The Texas power grid channeled an NFL defense’s “bend but don’t break” strategy yesterday as record temperatures tested the state’s banged-up electrical infrastructure.

Sunday was Texas’s second-hottest day since at least 1950 and the state’s primary grid operator, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), urged residents to conserve energy between 2pm and 8pm Monday to keep demand from outstripping available power supply and avoid blackouts.

By conserving energy, it meant holding off on running large household appliances, such as dishwashers and washing machines, and cranking up the thermostat to 78 degrees minimum—steamy, but basically an ice bath compared to the record 110-degree temp Austin faced on Sunday.

ERCOT is taking these dramatic steps because it’s got very little wiggle room. Between 2pm and 3pm yesterday, the grid could generate an estimated 80,168 megawatts (MW), while demand was expected to hit 79,671 MW. That’d be a record for July, topping the previous high-water mark for demand set on Friday with 78,204 MW.

With temperatures expected to remain sizzling into today, officials are preparing for the worst-case scenario. For example, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner instructed the city’s emergency departments to step in should the power grid fail.

How did it come to this?

As mentioned, Texas is dealing with unprecedented demand thanks to the record heat. And the power supply isn’t at full-strength, either. With hardly a breeze blowing through the Texas plains, wind generation was less than 10% of its capacity on Monday, ERCOT said.

But the power issues only add to longstanding concerns Texans have with their electricity supply, which has found itself on the brink before.

• In May, residents were asked to conserve power during a heat wave in which six power plants were knocked offline.
• And they won’t soon forget the crisis of February 2021, when a winter storm knocked out power for millions of people and led to hundreds of deaths. The grid was mere minutes away from total collapse.

Big picture: Texas’s electrical woes have become a focal point of the state’s gubernatorial election this fall. Democratic challenger Beto O’Rourke has repeatedly accused Gov. Greg Abbott of failing to shore up Texas’s power infrastructure so that it functions smoothly.—NF

James Webb gets its pictures developed: President Biden revealed the first full-color image taken by NASA’s $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope, which can capture the highest quality and most detailed pictures of space of any telescope ever built. The telescope snapped the sharpest and deepest picture of our universe to date, showing a mess of galaxies that no human has seen before. It’s a teaser ahead of the release of more images this morning, which will show far-out space phenomena as they would have looked up to 13 billion years ago—not long after the Big Bang—in stunning resolution.

Birth control right next to the Mucinex. French drugmaker HRA Pharma asked the FDA to allow its birth control pill to be sold over-the-counter in the US. It’s the first time the US has considered OTC birth control, and comes as states begin to limit access to reproductive health care post Roe-reversal (the timing was coincidental, the company said). If the pill is approved, the US would join the 100+ other countries that currently offer birth control without a doctor’s note.

GameStop has a thing for timing: The retailer released its long-awaited NFT marketplace as part of its push into the digital realm. Just one problem: The NFT space is in worse shape than Texas’s power grid. In June, monthly sales of the digital items came in below $1 billion for the first time in a year, while sales volume on the world’s largest NFT marketplace, OpenSea, crashed more than 70% in June from the month prior, according to Bloomberg.

On this day in 1979, nearly 50,000 people packed Comiskey Park on the southwest side of Chicago to watch local DJ and notorious disco hater Steve Dahl blow up a bunch of disco records in between a White Sox doubleheader. “Disco Demolition Night” remains one of the seminal events in music history, reflecting the homophobic and racist backlash to a music genre with roots in gay and racial minority communities.

What happened: In an effort to attract more fans to attend a not-so-spectacular Sox season, the team partnered with Dahl to offer 98-cent tickets to anyone who brought a disco record to explode.

The promotion turned out to be very successful—too successful. The crowd devolved into a full-on riot, with thousands of mostly young, white men rushing the field to destroy records. One eyewitness, a former Comiskey Park usher, told the Guardian in 2019 that he noticed a lot of attendees didn’t even bother to bring disco albums—they just brought “anything made by a Black artist.”

