Your Friday Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain Performing The Ramones’ “I Wanna Be Sedated”

Edifice Wrecks

You may have seen in the news this week that the wreckage of Ernest Shackleton’s ship Endurance, which sank off Antarctica in 1915, has been found. The 144-foot wooden ship was crushed by pack ice and sank, and the story is all the more remarkable for the fact that all 28 members of the crew survived.

Part of the reason they did was that the ship didn’t go down immediately. It got stuck in January and the crew spent several months trying to free it, albeit unsuccessfully. And we know this because, as it turns out, via Core77, there is actually footage of it.

After the ship went down, the crew traveled by lifeboat to a nearby deserted island, and waited while Shackleton and five others sailed the 800 miles to Stromness, an inhabited island in the South Atlantic, where they were able to organize a rescue party and rescue the remainder of the crew four months later.

All Maps Amazing and Terrible, Part the Infinity

Cover the Spread

Over at The Big Picture, Barry Ritholtz looks at the concept of the “magazine cover contrary indicator.” First conceptualized by Paul Macrae Montgomery, the basic idea is that by the time any trend or fad appears on the cover of, say, Time magazine, that it has already peaked. Montgomery was mostly talking about investment strategies, that when Time magazine finally hears about some hot investment trend, it’s pretty much over. And It can also be applied to other general trends:

consider the past 30 years of Time magazine covers as they relate to the stock market. When Time named Amazon.com chief Jeff Bezos as Person of the Year in December 1999 it marked the near top of the dot-com bubble. Nor did it do Mark Zuckerberg — or Facebook shareholders — any favors either by bestowing the same honorific on him in 2010. Back in 2005, Time gave top billing to housing. We know what followed.

And, it isn’t just Time magazine, but any non-business publication. The thinking is that by the time editors at general news publications notice that an asset class has become hot, there are few suckers left to come in to drive prices higher. Consider this New York Times Magazine cover on gold in 2011 as yet another example.

The important caveat about this theory is that it generally only applies to general interest, consumer magazines, not necessarily business publications.

Most of the time, consumer magazines do not bother with investing or economic concerns. If they have noticed what the stocks or inflation or real estate are doing, it must really be late in the cycle. Business mags, on the other hand, have a different topic on their cover every month or week. The sheer volume means that some will be a top or bottom by dumb luck, but most won’t be. I would suggest that the examples so many people use is a heady brew of randomness, hindsight bias, and narrative fallacy.

In other words, it’s dangerous to take too seriously the idea that what appears on a magazine cover is the prevailing trend—or that it indicates that the opposite is the prevailing trend. Like the predictions of Nostradamus, confirmation bias is based on hindsight, and any true forecasting ability must be taken with several large grains of salt.

Drive My Car

Pay Grade

Last Tuesday was International Women’s Day, and no doubt you saw many brands and companies sending out press releases or posting on Twitter and elsewhere about female empowerment. And, yes, we are sure a fair number of these were quite earnest, but many of these same companies don’t empower those women by paying them at the same rate as men. How to call out hypocrisy? Via Vice:

Enter: the Gender Pay Gap Bot, which has been terrorising British employers by quote-tweeting their virtuous IWD posts with the company’s gender pay gap data. So far, the Twitter bot has gone after a sweeping range of companies, including banks, political parties, universities, local councils, charities, fashion brands and more.

In some cases, the gulf between men and women’s median hourly pay has been as much as 40 percent (see: Missguided, which celebrated IWD by “paying it forward” to customers in cash and asking them for the best advice they’ve received. #empowering!).

This is fairly easy in the UK: in 2017, the UK government started requiring all companies with 250 employees or more to report the difference in earnings between men and women. All this data is publicly available on a government site, but freelance copywriter and social media manager Francesca Lawson and software developer Ali Fensome decided to create a bot that could retrieve and post this data.

