Mark Slavonia

Mark Slavonia (MJS) is the spouse of a retired ballet dancer and an enthusiastic audience member who claps at the wrong time. He posts other things that are interesting on his website and Twitter.Mark here. Before COVID-19, ballet had almost no culture of training and practicing at home. As the world shelters in place, ballet dancers have been forced to rapidly create new ways to stay in shape on their own, often in small living spaces. These emerging online classes and performances are breaking down some of ballet’s rigid traditions and making the art form accessible to audiences in new ways. San Francisco Ballet’s Mathilde Froustey training on her balconyWhy is this interesting? Ballet is a proudly traditional art, and its traditions are communal. The ritual of taking a class in a studio filled with other dancers, a pianist, and a teacher giving combinations in French, is universal and allows dancers to transition quickly from company to company around the world. As dancers and ballet organizations around the world face lockdown and shelter-in-place orders, performances, rehearsals, and classes have been canceled, and dancers are scrambling to adjust. Many ballet schools swiftly moved to online classes, and the dancers are setting up makeshift practice areas in their homes. This may have a longer-run effect of opening up the often-closed and impersonal world of traditional ballet. The digital rights and sharing policies of ballet are notoriously strict and challenging. Creators chafe at their inability to share their work or their process. But now, ballet dancers who had only trained in the studio are building their own spaces and filming their work for teaching or sharing. Ballet companies that previously didn’t want to undercut their live performances are streaming full ballets online for viewers. Before the lockdown, few professional dancers had ever considered a home setup. Almost none had a ballet barre or a section of dance flooring. Ballet dancers tend to be young people living far away from family, often in another country, isolated in small apartments in dense urban areas. The unique footwear used in ballet means that a dancer’s feet start to lose their ability to do complicated pointe work after only a few days of inactivity, and ballet floors are specialized equipment. The feet of a ballerina (again, Mathilde Froustey, shown above)Remote ballet class offers a glimpse into the world of these artists. The daily ritual has been transformed: rather than taking instruction from the same teachers every day, online classes can be hosted by a diverse mix of the world’s best ballet teachers. Instead of being available only to professional company members, some of the best classes are now open for the public to join. San Francisco Ballet’s professional classes are streaming to the public for free three times a week. Many of these new online classes are recorded and archived for use at any time.The new world of online ballet class has a few early standouts. One of the first classes to emerge was organized by San Francisco Ballet’s Diego Cruz. His Worldwide Ballet Class already attracts several hundred professional dancers as well as enthusiastic amateurs every day. It features a lineup of some of ballet’s most prominent teachers, many of whom had never taught open online classes before. New York City Ballet’s Tiler Peck comes from a family of ballet teachers and streams her daily class on Instagram Live. In addition to opening up class, ballet companies are also releasing their film archives to stream performances that are usually fiercely guarded. This can involve complicated legal, contractual, and intellectual property rights, but progress is already being made. New York City Ballet posted this wonderful video of Sara Mearns and Adrian Danchig-Waring in Christopher Wheeldon’s “This Bitter Earth”. San Francisco Ballet is presenting a new ballet to stream for free each week.Many institutions are likely to emerge transformed from the coronavirus crisis. Although the performing arts are particularly hard-hit, traditional forms like ballet are developing new tools and using new technology that may endure and make them stronger after this crisis has lifted. (MJS)Zoom of the DayWorldwide Ballet Class on Zoom, 10:00 am Saturday, April 11, 2020 (MJS)Quick Links Dancers’ social media feeds are suddenly full of beautiful short clips of the world’s best ballet dancers training and dancing at home. Here are some good ones to get started: San Francisco Ballet dancers in a one-minute masterpiece of kitchen ballet.Cavan Conley does a variation from Don Quixote in his hallway (MJS)Mathilde Froustey on her balcony and in her husband’s restaurant. And the splits. (MJS)Maria Kochetkova and Sebastian Kloborg in their living room (MJS)Calvin Royal III and Stephanie Williams (MJS)Adji Cissoko (MJS)The New York Times has written about ballet training under Shelter in Place, first in Italy and then in the U.S. (MJS)Thanks for reading,Noah (NRB) & Colin (CJN) & Mark (MJS)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 Home Ballet Edition

We don’t take a lot of days off, but we just couldn’t find the energy or focus to get a WITI done yesterday. Today we’re back in regular form with an excellent guest edition from two-time WITI contributor Mark Slavonia (MJS). Mark is an investor, pilot, and an avid cyclist. He wrote about kitchen ballet and Bike Everesting for us this year and posts other things that are interesting on his website and Twitter. - Noah (NRB)Mark here. This is a Concept 2 rowing machine. A new one costs $900. Twenty years ago, a new one cost $900. A used one, if you can find one, would cost at least $700 on any city’s Craigslist even before the plague. They are simple and indestructible. They are made in Vermont by a family-owned company that employs about 100 people. Few serious rowers use any other rowing machine. Image source: Concept 2 website, www.concept2.comWhy is this interesting? The fitness equipment business has few heroes. Most exercise machines quickly become laundry racks then are given away on curbsides and garage sales. Some companies try to build their business by selling recurring revenue memberships or constantly pushing small changes and innovations that make their customers insecure if they’re not using the latest equipment. Concept 2 Rowing Machines, 1981-2020 (source: www.concept2.com)Concept 2 takes a different approach. It is not out to maximize the dollars that it extracts from its users. It never raised venture capital, and its models from 30 years ago are still widely used in homes, schools, and gyms. A few small new features have been added over the years, but none alter the fundamentals of the indoor rowers. By keeping the price of the product relentlessly low, they’ve faced limited competition from cheaper machines, none of which can compete with Concept 2’s reputation for quality, reliability, and standardization. There’s a thread that runs from Concept 2 through high-profile, high-tech fitness companies like Strava and Peloton. Every single Concept 2 rowing machine is an ergometer (“erg,” often used as shorthand for rowing machine), measuring the user’s actual power and calibrating it to match every other Concept 2 ever made, going back to 1981. Since 2002, Concept 2 has run a simple, free logbook function on its website where rowers can record their times over distances, track their progress, and compare themselves to rowers everywhere. The founders of Strava were collegiate rowers familiar with Concept 2 erg, and Peloton’s output calculation operates on essentially the same principle as the Concept 2 erg. Concept 2 has never tried to change into a tech company or a social network. The benefit from the community that Concept 2 has created accrues to its users. The ubiquity of Concept 2 ergs is on display every year at the prestigious C.R.A.S.H.-B. World Indoor Rowing Championships, held each year in Boston, MA. Concept 2 is a sponsor of the event and the only machine ever used at these championships. Concept 2 rowing machines at the World Indoor Rowing ChampionshipsIndoor rowing is hard. It’s a great workout, but it can be very intense. Some coaching is required to avoid injury. You can’t really read while on the erg, and even watching TV is a challenge. Concept 2 machines are loud. The machine’s digital display provides essential time, speed, and distance information but little entertainment. It’s a quality product people like to use from a company that doesn’t gouge their customers: an uncommon thing to say in a fitness landscape littered with equipment that can cost five digits and is loaded with gimmicks and proprietary, hard-to-service parts. Personally, I love the Concept 2. When I walk into a tiny hotel gym and spot one slumbering disused in a dusty corner far from the MSNBC on the flat-screen TVs, it’s like my own personal loud, sweaty Christmas. (MJS)  Game of the Day:At some point, after they came back in stock, I bit the bullet and bought a Nintendo Switch. I’m generally impressed by it, and love it as a fun way to play some games with my kids, but the best part has undoubtedly been Zelda: Breath of the Wild. It’s a beautifully designed game with an open world and fun puzzles. A welcome distraction at the end of a long day. (NRB)Quick Links:Get started on a rowing machine with proper technique in two minutes (MJS)Golfer Rory McIlroy, Peloton, and the Danger of Poorly-Calibrated Exercise Machines (MJS)Not sure how I missed this SNL trailer parody for Grouch from last year (inspired by Joker) (NRB)Thanks for reading,Noah (NRB) & Colin (CJN) & Mark (MJS)—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 Concept 2 Edition