Mike Veeck, the White Sox’s promotion director and son of team owner Bill Veeck, has pushed back on the idea that the crowd was motivated by racial or anti-gay animus. “That angers me,” he told WBUR in 2019. “It had simply to do with choosing between rock ‘n’ roll and disco and dance clubs.”

Zoom out: Disco was a $4 billion-a-year industry at the end of 1979, but by then it was on the decline. Some say July 12, 1979, was the day disco died.—MM

Dippin’ Dots, which once hailed itself as the “ice cream of the future,” has been a theme park staple since the 1990s. Nothing had the power to thrill, entice, and lead little brothers to full several-hour-long meltdowns quite like the flash-frozen novelty dessert. While many onetime Dippin’ Dots stans have lost touch with the treat, it hasn’t stopped hustling. In late June, J&J Snack Foods closed its acquisition of the company for $222 million.

It’s easy to imagine the timeline if Dippin’ Dots debuted today: It would instantly be the official ice cream of F1, its Twitter would use the voice of a 23-year-old nihilistic crypto enthusiast, and it would have a market value surpassing Ford and GM combined within six months. But Dippin’ Dots was invented in 1988 in Paducah, Kentucky, by a microbiologist who was trying to make cow feed. So, the company’s had a slightly rockier road:

• Due to their extreme freezing temperature (-40 degrees Fahrenheit), Dippin’ Dots can’t be kept at home or in grocery stores, so the company had to focus on selling the product at more novel locations, like theme parks.
• It succeeded, moving $47 million of product at its peak in 2006.
• Dippin’ Dots lost a nine-year legal battle with a competitor and filed for bankruptcy in 2011.
• A 2019 plant explosion and the pandemic rocked the company’s sales.

Through it all, though, Dippin’ Dots lives to melt another day. The ice cream beads are currently sold in seven countries, and can be purchased (surrounded by lots of dry ice) for home delivery.—MK

Stat: Lofi Girl’s YouTube video “lofi hip hop radio - beats to relax/study to” has more than 668 million views. But people seeking out chill beats have had to look elsewhere, because that video and another Lofi Girl vid were mistakenly removed by YouTube on Sunday after being served a copyright takedown notice. YouTube said later that the takedown claim was abusive and pledged to reinstate both videos.

Quote: “No.”

Costco CEO Craig Jelinek told CNBC the company will not be raising prices on its hot dogs no matter how many times you ask. But people are asking, because Costco has recently raised prices on some other food court items, such as its chicken bake ($2.99 → $3.99) and 20-ounce soda ($0.59 → $0.69). Costco’s hot dog and soda combo has cost $1.50 since its introduction in the mid-1980s.

Read: On BS in investing. (Noahpinion)

This should keep you occupied: An interactive history of the world, as told through Wikipedia articles.

Avalanche POV: Here’s what it looks like to be staring down an avalanche in Kyrgyzstan as it hurtles toward you. (The tourist who took this video, and others with him, survived.)

Some people have a lot of time on their hands: And they make masterpieces like this.

Join the experiment: Malcolm Gladwell isn’t worried about being wrong—at least, not on this season of Revisionist History, his podcast about things misunderstood and overlooked. Why? Because the list of things we don’t know is way longer than the things we do. Listen now.

Brew Mini: Refresh your memory of The Queen’s Gambit, the Roswell UFO sighting, and songs that ____ in today’s Mini crossword. Play it here.

Stadium trivia

After 21 years as Heinz Field, the Pittsburgh Steelers’ stadium is getting a new name: Acrisure Stadium, named after the Michigan-based insurance company that acquired the naming rights.

Here’s a quiz: There are only three NFL stadiums that are not named after corporate sponsors. Can you identify them?

Many states have taken steps toward cannabis legalization, but federal law still prohibits its sale and consumption. What does this mean for the legal weed economy? Watch now to learn more.

For more from the Brew:

What does it mean to be a “multi-hyphenate” and make it all work? On Business Casual, Nora investigates with entrepreneur Hitha Palepu. Listen or watch here.

🛍 Loyalty is everything. Julie Bornstein turned that motto into millions with Sephora’s Beauty Insider program. Here’s how she did it.