Numlock News: August 19, 2021 • Pop Its, Theme Parks, Fusion Reactors
By Walt HickeyNot For Sale But For SaleAdvanced reader copies are pre-prints of forthcoming books that are often distributed for promotional or review purposes. They're often still due for one last pass from the copy editors, but they’re free, and part of the deal is you're not supposed to sell them. In reality, though, there's a thriving underground scene for such books, as eBay will show, and naturally the auction and rare book market loves them. An uncorrected proof of Cannery Row by John Steinbeck is available for $35,000, an early copy of The Old Man and the Sea is up for $28,000, and in May an uncorrected proof of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone fetched $29,000. Sophie Haigney, The Wall Street Journal The Park Is OpenTheme park revenues are bouncing back based on second quarter results, but are still a little muted. Attendance has been a rollercoaster ride over the past two years, but the recovery is real: Disney theme parks made $4.3 billion, catching back to the pre-pandemic $6.6 billion made in the same quarter of 2019, Universal's parks made $1.1 billion, nearing the $1.5 billion in the same quarter of 2019, and Six Flags hauled in $460 million, just shy of the $477.2 million hauled in in Q2 of 2019. Roaring back harder than before is SeaWorld, which made $439.8 million in Q2 of 2021, north of the $406 million logged in the same quarter of 2019. FidgetsThe era of the fidget spinner is dead; long live Pop Its. The colorful toys, which replicate the appeal of popping bubble wrap in reliable silicone, have been a breakout hit of the past year, fueled in no small part due to TikTok. The company behind Pop Its, Fox Mind, said sales rose from 700,000 units in 2019 to 7 million units across 2020 and 2021. There's little sign of the trend abating, aside for the whole "writeup in major financial newspaper,” as #fidgettoys drove 12.5 billion views as of mid-August, and retailers are trying to stock up ahead of the holiday toy season. Hayley Velasco, The Wall Street Journal FusionResearchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory reported that an experiment attempting to achieve ignition of a fusion reaction has come closer than ever to success. Using 192 lasers aimed at a pellet of hydrogen, the researchers were able to ignite a 10 quadrillion watt burst of fusion power, which is released when the hydrogen fuses into helium. That’s a solid fraction of the 170 quadrillion watts from the sun that hit Earth. The reaction lasted 100 trillionths of a second, and emitted 70 percent of the energy the laser beams spent hitting the target. The goal is to get that north of 100 percent, at which point you've hit breakeven and are producing more energy than you're spending and have a self-sustaining reaction. Kenneth Chang, The New York Times IngenuityNASA's Mars helicopter, Ingenuity, logged a twelfth flight on Monday. The flyer has now covered more distance than Perseverance, the lander that dropped it off. Monday's flight was a 169 second jaunt, 10 meters above the surface and traveling 450 meters in total, bringing the total distance travelled to an impressive 2.67 kilometers over 22 minutes of flight time. The helicopter is now scouting ahead of Perseverance, which involves a little more cavalier path over rocky terrain than the flat surface the flight navigation system was designed to handle. TractorsThe concept of an electric tractor is getting more appealing on the smaller side of the tractor spectrum. At the large end, you've got combine harvesters that can handle 32 rows of corn at a pass and go for seven figures. These beasts are responsible for about one in 10 dollars of revenue for the tractor companies, but last year Americans bought only 6,605 of them. The larger market in terms of sales is made up of the smaller machinery, with 68 percent of the 305,000 tractors sold in North America running with less than 40 horsepower. Given the $292 billion global market for machinery equipment and the 5.3 billion gallons of fuel that goes to it in the United States, those smaller tractors are an appealing target for electrification. Whistle LanguageLanguages that incorporate some kind of whistling into a dialect have appeared the world over and throughout human history, in no small part due to the length that the sound of a whistle can carry compared to speech or yelling. A skilled whistler can hit 120 decibels, which is a car horn, and because the frequency is 1 to 4 kHz it's higher than the pitch of ambient noise. A comprehension study of whistled Turkish fond listeners identified isolated words about 70 percent of the time, and common whistled sentences 80 to 90 percent of the time. As such, while spoken speech on average has been found to be discernable from 40 meters and shouted speech from 200 meters, whistled speech can be understood from up to 550 meters. 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. 2021 Sunday subscriber editions:BBLs · Summer Box Office · Time Use · Shampoo Bars · Wikipedia · Thriving · Comic Rebound · Return of Travel · Sticky Stuff · For-profit Med School · A Good Day · Press Reset · Perverse Incentives · Demon Slayer · Carbon Credits · Money in Politics · Local News · Oscar Upsets · Sneakers · Post-pandemic Cities · Facebook AI · Fireflies · Vehicle Safety ·Climate Codes · Figure Skating · True Believer · Apprentices · Sports Polls · Pipeline · Wattpad · The Nib · Driven2020 Sunday Edition Archive2019 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: August 18, 2021 • Ambergris, Swiping, Noses
Wednesday, August 18, 2021
By Walt Hickey Dreams of Deborah Ambergris is a rare waxy substance that forms in the guts of sperm whales from accumulations of squid beaks. For hundreds of years it was used in medicine but later
Numlock News: August 17, 2021 • Hot Air Balloons, Houseplants, Hotel Transylvania
Tuesday, August 17, 2021
By Walt Hickey Ballooning Hot air ballooning evidently had a surge of popularity in the 1970s, and the generation that fueled its golden era is getting on in years, so new programs are rolling out to
Numlock News: August 16, 2021 • Grapes, Polypharmacy, Housecats
Monday, August 16, 2021
By Walt Hickey Free Guy The Ryan Reynolds movie Free Guy opened to $28.4 million at the North American box office, beating expectations — a projected $17 million to $20 million — by a longshot and
Numlock News: August 11, 2021 • Arenas, Glowworm, Contrafreeloading
Friday, August 13, 2021
By Walt Hickey For Sale, Velodrome, Briefly Used Now that the Olympics are over, Tokyo is covered in a bunch of useless one-trick sports venues that now exist mostly as elaborate birdhouses, and on
Numlock News: August 12, 2021 • Pizza, Dolphins, The Phillie Phanatic
Friday, August 13, 2021
By Walt Hickey Phanatic The most compelling litigation in America right now is the phantastic phight over the Phillie Phanatic, the mascot of the Philadelphia Phillies. For the past two years, the team
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