Why Is This Interesting - the Travelers Cheque EditionMark Slavonia (MJS) is an investor, a pilot, and an avid cyclist. He wrote about kitchen ballet, Bike Everesting, and Rowing Machines. He posts other things that are interesting on his website and on Twitter.Mark here. Imagine that it’s the 20th century and you are going on an exotic trip abroad. Steamships and jetliners opened up international travel to millions, but in the days before globally accepted credit cards and worldwide financial networks, how would you pay for hotels, restaurants, and expenses without carrying wads of cash that would make you vulnerable to loss or theft? The solution was the travelers cheque, and it built a financial empire for American Express before virtually disappearing in about a decade starting in 1990, leaving American Express to pull off one of the great pivots in business history. In the era of Peak Travelers Cheque, American Express sold around $25 billion in cheques every year. Don’t Leave Home Without ThemTo explain how travelers cheques worked to the first generation with wide access to international travel, American Express ran a decades-long advertising campaign fronted by TV detective Karl Malden. These ads presented an exciting but slightly sinister and menacing world of travel misadventures where customers were relieved to be bailed out of dire situations by their prescient purchase of American Express Travelers Cheques. Here’s one that captures the spirit nicely. Youtube is full of countless others. They’d end with Karl Malden intoning, “American Express Travelers Cheques - don’t leave home without them.”For those that never handled the cheques, the point was to replace cash while providing security in case the physical check is lost or stolen. Travelers cheques were paper bills that looked like a cross between money and a check. They were sold by American Express (and a few other competitors such as BofA and Thomas Cook) for a premium to their face value, usually around 2%. A traveler going on a week-long business trip might buy $1,000 of travelers cheques before departing, in the form of twenty $50 cheques. Each travelers cheque had two signature lines, plus a line to indicate the recipient. Each also had a unique serial number. When you bought your cheques, American Express would record your serial numbers and you’d keep a copy of the numbers. You’d immediately sign the first signature on your cheques.When it came time to pay a bill in a foreign country or to exchange money, you’d sign the second signature and fill in the recipient’s name. The recipient would check that the signatures matched, ideally comparing it to a photo ID. Then the recipient would deposit these widely accepted financial instruments at their bank and the bank would clear them with American Express. This 2009 pamphlet for merchants explains the verification process.Except from American Express 2009 Pamphlet on Travelers Cheque Acceptance (source: link above)If your travelers cheques were lost or stolen while you were traveling, you’d call American Express or make your way to one of the thousands of American Express offices worldwide. These offices would verify your serial numbers, cancel your outstanding cheques by number, and issue you new ones, so you wouldn’t lose any money. American Express offices were like little financial embassies all around the world. If you were an American Express cardholder you could even have mail sent to you at an American Express office. Now they are almost all closed.American Express Paris Office, 1895(source: American Express)This security might seem flimsy. Why couldn’t a thief just forge the signature on a stolen cheque and use it before it can be reported stolen? Why couldn’t the check holder falsely claim to have lost the cheques then use them anyway? But in fact fraud and abuse were so minimal that American Express didn’t even list it as a separate cost in their financial statements. There were a lot of societal factors that kept theft and fraud low. No one wants to lose their wallet, even if their travelers cheques are replaceable. Few people are brazen enough to risk passing a bad cheque at a fancy hotel. Why is this interesting? Part 1Travelers cheques were a feature of the late 20th century, but they were also the last vestige of an earlier system, when most paper money was “banknotes” issued by banks, not governments. Travelers cheques, like all banknotes, required all parties to have a lot of faith in the financial credit of American Express. If the issuer went bankrupt while you held a travelers cheque, you could lose all your value, and merchants would only accept travelers cheques if they were confident that American Express would redeem them at full value. To its credit, American Express understood that this was a key part of their dominance in the travelers cheque business and they maintained investment reserves to match their outstanding balance of travelers cheques. Even today, long after American Express stopped selling travelers cheques (I tried to purchase some for research—no luck) , American Express still makes it easy to redeem any travelers cheques that you might find deep in your drawer. Got some? Here’s the link. American Express clearly knows that confidence is critical to any system of paper money.Why Is this Interesting, Part 2Although travelers cheques were a great business, a natural monopoly with high returns on investment and a growing, prosperous clientele, they were one of the first victims of the internet (broadly defined) and disappeared quickly within a decade starting around 1990. The introduction of financial databases that could be accessed from anywhere in the world and updated in real-time allowed for international acceptance of credit and charge cards (for large expenses like hotels and restaurants) as well as global acceptance of ATM cards (for smaller expenses and spending money). Before 1990 travelers needed to carry large amounts of cash or cash equivalents (travelers cheques). After 2000 almost nobody did. American Express stopped reporting annual sales of Travelers Cheques in 2006, and in 2019 it finally stopped reporting the amount of uncashed Travelers Cheques still outstanding. American Express adapted by focusing its business on its charge card. Originally launched in 1958 as an amenity for its best travelers cheque customers, the American Express card used the company’s large network of business acceptance worldwide to build a business as a premium alternative form of payment, effectively replacing the company’s own travelers cheques. The company’s slogan, “Don’t leave home without them” elided easily into “The American Express Card - Don’t leave home without it.” (MJS)____Partner Post: WITI x TaikaWITI x Taika Back when we first mentioned them, our WITI readership gave us a big thumbs up for the new DTC brand Taika. It’s a canned cold brew coffee with adaptogens that smooth out the jagged, jittery feeling into clean-burning energy. The flavor profile has been handcrafted by a world top 10 barista champion, and they used ethically sourced beans from Colombia and Ethiopia. We’ve consumed a few cases of this stuff and confirm the taste is amazing. Plus, there’s no added sugar and the drink fits nicely into a variety of healthy lifestyles (keto, paleo, etc). It’s also easier to procure! Previously only available by courier in NYC, LA, and SF, they just launched nationwide shipping. WITI readers get free shipping on all Taika products, via this link. Go buy some!___Videos of the Day:Karl Malden takes you on a tour of the international underworld. The train to GenevaThe sad boy on the beachMr. Wong in Hong KongThe Motorbike Purse SnatcherThe Suave PickpocketTwo Ladies DiningLost At Sea(MJS)Special thanks to the library staff at the Stanford Graduate School of Business for accessing pre-digital financial documents used in the preparation of this newsletter. Thanks for reading,Noah (NRB) & Colin (CJN) & Mark (MJS)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 Travelers Cheque Edition