“If we're not confronting that data and acting on it, then the problems are just going to persist forever,” she says. “We created the bot is to make sure that this data isn't just forgotten about – it's in the spotlight. By talking about it, we can begin to put pressure on employers to start changing their hiring practices, and paying everyone more.

“It's not just a case of getting women into leadership roles. That's got to be backed up by making sure that all the other roles in the organisation are paid well and paid fairly.”

Context Is King

All Good Indentions

Here’s a bit of trivia: why do bottles have indentations in their bottoms? It is not, as Core77 explains, to reduce the amount of liquid in the container and somehow rip off the consumer (the volume of liquid in the bottle is usually printed on the label). But rather:

The indentations on the bottom of bottles (called punts for glass bottles; in my work with plastic we called them dimples or push-ups, which I think was colloquial) are there for the same reasons, whether glass or plastic: It adds strength to the base and, more importantly, allows the bottle to stand up.

If you were to mold the plastic, or blow the glass, perfectly flat at the bottom, this heavier material at the bottom of the mold would have a tendency to bulge (the wrong way) as it cooled, leading to a wobbly bottle. This is true of all drinking glasses as well—no one is putting an arch in the base of a martini glass to give you an inflated sense of its volume.

They add, “Of course, bottles were once designed with purposely rounded bottoms, but that’s another story.” Well, we’ve already started down this rabbit hole, so why not. Elsewhere on Core77:

These are handblown glass soda bottles, typically from the 1800s. As you can see, the bases are round, and that's not a manufacturing limitation, but a design decision. These bottles were purposely designed to not be able to stand.

Why would bottle manufacturers not want bottles to stand on end?

at the time, bottles were all sealed with corks. Corks tend to dry out and shrink over time. With carbonated beverages, that's a problem; as the cork shrinks it becomes looser, and the built-up carbonation in the bottle can then cause the cork to pop right out, causing a major headache for the shipper or stockist.

By designing the bottle so that it only has to lay on its side, it keeps the cork in constant contact with the liquid within, preventing it from drying out. It was the invention of the bottlecap by American mechanical engineer William Painter in 1892 that would preclude the need for soda to remain in contact with the bottle stopper and paved the way for bottles to eventually stand up.

Cycle of Tech

An Hour of Graphene

Was it a good week for graphene news? It’s always a good week for graphene news! This week, The Graphene Council hosted a webinar called “Graphene in Textiles and Apparel.” The panelists ran the gamut from graphene fiber producers and major apparel brands like Wrangler and Lee that are using graphene fibers. Of the many aspects and advantages of graphene-base fibers, one issue that was touched on in the webinar was the sustainability aspect of graphene apparel. One of the reasons that apparel producers are using graphene is for basic comfort, that the thermal regulation aspect of graphene can help wearers stay comfortable without needing to rely solely on heating and cooling systems, a large source of greenhouse gas emissions.

There is a lot to unpack in this hour-long presentation, and we will keep coming back to it.

We Have a Different Opinion

Appleyed Graphics

Via Laughing Squid, a New York City “sticker artist” called Googly Eye Cru applies googly eyes onto various public structures around New York City such as fire hydrants, pipes, electrical boxes, sprinkler caps, trash cans, and newspaper machines.

Hmm...would the eyes make dogs self-conscious? 

Centaur of Attention

A question we’ve always had about centaurs: are the internal organs in the human bit or the horse bit? Or are there two sets?

The Record Plant

Here’s a headline to conjure with. From The Verge: “Musicians Are Hooking Up Synthesizers To Plants For New Sonic Possibilities.” We assume they don’t mean Robert Plant. Indeed, no.

there is a growing community of people who use various sensors connected to plants and mushrooms as inspiration for synthesized music. The results range from scatterings of notes in a strange tempo to fully composed ambient music. Uploaded on Bandcamp, YouTube, and especially TikTok, they can rack up millions of views.

