Odds & Ends: October 9, 2026

I thought hobos riding the rails got left behind in the 1930s, but the tradition is still alive in 2026, and there’s a guy with a YouTube channel who gives you a peek at what it’s like, including the perils that come with it. In this one, he rides a freight train through my fair town of Tulsa, OK, and I got to see the place from a perspective I’ve never seen before. Rail riding is illegal and dangerous, and I won’t be trying it myself, but it’s fun to watch somebody else do it.

For some interesting historical insights on how to hobo, check out this primer from 1937. Our tutorial on how to pick a lock is one of our all-time most popular articles on the site. If you’re looking to get started with this skill, this lock pick training kit is cool.

It comes with a tension wrench and four picks (and a key, of course, just in case). The lock is transparent so you can see what’s going on with the tumbler pins, which helps you understand what exactly you’re doing with the picks. I’ve used this with the teenage boys I lead at church when we have lock picking night.

Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War by Robert Coram. Apparently IG and TikTok influencers have discovered John Boyd and his OODA loop and are starting to talk it up to their followers, which got me thinking about this biography again. I read it several years ago and had Coram on the podcast to discuss Boyd.

The book also inspired several AoM articles, including “To Be or to Do” and my deep dive into the OODA loop. Boyd is an incredibly interesting figure from military history. He was an Air Force fighter pilot who never lost in mock dogfights with other American pilots and then came up with a theory of conflict the Marines built their doctrine around.

He also pissed a lot of people off along the way. While he made enemies of nearly every general in the Pentagon, Boyd ended up being right about a lot of stuff. Fun to see Boyd get some attention, even from the IG girlies.