Mark Slavonia (MJS) is an investor, a pilot, and an avid cyclist. He wrote about kitchen ballet, Bike Everesting, Rowing Machines, and Traveler’s Checks. He posts other things that are interesting on his website and on Twitter. Mark here. In the 1980s, there wasn’t a lot on TV. One of public television’s biggest hits at the time was This Old House, the grandfather of the home remodeling genre. The show premiered in 1979 on WGBH Boston and featured a slow pace (a 13 episode season followed a single home remodeling project), low stress, and an amiable host, Bob Vila, along with a recurring cast of tradespeople, including Norm the carpenter. It was so popular that it was spoofed on Saturday Night Live and inspired the long-running sitcom “Home Improvement.” Norm Abram and Bob Vila on This Old House (photo: WGBH)Then in 1989, at the peak of the show’s popularity, This Old House and Bob Vila shocked their fans and parted ways. WGBH announced that they had not renewed Vila’s contract for the following season. Money was at the root of the split—Vila had signed personal endorsement deals while the PBS show was avowedly non-commercial. Why Is This Interesting?This simple explanation masks complicated questions about commercialization, credibility, and celebrity—questions that we’re still wrestling with today. Who is bigger: the star or the show? Who has the right to cash in? Can audiences assume that programs and hosts offer unbiased advice? Bob Vila wanted to be an ambassador, a home improvement influencer before the concept was well developed. A reality TV show developed today, even on public television, would contemplate the potential value and conflicts that fame and exposure could create for the cast and the creators. At the time, WGBH and Vila were well-intentioned but unprepared for the questions that they faced. This Old House wasn’t free from commercial sponsors, and Vila wasn’t unreasonably greedy. In the ‘80s, This Old House was popular but neither high budget nor lucrative. In his first contract, Vila was paid $250 per episode to make the show, and his last contract paid him $800/episode ($20,800 for the 26-episode season, about $45,000 in 2021 dollars) at a time when he was a household name synonymous with home improvement. The show’s producers initially had no objection to Vila’s outside endorsement deals until they began to create problems for the show’s ability to raise money from “underwriters”—essentially, exclusive advertisers who were permitted a low-key, classy promotional ad at the beginning and the end of PBS’s highbrow content. Underwriters provided WGBH with about $1 mm per year for the show, and Vila’s endorsements had reached about $250,000. The largest underwriter was an up-and-coming home improvement chain called Home Depot, which specifically objected to Vila’s contract with Rickel DIY Centers. This wasn’t the first time public television had launched outsized celebrities. Two decades earlier, the same station, WGBH Boston, and the same director, Bob Moresh, presented The French Chef with Julia Child. Jim Henson parlayed the fame he earned from Sesame Street to create for-profit works featuring the Muppets. But neither of these stars directly challenged the genteel but somewhat hypocritical non-commercialization of PBS the way that Vila did. In a 2009 interview with Boston Magazine, This Old House’s carpenter, Norm Abram, made the contrast explicit. “I look at Julia Child. There’s a woman who never endorsed anything. The last thing I ever want to be is a pitch-man. I don’t want to be running around the country pitching tools or doing infomercials. That’s for somebody else.” In a way, everyone involved got what they wanted. This Old House continued on with a new host. Vila launched a rival program, cheekily called Bob Vila’s Home Again. That same year Vila signed a $5 million endorsement deal with Sears for Craftsman tools. But the show, and Vila, never reached the same height of popularity and cultural relevance. Copycat programs proliferated. HGTV, a channel exclusively devoted to home improvement, was launched in 1994. Vila and This Old House were facing a showdown over which was bigger—the show or the host—but both emerged diminished. If Vila and This Old House had found a way to continue to work together in 1989, they might have created a more powerful home improvement entertainment empire. Bob Vila in an advertisement for SearsIn the end, This Old House couldn’t escape the pressures of commercialization. WGBH sold the show to Time Inc. in 2001, thus ending its not-for-profit status and plunging the show into the whirlpool of media mergers and acquisitions. Most recently, in March 2021, the streaming service Roku bought This Old House Ventures for $98 million, making 1,500 episodes of This Old House-related programs available to its streaming subscribers. The Home Depot now operates over 2,000 superstores worldwide and sells over $100 billion of home improvement products annually. Rickel Home Centers filed for bankruptcy and liquidation in 1996. Culture, as always, kept moving, and what feels today like a naive decision only looks that way with the benefit of thirty years of hindsight. (MJS)Quick Links:The Darker Story Just Outside the Lens of Framing Britney Spears (NRB)Google delays Chrome's cookie-blocking privacy plan by nearly 2 years (NRB)You Won’t Have Andy Richter to Sidekick Around Anymore (NRB)[Sponsored Link] If you’re at a SaaS company, check out Variance. It’s a tool to help grow customers (some people are calling it a PLG CRM). If you have questions or want to try it, get in touch. (NRB)Thanks for reading,Noah (NRB) & Colin (CJN) & Mark (MJS)—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 Proto-Ambassador Edition

Mark Slavonia (MJS) is an investor, a pilot, and an avid cyclist. He wrote about kitchen ballet, Bike Everesting, Rowing Machines, Traveler’s Checks, and This Old House. He posts other things that are interesting on his website and on Twitter. Mark here. NBC seems to have gone out of its way to make it difficult and frustrating to watch the Summer Olympics this year. But from 1964 to 1988, the heyday of network broadcast television, the Olympics were broadcast by ABC. After first getting the rights to the Olympics, ABC considered a different problem than time zones and internet spoilers—how do you get viewers interested in sports other than baseball, (American) football, and basketball? Part of their answer was Wide World of Sports, a show produced by ABC’s head of sports Roone Arledge and hosted by Jim McKay. The idea was to broadcast a wide range of sports that might be unfamiliar to U.S. fans, building interest and storylines that would benefit ABC’s Olympic coverage. The strategy was very successful. ABC’s Olympics broadcasts were highly rated, and Wide World of Sports itself became a popular and acclaimed program. The opening credits featured a sports montage backed by McKay’s unforgettable narration: Spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of sportThe thrill of victoryAnd the agony of defeatThe human drama of athletic competitionThis is ABC’s Wide World of SportsWhy is this interesting?The opening montage varied from year to year but a consistent feature was a dramatic clip of Yugoslavian ski-jumper Vinko Bogataj’s spectacular crash in a 1970 competition. Bogataj escaped with minor injuries and gained lasting fame as the athlete forever associated with the agony of defeat. The sports featured on Wide World of Sports were eclectic and international. Viewers were offered gymnastics, rock climbing, Formula 1 racing, figure skating, track and field, boxing, table tennis, chess, triathlons, and countless other sports plus lighter fare like the Harlem Globetrotters and motorcycle jumps by Evil Knievel. American skiers got their first glimpse of the fearsome Hahnenkamm downhill. Cyclists were introduced to the Tour de France way back in 1975 before a single American had even entered the race, and to the cobblestones of Paris-Roubaix in 1989. ABC could often purchase the U.S. rights to broadcast these events inexpensively and rely on local television crews for the video feed and production, reducing the cost of Wide World of Sports. The modern Olympics and its big-money partnership between network TV and seldom-broadcast sports now seems inevitable. In reality, it was the result of dedicated promotion and hard work, much of which was done by ABC and its first-rate sports broadcasting team in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s.  If you’re a fan of a sport that’s outside of the American mainstream, there’s a good chance that America saw it first on Wide World of Sports. (MJS)Quick Links:Sporting events shown on Wide World Of Sports, by year (MJS)What it’s like for an Afghan family trying to make it to Kabul airport (CJN) A very powerful image and caption from CNN’s Clarissa Ward (CJN) Thanks for reading,Noah (NRB) & Colin (CJN) & Mark (MJS)—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 Wide World of Sports Edition

