Brunch Briefing | Space Tugs
PewDiePie, Climate Change, and Robo-Priests
(The Brunch Briefing is a collection of the most interesting stories from the past week, designed to enliven your weekend conversations. For last week’s BB click here.)
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🐰 Overheard
(Quotes from clever people)
Facebook has never felt more vulnerable to me, and yet, the grip Facebook Inc has — with Instagram, WhatsApp, and of course Big Blue, is still as strong as it ever was. Still, when I look at products like Discord, Fortnite, Minecraft, TikTok, or Roblox, I can’t help but believe that there is an opening for a new era of social — what I’ll call participatory social.
In addition to those listed in Tavel’s piece, “The Era of Participatory Social”, companies like Capture, Basement, Yubo and Minds have come to market over the past 12 months, with the aim of unsettling the status quo. I’m interested in thinking through the fundamental shift that will usher in the next era of social given the centrality of mobile penetration and the camera in determining winners of the last cycle.
One candidate? Airpods. With an increasing number of people spending their days with unobtrusive speakers in their ears — either passively listening, or simply pretending to — opportunities abound to tap into this new behavior. TTYL is one company seeking to capitalize, allowing users to “drop in” to each other’s Airpods for a chat.
🔭 Monitoring: Space Logistics
(One space worth keeping an eye on.)
Space is getting crowded. The next dozen years may see an additional 20K small satellites launch, spurred on by programs like Elon Musk’s Starlink, Lockheed’s GOES-R, Planet Labs’s Dove, and others. Many are focused on providing global satellite internet coverage (which may unlock IoT to a new extent), while others are focused on weather forecasting. Whatever the aim, the result may be a fiendishly congested orbit, replete with debris and collisions. Less than ten days ago, Space-X narrowly avoided a crash with one of the European Space Agency’s weather satellites.
The solution. Who knows right now. But a few interesting organizations have emerged to tackle different parts of the logistical puzzle.
Traffic management. Existing solutions have not been designed for the “NewSpace” era, and may not be equipped for a faster-paced, riskier environment. While satellite companies currently track their own assets, they do not share that information with other networks. Perhaps a single, independent system — that takes into account different national regulations — could offer a solution.
Space tugs. Historically, smaller satellites have been forced to hitch a ride with bigger satellites, meaning they have little control over where they are dropped off. This presents an issue, especially as orbits become more crowded. In the past couple years, companies like Momentus and Atomos have emerged, proposing “space tugs,” designed to take small satellites the ‘last-mile’ to their desired position.
Elevators. Science-fiction writers and futurists have riffed on the idea of an elevator running from earth to the moon. It has always seemed infeasible, until recently. Two researchers have proposed a new twist, suggesting the anchoring of an elevator cable on the moon that would ‘dangle’ over earth. This reduces the centrifugal force, meaning existing cables would be strong enough to support it. In addition to being a radical innovation, it would represent a cheaper way to transport both equipment and people.
What next? Plenty of satellite providers have received significant funding over the past few years; without true differentiation, backing a challenger seems ill-advised. Both traffic management and last-mile logistics operators may be better timed bets within the next 2-4 years. Additional opportunities may exist for related services such as collision insurance.
🖼️ 1000 words
(Something to look at)
Are E-Scooters actually good for the environment? Published earlier in the year, the above graph shows the astonishing rise of the electric scooter. It was resurrected this week by Axios, in response to a new research paper that discusses the environmental impacts of these last-mile vehicles: while beneficial in theory, scooter rides often replace cleaner alternatives like walking, talking the bus, or riding a bike. Just as importantly, their production and redistribution within cities result in considerable carbon emissions. Over the next year, I expect these companies to come under further scrutiny, forcing changes to their supply chain and economics. Given the thinness of margins already, many may die.
😱 Signs of the apocalypse
(Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!)
Alexa, are you lying to me? Amazon’s smart home device has gotten into trouble for violating users privacy; now it has joined the misinformation war. Because the company does not have a corpus of answers to draw from (unlike Google Home), responses to unknown questions come from user submissions, ranked by an upvote/downvote system. Surely, nothing can go wrong.
(More) contaminated water to be dumped into the ocean. Japan’s Environment Minister has confessed that water used to cool the Fukushima facility’s cores after 2011’s melt-down may need to be disposed offshore, causing neighboring Korean officials to fret. Previously, the water had been stored in tanks on land. The government has not made a firm decision, so hopefully an alternative avenue opens up.
Bafflingly influential man-child, PewDiePie reined in by his audience. But not in the direction you might think. After pledging to donate $50K to the Anti-Defamation League, an organization that fights against anti-Semitism, the streamer pulled his donation after backlash from his subscriber base. We shouldn’t be surprised: across his career, PewDiePie has trafficked in racial slurs, used Fiverr’s platform to pay two men to hold up a sign saying “Death to All Jews,” and attracted an endorsement from the Christchurch mass shooter. He has over 100MM subscribers.
🐒 Long tail
(Best of the rest)
Yoga-enthusiast, fountain-pen aficionado, pig-breeder, and the owner of 8chan. Learn more about the man behind the festering pustule of the internet.
We need to spend $1.8T on climate change by 2030. The good news is that if we do, we may realize up to $7.1T in benefits. Spending would be focused on “weather warning systems, infrastructure, dry-land farming, mangrove protection and water management.”
The 100 best films of the 21st century. A great list to refer to next time you’re stuck wondering what to watch. I have seen shamefully few.
Avoid the kangaroo. Self-driving cars may be further away then we think. This simulation shows the tech’s current failings.
Cruelty-free chameleon-skin sneakers. MIT has developed an ink that changes color and pattern when hit with different wavelengths of light.
Programmed intimacy. Couples that meet online are less likely to break up. In the future, they may be more likely to experience that relationship virtually, too. One indication of this trend? The Kissenger, an interactive silicon lip controlled by your partner.
VCs ❤️ Andrew Yang. The presidential candidate’s proposal for Universal Basic income has drawn praise from investors like Alexis Ohanian and Sam Altman. Alaska’s history with a similar program complicates the picture.
AI is going to take care of your boring work. This might be a bad thing. You’ll be left with the tough stuff, potentially resulting in a more intense, less pleasurable job.
Divinity, manifest. “Mindar” is part of a new wave of incarnated deities and holy men. He’s also a robot. While I was tempted to put this into the “Signs of the Apocalypse” section, I’m keeping an open mind. Perhaps this evolves into becoming a sort of Paro for the masses?
Essay mills are helping more college students cheat. They’re also providing >10x the national average income for Kenyan writers. Net/net: probably a good thing?
What do you wish you’d discovered sooner? An intriguing thread with some cool suggestions from the Hacker News community. My personal responses: YNAB, Personal Capital, Notion, Superhuman, venture capital as a career, charity: water, podcasts in general, Murakami, matcha.
🤔 Puzzler
(A question, conundrum, or riddle to mull over)
What English word retains the same pronunciation, even after you take away four of its five letters?
Would love to hear your (non-Googled) answers…
Thank you for reading, and hope you enjoy the rest of your Sunday.