Not sure how we got to it, but scorpions have been a big topic of discussion in the house of nerds this past week. What do they eat? How they sting but never bite? How the largest are found in the tropics. And how spiders are closer to scorpions than they are to insects. It felt like a cool thing to sketch. So here we are:
Here are your finds for the week:
- STAGNA-FLUENCER? Influencers aren’t getting famous like they used to. People just aren’t blowing up online anymore, becoming household names and garnering real, mainstream fame. This doesn’t mean that people aren’t doing well on social media. The problem is that too many people are doing well on social media. It’s not unique these days to have hundreds of thousands—or even millions—of followers, to have an agent, or to get lucrative brand deals. But with a huge pool of creators who are hard to differentiate from each other, the hard part seems to be standing out at all.
- CRYPTO AILMENTS This is a bit scary. Residents of the town of Matador, Texas, are experiencing headaches, vertigo, and sleep problems. Doctors believe the noise from the nearby Bitcoin mine is to blame. The mine is exempt from local noise ordinances, and residents are looking into legal action.
- BURGER CRISIS COMMS Texans affected by Hurricane Beryl have found a novel way to stay up to date on one aspect of the storm’s damage. A map of open Whataburger fast food locations in Houston has emerged as a shorthand for the extent of ongoing power outages caused by the storm. People will find their own signals if you don’t provide one.
- FLOPPY WARS It's taken until 2024, but Japan has finally said goodbye to floppy disks. Up until last month, people were still asked to submit documents to the government using the outdated storage devices, with more than 1,000 regulations requiring their use. I’m fascinated by staying power of things. You can squabble over how “AI-forward” your business is, but you’ll still have fax machines and floppy disks finding some corner in the world to thrive. As recent as 2021, UK’s National Health Service used 130,000 pagers.
- UMWELT A German word that loosely translates to “self-centered world,” to describe how animals experience their surroundings. Artist Yoshiyuki Katayama captures this magic between insects and flowers. Gorgeous stuff.