Mark Slavonia (MJS) is an investor, a pilot, and an avid cyclist. He wrote about kitchen ballet, rowing machines, traveler’s checks, and more. He posts other things that are interesting on his website and on Twitter. Mark here. Yesterday a women’s cycling team posted this image on Twitter with the caption “A feeling of history” and no explanation. Why is this interesting?Who is this person? Where is this strange room? To most people, the image is enigmatic, but to cycling fans, it is deeply powerful and symbolic. The woman is Marianne Vos, the best female cyclist of all time. The place is the showers below the velodrome in Roubaix, France. This weekend Paris-Roubaix, the greatest and most prestigious one-day bike race, will hold a women’s race for the first time in the race’s 125 year history. Paris-Roubaix is a muddy, desperate battle across cobblestone farm roads in Northern France. The race finishes on an unglamorous cycling track in Roubaix, and the very few who survive the “Hell of the North” (as the race is called) traditionally clean off the grime and mud in these famous concrete showers below the track that drip out a miserly stream of tepid water. Image of the cobblestone roads used in Paris-Roubaix (cc license, Wikipedia) Look closely behind Vos and to the left. You’ll see a small brass plaque on the wall of one of the cubicles. Past winners of Paris-Roubaix are commemorated by having one of these cubicles named after them. There are, of course, no women’s names. Throughout Vos’s amazing career, she’s never had the chance to race in Paris-Roubaix, perhaps the ideal stage for her unique talents that combine fitness, courage, grit, and astonishing bike handling skills. Vos is wearing the black and yellow uniform of the Jumbo-Visma team, the same black and yellow kit worn by the men of the Jumbo-Visma team. A growing trend in cycling is for top men’s teams such as Jumbo-Visma, Movistar, and Trek-Segafredo to sponsor a women’s squad as well. Vos’s teammate Wout van Aert is one of the favorites in the men’s race. But some of the more traditional forces that control cycling are fighting against this trend. For example, Patrick LeFevere, director of the Deceuninck–Quick-Step team that has dominated Paris-Roubaix for the past three decades, recently said that he won’t have a women’s team because he’s not interested in running a charity. Women’s professional cycling faces a quandary. Riders are expected to train, dress, live, and ride like male professional athletes, but they earn a fraction of the salary and have fewer, less prestigious races to compete in. The Tour de France organization, which also runs Paris-Roubaix, doesn’t even host a women’s Tour de France, instead offering a watered-down weekend sideshow for women cyclists. Only a few women pros can earn a full time living as bike racers, the peloton is weakened by racers who have to drop out of the sport or take full-time jobs, and then the riders face criticism for not being strong enough, or professional enough, to handle the biggest events. The good news is that the solution to this problem is our attention. This edition of WITI is my attempt to grab yours. Sports run on the money that chases our attention. The more fans that a sport attracts, the more it can afford to hold top events, pay living wages, and build a 125-year history worthy of legend. Marianne Vos and the women taking part in the inaugural women’s Paris-Roubaix deserve this. The women race 116 km (72 miles) on Saturday, October 2, 2021, starting at 1:35 p.m. Paris time and finishing around 4:45 p.m. The men race 258 kilometers (160 miles) on Sunday, starting at 11:00 a.m. Paris time and finishing around 5:00 p.m. Both races will be broadcast live on NBC’s Peacock Network. Watch the men’s race if you can, but don’t miss the women. (MJS)Subscribe nowQuick Links:The excellent 1976 documentary A Sunday In Hell is available on Youtube and closes with a famous scene of the riders in the Roubaix showers. (links directly to the shower scene) No U.S. rider has ever won Paris-Roubaix, but one winner of Paris-Roubaix later became an American and found fame and fortune. His name was Albert Champion and he founded the spark plug company that still bears his name. (MJS) Want to read an entire article about the showers below the Roubaix Velodrome? Here you go. (MJS) The 1990 Paris-Roubaix was decided by one centimeter, or 1/25 millionth of the race length, possibly the closest major sporting event of all time by the metric of winning margin divided by total time. (MJS)__Partner Post: Taika We’ve been fans of Taika since their inception. The team has made a perfect canned cold brew plus adaptogens that remove the jitters you get from normal coffee. Now, they’ve moved on to even greener creative pastures with a new Matcha Latte. It is a blend of USDA organic ceremonial grade matcha, sourced from a 100-year-old Japanese producer, coupled with their blend of adaptogens to create smooth, balanced energy. For those wanting to watch their caffeine intake, this clocks in at a responsible 60mg per can, half of their coffee offerings. Plus, there are zero added sugars and delightfully creamy, house-made macadamia milk high in healthy fats and protein.WITI readers can get free shipping by clicking here.__Thanks for reading,Noah (NRB) & Colin (CJN) & Mark (MJS)—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 Paris Roubaix Edition

Mark Slavonia (MJS) is an investor, a pilot, and an avid cyclist. He wrote about kitchen ballet, rowing machines, traveler’s checks, and more. He posts other things that are interesting on his website and on Twitter.Mark here. Anyone who has assembled an elaborate Lego set can appreciate the design of Lego directions. Officially called “building instructions” these colorful catalogs take builders through complex projects without the use of any words, using carefully thought-out illustrations and a few symbols. By avoiding text, Lego levels the playing field between adults and children and makes their sets universal without requiring translation. Now witness the power of this fully armed and operational battle stationThese are not step-by-step instructions. Each illustration in Lego building instructions combines several steps into a manageable small project that often requires interpretation and planning to complete. After completing each illustration the builder can compare the work with the illustration to make sure that they match. Illustrations are carefully planned to present a complete and unambiguous template for the build. These projects can be large. The instruction set for 2008’s ingenious 3803-piece Lego Death Star is 264 pages long. Here’s one of the first pages. Notice how step 8, for example, adds 12 pieces to the design without using text or even arrows.Building Instructions, Lego set 10188, Death Star, page 6 of 264The builder compares the drawing in step 7 to the drawing in step 8 and figures it out. This process is very satisfying and gets easier as one builds more and more Lego sets. Builders gain trust that the designers have provided them with enough information, and the designers have carefully planned just how much information builders need to make progress. The rapport and trust that forms between designers and builders of Lego projects reminded me of something I dimly remembered from college music courses— - figured bass. Why is this interesting? Figured Bass was a way of writing musical notation that was widely used in the Baroque and early Classical periods. It co-existed with, and was used in conjunction with, the now-familiar staff notation of five horizontal lines for each clef. In figured bass notation the bass chords weren’t fully written out on the staff. Only the lowest note was represented as usual, and the other notes of the chord were hinted at or suggested by numbers written below the note. To take the most basic example, the familiar C major chord is written in staff notation like this: but can be written in figured bass notation like this:And since this is the standard position for this type of chord, the “5” and the “3” are sometimes omitted in a sort of figured bass shorthand, so that the entire chord can be represented simply by this: Figured bass saved time for the composer or transcriber of the music and it allowed for some limited interpretation and improvisation by the performer. Here’s an example of a manuscript using figured bass notation. Note the numbers “6” and “4” at the bottom of the first measure. Figured bass and Lego instructions function like a puzzle or a code that is shared between the creator and the reader. They reduce the steps that need to be explicit and they reward familiarity and practice. They are both used in situations where fully writing out each step would have been burdensome for either the creator (figured bass) or the reader (Lego). They both evolved in response to a practical compromise between completeness, usability, and efficiency. Mastering the interpretation of these codes works like a shared nod of appreciation. (MJS)--WITI reader offer: Atlas BarsOur friend and longtime WITI subscriber Jylle at the protein bar company Atlas reached out with an offer for our crew. It’s a unique product: Organic ashwagandha to reduce stress. Grass-fed whey to fuel performance. Zero added sugar. Clean, real-food ingredients. We’ve tried them and dug them. If you want to try, there’s a code for WITI readers to get you 20 percent off. Try the sample pack.--WITI x McKinsey:An ongoing partnership where we highlight interesting McKinsey research, writing, and data.A view on travel’s travails. “In 2019, we experienced a record year in travel,” says Axel Hefer, the CEO of Trivago. “Then in 2020, it was the worst it had been in a very long time.” That’s probably not news to the road warriors among us, but Hefer provides unique perspective on the industry. How is it rebounding, and what might 2022 bring? In a new interview, he discusses trends affecting the sector, highlights the shift toward domestic travel, and considers the road ahead for both leisure and business trips. You don’t want to miss his insight.Thanks for reading,Noah (NRB) & Colin (CJN) & Mark (MJS)—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 Figured Bass Edition

