Numlock News: September 23, 2022 • Dingers, Kigali, Perseverance
By Walt HickeyHave a great weekend! FuneralThere are 19,000 funeral homes in the United States, a $23 billion industry where 80 percent of the facilities are individually owned and operated. This situation — lots of money, a necessary service, tons of small indie shops — is pretty much bait for private equity businesses looking to buy up lots of funeral homes, raise prices and roll them up into larger entities. A 2021 survey by the National Funeral Directors Association found 27 percent of owners plan to retire or sell within the next five years, and people are certainly buying: Of the 3,800 homes that are owned by funeral home chains, about 1,000 are owned by private equity-backed companies. When private equity rolls in, prices go up, such as when Angel Valley Funeral Home in Tucson cashed out, the price jumped from $3,405 for a full funeral to $4,480. Markian Hawryluk, California Healthline 61Aaron Judge of the New York Yankees has 60 home runs this season, just one shy of the pre-steroid record of Roger Maris. That’s sent the prices for tickets on the secondary market spiking, with the list price for remaining home games up 121 percent, hopping from $114 to $252. That being said, because people are really aiming to go to Yankee Stadium and catch a historical dinger, rather than the “nicer” seats it’s actually the seats in the bleachers that are really spiking: A right field seat at the game on Saturday against Boston is going for $413, up from $96 on Tuesday. Starting GunIn track and field, there’s actually a weird rule where you’re technically not allowed to start the race until after the starting gun, but specifically you’re not actually allowed to start racing until 0.1 seconds after the gun. This was originally designed because World Athletics assumed that it was actually physiologically impossible to react that quickly, and if you start within 0.1 seconds you were actually false starting. For lots of racers, this has meant they’re disqualified even though they did not, actually, jump the gun: TyNia Gaither started 0.093 seconds after the gun at the World Athletics Championships in July and was disqualified, Julien Alfred started 0.095 seconds after the gun, and Devon Allen started 0.099 seconds after. Noam Hassenfeld and Brian Resnick, Vox JapanJapan has announced it will end most pandemic-era inbound tourism restrictions on October 11, resuming visa-free entry. Daily arrivals had been capped at 50,000 and had only been allowed with package tours with visas, but now visa-free travel from 68 countries has been greenlit. Prior to the pandemic, Japan had 31.8 million visitors in 2019. KigaliThe Senate ratified the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol by a 69-27 vote. The Montreal Protocol, arguably the most successful international accord ever, was created to ban the chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) that were depleting the ozone layer. It successfully accomplished that, and now the ozone hole is pretty much gone; solid work all around. The Kigali Amendment commits developed countries to cut the use of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) by 85 percent by 2036, making the U.S. the 138th country to sign on. HFCs are used as refrigerants, but they are also highly destructive greenhouse gases, and the plan is to move to alternative refrigerants. The mandate to drop HFCs will generate $39 billion in economic benefits and create some 150,000 jobs. RoverThe Perseverance rover will deposit 10 or 11 samples of Mars rocks at a site on the floor of the Jezero crater sometime as soon as November. It’s the Plan B for a forthcoming mission, the Mars Sample Return mission, that will use a rocket to bring rock samples to an orbiting spacecraft that will in turn return them to Earth by 2033. The main plan is that the Perseverance rover will directly deliver a larger set of 30 rock samples to the rocket in 2030, but just in case something goes wrong between now and then the cache of rocks it’ll deliver in the next few months is there to ensure the mission isn’t a total loss. CopperCopper is a critical metal for electronics, and so it’s generally held to be a necessary component for a growing economy. For example, there are about 400 pounds of copper in a single-family home, 65 pounds in a car, and double that in an electric vehicle. It’s generally accepted that long-term we’re going to need a lot of copper — demand will double to 50 million metric tons by 2035 as more things are electrified — but the problem is lots of people are worried that the economy might not be growing right now, and so as a result in the short term mine supply growth is going to peak in two years and prices are down by a third since March. This could lead to major shortfalls down the line. Very fun Sunday edition last week: It’s another podcast edition! I spoke to Max Fisher, author of the new book The Chaos Machine: The Inside Story of How Social Media Rewired Our Minds and Our World. It’s a fascinating book that looks at the science — the neurology, the social science, the psychology — of what social media usage does to us. The book can be found wherever books are sold, online and IRL and at independent bookstores. Max is on Twitter at @max_fisher. Thanks to the paid subscribers to Numlock News who make this possible. Subscribers guarantee this stays ad-free, and get a special Sunday edition. Consider becoming a full subscriber today. The best way to reach new readers is word of mouth. If you click THIS LINK in your inbox, it’ll create an easy-to-send pre-written email you can just fire off to some friends. Send links to me on Twitter at @WaltHickey or email me with numbers, tips or feedback at walt@numlock.news. Send corrections or typos to the copy desk at copy@numlock.news. Check out the Numlock Book Club and Numlock award season supplement. 2022 Sunday subscriber editions: Giant Hornets · Graphic Novels · Infotainment · Nuclear Energy · Fast Fashion · Salty · Twitter Friction · Fangirls · Air Quality · Non-Colonial AI · The Reckoning · Hippos · Fixing Baseball · Booze Trials · Oprahdemics · Losing It · Sustainable Cities · F1 · Coughgeist · Black Panther ·Car Dealerships · Black-Footed Ferret · Oil to Clothing · Just Like Us · How To Read This Chart · Pharma waste · Arcade Games · Blood in the Garden · Trading Cards · College Football2020 Sunday Edition Archive2019 Sunday Edition Archive2018 Sunday Edition ArchiveYou’re a free subscriber to Numlock News. For the full experience, become a paid subscriber. |
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Numlock News: September 22, 2022 • K-Pop, Lorcana, Mexican Beer
Thursday, September 22, 2022
By Walt Hickey Lorcana Next year Disney's releasing a new card game called Lorcana, the first seven cards of which were released at the D23 convention two weeks ago. To be clear, the game does not
Numlock News: September 21, 2022 • Wolves, Indie Music, Vultures
Wednesday, September 21, 2022
By Walt Hickey Sell-off From 2013 to 2018, Chinese firms were net buyers of $52 billion in US commercial real estate, including office buildings and hotels, with particular attention on Manhattan.
Numlock News: September 20, 2022 • Deorbiting, Ants, Hurricane
Tuesday, September 20, 2022
By Walt Hickey Lithium The price of lithium carbonate hit a new record on Friday at 500500 yuan ($71315) per ton in China, up more than 1150 percent from the pandemic-era low in July 2020. The price
Numlock News: September 19, 2022 • Duesseldorf, Tetrapod, Phantom
Monday, September 19, 2022
By Walt Hickey The Woman King The new Viola Davis movie The Woman King made $19 million in North America this past weekend on the back of great reviews, beating the studio's $12 million expectation
Numlock News: September 16, 2022 • Stamps, Scouts, Saturn
Friday, September 16, 2022
By Walt Hickey Today's the last day of the best sale of the year. Thanks so much to all the many folks who have taken advantage of it, you're going to love the bonus Sunday editions and your
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