Dovi’s Digest Volume 92
A weekly newsletter for all your intellectual, spiritual, and physical needs
Top o’the morning to ya, welcome to Volume 92 of Dovi’s Digest.
During my intro last week, I discussed this year’s Winter Olympics at length. And seeing as it’s still happening, I’m going to do the same this time round.
Firstly, an update: I managed to watch it this week at work a bit, and even managed to get my co-workers involved the downhill slalom. If you read between the lines, you’ll see that I wasn’t caught staring at my screen a little TOO intently.
With regard to the Olympics themselves, we’ve seen the same general pattern as we’ve seen in the last few. The Scandinavian countries are doing the best, which makes sense seeing as they’re cold and snowy. Norway in particular is insanely good and performs well above its population size.
After a week of competition, not only is the medal table taking shape properly, but also the rankings of my favourite sports. The standard alpine sports (aka going downhill on skis very fast) are always good to watch, because seeing someone going at 120km/h around sharp corners on snow can't not be. It’s similar with snowboarding. Ice hockey is great if you want to watch toothless men (or women) hit each other with sticks. However, after many hours of watching and deliberating, I have a top three.
In third place, skeleton. Think bobsled (down an ice chute), but a single person, and headfirst. It’s even faster, even more dangerous, and even more fun to watch. I’ve concluded that people who do it either have a death wish, cajones of solid steel, but most likely both.
In second: short track speed skating. Don a skin-tight aerodynamic suit, put razors on your feet (this was my opinion before the tweet below), get on a small rink with 4 other people also wearing knives, and then go as fast as you can around and around at about 50 km/h. Wipeouts are very common, highspeed crashes a part of the job. It’s the only sport I know of that not only do the athletes have to wear helmets, but their skinsuits are cut resistant (because of the aforementioned foot razors), plus they have special extra Kevlar plating over the main arteries. The relays add an extra three skaters per team, which makes it even more bonkers.
In first place is the biathlon. It doesn’t have the speed of skeleton, nor the action of short track. But what it lacks in those, it more than makes up for it for the sheer novelty of it. For those that aren’t in the know (and why would you be?), it’s a combo of cross-country skiing and shooting. On the face of it, it doesn’t seem all that exciting right? Well, you’re wrong. It’s awesome. These people are not only ridiculously fit, but so damn skilled. The targets are 50m away, and are 4.5cm across for the prone, and 11cm for the standing. Try hitting that normally. Throw in your heart rate being through the roof and being in a snowstorm, and you realise how impressive these athletes are. In addition, every time you miss a shot, you either have to ski an extra lap, or just have time added to your total. All in all, a 10/10 event.
Special mention does go to curling, which is kind of tenpin bowling on ice (but not really). Although it isn’t action packed, it’s full of suspense and strategy.
This week’s headline is not about the Olympics per se, but about China’s hosting of it. Beijing isn’t known for its snowy winters (although it is hella cold). As a result, the majority of the snow is man-made, which has huge environmental and social implications. I’ve added an additional article here, called “The Winterless Olympics”, which adds some great extra info with regard to the climate issue.
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There were FIVE correct answers to last week’s brainteaser. Well done to Rabbi Sam Thurgood, Kevin Levy, Ariel Subotzky, Tobias Simon, and Cheryl Geliebter. The answer and this week’s riddle are below.
There are of course other articles. This week you can read about why it’s good to use (and sometimes break) your best possessions instead of saving them, are we close to nuclear war, how to live with regret, how an artificial reef made of subway cars failed miserably, and whether we’re running out of tuna. Enjoy!
Keep those articles (and everything else) coming,
Have a great week,
Dovi
And now, the articles:
Beijing Wanted the Winter Olympics. All It Needed Was Snow.
The environmentally unfriendly secret of winter sports is that many competitions take place on artificial snow. China’s water-scarce capital had to go to enormous lengths to make enough of it.
Stop Worrying and Start Using Your Fancy China
Nice things are meant to be enjoyed, even if it means they break sometimes.
An Existential Discussion: What Is the Probability of Nuclear War?
Snowboarding Was Once Called “Snurfing”— And Other Winter Sport Histories
Early ice skates had bones for blades and the first snowboarders called their sport snurfing—short for snow surfing. Discover the origins of these and more Winter Olympics events.
How To Live With Your Regrets
Regret is often seen as undesirable, but it’s a crucial emotion in helping us develop. How do we harness its powerful lessons?
Sinking 1,000 NYC Subway Cars in The Atlantic to Create a Reef Didn’t Go as Planned
The cars were retired in 2008 and started disintegrating almost immediately.
Tuna’s Last Stand
Skipjack are the world’s most abundant tuna. They’re resilient, but can they outswim our demand for this pantry staple?
Quote of the Week:
“You can't replace reading with other sources of information like videos, because you need to read in order to write well, and you need to write in order to think well.”— Paul Graham
I think this relates:
Writing is often the process by which you realize that you do not understand what you are talking about.
Facts of the Week:
In 2005, a red panda called Babu escaped from a nature reserve in Birmingham and was voted “Brummie of the year”.
When a new motorway bisected the HP sauce factory in Birmingham, the pipeline was installed that carried vinegar from one side of the road to the sauce mixing department on the other.
Noisy miners are small birds of the honeyeater family.
Vulture bees make honey from rotten meat.
If butterflies eat road salt, the males become more muscular, and the females get bigger eyes and brains.
Passionfruit vines deter butterflies from laying eggs on their leaves by growing mock butterfly eggs.
Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, his home to tiny frog, called a pinkletink.
Cartoon of the Week:
Tweet of the Week:
Headline of the Week:
Brainteaser of the Week:
Given the word STANDARD, take away two letters and add three digits to make a logical sequence (there’s a good answer, promise).
Last Week’s Brainteaser and Answer:
Alex has three times as many items in her shopping basket as Brenda has.
Dean has nine more than Brenda and Charlie has five less than Dean.
Charlie has 10 items.
How many does Alex have?
Answer:
18