Mark Slavonia (MJS) is an investor, a pilot, and an avid cyclist. He wrote about kitchen ballet, rowing machines, traveler’s checks, and more. He posts other things that are interesting on his website and on Twitter. Mark here. The rollout of 5G data networks is exposing a conflict between the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which auctioned the rights to use the radio frequencies on which 5G networks operate, and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which has for decades governed the use of similar radio frequencies that are used to help guide airplanes. The FAA, pilots, and airlines object to the rollout of 5G cellular networks near commercial airports due to concerns that the 5G signals may interfere with the navigation systems of planes. Even accommodating the possibility that 5G signals might interfere with navigation could cause diversions and delays. The FAA’s concern with 5G relates to devices called radar altimeters. Radar altimeters are highly accurate altitude-measuring devices that are carried in commercial aircraft. Unlike normal barometric (air pressure) altimeters which are used in regular flight, radar altimeters have a highly specialized purpose. They are used to help land planes in terrible weather. Why is this interesting? Pilots landing in poor weather rely on standardized single-page charts, called approach plates, that contain the information needed to land safely and the procedures to be followed if a landing has to be aborted. Pilots train to be able to read, interpret, and follow these plates during flight, since runway assignments, directions, and even destinations may need to be adjusted in times of severe weather. Approach Plate for Instrument Landing System, Runway 24, Arnold Palmer Regional Airport, Latrobe, PennsylvaniaIn moderately bad weather, pilots can use GPS or follow a ground-based radio beacon that gives horizontal and vertical guidance (basically, this is like following a guidance beam projected along the proper flight path). These standard instrument approaches generally work as long as the lowest layer of clouds is at least 200 feet above the runway and the visibility at the ground is about half a mile. But when making landings in the worst weather—when pilots may not be able to see the runway even when they’re just a few feet above it—a more accurate altitude measurement is necessary in addition to the guidance given by GPS and radio beacons. Radar altimeters fill this need. A radar altimeter aims a signal down to the ground and measures the time that it takes for that signal to bounce back to the plane. Radar altimeter systems can then convert that time into an accurate measurement of the plane’s altitude above ground at that moment. This specialized type of radar points only in one direction (down), is looking for only one thing (the ground), and yields only one output (distance). Radar altimeters are integrated into the plane’s operation in complicated ways. Many will trigger an audio signal at predetermined altitudes. Some integrate with a virtual display of a digital runway. And some integrate directly with the autopilot systems in aircraft that have automatic landing capability. Automatic landing capability is required for landings when the runway is not visible at any altitude. Warning issued for Palo Alto airport that 5G might be fouling radar altimeters.Not surprisingly, aviation requires very high levels of reliability—there isn't any room for "we're pretty sure this will work". If your radar altimeter isn't working when you're making a landing in zero visibility you've got a big problem. It's even worse if you think it's working but it's giving readouts that are even slightly wrong. Without reliable radar altimeters, pilots would be limited to making landings when the lowest clouds were at least 200 feet above the runway, using radio beacon and GPS systems. This would result in more frequent diversions and delays.1 Radar altimeters operate on frequencies similar to those used in 5G data systems. While these altimeters are reliable and highly regulated, many are based on older technology that was not designed to account for and filter out signals that are on similar frequencies. The FAA is claiming that the FCC didn’t give adequate notice to allow for testing radar altimeters for possible 5G interference or for the development of replacement or upgraded radar altimeters with better signal filtering. It seems likely that any conflicts between radar altimeters and the 5G network can be fixed by upgrading the radar altimeters, but that would take some time and planning to roll out across the airlines’ fleets. I don't know enough about the spectrum frequencies, power, and potential for error to evaluate the true risk that the 5G system would cause. The FAA is arguing that, essentially, the FCC doesn’t know enough either. (MJS)Quick Links:James Fallows wrote an excellent Q&A about the conflict between airlines and 5G. (MJS)Patrick Smith, an airline pilot, and author, describes the problem on his askthepilot.com website (MJS)  Peter Coy’s opinion piece in the New York Times discusses the lack of coordination between the FAA and the FCC (MJS)--WITI x McKinsey:An ongoing partnership where we highlight interesting McKinsey research, writing, and data.The kids are not all right: Dr. Kevin Churchwell, president and CEO of Boston Children’s Hospital, says there’s been a sharp rise in behavioral and mental-health issues among children and young adults. What’s causing this escalation? How can families, hospitals, schools, and the healthcare system work together to tackle these issues? Don’t miss this interview with Dr. Churchwell.--Thanks for reading,Noah (NRB) & Colin (CJN) & Mark (MJS)—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!).1Estimating how much more frequent is hard to say as it’s super specific to locations. I read two A320 pilots who said that they made only about one full-autoland landings every year.  But the delays and disruptions ripple out because airlines would have to cancel flights when low visibility was even just a possibility.

The 5G Interference Edition

Mark Slavonia (MJS) is an investor, a pilot, and an avid cyclist. He wrote about kitchen ballet, traveler’s checks, 5g interference, and more. He posts other things that are interesting on his website and on Twitter. Mark here. This is a Concept 2 rowing machine. A new one costs $900. Twenty years ago, a new one cost $900. A used one, if you can find one, would cost at least $700 on any city’s Craigslist even before the plague. They are simple and indestructible. They are made in Vermont by a family-owned company that employs about 100 people. Few serious rowers use any other rowing machine. Image source: Concept 2 website, www.concept2.comWhy is this interesting? The fitness equipment business has few heroes. Most exercise machines quickly become laundry racks then are given away on curbsides and garage sales. Some companies try to build their business by selling recurring revenue memberships or constantly pushing small changes and innovations that make their customers insecure if they’re not using the latest equipment.Concept 2 Rowing Machines, 1981-2020 (source: www.concept2.com)Concept 2 takes a different approach. It is not out to maximize the dollars that it extracts from its users. It never raised venture capital, and its models from 30 years ago are still widely used in homes, schools, and gyms. A few small new features have been added over the years, but none alter the fundamentals of the indoor rowers. By keeping the price of the product relentlessly low, they’ve faced limited competition from cheaper machines, none of which can compete with Concept 2’s reputation for quality, reliability, and standardization. There’s a thread that runs from Concept 2 through high-profile, high-tech fitness companies like Strava and Peloton. Every single Concept 2 rowing machine is an ergometer (“erg,” often used as shorthand for rowing machine), measuring the user’s actual power and calibrating it to match every other Concept 2 ever made, going back to 1981. Since 2002, Concept 2 has run a simple, free logbook function on its website where rowers can record their times over distances, track their progress, and compare themselves to rowers everywhere. The founders of Strava were collegiate rowers familiar with Concept 2 erg, and Peloton’s output calculation operates on essentially the same principle as the Concept 2 erg. Concept 2 has never tried to change into a tech company or a social network. The benefit from the community that Concept 2 has created accrues to its users. The ubiquity of Concept 2 ergs is on display every year at the prestigious C.R.A.S.H.-B. World Indoor Rowing Championships, held each year in Boston, MA. Concept 2 is a sponsor of the event and the only machine ever used at these championships. Concept 2 rowing machines at the World Indoor Rowing ChampionshipsIndoor rowing is hard. It’s a great workout, but it can be very intense. Some coaching is required to avoid injury. You can’t really read while on the erg, and even watching TV is a challenge. Concept 2 machines are loud. The machine’s digital display provides essential time, speed, and distance information but little entertainment. It’s a quality product people like to use from a company that doesn’t gouge their customers: an uncommon thing to say in a fitness landscape littered with equipment that can cost five digits and is loaded with gimmicks and proprietary, hard-to-service parts. Personally, I love the Concept 2. When I walk into a tiny hotel gym and spot one slumbering disused in a dusty corner far from the MSNBC on the flat-screen TVs, it’s like my own personal loud, sweaty Christmas. (MJS)  Book of the Day:WITI contributor Scott Stedman, who explored the different genres of murder fiction in our Murder Mystery Edition, has just published his debut YA mystery, Mouse. It's the story of a young hacker who uses code like magic. (NRB)Quick Links:One day, I’m going to write a WITI about my thoughts on nudge theory. For now, Tim Harford had a good FT piece from the weekend about it. (NRB)Some good questions from friend of WITI Tom Critchlow on why every executive dashboard is terrible. (NRB)While I have you (and speaking of dashboards)—Variance, my company, is now open for signups. So if you are in marketing or sales or product at a software company and interested in getting better intel and signals about your customer base, take a look around and sign up. (NRB)NY Times says Wordle drove “tens of millions” of new users, record growth (NRB)WITI x McKinsey:An ongoing partnership where we highlight interesting McKinsey research, writing, and data.A playbook for navigating inflation. Few executives have faced the challenge of leading a company through an inflationary spike like today’s. Lessons from strong leaders and bold action can help CEOs make the decisions that only they can make. Here’s how.–-Thanks for reading,Noah (NRB) & Colin (CJN) & Mark (MJS)—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 Concept 2 Edition

