What happens when the lights won't burn out? Plus the history of bottled water, and why even Springsteen wishes he could be Springsteen.
How many people does it take to screw in a lightbulb? It’s an old joke, but also one that — like the behavior to which it refers — might soon be obsolete. Because today’s L.E.D. lightbulbs last so long, replacing them is rarely necessary. So then the question becomes, how many entrepreneurs does it take to keep the lightbulb business from falling victim to its own technological advances? Or as The New Yorker’s JB MacKinnon wonders: “Is there a workable business model for products that are built to last, rather than to fall apart?” There are a few ideas from startups that hope to turn lighting into a software-driven service. (If that doesn’t work, I suppose they could always remove the headphone jack and pretend that’s a must-have advance…) Here’s more on a very interesting challenge to an industry that got too good at its job. Trying To Solve The L.E.D. Quandary.
Hitting Rock Bottle
“In the past, buying clean water had been a necessity for the rich (the poor simply endured centuries of bad drinking water, and often died from the experience). Now it was freely available to all. Why would you continue to spend money on something that now came, miraculously, out of a tap in your kitchen?” Well, let’s crack open a can of LaCroix and discuss. From The Guardian, a historical look at how the business of bottled water went mad. (In the farm to table era, even water that’s delivered cloud to mouth doesn’t seem quite artisanal enough.)
Hurry, Cane
The Haitian death toll from Hurricane Matthew topped a hundred people, and the storm appears to be headed for Florida. Authorities have urged two million people to evacuate coastal areas in that state, along with Georgia and South Carolina. And Florida’s Rick Scott pulled no punches in his assessment of the risk: “This is serious. … If you need to evacuate and you haven’t, evacuate. This storm will kill you. Time is running out. We don’t have that much time left.” Here’s the latest from Buzzfeed.
Hashtags Between the Hashmarks
Sports are a microcosm of society. So it shouldn’t surprise us that some of the presidential election year strife that has soiled social media and every dinner party would have slithered its way into NFL locker rooms as well. And like the rest of the country, the pro football split in the presidential race is largely about race itself — a topic that’s now pitting national anthem kneeling players against their steadfastly standing owners. They don’t call it the National Football League for nothing. From Mike Freeman in Bleacher Report: Donald Trump Is Tearing The NFL Apart. (Interestingly, he pretty much ruined the USFL too.)
We’re Down with Opioids
You want a headline that puts the opioid drug scourge into context? Consider this one from the NYT: As Drug Deaths Soar, a Silver Lining for Transplant Patients. “Transplants were initially associated with deaths from car accidents, which is why organ donors are noted on driver’s licenses. But overdoses (47,000 in 2014) have surpassed car crashes (32,000 in 2014) as the leading cause of accidental death in the United States. The growing numbers of overdoses from synthetic opioids like fentanyl and carfentanil have only heightened the drug toll.”
+ Stat: The DEA is reconsidering its ban on the herbal supplement kratom. And the agency is also set to cut opioid production by 25 percent for next year. (The DEA took longer to cut opioid production than it took to outlaw hemp shirts.)
Come On Out For the Reading
Ever have one of those days when everything is going really well, and you’re feeling really good, and then suddenly, out of nowhere, you realize that you’re not Bruce Springsteen? Even President Obama once said, “The reason I’m running for president is because I can’t be Bruce Springsteen.” Well, it turns out Bruce Springsteen has those days too. “People see you on stage and, yeah, I’d want to be that guy. I want to be that guy myself very often, you know? I had plenty of days where I’d go, ‘Man, I wish I could be that guy.'” He discussed that and more on a recent episode of Fresh Air with Terry Gross. Last night, some old friends and I sat in the sixth row and listened to Bruce Springsteen discuss his new autobiography at the same time Madison Bumgarner was adding to his legendary status with another post-season pitching gem for the Giants. At that moment, I may have become the first person to self-actualize via other people’s achievements.
From the Bot of Her Heart
“Someday you will die, leaving behind a lifetime of text messages, posts, and other digital ephemera. For a while, your friends and family may put these digital traces out of their minds. But new services will arrive offering to transform them — possibly into something resembling Roman Mazurenko’s bot.” In The Verge, Casey Newton shares the story of Eugenia Kuyda’s bot: When her best friend died, she rebuilt him using artificial intelligence.
Core Power
“The idea that a red apple is a delicious apple is one of the greatest frauds ever perpetrated against Americans. The apples we’re supposed to eat to keep doctors away, the apples we’re supposed to give to teachers to show our appreciation, the apples we compare to oranges — all of them are a deep, predictable red, and none of them are delicious.” But wait, we can do better: Honeycrisp was just the beginning: inside the quest to create the perfect apple.
+ That Wasabi you’re eating probably isn’t Wasabi. It’s horseradish dyed green.
Lean Back
Come to San Francisco and you’ll soon notice that every car is an Uber or Lyft (or both), every person is wearing a startup-branded shirt, all eyes are focused on phones and other devices, and apartments are so scarce and expensive that landlords want to see your vesting schedule before handing you a lease. But forget all that. These days, everyone in SF is talking about one of two things: The Giants even-year prowess. And the leaning Millenium Tower. (Nope, there’s not an app for that…)
Bottom of the News
“So there’s a clear difference between the candidates in this race…” That thing where one of your state’s senate candidates dabs during a debate.
+ NYT: New York Burial Plots Will Now Allow Four-Legged Companions. (This is seriously my cat’s worst nightmare.)
+ WaPo: Do Commas Still Matter? (Hint: Nothing Matters.)
