Numlock News: September 25, 2026 • Figs, Geely, Gaul

Sep 25, 2026

By Walt Hickey

Have a great weekend!

Figs

The direct-to-consumer era of startups had lots of contenders attempting to send underwear, mattresses and all manner of apparel through the mail, but many of that cohort of companies have died off, been scooped up or pivoted to crypto or AI. Figs, which sells scrubs to both medical professionals as well as people looking for functional loungewear, remains solid: Last year revenue was a robust $631 million, and the company expects that to rise by 20 percent this year, and given that the standard set runs for $94, they’re moving a whole lot of scrubs.

Srinidhi Ragavendran and Audrey Wan, Bloomberg

Charged

Geely Auto, the Chinese automotive manufacturer, revealed tech on Wednesday capable of charging an electric vehicle battery from 10 percent to 70 percent in only 4.5 minutes, a significant development for the company, putting it in a rare club that consists of auto manufacturer BYD and battery maker CATL as having a five-minute ultrafast charger. Geely’s tech can take a car from 10 percent to 97 percent in eight minutes 40 seconds, which would indeed beat the BYD tech that takes an EV from 10 percent to 97 percent in nine minutes, but still lags behind the CATL model that takes a vehicle from 10 percent to 98 percent in just six minutes, 27 seconds. The fastest-charging EVs available in the United States take about 20 minutes.

Chan Ho-Him, The Associated Press

Streaming

It can sometimes seem like there are dozens of streaming services vying for your subscription dollar, but that’s not entirely right. There are, in fact, hundreds. Parks Associates tracks 370 streamers in the United States and 234 in Canada, and based on their data, once you separate out the various spinoff or subsidiary streamers, you’re talking 336 standalone streaming services in operation, up from 243 streamers a decade ago but down from a high of 366 in 2022. Thanks to consolidation, acquisition and the invisible hand of the market reaching for the remote, we’re actually down 10 subscription streaming services last quarter alone, with BET+, CTV Throwback and Movies and OHL Live all getting absorbed by larger libraries, FIFA+ moving to DAZN and FanDuel Sports straight up going bust.

Erik Gruenwedel, Media Play News

United Nations

While the efficacy of diplomacy at the United Nations General Assembly is debatable, its high school imitation is thriving, with Model UN rebounding following the pandemic. While there are a number of programs that run the simulated summits — International MUN Association and National MUN among the largest — overall, the tide is rising, with 16,790 participants in 2025, up from 7,993 in 2016. Even while other politics and debate extracurriculars have shut down or declined in popularity as the national temperature is turned up, Model UN has sidestepped the quagmire of arguing teenagers by widening the questions to more complex and less domestically politically ossified international geopolitical questions.

Magdalena Del Ville, Bloomberg

Convenience Costs

A new analysis of 153 consumer complaints alleging overcharges at convenience stores Circle K and 7-Eleven reveals what appears to be a pattern of mislabeled pricing or upcharges at the register, which critics of the chains allege is a consistent practice across many stores. A California inspection found that between 2023 and 2025, 7-Eleven stores in LA County failed 335 of 909 price accuracy inspections, a failure rate of 37 percent. Over the same period of time, Circle K failed 35 percent of government price-accuracy inspections in Florida and 62 percent in North Carolina.

Jocelyn C Zuckerman, Barry Yeoman, Byard Duncan and Sophie Sullivan, The Guardian

“Tough On Crime”

A new study analyzing “tough on crime” policies found that election years for district attorneys saw statistically significant increases in per capita admissions and months sentences to state prisons. From 1986 to 2006, admissions were up three percent when it was an election year and district attorneys were attempting to burnish their bona fides to the general public. That’s equivalent to 63,000 additional prison admissions over the course of the period.

Northwestern University

Paris

Excavations beneath Paris’ Hotel-Dieu hospital have uncovered a remarkable archeological find, a 20-meter-long wall that is a meter high and had been buried four meters deep in a courtyard that dates to the Gallo-Roman period. It may illuminate some circumstances around the early days of Paris. The structure, made of stone and wood, may have been part of the ramparts of Lutetia that were built by the Gallic Parisii tribe that lived along the Seine. Carbon dating of charred material dates it to between 10 and 200 BC, which would indeed include the time frame of the Battle of Lutetia in 52 BC, where Julius Caesar reported that the Gauls set fire to the town. This furthermore confirms that French people were competently building barricades in the streets of Paris from the city’s infancy, defining a core civic value and municipal pastime that would persist for centuries to come.

Jérémy Tordjman, Agence France-Press

This week in the Sunday Edition, I spoke to Alex Davies who is out with a new book, Kobuk the Destroyer and Other Tales from the Wild Unseen World of Test Engineering. We talked about the early testing of airplanes, including the sacrifice of many chickens, and the bear that inspired the title Kubok the Destroyer. You can find the book anywhere you get books, in any format that you read books.

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Numlock News is written each day by Walt Hickey. Email me with numbers, tips or feedback at walt@numlock.news. Every post is entirely by a human; send corrections or typos to the copy desk at copy@numlock.news. If you enjoy Numlock, tell a friend, word of mouth is the only way that independent publications like this one grow.

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