Different artists use the plants in different ways, but everyone I spoke to was pretty clear that the plants are not actually directly making music. The most common way that they contribute to the process is through the use of electrodes, which measure tiny fluctuations in the electrical current between different areas of the plant. That data can then be used as an element of the musical creation process; for example, by translating it into notes within a certain key.

Musicians are also incorporating other elements, like wind speed, temperature, and humidity. “‘So the leaf structures are “playing” the notes, and then the weather sensors [are] choosing which synthesizer the plants were going to be playing.’”

We can’t wait to see them live.

Arachnopoetry

That Dammed River

This has to be a first: the city of Seattle is being sued by fish. No, not the beloved Abe Vigoda character from TV’s Barney Miller, but rather actual fish. Salmon, to be precise. And we don’t mean former Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase. Nope, actual salmon. The fish.

Well, OK, not directly. Rather, the Sauk-Suiattle Indian Tribe is suing the city on behalf of the fish, alleging, says The Guardian, “that dams preventing it from migrating are a violation of the fish’s ‘inherent rights to exist, flourish, regenerate, and evolve’.”

The lawsuit is part of the growing “rights of nature” movement, a legal theory that seeks to give natural entities, like rivers or plants or animals, similar legal rights to humans.

The salmon, called TsuladxW in the Sauk-Suiattle Indian Tribe’s Lushootseed language, are named plaintiffs in the case. The dammed riversin Washington state no longer provide enough salmon for the tribe to conduct all of their ceremonies, let alone feed their members, and scientists have determined that nearby dams are hurting the salmon population.

The tribe is arguing that the dams are violating TsuladxW’s fourth amendment right to be free from illegal seizures and their due process rights.

If this takes off, we may get sued for libel if we say something insulting about those parachuting spiders.

Curry Favor

Defensive Baking

Boing Boing had an intriguing book recommendation this week: T. Kingfisher’s A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking. “I was thrilled with the easy worldbuilding, wonderful characters, and hero, the 14-year-old Mona, the Wizard of the Bakery. I loved the creative uses for baked goods and will never look at gingerbread cookies the same way again.” Available online:

Fourteen-year-old Mona isn’t like the wizards charged with defending the city. She can’t control lightning or speak to water. Her familiar is a sourdough starter and her magic only works on bread. She has a comfortable life in her aunt’s bakery making gingerbread men dance.

But Mona’s life is turned upside down when she finds a dead body on the bakery floor. An assassin is stalking the streets of Mona’s city, preying on magic folk, and it appears that Mona is his next target. And in an embattled city suddenly bereft of wizards, the assassin may be the least of Mona’s worries…

The Emails Are Coming from Inside the Washing Machine!

I’ll Be Your (Smart) Mirror

Longtime followers of Around the Web (both of you) know that we are not big fans of “smart” appliances or other home elements. Still, we have to admit, this “smart mirror” for the bathroom has much to recommend it. Becky Stern created her own home made smart mirror that can display things like weather data, traffic, pollen count, daily calendar, and many other options. Adds Boing Boing:

The smart mirror makes use of a two-way mirror, LED lighting, an old Dell monitor and is driven by a Raspberry Pi microcontroller running the open-source Magic Mirror 2 software.

Ragetop

Heads You Lose

You know the old recrimination, “You’d lose your head if it wasn’t attached”? Apparently, that’s a thing that can happen as this somewhat macabre headline suggests: “Box of human heads stolen from truck in Denver.” Where to begin with the questions about this! First of all, why was there a box of human heads in a truck? “Medical research purposes,” the story said, and they did not elaborate, which may be a good thing. (The box is labelled “Exempt Human Specimen,” which sounds a bit brusque.) The story added, “A dolly was also stolen from the truck.” We assume they mean a dolly used for conveying things, not a children’s dolly—or the severed head of a dolly, which would be strangely apt.

As a public service announcement, we will add, “investigators asked anyone who finds the box to call Metro Denver Crime Stoppers (720) 913-STOP (7867).” Head to the phone now!

