Futility Closet

Futility Closet is a blog, podcast, and database started in 2005 by editorial manager and publishing journalist Greg Ross. As of February 2021 the database totaled over 11,000 items. They range over the fields of history, literature, language, art, philosophy, and recreational mathematics.

Futility Closet

The associated Futility Closet Podcast was a weekly podcast hosted by Greg and his wife Sharon Ross. It presented curious and little-known events and people from history, and posed logical puzzles.

History

In January 2005, Greg Ross started the Futility Closet website, an online wunderkammer of trivia, quotations, mathematical curiosities, chess problems, and other diversions.[1] The site has spawned two printed collections,[2] and continues to be updated daily. Gary Antonick of the New York Times' Numberplay blog described the first book as "the literary equivalent of Trader Joe's Tempting Trail Mix".[3]

Futility Closet has sometimes been a conduit or used to popularize results by John H. Conway, Richard K. Guy, Lee Sallows, Solomon W. Golomb, and many other well-known mathematicians when they dabbled in recreational mathematics.[4][5][6] Puzzles from Futility Closet have frequently been featured in the New York Times puzzle section and the New York Times blog.[3][7] Futility Closet was recommended by the Honduran newspaper La Tribuna.[8] Its puzzles and paradoxes have been cited by El País[9] and Il Post.[10]

Podcast

In March 2014 Futility Closet launched a thirty-minute weekly podcast hosted by Greg and Sharon Ross.[11] A typical episode lasts thirty minutes and consists of three segments: first the week's core topic, typically a curious story from history; second, listener mail; third, a lateral thinking puzzle, posed by one of the hosts for the other to solve. Some episodes depart from this format, for instance by presenting several short items or open questions culled from research, or by presenting several puzzles in lieu of other content. Many earlier episodes include an advertisement. Most episodes also include a reference to Sasha, the Futility Closet cat until the cat died in 2020.

On the November 15, 2021, podcast Sharon announced the podcast would be ending at the end of November.

Content and sources

The podcast has a wide scope and is not restricted to any particular era, but most episodes concern colorful personalities and strange events from the 19th and early 20th centuries. Victorian oddities are a mainstay of the show, as are unexplained mysteries, forteana, hoaxes and impostors, sensational murders, remarkable animals, and the adventures of mariners, aviators, and explorers. Subjects are often prompted by listener suggestions. Some content has been sourced directly from Wikipedia without attribution.[12]

Music

The podcast's opening theme is an instrumental bass composition, "Fallen Star", which was written and performed by Doug Ross,[13] brother of Greg.[14] Doug Ross also supplies the bass riffs that punctuate the transitions between episode segments.

Reception

The Futility Closet Podcast has been praised by James Harkin of No Such Thing as a Fish,[15] and by economist Tim Harford.[16] Joshua Gelernter of The Weekly Standard described Futility Closet as "one of the most interesting websites on the internet."[17] Michael Förtsch of Wired.de named the Futility Closet Podcast as one of seven podcasts to make you smarter.[18] The podcast was praised by Colin Patrick of Mental Floss, by Jennifer K. Bauer of Inland360.com,[19] and by Kayla Matthews of Makeuseof.com, who praised Greg Ross's scrupulous research.[20] Gizmodo's Robbie Gonzalez praised the site's lateral thinking puzzles.[21] Futility Closet was praised by Steve Dodson of the linguistics blog Languagehat,[22] and was cited by the linguist Ben Yagoda at the Lingua Franca blog.[23]

Futility Closet's segment on the Canadian candy boycott was featured on CBC Radio.[24]

Support

At the time of its launch, the podcast was supported chiefly by advertisements and one-time donations. By the end of 2014 a Patreon campaign had been established.[25]

See also

References
  1. Mark Frauenfelder (October 17, 2011). "Interview with Futility Closet blogger Greg Ross / Boing Boing". Boingboing.net. Retrieved August 26, 2017.
  2. "Books". Futility Closet. November 22, 2013. Retrieved August 26, 2017.
  3. Antonick, Gary (February 10, 2014). "The Necktie Paradox". Wordplay. The New York Times. Retrieved January 18, 2018.
  4. Conway's RATS Sequence Futility Closet:  Science & Math, March 30, 2017
  5. Golomb Rulers Futility Closet:  Science & Math, November 12, 2014
  6. A Clueless Crossword by Lee Sallows Futility Closet: Science & Math, February 14, 2018
  7. Antonick, Gary (October 3, 2016). "The Prisoners' Paradox (Published 2016)". The New York Times – via NYTimes.com.
  8. "Plataformas web para nunca dejar de aprender". February 15, 2017.
  9. Morales, Miguel Ángel (March 22, 2017). "No solo de números consecutivos vive el cuadrado mágico". El País – via elpais.com.
  10. "Il paradosso della decimazione - Maurizio Codogno". Il Post. January 14, 2013.
  11. "Podcast Episode 1: Calendar Reform, Doll Mansions, and Hitchcock's Vertigo". Futility Closet. March 17, 2014. Retrieved August 26, 2017.
  12. "Podcast Episode 50: The Great Tea Race". Futility Closet. March 23, 2015.
  13. "Doug Ross Latest News". dougross.net.
  14. "Podcast Episode 11: A Woolf in Sheikh's Clothing". May 26, 2014.
  15. "Episode 131: No Such Thing as Walking the Life Jacket by No Such Thing as a Fish | Free Listening on SoundCloud". Archived from the original on November 9, 2016. Retrieved August 24, 2017.
  16. "Tim Harford — Article — The five best economics podcasts of 2016". Timharford.com. February 2, 2016. Retrieved August 26, 2017.
  17. Gelernter, Joshua (November 26, 2016). "Bob Dylan and the Great Poetry Hoax". The Weekly Standard. Retrieved January 18, 2018.
  18. "Diese 7 Podcasts machen euch schlauer". Auto und Technik | GQ. February 17, 2017.
  19. Bauer, Jennifer K. "Staff Picks: "Futility Closet" podcast". Inland 360.
  20. "The 15 Best True Story Podcasts for Real Crazy Stories". MUO. December 1, 2016.
  21. "Sunday Puzzle Hiatus: Try Some Lateral Thinking Puzzles On For Size". io9. May 24, 2015.
  22. "languagehat.com : FUTILITY CLOSET". languagehat.com.
  23. "The Strange Saga of Gobbledygook". May 5, 2016.
  24. "CBC Podcast Playlist 90".
  25. "Podcast Episode 38: The Thunder Stone". Futility Closet. December 14, 2014. Retrieved August 26, 2017.
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