Numlock News: February 25, 2025 • Crop Duster, Cuttlefish, Commode
By Walt Hickey
Paperback
The literary tradition of the United States runs through the mass-market paperback. Found at airports and big box stores, it is the purest indication that not only has a book broken through to the mainstream, but it has broken through, stuck around and started setting up a permanent residency in the mainstream. It is a mainstay format for genres like mystery and romance, where publishers buy ink by the tanker truck and pulp by the forestful. They pop up in unique and otherwise challenging ecosystems for books, like big-box stores, or airports. But the reality is that they are dying out. This is in no small part because the fans of mystery and romance that served as the bedrock of the mass market paperback have largely switched to e-readers. Last year, mass market paperback sales fell 19.3 percent to 21 million units. In what may be a death knell for the format, Readerlink — which accounted for 60 percent to 70 percent of the mass market paperback sales in the U.S. — announced that it will stop distributing them to its customers, including heavy hitters like Walmart, Kroger and Hudson News.
Cuttlefish
A new study published in Ecology looked at the hunting patterns of cuttlefish from the perspective of their prey (namely small crabs) by rigging camera equipment behind crabs that would soon fall prey to the hunting cephalopod. Cuttlefish were found to take on four distinct hunting displays — passing-stripe, leaf, branching coral and pulse — throughout their hunts and before they strike with two tentacles to kill. The study looked at the behavior of the 98 cuttlefish hunting their bait crabs on the reef. The videos are nuts. The study found 49 cuttlefish appeared on camera more than once, performing two or more of the hunting strategies. This observation is a sign that not only is there variability, but the individual cuttlefish are prone to attempt more than one approach.
Cobalt
The Democratic Republic of Congo announced a four-month halt to exports of cobalt, which the producer sees as in a glut, as prices fall to the lowest in 21 years. The metal is a byproduct of copper mining and a crucial component in battery tech. The DRC is the top producer of cobalt in the world, producing about three-quarters of the global supply, and CMOC is the largest company in the space. They’re all over the DRC, accounting for 40 percent of the global supply. In the past year, they’ve doubled their output from two mines in DRC from 56,000 tons to 114,000 tons.
Gold
In the latest edition of a crime that I’m having difficulty mustering distaste for, the 2019 theft of a toilet made out of gold from a palace in the English countryside has gone to trial. The satirical work is a sculpture by Maurizio Cattelan titled “America,” a toilet weighing 215 pounds and made out of 18-carat gold. The gold was valued at $3.5 million, and the artwork itself was insured for £4.8 million (US$6 million). Prosecutors said that one of the men charged in the case was involved with stealing it and the other two helped fence the loot, with the government believing it was cut up and sold. On one hand, stealing a bunch of gold is up there as a pretty classic cut and dry crime. On the other hand, the thing was insured; perhaps we could extend to these so-called thieves the same dignity that we extended to Cattelan. We could call them conceptual artists. The seizure, destruction and decision to sell off “America” for the gain of the very few could be called a particularly prescient conceptual art piece.
Brian Melley, The Associated Press
Tapped Water
Canada, looking jealously at what the coconut-producing nations of the world have pulled off with coconut water, would like to get the world drinking maple water. Maple syrup is produced by boiling down the sap of maple trees, even though the sap itself is very tasty on its own: clear and slightly sweet. Canada is responsible for 80 percent of maple syrup production, and producers are eyeing more ways to put the trees to work. Global sales of maple water are at $506 million, and projections have them hitting $2.6 billion by 2033. There’s lots of room to grow; coconut water sales reached $7.7 billion in 2023 and look to hit $22.9 billion by 2029.
Spies
As long as there have been organizations, those in management have felt profound discomfort. After all, Shakespeare wrote that uneasy is the head that wears the crown. However, it turns out that the current managerial class deals with that uneasiness by dumping perfectly good money into extensive and tedious internal espionage operations, paying for expensive software to monitor employees’ activity, engagement and even bathroom needs. The global market for employee monitoring software is projected to hit $4.5 billion by 2026, most of it in North America.
Rebecca Ackermann, MIT Technology Review
Crop Dusters
Planes are a crucial way that pesticides and other agricultural treatments are applied to acreage, but crop dusting can be imprecise and cause health problems for workers and pilots. One promising automation comes in the form of drones (made by companies like Pyka) that can apply pesticides. They are already used by the likes of Dole. It can be more efficient — replacing a plane with an electric drone drastically cuts back on fuel and emissions — but it can be even effective at dropping chemicals accurately according to early tests. Pyka’s Pelican Spray drone is hitting around 96 percent accuracy when it comes to chemical delivery, beating the 91 percent of chemicals that make it to the crop through a traditional aerial application. They can also fly at night, which human crop dusters can’t, particularly helpful when the pests you want to kill are nocturnal anyway.
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The crop duster news is another example where technology is winning. It wouldn’t have been that long ago if you’d had said that all-electric aircraft would replace gas-powered planes AND do a better job getting product where it needs to go.
"As long as there have been organizations, those in management have felt profound discomfort. After all, Shakespeare wrote that uneasy is the head that wears the crown."
I think you are channeling Ricken Lazlo Hale!