Our Fantasy Dinner Party Guest List just grew

Canapes perennially at the ready for Dave (Trott), Rory (Sutherland) and Bob (Hoffman). Extra place setting now for Russell (Davies). He wrote this defence of powerpoint.

Rare, no?

And now for a short quiz:

  1. Your presentations always get remarked upon for their wit, style and creativeness.Yes – liar 😉
    No – have a read of this: how to do great presentations.

From an embittered, pretentious creative

Why creative people have lost their way.

Creativity in our [ad] industry is not dying because creative people are becoming less creative. It’s because they’re increasingly being asked to behave like business people and to put business interests ahead of creative work.

All knowing, all seeing, all confused

Now for AI.

Of course you know everything about it.

So do I.

Apart from perhaps everything I thought I knew…

“Stop pretending you really know what AI is, and read this instead”

Let’s consider for a second what we talk about when we talk about AI. Because I’m not sure many of us really know—or, at the very least, we’re not talking/arguing/worrying about the same things.

The Toilet Paper Principle

Staying on the tech theme, Tim Hartford writes about what we get wrong about technology – with a lovely Blade Runner allegory at the beginning.

Toilet paper seems a long way from the printing revolution. And it is easily overlooked — as we occasionally discover in moments of inconvenience. But many world-changing inventions hide in plain sight in much the same way — too cheap to remark on, even as they quietly reorder everything. We might call this the “toilet-paper principle”.

One for Obsessive Compulsive data nerds

How close can 2 houses be that have identical house numbers and street names? (And why are they all located in the north west of England?) Here’s a great tale about someone who obsessively sought out an answer. Funny.

The country that doesn’t exist

To finish, some lovely photos from Transnistria. You know the place. Famous for… oh you know.




From the archives

If you like The100, maybe even found it vaguely enjoyable (steady now),
you can have a ganders at our previous issues. Fill your boots.

24 July, 2026

The100: Finding the words, scrolling no more and 149,677 maps

Finding the words So, you’ve got your insight (yay!). But now you need to articulate it in a way…

10 July, 2026

The100: Vending machine psychology, competitive rooms and yellow stripey things

Definitely or maybe? Would you rather the chance to win something for free, or be certain of…

26 June, 2026

The100: Empathy maps, World Cup stats and Elias Thorne

Clamber inside their head Next time you want to put yourself in someone else's shoes (and after…