Numlock News: June 11, 2025 • Penguin, Wrench, Lights
By Walt Hickey
Lights
Just after 2016, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority planned to spend $250 million on a project that would turn several New York bridges into an intricate light show. All told, the city spent $108 million on the project, which never came to fruition. Years later, the power authority is selling the lights off, with a minimum bid of $25. Overall, the power authority alone has spent $106 million, including $300,000 annually over seven years to simply store them.
Weave
Synthetic hair has been found to contain distressing amounts of scalp-distressing chemicals, which has led communities of Black women to change the way they approach the hair care world. Consumer Reports tested the brands that made the $2.7 billion braiding hair market in 2023, finding that products including Magic Fingers, Sassy Collection, Sensationnel and Shake-N-Go all contained volatile organic compounds at $4 to $8 per pack. Black women have drastically shifted preferences before; after all, chemical hair relaxer sales fell from $71 million in 2011 to just $30 million in 2021.
Wrench
There have been 25 documented attacks on cryptocurrency owners this year, putting 2025 on par with the most dangerous year on record. As it stands, the rate of such thefts — where brutal means are used to extract crypto information — is set to exceed the previous record set in 2021, when there were 36 such attacks. Overall, French crypto owners have been at the highest risk. While historically people robbed banks because that’s where the money was, today it’s all about crypto.
Yaël Bizouati-Kennedy, Sherwood News
Penguin
The estimated population of 16 penguin colonies, based on satellite images taken from 2009 to 2024, is down 22 percent. This can be attributed to the volume of sea ice shrinking, as sea ice is where penguins meet and mate. Previously, researchers estimated that the population of emperor penguins dropped 10 percent across all of Antarctica. It turns out the situation is considerably worse than expected.
Christina Larson, The Associated Press
DNSFilter
While everyone who subscribes to Numlock clearly enjoys reading the newsletter and is delighted to subscribe to the Numlock family of products — alright, don’t ruin this for me — occasionally, people may dare to unsubscribe. It is an eventuality to which we are well-equipped. However, as it happens, unsubscribing can sometimes carry a dangerous situation: one out of every 644 clicks of an unsubscribe link leads to a malicious website.
Heidi Mitchell, The Wall Street Journal
Transsion
Africa’s electric vehicle market is projected to increase from $17 billion per year to $28 billion per year by 2030, and Transsion is expected to be a big part of it. The company is overall best known for being a cell phone provider, one that is responsible for about half of Africa’s smartphone market. However, Transsion is moving quickly into the EV business: the continent’s EV market is currently estimated to be $17.41 billion as of 2025, and is projected to reach $28.30 billion by 2030.
Damilare Dosunmu, Rest of World
Maui
The remains of the fires that devastated Hawaii two years ago are now being collected, and Maui County is transporting the debris to the Central Maui Landfill located in the center of the island. Fifty trucks will spend five months hauling the debris to the landfill, enough to fill five football fields five stories high. In total, the debris from the fire is expected to weigh 400,000 tons, being lightly wetted before loading onto trucks to control dust.
If you subscribe, you get a Sunday edition! It’s fun, and supporters keep this thing ad-free. This is the best way to support a thing you like to read:
Thanks to the paid subscribers to Numlock News who make this possible. Subscribers guarantee this stays ad-free, and get a special Sunday edition. Consider becoming a full subscriber today.
Send links to me on Twitter at @WaltHickey or email me with numbers, tips or feedback at walt@numlock.news. Send corrections or typos to the copy desk at copy@numlock.news.
Check out the Numlock Book Club and Numlock award season supplement.
Previous Sunday subscriber editions: Dark Roofs · Geothermal · Stitch · Year of the Ring · Person Do Thing · Fun Factor · Low Culture · Romeo vs. Juliet · Traffic Cam Photobooth · Money in Politics ·
Sax Solo · Terra Nova · Didion · Me, But Better · Flow · Four Nations · Tabletop · Fortnite · Sleep · Climate Insurance ·
Work/Life Balance · Self-Driving · Geoglyphs · Nvidia · McDonald’s · No Such Thing · Nationalized Sports ·
Sunday Edition Archives: 2024 · 2023 · 2022 · 2021 · 2020 · 2019 · 2018
The story about penguins just made me sad.
Are there five landfills that are as large as five football fields five stories high or is that just equivalent to a football field 25 stories high? Or maybe once you get five stories high, the trash starts falling and the base becomes larger than a football field?
I don't know why I'm so fixated on this before 7am EST...