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June 16, 2022
Just found out that 7/11 makes its Slurpees with machines licensed from ICEE. Although this dampens an iconic rivalry, it imparts a very valuable lesson: Keep your friends close and your frozen carbonated beverage enemies closer. Foes who cause brain freeze together, stay together.
In today's edition:
- Art of windbending
- "Drink less tea"
- Clue 3 + Bonus
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 Key Stories
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Madrid Announces Wind Garden
Spanish authorities announced a “wind garden” in Madrid that will lower temperatures in the city
- City officials are building a 36 acre (14.5 hectare) park north of the city with a wind tower designed to redirect cool breezes through streets. City planners predict that it may reduce temperatures by as much as 7.2°F (4°C) in nearby neighborhoods
- Spain is one of Europe’s hottest countries and prone to heatwaves. Summer highs often exceed 104°F (40°C)
- Wind tower tech first became prevalent in the Middle East, where comparable structures are used
Dig Deeper
- The Khalifa International Stadium, Qatar's main arena for 2022 FIFA World Cup, is primarily cooled by a massive wind tower that captures wind and prevents the cold from escaping. It is the largest such system in the world
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Fed Raises Rates to Curb Inflation
The US Federal Reserve (Fed) raised interest rates by 0.75% on Wednesday, the largest hike since 1994
- The Fed raises interest rates to slow economic activity and combat rising prices (inflation). Some fear the increase could lead the US into a recession
- Higher interest rates make it more expensive for people and companies to borrow money from lenders. When people borrow less, they spend less — slowing inflation but decreasing economic growth
- “Price stability is [the Fed’s] primary focus — if they risk a mild recession… that would still be successful,” a chief Oxford economist told the NYT
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Crypto Rout Continues
Bitcoin fell to $20,000 on Wednesday, continuing its months-long decline
- Cryptos are having their worst month ever as fears of a recession spook investors. Bitcoin is down ~70% from its high in November 2021; Ethereum is down ~75% from its high in November
- Losses are slamming some of the largest crypto funds, such as Celsius and Three Arrows Capital. Investors worry that the failure of a large fund will cause a domino effect, and others will fail
- Coinbase, the largest crypto exchange, laid off 18% of its workforce on Tuesday, citing market conditions
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Study: Vitamin D Linked to Dementia
An Australian study found a relationship between vitamin D deficiency and dementia. Vitamin D is found in foods such as oranges, salmon, and eggs
- Dementia refers to a set of related symptoms including memory loss and cognitive impairment. In the US, approximately 5.8M people suffer from it
- “In this UK population we observed that up to 17% of dementia cases might have been avoided by boosting vitamin D levels,” one researcher stated. The study tracked 300K+ UK citizens
- Conclusions may be limited as the study did not analyze patients against a placebo-controlled group
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 Popcorn |
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ICYMI
- How about another song, Murray? Joker 2 will reportedly be a musical sequel and may star Lady Gaga alongside Joaquin Phoenix
- Give me a hell no! WWE's board is looking into Vince McMahon's $3M payment to a female employee with whom he allegedly had an affair
- OG Wuhan: Researchers say the Black Plague, which killed ~50% of Europe, originated in Kyrgyzstan after finding the bacteria in graves
Wildcard
- Some like it hot: 25 people have been treated for burns after walking over a bed of hot coals as part of a team-building exercise in Switzerland
- Sad reali-tea: A Pakistani minister implored Pakistanis to drink less tea so that the tea-loving country can save money on tea imports
- Pop goes the diesel: Florida men allegedly stole 1,100 gallons of diesel fuel from a gas station this month. Authorities are pursuing them
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 What do you think?
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Today's Poll:
Have you ever listened to a BTS song?
Yes
No
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Today's Question:
What's something you're looking forward to this summer?
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See yesterday's results below the Wrap!
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 Roca Wrap
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We return to 15,000 feet (4,700m) in the Andes mountains for part 2 of 2 of our Wrap series on Miracle Flight 571, which crashed in the Andes mountains 17 days earlier.
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2 weeks after Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 crashed 15,000 feet (4,700m) in the Andes mountains, at least 2 dozen people were still alive – thanks to their decision to eat the dead. On day 17, though, tragedy struck.
An avalanche covered the plane’s remains, where survivors were sleeping, killing 8 people and burying their shelter. Snow filled the fuselage almost to the ceiling. Those who survived were trapped inside the plane for 3 days before digging themselves out.
The lack of warmth, food, and shelter put the group on a ticking clock. “We could expect daytime temperatures well above freezing,” one survivor later wrote, “but the nights were still cold enough to kill us, and we knew now that we couldn't expect to find shelter on the open slopes.”
As he died, one pilot had said they were on the western edge of the Andes. 3 of the group decided to head in that direction, thinking it’d be closest to civilization. Without gear, a map, or a compass, they trekked over a glacier and summited a 15,320 ft (4,670m) peak. At the top, they saw only more snow-covered mountains. "We're dead,” one of them remembered thinking.
