Numlock News: March 4, 2022 • Carnivorous Plants, Dark of the Moon, Second Life
By Walt HickeyHave a great weekend! MoonAn hour and 26 minutes after you get this email, four tons of space junk will smash into the far side of the moon at 5,800 miles per hour. The object — first thought to be a SpaceX rocket booster but now believed to be a 65-meter spent Chinese booster launched in 2014 — normally would have crashed back down to Earth, but sometimes the upper stages get into funkier, weird orbits that can interact with the moon, which causes issues like this. While companies and countries are very clear about where their space junk in Earth orbit is — the U.S. Space Force tracks objects up to 22,250 miles above Earth — the moon is 226,000 miles away. No official entity is tracking what goes down over there, which, let’s be honest, is exactly what Michael Bay was warning about in his groundbreaking Decepticon documentary Transformers: Dark of the Moon. Aylin Woodward, The Wall Street Journal CarnivoreMove over, crabs, you’re not the only thing Nature likes to evolve constantly. Today there are about 800 known species of carnivorous plants, species of flora that kill animals and then extract nutrients from them and go on to inspire most grass-type Pokémon. Over the 140 million or more years over which we’ve had flowering plants, the adaptation of going carnivorous has emerged independently at least 12 times. Remember the advice that gardeners have that you should speak to your houseplants to help them grow? Turns out we were just a little off: What plants truly love of animals is not for us to speak to them, but to beg, to plead they never reconsider their decision to remain merely photosynthetic in appetites. Stephanie Pain, Knowable Magazine NIMBYThe California Supreme Court upheld a lower court order that the University of California Berkeley must freeze enrollment at 2020 levels, an order that resulted from a lawsuit launched by the University’s neighbors who oppose the prestigious university accepting new students. The university has 45,057 students, and in August a judge ruled that it had to cap enrollment at 42,237 and stop construction of new housing because of a lawsuit launched by neighbors who worry about increased traffic in their college town. Thanks to their NIMBY efforts, UC Berkeley will have to withhold acceptance letters from over 5,000 kids. Nanette Asimov and Bob Egelko, San Francisco Chronicle CaptagonCaptagon is a cheap version of speed that has been spreading across the Middle East, manufactured by criminal and terrorist-aligned organizations in war-torn areas of Syria and smuggled out across the region, often through Beirut, which is in the grip of an economic crisis. Since the start of the year alone, over 25 million Captagon pills have been seized by authorities, the most recent of which happened on Tuesday when Saudi authorities arrested three people with 28,000 tablets. Last year, Saudi authorities seized 119 million of the amphetamine pills, which are fueling a drug problem in the country. MetaverseSecond Life, the game that has been the hotbed of metaverse activity since its launch in 2003, announced that U.S. users will be on the hook for local sales tax for in-game purchases. It’s thanks to a 2018 Supreme Court decision that ruled that states and localities could charge sales tax for online items purchased even where the seller lacks a physical presence. Second Life generates $600 million in economic activity annually, and pays out $80.4 million every year to users in real-world cash owing to goods or services exchanged within the game. That’s always been subject to income taxes, but the sales tax could have a significant impact on the in-game economy. Mr. PlowA survey of officials in the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials found that 84 percent of them reported experiencing higher than normal snowplow operator vacancies. The survey, which had respondents from 31 state departments of transportation and 51 public works agencies, found that it’s had an impact on the level of plowing that a quarter of the municipalities have been able to do. The issue stems from difficulties finding seasonal workers in the tight labor market, and the lack of full-time employees many of the departments have. ArtA painting by René Magritte sold for $79.75 million at auction, a record for the artist and also the second-most valuable painting ever sold at auction in Europe, at least measured in dollars. The painting is The Empire of Light, which shows a night scene of a home in the woods under a bright clear daytime sky, and has been in the possession of the family of Magritte’s muse Anne-Marie Gillion Crowet. The piece was said to have inspired a scene in The Exorcist, and had been expected to sell for more than $60 million. Jennifer Calfas, The Wall Street Journal This week I had an excellent guest on the Sunday Edition: I spoke to Rachael Dottle, who wrote “The Global Glut of Clothing Is an Environmental Crisis” for Bloomberg. It’s all about how oil gets turned into clothes, and the systemic problems that causes. It’s such a great visual story; Rachael is an incredibly gifted graphics designer, and you should check the interview and the story out. Rachael can be found at Bloomberg and on Twitter. If you want to get a sense of why people love the Sunday interviews and pay to subscribe to the newsletter, this is a great example. 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: How To Read This Chart · Pharma waste · Arcade Games · Blood in the Garden · Trading Cards · College Football 2021 Sunday subscriber editions: 2021 · Crime Prediction · Billboard records · Black Friday · Natural Gas · PEDs in Hollywood · Machiavelli for Women · Weather Supercomputers · TKer · Sumo Wrestling · Giant clams · Instagram · Remote Work · Latinos · Vapes ·Smoke · Jeopardy! · Mangoes · BBLs · Summer Box Office · Time Use · Shampoo Bars · Wikipedia · Thriving · Comic Rebound2020 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: March 3, 2022 • McFlurry, Clones, Klamath
Thursday, March 3, 2022
By Walt Hickey McFlurry Kerfluffle Kytch, a startup that designed a small device that can be installed on McDonald's McFlurry machines to keep them in operating order, is suing McDonald's for
Numlock News: March 2, 2022 • Manga, Fake Tattoos, Dealers
Wednesday, March 2, 2022
By Walt Hickey Tattoos Tattoos are complicated in Hollywood. If you're an actor without tattoos playing a character with them, you're looking at hours a day in the makeup booth getting fake
Numlock News: March 1, 2022 • Tom Brady, Romance Scams, The SAT
Tuesday, March 1, 2022
By Walt Hickey Film Credits The California Film Commission announced on Monday the millions in state tax credits it would be doling out with the goal of keeping filmmakers in California. All told, the
Numlock News: February 28, 2022 • Godfather, Auditor, Amusement Parks
Monday, February 28, 2022
By Walt Hickey Bids After three days of bidding, the Bureau of Offshore Energy Management finished the largest offshore energy lease auction in American history: six leases for 488000 acres off the
Numlock News: February 25, 2022 • Elephant Seals, Craft Lager, Finland
Friday, February 25, 2022
By Walt Hickey Have a great weekend! The Bight On Wednesday, bidding opened up for six tracts of land slated for development as offshore wind farms off the coast of New York and New Jersey, with the
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