The Daily Valet. - 6/6/22, Monday
✔️ Heat Makes Us Stupid
Monday, June 6th Edition
If you find a typo in this newsletter, let’s just blame the heat.
Cory Ohlendorf , Editor ⋯ @coryohlendorf
Today’s edition is presented by
Today’s Big Story
Heat Makes Us Stupid
At least, temporarily, say some smart, air-conditioned scientists
June is already off to a toasty start for much of the south-central United States following an abnormally warm May for much of the country. AccuWeather forecasters say Mother Nature is set to dial up the thermostat and send parts of the U.S. to sweltering levels through early week.
Extreme heat is a drag, isn’t it? You get hot, sweaty and sticky—it’s just generally uncomfortable. When I get hot, my laziness kicks him. I get cranky and I really don’t want to do anything. And it’s not just me. Extreme temperatures have been linked to reductions in worker productivity.
But maybe that drop in work ethic has less to do with wanting to take a siesta in the sun, and more to do with the fact that heat makes us temporarily dumber. Harvard University researchers found that a person’s brain works 13 times slower when it has to operate in uncomfortable heat.
While this obviously affects potentially everybody, there are three groups who are particularly at risk. The first is school kids from disadvantaged backgrounds (who often attend schools without AC), for whom other studies have shown that for every degree of temperature increase, there’s a 1% drop in educational attainment. Then there are office workers, for whom cognition is generally important. And finally, people who operate machinery—from road and construction workers to factory employees—who are among the last people you want going foggy in the head as the temperatures rise.
According to Scientific American, the main reason why summer makes us so stupid is because our brains need more energy for cooling the body down in the heat than to warm it up in the cold. Thus, the brain’s main energy source, glucose, becomes more depleted in summer. “We also use glucose when we perform effortful mental functions, such as making decisions, exerting self-control, suppressing emotional responses and even answering math problems.” But glucose is something of a limited resource.
Which means our brains are simply less capable of complex decision-making when it gets hotter out. But Mel says not to worry about it so much. “In fairness, the time we can spend drinking cold beers on a hot beach is also limited,” writes Lauren Vinopal. “So let’s all just dumb things down together and enjoy our himbo brains while we can.”
↦ FYI: Consistent hot days leading up to the PSAT resulted in lower test scores for those students.
The Jan. 6th Committee Goes Public This Week
The bipartisan panel promises ‘previously unseen material’ in prime-time hearing
Almost a year after the formation of the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol, lawmakers are set to take their case public. On Thursday, at 8 pm ET, they will present what the committee has found so far about the deadly siege.
According to NPR, the panel will “present previously unseen material, receive witness testimony, preview additional hearings, and provide the American people a summary of its findings about the coordinated, multi-step effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and prevent the transfer of power.”
Some panel members have hyped the hearings as a Watergate-style moment, and while they're in lockstep about capturing Americans' attention by unfurling a mountain of evidence connecting former President Trump (and those close to him) with the attack on the Capitol, the big surprises might be what reforms it pursues after those hearings to prevent another Jan. 6th from ever happening. Axios reports that some members want big changes on voting rights—and even to abolish the Electoral College—while others are resisting proposals to overhaul the U.S. election system.
Even with all the interest, I'm not sure this will be must-see TV. We just don't watch television like that anymore. But there will be, no doubt, compelling information that bubbles up. The hearings mark the culmination of an inquiry that has involved more than 1,000 interviews and reviews of more than 125,000 records. It's not known yet who the first witnesses will be, but the committee also has video recordings of interviews with Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner, which some inside the process believe will make for pretty gripping television.
↦ Dig Deeper: The legendary reporting duo, Woodward and Bernstein, wrote about Jan.6th in a new foreword to “All The President's Men” published Sunday.
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Do You Want Into the Metaverse?
It’s already populated with the worst examples of internet behavior
Over the weekend, I was at a graduation party and a conversation about the metaverse included eye rolls from young people who seemed uninterested and questions from older guests wondering what they could really use it for.
The one thing everyone seemed to agree on? Ambivalence about whether it's needed. And if the metaverse doesn't get its shit together, it might be over before it ever takes off. Because there's already a slew of issues companies like Meta need to address.
According to a new report from SumOfUs, hate speech, graphic content and sexual violence like groping (and much worse) are running rampant. Gizmodo reports that Meta's flagship VR platform Horizon Worlds is already playing host to the internet's worst kinds of racist and misogynist caricatures.
As CNET points out, abuse in the metaverse is likely to be as endemic as it is on social media. But these incidents illustrate how much more traumatizing they could be due to the immersive experience these worlds offer. The idea of living in a virtual world, once a selling point for VR, is flipped on its head in the darkest way possible.
↦ FYI: From protecting yourself to securing your crypto assets, NGRAVE is offering five tips to stay safe in the Metaverse.
Klipsch Unveils Flagship Speakers
And they’re bigger than most humans
Klipsch is one of the most revered American audio companies, with a history dating back to 1946 when Paul Klipsch introduced the first Klipschorn speaker. According to Gear Patrol, the company has grown enormously and expanded into the realms of home theater, headphones and wireless audio, but it also has stayed true to its roots.
The company just unveiled the new king of its Heritage line with the release of the Jubilee speaker. Apparently, it was the last project founder Paul Klipsch worked on before his passing and was designed to be the successor to the acclaimed Klipschorn.
And it can fill a room in more ways than one. The two-way, horn-loaded loudspeakers, both of which stand at a commanding 5 feet, 8 inches tall and over 400 pounds each. Robb Report says hand-crafted loudspeakers do not disappoint. Inside each satin black or American walnut cabinet is a patented vented, low-frequency enclosure that houses dual 12-inch woofers with three 4-inch ports.
If you’re in need of a new set of speakers, they're available now if you can stomach the $35,000 price tag. Of course, you might want to take some measurements first and make sure you have room for the giants first. Also, you might want to double-check that your floor can support all that added weight.
In Other News
Other Things We’re Talking About Today
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Founder James Beshara wrote a best-selling book on nootropics after developing a heart condition in 2013 from excess caffeine consumption. Nearly a decade later (after 70+ formulations all backed by a revered scientific advisory board), he and his team have introduced what's being called, “Silicon Valley's new morning elixir.”
Beshara says that it's less about energy and more about balancing stress and anxiety. “What I realized in my experimentation was that when I added herbal anxiolytics to my morning ritual, and when I got proper sleep and practiced my daily mindfulness, my stress levels were so low that my to-do list would just melt away.” Magic Mind's proprietary blend of matcha, honey, nootropics and adaptogens work together to get you into your “flow-state” ... that means no anxiety or jitters, no distractions, just focus and increased motivation.
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What We’re Eyeing
We're gonna keep featuring camp collar shirts until we're tired of them. That cool? This one ($155), from under-the-radar brand Local Pattern, is cut from flowing Tencel (one of the ultimate summer fabrics) for a comfortable relaxed fit. It's cool to the touch and has a really nice fluid feel. The pattern is subtle rather than tropical, but it's finished with coconut buttons for a nice summery vibe.
↦ Want more? 5 stylish items to buy this week
Today’s Deals
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Morning Motto
Put it out there ... to get it back.
↦ Follow: @deandrepageart
That’s all for today...
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