Horseplay

He Man

Finally, this week we give you Mattias Krantz, a Swedish musician who built an inflatable guitar. He then filled it with helium to see if it would sound like a ukulele. It didn’t, but he did get some unique guitar sounds out of it.

Not Going Down

This Week in Printing, Publishing, and Media History

March 7

1274: Italian priest and philosopher Saint Thomas Aquinas dies (b. 1225).

1765: French inventor of photography Nicéphore Niépce born.

1792: English mathematician, astronomer, experimental photographer, and inventor of the blueprint John Herschel born.

1872: Dutch-American painter Piet Mondrian born.

1876: Alexander Graham Bell is granted a patent for an invention he calls the “telephone.”

1917: American engineer and programmer Frances Elizabeth “Betty” Holberton born. She was one of the six original programmers of ENIAC, the first general-purpose electronic digital computer, and was the inventor of breakpoints in computer debugging.

1999: American director, producer, and screenwriter Stanley Kubrick dies (b. 1928).

March 8

1010: Persian poet Ferdowsi completes his epic poem Shahnameh.

1618: Johannes Kepler discovers the third law of planetary motion.

1775: An anonymous writer, thought by some to be Thomas Paine, publishes “African Slavery in America,” the first article in the American colonies calling for the emancipation of slaves and the abolition of slavery.

1817: The New York Stock Exchange is founded.

1865: American type designer Frederic Goudy born.

1931: American author and critic Neil Postman born. (His 1985 book Amusing Ourselves to Death was eerily prescient.)

1979: Philips demonstrates the compact disc publicly for the first time.

March 9

1454: Italian cartographer and explorer Amerigo Vespucci born.

1776: The Wealth of Nations by Scottish economist and philosopher Adam Smith is published.

1815: Francis Ronalds describes the first battery-operated clock in the Philosophical Magazine.

1842: Giuseppe Verdi’s third opera, Nabucco, receives its première performance in Milan; its success establishes Verdi as one of Italy's foremost opera composers.

1918: American crime novelist Mickey Spillane. (It was Hammer time!)

1954: CBS television broadcasts the See It Now episode, “A Report on Senator Joseph McCarthy,” produced by Fred Friendly.

1959: The Barbie doll makes its debut at the American International Toy Fair in New York.

1963: American journalist and author David Pogue born.

March 10

1876: The first successful test of a telephone is made by Alexander Graham Bell.

1903: American author, playwright, and diplomat, United States Ambassador to Italy Clare Boothe Luce born.

March 11

222: Roman emperor Elagabalus dies (b. 203).

1702: The Daily Courant, England’s first national daily newspaper is published for the first time.

1851: The first performance of Rigoletto by Giuseppe Verdi takes place in Venice.

1952: English author and playwright Douglas Adams born. Don’t panic!

1970: American lawyer and author Erle Stanley Gardner dies (b. 1889).

1989: Sir Tim Berners-Lee submitted his proposal to CERN for an information management system which would be developed into the world wide web.

2020: The World Health Organization (WHO) declares COVID-19 virus a pandemic.

March 12

1838: English chemist and academic William Henry Perkin born. Whilst trying to synthesize artificial quinine to help battle malaria, Perkin accidentally invented the first synthetic organic dye, mauveine, made from aniline.

1858: American newspaper publisher Adolph Ochs born.

1894: Coca-Cola is bottled and sold for the first time in Vicksburg, Mississippi, by local soda fountain operator Joseph A. Biedenharn.

1922: American author and poet Jack Kerouac born.

1928: American director and playwright Edward Albee born.

March 13

1781: William Herschel discovers Uranus. (Careful with that pronunciation.)

1921: American cartoonist Al Jaffee born.

1930: The news of the discovery of Pluto is telegraphed to the Harvard College Observatory.

1943: American poet, short story writer, and novelist Stephen Vincent Benét dies (b. 1898).