Chris Erickson

Chris Erickson (CE) is friend of WITI and one of our earliest readers and supporters. He is a United States Army Special Forces (aka Green Beret) veteran, a professional digital marketer, and an amateur creative. Chris here.On April 15, 2019, the world was shocked to see the very heart of Paris in flames. The famous Notre Dame cathedral, which had been in the midst of a renovation, was the scene of a raging inferno. Fifteen hours later, it’s famous spire had collapsed, and most of the roof was destroyed. The damage was extensive, and yet several iconic and fragile elements had miraculously survived. As the smoke rose from the charred remains of the Gothic church, the signature rose windows and pipe organ remained intact among the ashes and ruin.On August 3rd of this year, work to restore the pipe organ began. This complicated operation is forecasted to take nearly four years. Even then, after all of the dismantling, cleaning, and reassembling is complete, it will still take another six months just to tune the organ. The next time it is expected to play is April 16, 2024, marking five years and one day since organist Johann Vexo first heard the fire alarm blaring during the evening Mass being celebrated when the fire first erupted.Why is this interesting?For such an ancient and analog technology, it is somewhat surprising that the skilled labor and artisans required to undertake such a project exist abundantly today. After all, Ancient Rome’s recipe for opus caementicium was lost for more than a millennia, and it took us until the 18th century to reengineer a concrete that could set underwater. With all of our width and depth of knowledge, we still don’t know how to make Greek Fire or exactly how the Egyptians built the pyramids. Yet, there are still a surprisingly large number of people that have a deep understanding of an instrument with origins in the 3rd century BC. Hopefully, these artisans will be able to flawlessly tear down, clean, and reassemble the thousands of pipes that allow the Great Organ to harness the wind and play some of the most complex pieces of music ever written.The origins of the pipe organ are found in Ancient Greece, where Cstesibius of Alexandria invented the hydraulis in the 3rd century BC. This instrument utilized a cistern of water to create enough air pressure to play music with its pipes. From this early piece of engineering, it took nearly twenty centuries to develop all of the sounds available on the classic pipe organ. Until the creation of telephone exchange in the latter half of the 19th century, the pipe organ remained the most complex piece of human engineering in recorded history.The current version of Notre Dame’s Great Organ dates back to the 18th century, the peak of organ innovation. When constructed by François Thierry in the 1730s, twelve pipes from the original 14th-century organ were reportedly utilized. Then, in the 19th century, the number of pipes was doubled by master organ builder Aristide Cavaillé-Col, and it became the largest organ in France. With nearly 8,000 pipes, it is hardly the largest in the world, yet it remains unique for reasons beyond its complexity. The true voice of a pipe organ is not determined by its components alone. In these cathedrals, the building shapes how the music is perceived. Beyond just the walls and ceilings, things like the pews and even the cushions can change the instrument’s resonance and sound. Notre Dame has what is known as a seven-second echo, meaning that the parishioners themselves can change the waves of sound in the cathedral just by their presence. Your smartphone can download an app in seconds that will allow you to recreate the sounds of a classic pipe organ, but no matter how big your speaker, it will never match the experience of the real thing. The team disassembling the pipes of Notre Dame is undoubtedly working with digital assets that help streamline and organize the enormity and complexity of this project, but at the end of the day, the work is inherently non-digital. After cleaning, they’ll have those digital assets, but they’ll only be a small piece of the puzzle in recreating this work of art. In the end, the organ can’t be completed until the construction is done and vice-versa. The rumble of the bass won’t be fully realized until it is humming in the chests of the audience, after bouncing around the stone, wood, and glass of the structure in which they share space.Engineering becomes truly artistic in a space like this. (CE)Longread of the Day:The New York Times with a deep, immersive piece of journalism detailing how exactly the explosion happened in the Port of Beirut. The use of animations, 3D, and narrative are masterful, and this is truly what great journalism on the Web should aspire to. A teaser: “Fifteen tons of fireworks. Jugs of kerosene and acid. Thousands of tons of ammonium nitrate. A system of corruption and bribes let the perfect bomb sit for years.” (CJN)Quick Links: Interesting collab from Aime Leon Dore and the Criterion Collection (CJN)For people who read Nick Parish’s awesome recent edition, the New Hobonichi diaries are out! (CJN)How to wear a navy blazer and jeans (correctly) (CJN)Thanks for reading,Noah (NRB) & Colin (CJN) & Chris (CE)—Why is this interesting? is a daily email from Noah Brier & Colin Nagy (and friends!) about interesting things. If you’ve enjoyed this edition, please consider forwarding it to a friend. If you’re reading it for the first time, consider subscribing (it’s free!).