Mark Slavonia (MJS) is an investor, a pilot, and an avid cyclist. He wrote about kitchen ballet, rowing machines, traveler’s checks, and more. He posts other things that are interesting on his website and on Twitter. Mark here. It’s stone fruit season, my favorite time of year for fresh, seasonal fruit. There’s a row of trees behind my house that drop small, delicious plums more quickly than we can harvest them. Although I might prefer to eat these tiny treats unimpeded by their pits, the big, hard seeds of plums, apricots, and peaches have not yet yielded to efforts to cultivate seedless varieties.  The cherry-sized plums that grow in my backyard. The Seek app tells me these are “cherry-plums” Why is this interesting? There are several ways to develop and produce seedless fruit, but luck has yielded some of the best results. A chance mutation can create a variety that delays its seed production, one that produces tiny seeds, or one that has no seeds at all. For example, the navel orange—seedless and awesome—resulted from a happy accident discovered in Brazil around 1820. In the wild, this variety would be doomed. The lack of seeds means that they would produce no offspring. The navel orange, a happy and seedless accidentBut observant growers can rescue these mutants and reproduce them through grafting: where a cutting from the seedless tree is attached to a branch of an existing tree. If the tree varieties are similar and the arborist is skillful, the grafted branch can thrive and produce fruit on its new host tree.If you’re not so lucky and your fruit isn’t so accommodating, you can help nature along by using several methods to encourage advantageous mutations to occur. For example, you can treat a plant with a chemical called colchicine, which can cause the plant to grow with double the usual number of chromosomes. Breeding the resulting doubled-chromosome plant with a normal plant can create sterile offspring incapable of developing seeds. But there’s a catch. For some plants, the growth of delicious fruit is triggered only by the emergence of seeds. If the seeds don’t develop, the fruit doesn’t either—or the fruit becomes stunted and small. Such is the fate of existing seedless varieties of apples and watermelons. The Spencer seedless apple. Get used to disappointment. Stone fruit are especially intractable. Botanists haven’t yet developed or discovered a peach, cherry, or apricot that will develop a useful fruit without a big seed and its husk. An apricot and its inescapable pitSeedless varieties that are raised through grafting or cutting are genetic clones of each other, leaving them especially susceptible to blight or disease due to their limited genetic diversity. Such a fate ruined the commercial cultivation of the (seedless) Gros Michel banana in the 1950s. Up until that time, the Gros Michel was the top banana in the global banana trade, but the emergence of Panama Disease wiped out most Gros Michel plantations. Growers shifted to the Cavendish Banana, which is what most of us think of as a banana today. But the Cavendish banana could yet succumb to Panama Disease or a similar wipeout. Gros Michel bananas, from Atlas Obscura/Chris NakaNone of the seedless fruit commonly on the market today is a genetically modified organism (“GMO”) in the modern sense. Seedless varieties are the result of old-fashioned botany, patience, and luck. While some fruits have been successfully bred to cultivate useful seedless varieties, the perfect seedless apple or pitless cherry is still elusive. Finding or cultivating one would be a botanical breakthrough. (MJS)  Quick Links:Atlas Obscura goes searching for a Gros Michel bananaAn excellent book about bananas (NRB) The ancient Romans had seedless grapes, probably, but the evidence is a single mention by Pliny the ElderGrafting can produce fantastical fruit trees that produce several different types of fruit. If you don’t have the patience to do the grafting yourself, you can purchase a fruit cocktail tree. —WITI x McKinsey:An ongoing partnership where we highlight interesting McKinsey research, writing, and data.Resilience for sustainable, inclusive growth. Resilience is the ability to deal with adversity, withstand shocks, and continuously adapt and accelerate as disruptions and crises arise over time. A can’t-miss report from the World Economic Forum and McKinsey explores how public- and private-sector organizations can build a resilient stance.—Thanks for reading,Noah (NRB) & Colin (CJN) & Mark (MS) —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 Seedless Fruit Edition

Mark Slavonia (MJS) is an investor, a pilot, and an avid cyclist. He wrote about radio altimeters, rowing machines, traveler’s checks, and more. He posts other things that are interesting on his website and on Twitter. Mark here. One place technology has undoubtedly made life simpler is public transportation. Routes and timetables for most systems are integrated into mapping apps, waiting times are prominently displayed, and payment no longer requires exact change or even individual tickets and tokens.Why is this interesting? Before we were all carrying around iPhones, contactless smart cards that work across all of a region’s disparate transportation systems hugely simplified public transportation. First introduced in the mid-90s in Seoul, South Korea with UPass, contactless transport cards were one of the first mainstream applications for RFID chips, which can transmit small amounts of data when pinged at the correct frequency. Hong Kong’s Octopus CardHong Kong followed shortly after Seoul in 1997 and kicked off the trend of giving these systemwide cards excellent names. The Octopus Card, commemorated the intelligent and adaptable creatures that live in the city’s bay, and evoked the broad reach of the region’s many types of public transportation. Soon after, other cities followed suit and introduced cards with clever and regionally-appropriate names. Around the world there are many great transit card names, loads of decent ones, and few terrible ones. London evoked its fishmonger past when it launched the Oyster Card in 2004. London’s Oyster CardMost, but not all, of the most clever card names commemorate local or symbolic animals, such as the ORCA card in Seattle and the LeoCard in Lviv, Ukraine (the latter’s city shield prominently features a lion). San Francisco’s Clipper Card recalls the fast clipper sailing ships of the 19th century while suggesting the way one just clips the card against the reader. Los Angeles’s TAP makes a more direct suggestion for how to use the card.  The greatest moment in the already illustrious history of transit card names happened in 2004 when Boston’s Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority settled on the gently self-mocking name “CharlieCard” for its smart payment system. Boston’s spectacularly-named CharlieCardBoston’s subway system historically had a maddening and incomprehensible payment system that often required additional payment before exiting. A rider without exact change could theoretically be stuck in the subway. In 1949, a Progressive mayoral candidate named Walter O’Brian used a traditional folk song, adapted by Jacqueline Steiner and Bess Lomax Hawes, in his campaign, promising lower subway fares by singing the ballad of a man named Charlie who got stuck in the system for want of a nickel. A decade later The Kingston Trio recorded a version of the political protest song and scored a surprise #1 hit, M.T.A. The CharlieCard commemorates the system’s famous fictitious rider. The heyday of the contactless transit card is rapidly looking like a thing of the past. More and more systems, like the aforementioned New York and London, have made their own cards obsolete by introducing direct tap-to-pay from credit cards and mobile phones, rendering a dedicated card unnecessary. New York, which never got around to launching a contactless card (the MetroCard used a magnetic stripe) jumped directly into the direct payment era. You can now ride the New York subway by tapping your credit card or phone. The program even has a decent name: OMNY. Quick Links: A Wikipedia list of smart transit cards around the world.  Some of these are probably great names in the local language. The history of the New York City subway token—WITI x McKinsey:An ongoing partnership where we highlight interesting McKinsey research, writing, and data.How industrial technology is creating a more inclusive economy. McKinsey reveals 35 cutting-edge companies in the industrial tech sector, highlighting a robust “titanium economy” that creates American jobs and fuels innovation. They’re some of the fastest-growing and most profitable in the US. Check it out. —Thanks for reading,Noah (NRB) & Colin (CJN) & Mark (MJS)—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 Transit Card Naming Edition

