Numlock News: July 14, 2025 • Solar Trouble, Interplanetary Traveler, Superman

Jul 14, 2025

By Walt Hickey

Welcome back!

Thanks to everyone who came out last week to the first of the shows in Garbage Day’s three-show residency at Baby’s All Right in Brooklyn. I’m working on them and the crew has great stuff planned for the next show this Tuesday. More details at the bottom of the newsletter, you should come, the first one sold out!

Superman

Amid strong ticket sales, Superman starring David Corenswet — and launching James Gunn’s new series of DC universe movies — made $122 million domestically, the third-largest opening of the year. Add another $95 million in international markets, and a $217 million opening weekend is not too shabby for the Man of Steel. Moviegoers under the age of 25 accounted for 28 percent of the opening weekend crowd, which is a younger-than-typical skew. It’s all the more impressive because Superman didn’t really rely on any massive stars to score the opening, with the highest salary on the movie reportedly going to Nicolas Hoult, who played an outstanding Lex Luthor.

Rebecca Rubin, Variety

Mars

A 25-kilogram (54-pound) rock known as NWA 16788 is estimated to sell at auction for $2 million to $4 million this coming Wednesday at Sotheby’s. The sample is believed to be the largest piece of Mars ever found on Earth. A massive asteroid had crashed onto the surface of the red planet and ejected this chunk of rock 225 million kilometers away to Earth, where it was found in Niger in the Sahara Desert in November 2023. It is 15 inches by 11 inches by six inches, and single-handedly represents seven percent of all the Martian material currently on Earth. Out of 77,000 officially recognized meteorites ever found on Earth, only 400 are believed to be from Mars.

Dave Collins and Joseph B. Frederick, The Associated Press

Santini

There’s a fascinating minor controversy going on with Tour de France sponsor Santini. It pays millions of dollars to sponsor the Tour, only to have the competing athletes go out of their way to avoid wearing Santini jerseys on the actual road. While riders in the race get to wear their own (specialty-crafted) gear in the race, Santini’s sponsorship entitles it to make the four special jerseys worn by leaders over the course of the competition. The company makes not just the iconic yellow jersey of the lead rider but also the white jersey for the best young rider, the green jersey for the best sprinter and the polka dot jersey for the best climber. It turns out that wearing a random piece of equipment that is way less aerodynamic than your own space-age gear is kind of an annoying impediment, particularly when you’re about to do a time trial and are trying to be the most aerodynamic you possibly can. In the Tour, losing 15 seconds on an ill-fitting skinsuit over a 40-kilometer stage might mean you lose the race. As a result, some riders (with help from teammates) appear to be deliberately avoiding winning superlatives at inopportune times.

Eben Novy-Williams, Club Sportico

Solar

Solar panels function optimally at 75 degrees Fahrenheit, and an increase in the temperature actually reduces the efficacy of those photovoltaic cells. One solution to this is pairing solar farms with actual farms. With the right crop combination, water vapor coming off the plants would cool the solar panels while the crops and workers get a little more shade. A study found that planting cilantro, tomatoes and peppers under solar arrays reduced the panel’s surface temperature by roughly 18 degrees. In places like Tucson (which saw 112 days of triple-digit temperatures last year), this can really take the edge off.

Tina Deines, Inside Climate News

Comics

Total sales of comics and graphic novels in the United States and Canada last year accounted for $1.94 billion, up 4 percent from 2023. Interestingly, after a 7 percent drop in sales seen in 2023, we do appear to be settling in at a comfortable new normal for the comics and graphic novel business, an industry that saw a massive infusion of new readers during the pandemic. Sales in 2024 were up 73 percent from 2019, indicating that the new fans of comics from the pandemic years were enough to nearly double the size of the business. The industry has remained relatively stable, given that sales were $1.91 billion in 2021. The growth is, for the most part, in the graphic novel business in particular.

Milton Griepp, ICV2

EVs

China has lots and lots of electric vehicle companies, but a ruthless pricing war is sending some producers looking for smaller markets where the competition isn’t as fierce. Over 30 Chinese EV brands were actively expanding abroad last year, and many of them were doing so before actually turning a profit in China. The consolidation in the Chinese auto industry has been relentless: there were 487 electric vehicle makers in 2018, a figure that was whittled down to 130 through M&A and competition. According to forecasts, that number will reduce further to about 15 brands by 2030, given the way that things are going now. It’s been a great deal for consumers. However, it has hit the point where the top economic planning agency in China had to tell BYD and others at the top of the business that they can not sell cars below cost.

Kinling Lo, Rest of World

Carnac

A large ancient rock formation in Carnac, France is now believed to be one of (if not the oldest) megalithic complexes in Europe, with archaeologists dating a section of the foundation pits to 6,300 years old. The rock formation contains thousands of huge stones in parallel lines at different sites, classic megalith stuff. For years, the site has beguiled investigators, given a conspicuous lack of stuff like charcoal that might be used to establish a chronology. However, a new study published in Antiquity used radiocarbon dating on 49 sites at the Le Plasker section to put a range of 4600 to 4300 BC, which would be about a millennium older than Stonehenge.

Garry Shaw, The Art Newspaper

Ryan Broderick and the crew at internet culture newsletter Garbage Day are putting on three live shows this summer, and Numlock is a part of them. If you’re in NYC and looking for something fun, learn more about it here and get tickets to the second and third shows. It’s going to be very, very fun.

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