Why is this interesting? - The Pipe Organ Edition

Chris Erickson (CE) is friend of WITI and one of our earliest readers and supporters. He is a United States Army Special Forces (aka Green Beret) veteran, a professional digital marketer, and an amateur creative.Chris here. On April 15, 2019, the world was shocked to see the very heart of Paris in flames. The famous Notre Dame cathedral, which had been in the midst of a renovation, was the scene of a raging inferno. Fifteen hours later, its famous spire had collapsed, and most of the roof was destroyed. The damage was extensive, and yet several iconic and fragile elements had miraculously survived. As the smoke rose from the charred remains of the Gothic church, the signature rose windows and pipe organ remained intact among the ashes and ruin.On August 3rd, 2021 work to restore the pipe organ began. This complicated operation is forecasted to take nearly four years. Even then, after all of the dismantling, cleaning, and reassembling is complete, it will still take another six months just to tune the organ. The next time it is expected to play is April 16, 2024, marking five years and one day since organist Johann Vexo first heard the fire alarm blaring during the evening Mass being celebrated when the fire first erupted.Why is this interesting?For such an ancient and analog technology, it is somewhat surprising that the skilled labor and artisans required to undertake such a project exist abundantly today. After all, Ancient Rome’s recipe for opus caementicium was lost for more than a millennia, and it took us until the 18th century to reengineer a concrete that could be set underwater. With all of our width and depth of knowledge, we still don’t know how to make Greek Fire or exactly how the Egyptians built the pyramids. Yet, there are still a surprisingly large number of people that have a deep understanding of an instrument with origins in the 3rd century BC. Hopefully, these artisans will be able to flawlessly tear down, clean, and reassemble the thousands of pipes that allow the Great Organ to harness the wind and play some of the most complex pieces of music ever written.The origins of the pipe organ are found in Ancient Greece, where Cstesibius of Alexandria invented the hydraulis in the 3rd century BC. This instrument utilized a cistern of water to create enough air pressure to play music with its pipes. From this early piece of engineering, it took nearly twenty centuries to develop all of the sounds available on the classic pipe organ. Until the creation of the telephone exchange in the latter half of the 19th century, the pipe organ remained the most complex piece of human engineering in recorded history.The current version of Notre Dame’s Great Organ dates back to the 18th century, the peak of organ innovation. When constructed by François Thierry in the 1730s, twelve pipes from the original 14th-century organ were reportedly utilized. Then, in the 19th century, the number of pipes was doubled by master organ builder Aristide Cavaillé-Col, and it became the largest organ in France. With nearly 8,000 pipes, it is hardly the largest in the world, yet it remains unique for reasons beyond its complexity. The true voice of a pipe organ is not determined by its components alone. In these cathedrals, the building shapes how the music is perceived. Beyond just the walls and ceilings, things like the pews and even the cushions can change the instrument’s resonance and sound. Notre Dame has what is known as a seven-second echo, meaning that the parishioners themselves can change the waves of sound in the cathedral just by their presence. Your smartphone can download an app in seconds that will allow you to recreate the sounds of a classic pipe organ, but no matter how big your speaker, it will never match the experience of the real thing. The team disassembling the pipes of Notre Dame is undoubtedly working with digital assets that help streamline and organize the enormity and complexity of this project, but at the end of the day, the work is inherently non-digital. After cleaning, they’ll have those digital assets, but they’ll only be a small piece of the puzzle in recreating this work of art. In the end, the organ can’t be completed until the construction is done and vice-versa. The rumble of the bass won’t be fully realized until it is humming in the chests of the audience, after bouncing around the stone, wood, and glass of the structure in which they share space. Engineering becomes truly artistic in a space like this. (CE)--WITI x McKinsey:An ongoing partnership where we highlight interesting McKinsey research, writing, and data.The mainstreaming of additive manufacturing. Additive manufacturing (AM), also known as 3-D printing, is one of the most revolutionary technologies in manufacturing. It’s now a $14.7 billion industry, and it’s growing. But even while rapid innovation is driving its use, AM is still considered mostly a niche technology. A new article explores how manufacturers can take AM technologies to the next level.--Thanks for reading,Noah (NRB) & Colin (CJN) & Chris (CE)—Why is this interesting? is a daily email from Noah Brier & Colin Nagy (and friends!) about interesting things. If you’ve enjoyed this edition, please consider forwarding it to a friend. If you’re reading it for the first time, consider subscribing (it’s free!).