Mark Slavonia (MJS) is an investor, a pilot, and an avid cyclist. He wrote about radio altimeters, rowing machines, traveler’s checks, and more. He posts other things that are interesting on his website. Mark here. In 2016 the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration announced plans to phase out redundant stations in the network of 1,000 radio beacons used by pilots to navigate the skies prior to the advent of GPS. The FAA plans to maintain a “Minimum Operational Network” of these beacons as a backup in the event of GPS outages and as a service to aviators who fly planes without GPS receivers. The stations are called VORs (which stands awkwardly for Very High Frequency Omnidirectional Range). They’re white cones, about 20 feet high, placed at intervals of about 50-100 miles across the United States. Because VOR signals travel best at line of sight, they are often found on hilltops or in  open fields. Sometimes they’re located at an airport. The Rogue Valley VOR in OregonWhy is this interesting? Before the Global Positioning System was released for civilian use in the 1980s, airplanes in the continental U.S. relied on VORs to navigate the skies. Each VOR is essentially a small radio station, broadcasting on an assigned frequency just above the FM dial on your car’s radio. If you dial 107.9 FM on your radio here in Northern California, you’ll get Santa Rosa’s Oldies 107.9, but if you could just keep tuning a little bit higher at 108.4 MHz, you’d reach the Redding VOR. You’d hear a static-like signal that can be decoded by the plane’s equipment to point to the VOR station, and you’d also hear a Morse Code signal “RDD” (.-. -.. -..) audible to pilots, who use the morse code signal to confirm that they’re receiving the correct VOR station. The Redding, California VOR as shown on the standard aviation chartThere are VOR stations hiding in plain sight everywhere.  New Yorkers are covered by the Canarsie VOR near JFK airport, and by VORs in Colts Neck, NJ, Solberg, NJ, Sparta, NJ, and Bridgeport, CT. The Google Maps satellite image of the Canarsie VOR even captured a plane passing over the beacon as part of its composite image. Google Maps satellite image of the Canarsie NY VORIn good weather, pilots use these beacons to confirm their locations. A pilot who became lost or disoriented could determine the plane’s location by finding the direction to any two VOR stations and triangulating. In poor weather, these beacons formed a network that air traffic control used to guide planes when flying by visual references was impossible or unsafe. VOR beacons are connected by direct routes called Victor airways. (“Victor” being the aviation alphabet designation for the letter “v” from the word “very” in “VOR,” so in a way, these are Victor airways in place of being called Very airways.)  Before GPS, pilots would navigate in poor weather by flying from VOR to VOR along these Victor airways, as directed by air traffic control. A pilot taking off from Chicago’s Midway airport might get directed to fly south to the Roberts VOR (broadcasting on 116.8 MHz), then to fly southwest along the Victor airway V191 to the Adders VOR on 117.2 MHz, and then to the Troy VOR on 116.0 MHz, from which the pilot could pick up radio guidance for an approach to the airport. A route between VORs from Chicago to St. LouisNow that GPS is ubiquitous in commercial planes and common in smaller planes, air traffic control is more likely to route traffic directly to its intended location, but the air traffic control system still uses the Victor airways network and the nodes formed by VORs as convenient reference points or alternative routings to provide for more space and safety for air traffic. Pilots still use VORs to report their position to ATC. A pilot might announce they are “five miles south of the Woodside VOR” when making initial contact, for example. The Minimum Operational Network of VORs will eliminate approximately one-third of VORs in the continental United States, leaving over 600 beacons in operation to guide pilots when needed. Phasing out 300 radio beacons over ten years might not seem like a huge difference, but it shifts the air traffic system from one that was built on VOR navigation where GPS was a convenient overlay to one where GPS is the primary technology and VOR navigation is used as a backup system in case of emergency. (MJS) WITI Classifieds:We are experimenting with running some weekly classifieds in WITI. If you’re interested in running an ad, you can purchase one through this form. If you buy this week, we’ll throw an extra week in for free on any ad. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to drop a line.Why is your family interesting? With Storyworth, record their stories one weekly email at a time, and gift them a beautiful printed book. Get $10 off Storyworth.Exhibit B. Books: true crime told and sold Shop the 12 Days Of ExMas sale nowQuick Links:The FAA’s surprisingly nostalgic video about the VOR Minimum Operational NetworkBoldmethod article on the VOR shutdowns, with mapWikipedia’s article on VORs goes into a lot more detail Thanks for reading, Noah (NRB) & Colin (CJN) & Mark (MJS)—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 Very High Frequency Omnidirectional Range Edition

Mark Slavonia (MJS) is an investor, a pilot, and an avid cyclist. He wrote about radio altimeters, rowing machines, traveler’s checks, and more. He posts other things that are interesting on his website. Mark here. It’s hard to exaggerate the allure of the Cox E-Z Flyer. To a young boy in the late 1970s, the Cox E-Z Flyer was the best toy in the world. It was also loud, dangerous, and doomed. Why Is This Interesting? The Cox E-Z Flyer was a control-line model airplane powered by a tiny internal combustion engine. It was attached to two 50’ control lines that ran to a handle. The model airplane enthusiast would hold the handle as the plane spun in a 100’ diameter circle around the pilot until it ran out of fuel or crashed. These two outcomes were equally likely. Theoretically, the control lines allowed the pilot to perform tricks and maneuvers with the plane by tilting the handle to manipulate the plane’s control surfaces. However, as a practical matter for most Cox EZ-Flyer owners, this illusion of control only served as a temptation to stray from the only prudent flight plan, which was level flight until fuel exhaustion. Did the pilot get dizzy? Yes. Could a passerby get snared in the spinning control line such that the plane circled closer and closer on an ever-tightening death spiral until the whirling propeller and the incandescently hot metal engine collided with its victim? Theoretically, I guess. But it seems more likely that the plane would lose vertical control and crash long before this, leaving the pilot and the victim to explore concepts such as fault, responsibility, and liability. WITI Classifieds:We are experimenting with running some weekly classifieds in WITI. If you’re interested in running an ad, you can purchase one through this form. If you buy this week, we’ll throw an extra week in for free on any ad. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to drop a line.BrXnd is a new project at the intersection of brands and AI. Have a play with the first experiment: AI brand collabs. Try it now.Because the Cox E-Z Flyer began its inexorable motion immediately upon starting, it required two people to operate: the pilot and someone to start the plane. Starting a Cox E-Z Flyer had its own challenges and dangers. The starter would hand-crank the tiny, sharp propeller like an old-time barnstormer. A small spring hooked around the propeller. The starter would spin the propeller backward against the spring, then flick it to release the prop, hoping the engine would kick into life. Frequent mis-starts encouraged the starter to ever more enthusiastic prop-flicking, which increased the chances that when the tiny engine burst into life, the starter’s fingers would be in the path of the propeller. Typing this paragraph vividly evokes the sting of a fresh cut on gasoline-soaked fingers. Starter/crowd control was this writer’s assigned serfdom—since the Cox E-Z Flyer that came (briefly) into our house was the property of my eleven-year-old brother. At age nine, all I got to do was struggle to start the plane and then hold back the curious neighbors, dogs, and occasional motor vehicle traffic as my brother spun his orbits around our cul-de-sac. My crowd control efforts were made easier by the shockingly loud buzz emitted by the tiny 0.049 cubic inch two-stroke engine. These adorable powerplants are called “glow plug” engines because the fuel is ignited by the glowingly hot engine itself. In the unlikely event of a successful flight, the enthusiastic pilot would no doubt want to fly again immediately, leaving the starter to try to refuel and re-prop an engine that was literally hot enough to ignite its own fuel. A precise blend of fuel and lubricant was required, both helpfully sold and supplied by the Cox Model Engine Company.Cox 0.049 cubic inch glow plug engineOne day, after my brother had pulled off another flawless full-tank-to-exhaustion rotating flight on our cul-de-sac, I managed to wheedle and whine enough to get him to allow me to fly his plane. Our very poor idea was for him to begin the flight (I’d prop and start the plane as usual), then I’d dash to the center of the 50’ radius, grab the control handle from him, and continue the flight. This did not go as planned. The moment of slack created when we handed off the controls sent the plane into a climb, then an unrecoverable dive. The little plane crashed into the pavement and burst into dozens of pieces of sharp plastic and hot metal. My relationship with my brother suffered similarly irreparable damage.Control line model aviation is a rich and rewarding hobby pursued with great skill and care by enthusiasts all around the world. The Cox E-Z Flyer may have been an excellent model for the hobbyist, but as a toy for children, it was terrible, sure to end its short service life in tears and flame. You may be thinking that the Cox E-Z Flyer was never intended for children and that it only fell into the hands of kids who adroitly manipulated their parents into buying them a gift intended for adults. But no, dear reader. Take a look at this: This is the back of the box for the Cox E-Z Flyer. How old is that hobbyist? Nine?  The Cox Hobbies company merged with the equally exciting Estes Model Rockets in 1996, but competition from inexpensive electric-powered, radio-controlled aircraft spelled the end of production soon thereafter. Dedicated fans of Cox’s tiny internal combustion engines keep a market alive for parts and fuel, and Cox E-Z Flyers are available from time to time on eBay. Serviceable models can be found for about $200. (MJS)Quick Links:This introductory video for control-line flying, “Wired for Excitement”, is narrated by the great John Facenda of NFL Films fame. (MJS)Brodak.com covers all things related to control-line flying (MJS)The Wikipedia page for the Cox model engine (MJS)First flight video of a New-In-Box Cox E-Z Flyer of the same type and model that I famously crashed. “They don’t make educational toys like this anymore”-  Educational? (MJS)  Thanks for reading,Noah (NRB) & Colin (CJN) & Mark (MJS)—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 World's Most Dangerous Toy Edition

