🌯 burrito blues.

on the agenda this week: flying snakes, yeezy in 3d & burrito blues.

Jul 06, 2020

📖 reading time: 3m 26s.

`fig. 1. some too-close-to-home humour from` `worry lines.`

👋 hi - happy monday.

i’m mixing up the format this week. our collective ability to process information is reaching a critical limit so it seemed like a good time to streamline this newsletter.

feedback is welcomed, just hit reply!

music is at the top
links are now coloured, not underlined
i’ve added a collection of interesting links to click
i’ve kept 2-3 long reads at the bottom to read
word of the week is at the end so that you leave having learned something

⚡️ tag me on instagram or follow me on twitter if you enjoy this week's brain drain.

as always, feel free to skip any section that doesn’t interest you or reply directly to this email. & a special thank you to my paid subscribers — i really appreciate the support.

👂 earworm: listen to golden vessel’s new single on spotify or apple music.

🧠 brain candy:

🐋 a beaked whale that surfaced near me this week has died. they dive farther and stay underwater longer than any other marine mammal, but little else is known about them.

🐍 the mystery of how flying snakes move has been solved. scientists from virginia tech put motion-capture tags on seven snakes and filmed them with high-speed cameras.

🚐 the #vanlife movement is booming. with converts adamant that you can find stability in constant motion.

👾 why would you give your games away for free? tencent, the world’s biggest gaming company use an interesting capture and convert technique to generate revenues.

🦠 analysis on data from city sewage facilities may be the veritable canary in the coal mines for detecting covid-19.

💸 an interesting twitter thread of “boring” businesses that make a lot of money. my favourite was weathertech (a car mat manufacturer) that does more than $400mm in revenue annually.

🤪 mildly humorous:

Laureen Bazzi @laureenbazzi

idk how to explain this but thursday, october, and 8:00pm are all the same

Raag Agrawal @raagagrawal

My gym just went bankrupt. Who's the quitter now?

💡 longer reads:

`👨‍💻` `reimagining e-commerce.`

kanye west will soon unveil the newest iteration of yeezy supply, the website that features his collection of shoes, clothes, and accessories. when it debuts, you can expect a shopping experience unlike anything you’ve seen on the internet.
you’ll be able to pick an outfit, then put it on a 3d model who walks across the screen. and if you want to know more about that model, you can click to get a few background details, like her favorite food, or a significant life experience she has had. there are no words on the screen. the overall aesthetic is as if a video game were set in a medical supply store. in a good way.
“we were trying to make the internet a more humane place,” explains nick knight, west’s creative partner on designing the website, in an interview with fast company. “we’ve gotten used to the internet being a flat, two-dimensional place. but the internet is also this amazing tool that connects everybody in the world: what if we could use it to get to know the people we are looking at on the screen?”

👉 read more via fast company.

`🌯` `burrito blues.`

why is uber offering to buy the food delivery company postmates? why did a big european food delivery company decide to purchase the owner of grubhub and seamless?
because the economics of delivering restaurant meals in the united states stinks, and the companies involved are trying to make it stink less — for them.
even if you never order food from your sofa, the roots of this broken system should make us all worry that many of our digital habits are unsustainable mirages.
for people who use it, food delivery can be handy, or even a lifeline. and it makes financial sense in certain cities or for certain restaurants. it might be a lucrative activity in the future, or if venus were in the fifth house, or if robots delivered dinner, or if restaurants were replaced by grain bowl factories.
but big picture, right now, in the real world of 2020 america, food delivery isn’t working out for just about everyone involved — including restaurants, delivery couriers and certainly not the app delivery companies. they are almost all losing money. even now, yes, when many of us are ordering more takeout and delivery.

👉 read more via the new york times.

📚 word of the week:

`“mondegreen”.`

a word or phrase resulting from a mishearing of another word or phrase, especially in a song or poem.

we’ve been misunderstanding song lyrics for decades, elton john’s “hold me closer, tony danza”—er, “tiny dancer”—included. these funky musical mishearings even have their own name: mondegreens.
- popular science, january 2020