Numlock News: July 8, 2024 • Minions, Gundams, Despicable Me
By Walt HickeyWelcome back! AnimationTurns out that it’s generally a profitable notion to release animated films intended for families, especially during the summer months when kids are off from school. This obviously countermands the established wisdom previously espoused by studios, which held that it’s a better strategy to spend lots of money producing animated films and then swiftly dump them off on streaming services, or of course cancel family films postproduction for the tax benefits, like with Coyote vs. ACME. Two films challenged this foolproof, ironclad game plan, and are reaping the profits for their daring feat of releasing a film for children in a movie theater of all places. Despicable Me 4 made $122.6 million over its first five days of release and a global cume of $229.5 million, all on a budget of $100 million. Inside Out 2 continues to truck along, hitting $1.2 billion globally this past weekend. BerriesDriscoll’s, the dominant producer of berries in North America, has spent years of R&D to expand their production yields and improve the berry product, and their efforts are being rewarded. The American berry market is now worth $9 billion annually, up 40 percent over the past five years, fueled by the flagship strawberry but nevertheless boosted by berries blue, rasp and black. The latest push is Driscoll’s Sweetest Batch, a branding for the premium tier of berry that fetches a significant price premium of around 30 percent. Ben Cohen, The Wall Street Journal MonologueA new study offers evidence that not everyone has an “inner voice” in their heads, and the extent and intensity of that voice varies considerably from person to person, having real impacts on how people think. The study looked at a ranking of 1,037 subjects based on their results of the Internal Representations Questionnaire, which attempts to gauge the extent to which people are engaging with an inner voice, like how much they’d agree with the prompt, “I think about problems in my mind in the form of a conversation with myself.” In the new study, they took 47 participants who had especially high scores on the IRQ and 46 participants who had especially low scores, and conducted a number of tests related to recall and repetition of words, rhyme detection, switching quickly between tasks, and so on. They found that there were considerable differences in performance on given tasks, an argument in favor of the presence and absence of an inner voice. This is wild — I mean, if people don’t have an inner voice, who reminds you of embarrassing things you did 15 years ago right before you go to sleep? Simon Makin, Scientific American GundamsAction figures based on anime and manga products have become very popular outside of Japan, their traditional home base and primary market. This in turn has sent demand up even if the popularity of the figurines produced for the domestic market can’t keep pace. As a result, fueled by overseas demand, prices are way up: The average price of a Mobile Suit Gundam figurine increased 130 percent from 2,812 yen in 2014 to 6,354 yen today. Dragon Ball figurines saw prices spike 190 percent over the same period, with One Piece figurines up 110 percent. Overall, half of revenue from the global sale of anime products now comes from overseas, with international sales growing sixfold in the past decade. That’s all well and good, but how on earth do you expect Shinji to get in the damn robot if it’s more than double the price of a decade ago? SocksThe latest salvo in intergenerational warfare is related to socks. If you wear low-cut socks, the youngs think you’re old. No-show socks are out; mid-calf high socks are in. Hanes reports that sales of socks that rise above the ankle are up 5.9 percent since 2021, while sales of the low-cut socks that were recently popular are down 3.8 percent over the same period. Bombas, another sockmonger, said that sales of no-show socks are down 9 percent in April compared to the same month of last year. Chavie Lieber, The Wall Street Journal TrashThis year, a team of soldiers and Sherpas funded by the government of Nepal removed 11 tons of garbage, four dead bodies, and a skeleton from Mount Everest, part of a campaign to clean up one of the most important tourism sites in the entire region. The team’s Sherpa leader estimated that there could still be as much as 40 to 50 tons of garbage remaining at South Col, which is the final camp used by climbers before they make a go for the summit. Hauling out accumulated trash is annoying in any natural environment or heavily used trail, but this trash is frozen in layers at an 8,000-meter altitude, which complicates the endeavor even further. The oldest waste found was from 1957, a set of rechargeable batteries for lights; the first successful attempt on the summit was in 1953. NickelNickel is an increasingly important element in lots of crucial parts of the economy, particularly around the production of electric vehicles and their batteries. Prices closed at $17,291 per tonne at the end of June, down from the $21,688 per tonne notched at the end of last year. Fitch predicts that at least for this year, prices are going to remain low, estimating $18,000 per tonne given excess supply, but that’s not going to last forever. Even with production in China and a ramp-up of production in Indonesia, they’re forecasting a surge in demand, with prices hitting $21,500 per tonne in 2028 and $26,000 per tonne in 2033. 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. 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. Previous Sunday subscriber editions: The Internationalists · Video Game Funding · BYD · Disney Channel Original Movie · Talon Mine · Our Moon · Rock Salt · Wind Techs · Yeezys · Armed Forces · Christmas Music · The Golden Screen · New York Hotels · A City on Mars · Personality Change · Graphics · You Are What You Watch ·Comics Data · Extremely Online · Kevin Perjurer · Kia Theft Spree · Right to Repair · Chicken Sandwich WarsSunday Edition Archives: 2022 · 2021 · 2020 · 2019 · 2018You're currently a free subscriber to Numlock News. 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Numlock News: July 5, 2024 • Floppy Disks, Fireworks, Cave Art
Friday, July 5, 2024
By Walt Hickey Have a great weekend! Two bits of business! First up is that last week's Sunday edition was released in podcast format as well. You can check out the Numlock Podcast on Apple and
Numlock News: July 3, 2024 • Fervo, Upflation, Wizards of the Coast
Wednesday, July 3, 2024
By Walt Hickey We're off tomorrow! Americans, have an excellent Independence Day, and everyone else enjoy your Thursday. Trading Cards The market for trading cards is leveling off, after rising
Numlock News: July 2, 2024 • Mt. Fuji, Paleotempestology, Arctic Ocean
Tuesday, July 2, 2024
By Walt Hickey Mt. Fuji Japan continues to ride out what locals consider to be overtourism, and has been implementing new strategies to limit the numbers who can visit certain attractive areas. The
Numlock News: July 1, 2024 • Kei, Libraries, K'NEX
Monday, July 1, 2024
By Walt Hickey Welcome back! Box Office Inside Out 2 continues its tear at the box office, adding another $57 million to its domestic total and pushing its global gross to $1.01 billion. Behind it was
Numlock News: June 28, 2024 • Scribes, Soccer, Webtoon
Friday, June 28, 2024
By Walt Hickey Have a great weekend! Scribes The Czech Institute of Egyptology has 221 Old Kingdom skeletons from almost 200 tombs in storage, of which 102 are male. The institute has been studying the
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