The Pipe Organ Edition

Be advised: This WITI deals with violence and weapons currently being used by Russia. There are disturbing descriptions detailing how they work, but we feel this is important subject matter for public comprehension.  -Colin (CJN) Chris Erickson (CE) is a United States Army Special Forces combat veteran. Todd Osborn (TO) is a United States Air Force Weapons Systems veteran.Chris and Todd here. Imagine you’re deep asleep in your apartment building. You can’t say you’ve been sleeping soundly since the latest conflict has come back to your urban home, but exhaustion always kicks in eventually and you pass out hard. You’ve been very careful, following all of the advice the local radio station has been broadcasting to the people who couldn’t evacuate. You’ve been paying attention and your entire family has tried their best to maintain awareness of the rapidly changing situations. But unfortunately, you could not have prepared yourself for what is about to occur.A missile has been fired from such a great distance that even if you were awake, you would never have heard the sound of it launching. The building in which you and your neighbors have built your lives is the target. It does not take long for the weapon to reach you.Now, if this had been a conventional munition, it would have struck your building and exploded a single time a split second after impact. The blast would have turned the missile itself into a cloud of shrapnel that shreds and destroys everything in its path. That’s known as a fragmentation munition. However, the device hitting your home is what’s known as a fuel-air explosive. And those are a whole lot worse.First, the fuel element: upon the initial deployment, it disperses like an aerosol and combines with the oxygen in the target area (your home). Then, a second explosion occurs. It is important to remember that this is all happening at a speed that would be too fast for you to comprehend if you were awake. However, you are not awake. You are fast asleep, as is the rest of your family. This is something of a blessing, given what happens next. The secondary explosion ignites the air-fuel mix that has now expanded to fill every inch of the missile’s target (your home). Still, it’s not just the chemicals and oxygen that are being ignited, the missile’s payload was also packed with tiny particles of various metals that burn at extremely high temperatures. It isn’t just a regular fireball that is now rapidly expanding outwards from the cloud of death created by the first stage: this fireball is also full of fine grains of superheated burning metals. Unless you are vaporized at the initial ignition point, it likely isn’t the flames that kill you. Rather, it is the blast wave that races ahead of the deadly star being born inside your apartment building. You are crushed to death. Your bones shatter and your organs explode inside your body—your eyes pop and your eardrums burst. If the device doesn’t detonate properly, this is the moment that the flames of the ignited gasses hit you and incinerate you. If you were still breathing, your last breath would be pulling a swirling firestorm into your lungs. This is only going to happen if the weapon fails to work in the way it was designed and doesn’t kill you with the shockwave. After that blast finishes its outward expansion, the vacuum created in its wake becomes a blast wind that refills the void left by the explosion. Shrapnel comes rushing back in at the same time the air is sucked out of your lungs. Your lungs rupture. If you had somehow survived all of the previous traumas, there is a very good chance that your brain didn’t suffer enough damage to be unconscious. This means you spend your final seconds blind, deaf, terrified, and in pain as you suffocate. Why is this interesting?While thermobaric weapons are not new to the battlefield, recent research and developments have made them capable of generating massive explosions on a previously unheard-of scale. These munitions were designed to create such blast pressure as to get to areas behind cover (barricades, trenches, etc) that fragmentation munitions could not—obstacles such as walls that would normally shield you now only amplify deadly pressure waves. The nightmarish incendiary effects are considered secondary, but as this is not their primary purpose, they are not banned by the international Law of Armed Conflict.The weapon described above is not imaginary, nor are its effects exaggerated. And yet, there are no international laws that prohibit them from being used by one nation against another. We mustn’t ignore that countries like the United States have been using these weapons of pure horror since Vietnam and continue to use them today. Thermobarics fall in a murky zone when it comes to the international Law of Armed Conflict. They can be deployed against legitimate military targets but cannot be used when civilians may be killed or injured, or when non-military targets may be destroyed or damaged. However, with weapons designed to be this deadly, it is impossible to avoid “collateral damage” when they’re being deployed in populated areas like Ukraine.While the International Criminal Court has launched an investigation into possible war crimes committed by Russia during their invasion, unfortunately specific charges for the use of thermobarics falls into the gray area of the Law of Armed Conflict. Thermobarics make for attention-grabbing headlines because of their devastating effect, but it is important to keep our eyes on the big picture: there is an unspeakable human cost when weapons like these aren’t removed from the arsenals of so-called civilized nations. We have to stop referring to bodies as “collateral damage from authorized munitions.” Because it doesn’t matter if you’re firing thermobaric rockets or conventional weapons when the target area is filled with civilians who are going to be killed. That is a war crime, every single time. And if thermobarics make it impossible to be precise with the death a nation is dealing, then those weapons have no place, even amid the timeless horrors of war. (CE) (TO)—WITI x McKinsey:An ongoing partnership where we highlight interesting McKinsey research, writing, and data.Addressing employee burnout. Employers have invested unprecedented resources in employee mental health and well-being. With burnout at all-time highs, leaders wonder if they can make a difference. Our research suggests they can. A new article outlines actions to address the issue.—Thanks for reading,Noah (NRB) & Colin (CJN) & Chris (CE) & Todd (TO) —Why is this interesting? is a daily email from Noah Brier & Colin Nagy (and friends!) about interesting things. If you’ve enjoyed this edition, please consider forwarding it to a friend. If you’re reading it for the first time, consider subscribing (it’s free!). 