I’ve been literally forced to write this post. My hands have been dragged to the keyboard and my mind has been controlled. Never would a person who claims to be rational, scientific and no-nonsense would write on something as unscientific as why number 23 is special. For the uninformed, there is something deeply mysterious, extremely special and wonderfully interesting about 23. The phenomenon is called as 23 Enigma.

When I first heard about it, it was yet another overhyped meme for me. But slowly, and definitely steadily, I started identifying 23 in everyday phenomenon around me. Now, not a day passes without me seeing 23 somewhere around me. And it is not just me, by showing examples, I have convinced several of my friends about this odd belief of mine.

That said, internally, I debate endlessly with myself whether what I observe is just an artifact of confirmation bias where what one observes is typically due to what one wants to observe. Soon I plan to start a journal where I would try to statistically see if observation of 23 is more frequent than what is expected by random chance.

Do you observe 23 as well? I would be really interested in listening to your story.

BTW: Would you be shocked if I predict that within next two days you are certain to observe number 23 somewhere around you

I randomly stumbled across many interesting April Fools pranks on the Internet today. So, I thought of sharing them here:

• Youtube’s Flip
• Opera’s Facial Gestures
• Google’s 3D Browsing
• Pirate Bay’s acquisition by Warner Bros.
• Guardian’s decision to publish only on Twitter
• Amazon’s helium baloons hosted on clouds

Enjoy! I will try to add more as I come across them. Do let me know if you any interesting pranks.