Mark Slavonia (MJS) is an investor, a pilot, and an avid cyclist. He wrote about radio altimeters, rowing machines, traveler’s checks, and more. He posts other things that are interesting on his website. Mark here. I think that San Francisco is best enjoyed in the early morning. Many of my favorite things to do in San Francisco are uncrowded at dawn, but become a frustrating crush by midmorning. Jet lag is your superpower. Even if you’re in town on business and have a full day of work starting at 9:00, you can get a lot of the best that the city has to offer by getting out early. Golden Gate BridgeEarly morning is the best time to visit the Golden Gate Bridge. There are loads of great places to go for a run in San Francisco, but if you’re going to do only one short jog, run the Golden Gate Bridge before your first meetings of the day. It’s a 3.4 mile round trip. Reduced crowds isn’t the only reason why early morning is the best time to visit the bridge—it’s also much less windy in the morning. The bridge’s east sidewalk opens to pedestrians daily at 5:00 a.m. Golden Gate Bridge at dawn (taken from the viewing area on the NE end of the bridge) Muir Woods If you’ve got a bit more time and access to transportation, you can also visit the giant redwood trees at Muir Woods National Monument in the morning. The park opens at 8:00 am and is just a 20 minute drive from the Golden Gate Bridge. If you arrive before 9:00 you’ll have the place virtually to yourself. If you’re driving, parking spaces must be reserved in advance. Because the largest redwood trees grow in the alluvial flats and valley floors, the walk through Muir Woods is surprisingly tame, more a stroll than a hike, but there are lots of more rugged hikes nearby. Coffee, Cable Car, Croissants You could start your day at Equator Coffee’s Fort Mason location between the Marina and Fisherman’s Wharf, which opens at 6:30. Get a coffee to go but skip the pastries because the best is yet to come. The Golden Gate Bridge, as seen from Fort MasonA short walk east through Fort Mason will take you past spectacular views of San Francisco Bay and the Golden Gate Bridge, and you will arrive at Aquatic Park, where you can see the intrepid open-water swimmers who brave the cold water. If you have extra time, you can continue east a few blocks to see the sea lions that relax on the docks by Pier 39. Then hop on the cable car at Beach Street and Hyde Street. The San Francisco cable car system starts running at 7:00 a.m. Early morning is really the only time that you can realistically have the signature cable car experience of being right on the edge of one of these ancient contraptions as it clatters its way across San Francisco. Before 8:00 a.m. it’s likely to be just you, the conductor, and the grip. There’s a bewildering array of ways to pay your cable car fare, but luckily there’s a ticket kiosk at the north end of this line. Ride the entire length of the Powell/Hyde cable car line for about 25 minutes to its southern terminus at Market Street, then walk southwest on Market two and a half long blocks. This stretch of Market Street through the Tenderloin and Civic Center neighborhoods isn’t charming, but at this early hour it’s safe. Turn right on McAllister and head into Arsicault Bakery at 87 McAlllister Street. In a city of great bakeries, Arsicault’s croissants are a consensus standout. Arsicault’s original location on Arguello Boulevard always has a long line of customers, but this McAllister location is much less crowded.WITI Classifieds:We are experimenting with running some weekly classifieds in WITI. If you’re interested in running an ad, you can purchase one through this form. If you buy this week, we’ll throw an extra week in for free on any ad. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to drop a line.Coefficient Capital and The New Consumer have teamed up to bring you fresh new insights in F&B ahead of Expo West! Check out our comprehensive reportThe BrXnd Marketing X AI Conference is happening on 5/16 in NYC. Early Bird tickets are 20% off until the end of the month. Get your 20% off ticket today!Golden Gate ParkSan Francisco’s central park has always been more for locals than tourists. The main thoroughfare in the Park was closed to cars in the pandemic and has become a fantastic promenade peppered with pop-up seating areas, art installations, and creative uses of this space recently reclaimed from cars. It’s another great place to run in the early morning and it pairs well with a spin on the city’s bike share system and a visit to some of the bakeries mapped below. Go West for Beaches and Baked GoodsSan Francisco has a thriving bakery/cafe scene that’s mostly concentrated on the less-touristy western half of the city. There are almost too many places to mention but one of my favorites is Devil’s Teeth. Their Noriega Street location is just three blocks from the beach and is open at 7:00 a.m. Grab a cinnamon roll that’s as big as your head and wander down to Ocean Beach to watch the waves. On weekends the Great Highway, adjacent to the beach, is closed to cars and becomes an emergent park. Bakery Cafes of the San Francisco’s Wild West Go For a CruiseSan Francisco has an active community of people who commute by ferries, and the San Francisco Ferry Building itself is a beautiful landmark with fancy eateries and coffee shops. Early risers can take a half-hour cruise on the San Francisco Bay outbound from the ferry building starting around 7:00 am and have a virtually empty ferry boat with unbeatable views of the city and the bay, then just turn around and join the commuters on the ferry back into the city. There are several different ferry routes to the East Bay or Marin. If I had to pick one route, I’d recommend the 7:20 a.m. outbound to Larkspur. (MJS) —Thanks for reading,Noah (NRB) & Colin (CJN) & Mark (MJS) —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.