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In my prime, I approached all you can eat buffets the way Edmund Hillary approached Everest, and my plate was piled nearly as high as that mountain. I'd show up at a Sizzler during off-peak hours, when the real pros are loading their trays, and go to work creating an epic bloat. Age and the glucose monitor plugged into the back of my arm have stifled my devotion to devouring. While I've lost my appetite for the physical toll of over-eating, like a professional athlete who longs for one more season on the field, I still have the latent desire to overgorge. For millions of Americans, the actual desire to eat, specifically to eat junk food, has been nearly erased. The proliferation of GLP-1 drugs is making people feel fuller faster, and is seemingly driving away cravings for the products big food has spent decades training us to crave. Let's take a stroll through the supermarket with a guy who used to suffer from a sugar addiction. "He took us straight past the Doritos and the Hostess HoHos, without a side glance at the Oreos or the Cheetos. We rushed past the Pop-Tarts and the Hershey’s Kisses, the Lucky Charms and the Lay’s — they all barely registered. Clumsily, close on his heels, Auerbach and I stumbled right into what has become, under the influence of the revolutionary new diet drug, Taylor’s happy place: the produce section." With seven million people already on these drugs (and one assumes they were among the heaviest consumers of the foods they now avoid), you can bet food companies are taking notice. And if Ozempic users I know are any indication, the alcohol industry should be worried, too. Tomas Weber in NYT Mag (Gift Article): Will Ozempic Crush the Junk-Food Business? "Patients on GLP-1 drugs have reported losing interest in ultraprocessed foods, products that are made with ingredients you wouldn’t find in an ordinary kitchen: colorings, bleaching agents, artificial sweeteners and modified starches." (So what does that leave? Celery?)
2
We're Hosed
"A 135-mile internet link connecting Sweden’s Gotland Island and Lithuania stopped working on Sunday morning, and a similar 700-mile-long cable linking Finland and Germany ceased to operate the following night." Russia Suspected as Baltic Undersea Cables Cut in Apparent Sabotage.
+ The world relies on these cables that run along the sea floor. Here's an interesting look at Your Data’s Strange Undersea Voyage. "For the internet to be the truly global service that it is, many of these wires—most of them no thicker than a garden hose—are sunk full fathom five across the bottom of the ocean, where they lay alarmingly vulnerable to fishing nets, ship anchors, currents, shark bites, scuba divers with saws, earthquakes, and, of course, volcanoes. These slender strands of mega-charged fiberoptic cables moving terabits per second account for 95 percent of all international data and voice transfers—volumes that blow satellites out of the sky."
3
Adjusting Your Amplitude
What if you could catch the wave of reusable energy without suffering any of the political undertow? Well, if that's your goal, surf's up. WaPo (Gift Article): This seaside town will power thousands of homes with waves. "Home to fishing operators and researchers, Newport attracts tourists and retirees with its famous aquarium, sprawling beaches and noisy sea lions. If you ask anyone at the lively bayfront about a wave energy project, they probably don’t know much about it. And yet right off the coast, a $100 million effort with funding from the Energy Department aims to convert the power of waves into energy, and help catch up to Europe in developing this new technology. The buoy-like contraptions, located several miles offshore, will deliver up to 20 megawatts of energy — enough to power thousands of homes and businesses." Gnarly.
4
The Last Straw
"In 2009, Tropicana replaced its familiar logo, an orange with a straw poking out, with a minimalist design featuring a glass of orange juice. The backlash was swift ... Tropicana’s sales dropped 20% following the redesign, sinking by $30 million." So, obviously Tropicana learned its lesson and will never change the logo again. But they just changed their bottle. Customers are not pleased. Orange you glad you're not not in the orange juice business?
5
Extra, Extra
Audities and Curiosities: In the media pool where I swim, the top story this week is the decision by the Morning Joe team to meet with Trump at Mar-a-Lago. According to Brian Stelter, one of the reasons they made the pilgrimage was because "Scarborough and Brzezinski were credibly concerned that they could face governmental and legal harassment from the incoming Trump administration." (If that concern is driving journalistic behavior, it's a bad sign for the industry and the country.)
+ The Surly Gaetz: "The computer file is said to contain testimony from the woman who said she had sex with Matt Gaetz, President-elect Donald Trump’s choice to be attorney general, when she was 17." Hacker Is Said to Have Gained Access to File With Damaging Testimony About Gaetz. Gaetz will have a hard time being confirmed. The broader question is how many of the other appointees will get pushback from the Senate. Compared to Gaetz's track record, the fact that Donald Trump’s pick for energy secretary says ‘there is no climate crisis’ seems like no big deal.
+ Hong Kong Long: "The activists had all taken part in an informal primary poll in 2020, which Hong Kong's government said was a violation of Beijing's broad national security law." A Hong Kong court has sentenced 45 pro-democracy activists to up to a decade behind bars.
+ Silo and Behold "Ukraine has fired US-supplied longer-range missiles at Russian territory for the first time, the Russian government said, a day after Washington gave its permission for such attacks."
+ Blue Brawls: "Gone are the pink knit caps and homemade signs from the huge protest that convulsed blue America that year, as exhausted liberals seem more inclined to tune out Mr. Trump than fight ... As they face this tough political landscape, Democratic officials, activists and ambitious politicians are seeking to build their second wave of opposition to Mr. Trump from the places that they still control: deep-blue states." NYT(Gift Article): Democrats Draw Up an Entirely New Anti-Trump Battle Plan.
+ Cupboard Half Empty: More New Yorkers are using food pantries than before 2020, including many with jobs. "About 14% of New York City adults and 18% of families with children visited a food pantry last year." (The economic divide is the everything story.)
+ Fed's Ex: "I'm not a very superstitious person, but you took it to the next level. Your whole process. All those rituals ... Assembling your water bottles like toy soldiers in formation, fixing your hair, adjusting your underwear... All of it with the highest intensity. Secretly, I kind of loved the whole thing. Because it was so unique—it was so you." As Rafa Nadal plays his last tourney, Federer sends an emotional note from 'your fan, Roger.'
+ Blue Wave: "A trickle is becoming a flood for Bluesky, the social media company that has seen spectacular growth since the presidential election. On Tuesday, the microblogging platform hit 20 million users, after averaging one million new users per day over the last five days." It's still small compared to the giants, but the growth is pretty crazy.
Yes, of course I’m on BlueSky! Follow me! I need, I need.
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6
Bottom of the News
"A YouTube baking influencer made her late father the star of the first episode of her new podcast by smoking cannabis grown in a pot of his ashes." (I tried this but instead of getting high, I got really disappointed in myself for not living up to my potential.)
+ Two Bee Gees drummers die within days of one another.