Numlock News: January 13, 2021 • Pancakes, Narcs, Manga
By Walt HickeyWhistleThe U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said it received 6,900 tips alleging white collar crimes in the fiscal year that ended in September. That is a 31 percent jump over the previous cycle. Narcing on a crooked colleague can lead to a pretty healthy payday, given the SEC program of paying whistle-blowers a percentage of the take from a successful investigation, and for some reason back in March people had a lot more time on their hands for some reason! Over the course of the pandemic, the SEC paid out $330 million in awards, with $114 million going to one person in October. While the SEC absolutely never reveals the name of whistle-blowers, if Gary from Accounts Receivable starts snapping Instagrams from David Geffen’s yacht that’s his business. Matt Robinson and Benjamin Bain, Bloomberg BreakfastBreakfast as a concept has been a rare winner of the pandemic, with the absence of commutes for many leading to a more reliable pursuit of the first meal of the day. In 2020, home consumption of pancakes grew 25 percent over 2019, bacon was up 15 percent, and waffles were up 20 percent. Even the $8.5 billion cold cereal category, which had been in decline, bounced back. With the possibility of a return to normal approaching, the makers of those cereals are fretting about how to ensure that people will remain — to use industry jargon — cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. Christopher Doering, Food Dive 996The 996 office schedule has workers coming in from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. working six days per week, and at many companies in the tech industry in China it’s considered standard. As anyone who has ridden it too hard for too long can attest, that’s really not sustainable for humans, and many are disengaging from the workforce as a result. Of the 8.7 million university graduates produced in China last year, 80 percent surveyed hoped to earn at least 5,000 yuan ($770) a month at their first job, but less than 30 percent ended up getting that number. In a not unsurprising development, men 21 to 30 are in aggregate working less, spending 2.3 more hours per week on leisure activities from 2014 to 2017 than they had a decade prior and working 1.8 fewer hours. CornThe USDA came out with a surprising report on Tuesday that cut the 2020 national average corn yield by 3.8 bushels per acre, which appears to be among the largest revisions on record. This brought the average number of bushels produced per acre to 172, but applied across the country the figure was seriously breathtaking. Nationally, this was a 324 million bushel drop in production, which prompted a pop in the price of corn. Given that pretty much everything you consume, put on your body or purchase in one way or another entails corn as a precursor, this is pretty big news. MangaBooming manga sales have pushed Japan’s book market to a rebound, driven by the commercial success of a film based on the Demon Slayer manga series as well as buoyed sales due to people having more time to sit around and read. Teikoku Databank estimated that the book market was ¥1.22 trillion ($11.7 billion), which was 80 percent of the value 10 year ago, but as of the end of 2020 was ¥1.24 trillion ($11.9 billion), the first increase in years. As of November 2020, 10 bookshops had filed for bankruptcy in Japan, less than the record low of 15 in 2001. Training A DatasetSeismologists prospecting for platinum in Canada are looking for evidence of the mineral by recording the hum of freight trains, providing a cheap way to image the shallow parts of the Earth’s crust. According to a presentation given to the American Geophysical Union, moving freight trains generate tremors equivalent to a magnitude 2 earthquake. Using an array of 1,000 seismometers 8 to 15 kilometers around a railway over the course of 30 days, the researchers were able to derive three-dimensional images of the seismic velocity distribution in the area. Rachel Berkowitz, Physics Today StreamsSpending on steaming services and software is projected to hit $112 billion this year, up 11 percent over 2020. Last year saw an enormous burst in spending, and according to the Consumer Technology Association was up 31 percent over 2019. Spending on streaming subscriptions was projected to hit $41 billion, plus another $10 billion from music, audiobook and podcast streaming subscriptions. Quibi valiantly gave its life for this, lest we forget. Carolyn Giardina, The Hollywood Reporter 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. Go to swag.numlock.news to claim some free merch when you invite someone. 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. 2020 Sunday subscriber editions: 2020 · Sibling Rivalries · Crosswords · Bleak Friday · Prop 22 · NCAA · Guitars · Fumble Dimension · The Mouse · Subprime Attention Crisis · Factory Farms · Streaming Summer · Dynamite · One Billion Americans · Defector · Seams of the Grid · Bodies of Work · Working in Public · Rest of World · Worst Quarter ·Larger Than Life · Streaming · Wildlife Crime · Climate Solutions · Blue Skies · UV · Facial Recognition · Vaccine Development · The Pudding · Burmese Pythons ·Comics Future · Comics History · Streaming · COBOL · Esoteric Political History · Instagram · Weird · Copper · Transit · Shakespeare · Hot Hand · 2020 Movies · AB5 · Sharing · Astronauts · Casper · Minimalism · Ghost Gear · Tech jobs · Directors2019 Sunday Edition Archive2018 Sunday Edition ArchiveYou’re on the free list for Numlock News. For the full experience, become a paying subscriber. |
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Numlock News: January 14, 2021 • Dire Wolves, Fighter Jets, Hydrogen
Friday, January 15, 2021
By Walt Hickey F-35 The Pentagon's testing office reports that the F-35 fighter jet currently has 871 software and hardware deficiencies, which is down from the 873 flaws inventoried last year.
Numlock News: January 12, 2021 • Spacecraft, Whiskey, Disaster
Tuesday, January 12, 2021
By Walt Hickey Disastrous The year 2020 will go down as a rough one on a couple of different levels, and a new report from NOAA bolsters that rep as a disastrous year even further: per the agency, 2020
Numlock News: January 11, 2021 • Quibi, Dry January, Fortnite
Monday, January 11, 2021
By Walt Hickey Welcome back! Fortnite Epic Games will pay $95 million to purchase the Cary Towne Center, a mall in North Carolina, to convert into a new global headquarters. This is a situation where
Numlock Sunday: Alex Davies on the birth of the autonomous car
Sunday, January 10, 2021
Listen now (25 min) | By Walt Hickey Welcome to the Numlock Sunday edition. Each week, I'll sit down with an author or a writer behind one of the stories covered in a previous weekday edition for a
Numlock News: January 8, 2021 • Moon Water, Stellar Winds, YA Novels
Friday, January 8, 2021
By Walt Hickey Have a great weekend! Everyone gets the Sunday edition this weekend, it's with my friend Alex Davies who published a great book during a rough week. Land An auction of Arctic
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