About Ourselves, Our World and Our Universe

The New York Times has more open questions than Jay-Z has problems. They asked 100 scientists about unsolved problems in their fields. What they got back is a wonderful collage of human curiosity and the hidden wonders of the world. To give you a taste: What preceded the Big Bang? How did viruses originate? Why do we sleep? Why are humans the only species with a chin? How do children learn so much from so little?

2. Computer Chips Are the Most Magnificent Things Humanity Has Ever Made

Latest piece in my treasured collection of in-depth profiles of stuff our modern world runs on. «A microchip is a bauble of metal and refined sand. It doesn’t appear to have epic proportions. Upon close examination, however, the epic proportions are there in miniature. Imagine a perfect replica of a sprawling metropolis, a Tokyo or a São Paulo, engraved at atomic dimensions on a tile the size of a fingernail.»

Check out the entire collection that includes in-depth profiles of sand, concrete, steel, coffee, spreadsheets and more.

3. In praise of the dilettante

What does it say about us that we gave a negative spin to a term that used to simply refer to someone «who pursues an interest for the sake of pleasure»? Time to reclaim the dilettante – that's exactly what this essay does. «The dilettante can act as a liaison between expert and layperson, closing the gap between high practice and everyday curiosity [...] extending an invitation to anyone who might otherwise feel shut out.» And my favourite bit: «Welcoming the less-experienced and the less-committed seems a more genuine way of loving the thing you claim to love.»

4. I will not stop telling the truth and fighting for it

In his last year as United Nations Secretary-General, António Guterres addresses the delegates of the COP climate conference for a final time. As usual, he is crystal clear in his message, on where we stand («The brutal truth is that the climate crisis is outrunning us.»), who's to blame («Fossil fuel interests keep making a killing while killing our planet.») and how we can still act («Science is not telling us to surrender. It's telling us to fight harder.»). Worth listening to in full.

5. A New Vision for Human Work After Automation

Few people are closer to the frontier of applying large language models to knowledge work than Dan Shipper and his company Every. In this talk, he lays out his thesis for what happens to human work in a world of ever more powerful AI models. He does so by not looking at trend lines, but by observing up close where humans make a difference in collaboration with AI.

Dataguessr of the week

Update your knowledge of the world. One quiz at a time. This week:

🤝 Which countries have decreased their emissions the most since the Paris Agreement in 2015? Start quiz

What else?

Instant-gratification links that make you go wow! or aha! the moment you click.

These are so fascinating and stunningly beautiful: Winners of the 2026 Photomicrography Competition.
Let Claude Fable build for 20 hours and you get this.
Draw a terrain, put some creatures in it and watch them battle it out: Battle Draw.
Fun geography game: Get two cities, name a third that is at even distance from them.
The most pointlessly entertaining personal website I've seen in a while.
A desktop wallpaper that grows around your files.
Clockfaces, that's it.