1 of the 3 had turned back, but the other 2 kept trekking toward what appeared to be the only snowless mountains in view. “We may be walking to our deaths, but I would rather walk to meet my death than wait for it to come to me," one of them remembered saying.
On the sixth day of the trek, the snow disappeared and they found themselves in a lush valley with grass and water. “It was like going to a five star hotel. We could drink as much water as we wanted. A lizard was looking at me. I thought it was sending a warning, ‘What are you doing here? Why aren’t you dead?’”
“I had survived! I was back to life! It was a very important moment in the ordeal.”
After another 3 days, the men saw cows – one of the first signs that human life was near. Later that night, while starting a fire, they spotted 3 men on horseback. They conveyed their situation, and were brought to a village where they could rest.
A rescue team was dispatched soon after. By the time they reached the remaining survivors, it was 72 days after the crash. 16 people had survived.
The story was immediately news around the world, and within 3 days, pictures of half-eaten human legs were on the front-page of newspapers. That generated some backlash, including in the survivors’ devoutly Catholic nation of Uruguay, however a priest absolved the survivors of the sin, given the extreme circumstance. The survival story has since been marked with a monument in the mountains, a museum, and numerous books and movies.
Some of the survivors are still alive today, and the experience stays with them. When asked the “single most important lesson” one of the survivors took from the experience, he said, “That if you have sleep, water to drink, and decent food, you are lucky. Don’t wait for your plane to crash to realize how lucky you are. Be more grateful for life. You can wait for the helicopter, but don’t wait too long.”
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If you have thoughts, let us know at Max@RocaNews.com!
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 Roca Clubhouse
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Yesterday's Poll:
Should super loud motorcycles be illegal?
Yes: 70.2%
No: 29.8%
Yesterday's Question:
As Internet Explorer dies, which website will you most closely associate it with?
Logan from Minnesota: "Answer: I will definitely associate it with the classic browser games on sites like Cartoon Network, Addicting Games, Canopian, and many others. While some are still around, as an adult I don’t find myself on them anymore."
Bailey from California: "Perhaps ironically, Google's search engine. Next to that, Google Maps and Norad's Track Santa page."
Luke from Florida: "coolmath games"
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Today's Clue (Day 3 of 4):
Minerva stands before a sea of mud
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Day 2: Need a lot of postage for a secret marriage
Day 1: Even stands tall in enemy garb
We were so excited about our winners that we forgot to share our location from last week's Treasure Hunt in yesterday's newsletter!
The location was Tie Hack Memorial: A memorial 12mi (19km) northwest of Dubois, Wyoming that honors the loggers who cut railroad ties out of nearby forests.
The loggers earned the name “tie hacks” because they constructed the railroad “ties” from trees “hacked” by hand – hence, “tie hack.” A tie hack was no ordinary logger. Wyoming’s winters – the best seasons to cut down and debark trees – were long and cold, and the work was tiring and physical. The logging camps were rugged and isolated. Most of the tie hacks were from Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland.
In total, tie hacks constructed millions of ties from the late-1860s to the mid-1940s. In the early days, tie hacks would deliver their products to railroad construction sites by floating them down the Wind River. At peak production in the early 1900s, about 75 tie hacks delivered approximately 300,000 ties down the river each summer/spring season.
After industrialization introduced modern logging machinery and automobiles competed with rail travel, the need for tie hacks disappeared. But their legacy carries on in Tie Hack Memorial, which sits on a bluff overlooking the river where the ties once floated.
Clue 1: Divided, but known for equality
Our location is located in Wyoming, which is bisected by the continental divide, and also known as “The Equality State.”
Clue 2: How do you make a jam in the summer without any berries?
After harvesting the logs in the mountains, the tie hacks would float them down the Wind River in the spring/summer time to be treated, and there were frequent log jams.
Clue 3: Scandinavian phonetic toga party
Most of the tie hacks were Scandinavian and would cut trees from many forests in Wyoming’s Togwotee (pronounced toh-guh-tee) Pass mountain range.
(Bonus) Clue 4: Sit down and rest. And the boy did. And the tree was happy
This quote is from the final lines of “The Giving Tree” by Shel Silverstein. It references a boy who sits down on a tree stump. Tree stumps were all that remained from trees after tie hackers cut them down to construct the ties.
Clue 5: Bad golfer looks better in a Double Windsor
“Hacker” is a derogatory term in golf for a bad player, and a double Windsor is a type of “tie” knot.
Clue 6: I sit on a bluff, a breeze at my back, overlooking where my work used to float
The memorial sits on top of a bluff that overlooks the Wind River where the ties used to float.
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 Final Thoughts
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We tried to up the difficulty of last week's Treasure Hunt to near-impossible. Once again, you proved us that the Roca Riders are capable of anything. We can't believe that a number of people got Tie Hack Memorial. Congratulations to the winners!
Kinda want a Slurpee now. We need to normalize morning Slurpees...
- Max and Max
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