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I once found a $250 million dollar airplane in the footnotes.

I've sorta lucked into a unique volunteer position that I quite enjoy, purely as a result of "oh I tried that during my phase of being really into it. Here's how to make it work" type AuDHD.

100%

exactly. you always find things you didn't know you didn't know, and they're often more interesting than what you were looking for in the first place.

I found a listing for my own house when I was looking up what kind of rent my protagonist would be paying in 2014 It had tripled in price in 20 years

One bit that made it into my book: in a telegram, the sender expressed his excitement by writing "hot ziggity!" and the telegraph operator on the receiving end printed the phrase a second time and pasted it on the cover sheet. Just a small reminder that living people made these documents.

I LOVE searching for something, reading the section, finding a little string to follow, and just... following it. String by string, blocked only by SAE/IEC/ISO paywalls...

They're great hooks for general discussions.

That’s literally the best part. Finding some obscure detail that you and like 12 other people know about is so fun

I’ve said for decades that my superpower is that I can find *anything* fascinating.

This is it, for me open.substack.com/pub/cardcata...

Agreed! As a planetary geologist grad student, I formulated my dissertation direction by just browsing through the highest resolution imagery and finding cool features that either a) I couldn’t easily explain or b) just interested me. Exploration work involves pouring over data looking for gems.

as an autistic person who finds peace within granular details, genAI is abhorant and insulting