Numlock News: April 5, 2022 • Swedish Steel, Russian Ships, Netflix Anime
By Walt HickeyLoansIn March of 2020, the federal government suspended payments on federal loans, a policy that is due to end soon. The effect that the pause had on borrowers as a whole was remarkable: The average credit score among the affected borrowers rose from 640 to 668 over the period, about half of borrowers managed to reduce their credit card reliance by an average of 23 percent, and the forbearance saved the 43 million Americans who owe a student loan approximately $37.8 billion in interest payments as of the end of last year. It gave borrowers — who collectively owe $1.6 trillion — a pause to address other obligations, as 85 percent of people with federal student loan debt also have other debt too. EggsA new study published in the Journal of Animal Ecology studied the collection of 50,000 to 60,000 bird eggs held by Chicago’s Field Museum that were obtained and preserved from the 1870s to the 1920s, when collecting eggs from birds was inexplicably fashionable among hobbyists. Those eggs are inventories with some excellent record-keeping, though, and the researchers were able to see that some species of bird are nesting as much as 25 days earlier than they were in the early 1900s, which the authors say is consistent with one of the pervasive ecological changes associated with the warming climate. Teresa Crawford, The Associated Press HertzHertz announced plans to buy 65,000 electric vehicles from Polestar, adding to their plans to purchase up to 100,000 electric vehicles from Tesla. Hertz has about 500,000 vehicles around the world, so this would be a pretty solid chunk of its available vehicles to be purchased over the next five years. Polestar is a sub-brand of Volvo and Geely, and is launching in Europe this spring and in North American this coming fall, and while Hertz didn’t disclose financial terms the Polestar 2 sedan retails for $49,000. FlaggedThe number of Russian-flagged ships who are switching their flags to another country jumped in March to 18 ships, of which 11 were cargo vessels from a single fleet and three are oil tankers. Lots of Russian vessels have turned off identification and location tracking systems, going dark amid a global crackdown and sanctions on Russian goods. Most of the ships changed to Marshall Island-flagged vessels, while three became ships of Saint Kitts and Nevis. Ships switching flags isn’t abnormal — Singapore averaged 17 flag changes a month, and Japan averaged five a month — but they usually remain pretty consistent, while the March shift in flags was about triple the typical Russian rate. SteelProducing 1 metric ton of steel in 2020 emitted 1.8 tons of carbon dioxide across the industry, with steel responsible for 7 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions, or 2.6 billion tons of CO2, in 2020. Swedish steel behemoth SSAB, which singlehandedly is responsible for 10 percent of Swedish CO2 emissions, is building a bleeding-edge pilot plant that will move from burning coal to burning hydrogen. The plant made its first delivery last year, with interest from Volvo and Volkswagen, which want to cut down on the material responsible for about 20 percent to 35 percent of the emissions produced in manufacturing a car. The Swedish steel business wants to hit fossil-free operations by 2045. James Brooks, The Associated Press Hanging OutThe art of “just going somewhere to hang out for a while” is dying in the United States, with last year’s American Community Life Survey finding that just 25 percent of people who live in areas with high amenities actually socialize with strangers once per week or more. The pandemic hammered so-called “third spaces,” with the two-thirds of Americans who said they have a favorite local place they go to regularly declining to about half of Americans. Part of this is offices and workplaces deliberately attempting to cultivate an in-house level of fraternization to get workers to hang out at the workplace more, some is people becoming homebodies, but now is a critical moment for the nation’s darts leagues, its karaoke nights, its trivia nights to strike back and reclaim the spontaneity that has been lost. AnimeDespite only launching in Japan as recently as 2015, Netflix has become a massive force within the anime world. Since releasing its first feature-length anime film in 2017, today Netflix says half of its subscribers watched anime last year — a figure that is at 90 percent in Japan — and that globally they logged a 20 percent increase in the hours users spent watching anime in 2021 over 2020. Last week the company said they will launch some 40 new anime titles in 2022 alone. Thanks to the solid box office performance of anime titles, including the $30 million in U.S. revenue pulled in by Jujutsu Kaisen 0 since late March and the $454.7 million worldwide for Demon Slayer the Movie: Mugen Train in 2020, Netflix is also attracting rival animation investments from rival streamers too. Patrick Brzeski, 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. 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: 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 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 · Vapes2020 Sunday Edition Archive2019 Sunday Edition Archive2018 Sunday Edition ArchiveYou’re a free subscriber to Numlock News. 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Numlock News: April 4, 2022 • Hyporheic Zone, Morbius, Marine Snow
Monday, April 4, 2022
By Walt Hickey Morbius The Jared Leto movie Morbius, which tells the origin story of a benchwarmer-tier Spider-Man villain, made $39.1 million domestically this weekend, which was in line with the
Numlock News: April 1, 2022 • Emoji, Embezzling, Amnesty
Friday, April 1, 2022
By Walt Hickey Have a great weekend! Reminder that today the internet is full of pranks and lies, so do be careful out there. Embezzled A former employee of the Yale School of Medicine has pleaded
Numlock News: March 31, 2022 • Caves, Autographs, Rock & Roll
Thursday, March 31, 2022
By Walt Hickey Livestreams The livestreaming sector has exploded within China, and the ocean of cash flowing to creators has regulators worried. The industry as a whole is worth $30 billion, but
Numlock News: March 30, 2022 • Loose Flamingo, Crypto Heist, French Polynesia
Wednesday, March 30, 2022
By Walt Hickey The Flamingitive Seventeen years ago, two flamingos escaped from Sedgwick County Zoo in Wichita, Kansas, during a severe storm in June of 2005. The birds had not yet had their wings
Numlock News: March 29, 2022 • Saturn, The Lost City, Vapes
Tuesday, March 29, 2022
By Walt Hickey Upset It's the only Hollywood news from this weekend that anyone is talking about: the shocking events of this Sunday when The Lost City, starring Channing Tatum and Sandra Bullock,
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