Every Saturday morning, which is blissfully later each year that my children have grown old enough to fend for themselves for a couple hours, we stumble out of bed and do these exact things in this exact order: Make Americanos in the Moka pot. Hard-boil several eggs and plunge them in very ice water so they’re not warm-centered (shudder) by the time we sit down. And then I mix up a simple wholegrain soda bread but bake it as scones, so it can be done in 15 minutes. We use these minutes to pull out all the fruit left in the fridge and cut it up; fanning it out on a platter makes us feel fancy, and not like it’s the dregs that were left at the bottom of the produce drawer. If we’re feeling ambitious, we juice a couple oranges. If we have grapefruits, I loosen the sections of a few (I’m team grapefruit knife, not spoon, not that you asked) halves. I’ve been known to slice up pears and blue cheese with walnuts when the craving hits in the winter, and or apples with sharp cheddar in the fall. In the summer, it’s an abundance of berries or stone fruit or melon, sometimes with homemade ricotta if I have it. If we have avocados, I like to slice them.* Then we nudge the kids to set the table, which always includes salted butter and apricot jam (my favorite), and, because I do not have any argument left in me by Saturday, Nutella and raspberry jam (everyone else’s).
Got a tip to share? A tool to recommend? A tall tale to tell? A tip to bust (see below)? Please share with your make comrades.
In Search of the Best Pair of Scissors
In this video, Todd at Project Farm puts 15 models of scissors through their paces. He tests scissors by KAI, Gingher, Heritage, Klein Tools, Henckels, Fiskars, Bianco, Ultima Classic, Westscott, Livingo, KitchenAid, Singer, Scotch, and Stanley. The scissors were tested for sharpness and durability after cutting through 1,000 feet of paper, 20 passes through cardboard, 10 passes through aluminum sheeting. In the end, the expensive KAI scissors (at $78) performed best overall, but the Fiskars ($26) and Klein Tools ($24) models did amazingly well, too. I have the Fiskars and love them.
Essential Tools for Electronics Hobbyist
In this helpful Andreas Spiess video, he runs through the essential tools he recommends for a well-equipped electronics lab. There are a lot of great tips and recommendations here, like which tools are OK to buy cheap and which ones require putting the hurt on your wallet.
Using Bits of Left Over Molding Rubber to Volumize New Molds
Anyone who’s ever done any molding and casting knows how expensive molding rubber is and how aggravating it can be to be pouring a mold and come up short with your mold mix (an all-too-frequent occurrence). In thisRobert Tolene video, he offers a tip I hadn’t heard before for saving on molding materials. He calls it “dunkin’ chunkies” — he cuts old mold pieces into small chunks and adds them into a new mold pour (in the areas where they won’t interfere with the object being molded).
Hacker Laws that Apply in Real Life
In a recent Recomendo, Mark Frauenfelder included his favorite “hacker laws” from this GitHub repository of Dwmkerr’s Hacker Laws and Principles. These also apply to everyday life.
Hofstadter’s Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter’s Law.
Amara’s Law: We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate it in the long run.
Putt’s Law: Technology is dominated by two types of people, those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand.
Building an Affordable, Portable Workbench
When I was the editor-in-chief of the Make: website, for years, one of the most trafficked posts was on how to build a basic workbench. Makes sense. Having a decent work surface is the first step in delving into regular DIY projects. In this 3×3 Custom video, woodworker Tamar creates a portable, affordable workbench that can turn any table, desk, even the floor, into a maker’s workbench. The bench includes a woodworker’s vise and capabilities for clamping down all shapes and sizes of workpieces. Tamar also offers plans on her website for the bench which are available for five bucks.
Changing the Output Volume of a Pump Bottle with a 3D Printed Collar This clever idea was posted on the Tableft Workshop’s Instagram account. This “hack” can obviously be applied to any pump-bottle liquid.
“Coleys class was apparently going through the hand sanitizer really fast so i made the school these little collars to limit how much can be dispensed at a time, works like a charm and is still more than enough for adult hands let alone a 7-year-old. Printed 50 of them which should cover the school for awhile with plenty extras.”
Call for Tips to Bust
I’ve gotten a number of volunteers for tips busting but few have put forward tips to confirm or bust. If you’d like to sign on a buster, message me. If you have an idea for a tip to bust, please share that.
Here are a few ideas of tips to bust:
As discussed in the last issue, reader Jim Keith suggested a test to see if using tape along a cut line on a table saw really does limit/prevent tearout.
Last issue, I posted about an article in Family Handyman listing 101 tips from over the years that have stood the test of time. If you’re looking for a tip to bust, why not go through this list and pick one you’re suspicious of.
There are tons of shop and life “hacks” videos on YouTube. Find something there and put it to the test.
[Gareth’s Tips, Tools, and Shop Tales is published by Cool Tools Lab. To receive the newsletter a week early, sign up here.]
The NoFilter app is designed to help photographers discover picturesque locations all over the world. It focuses on the natural beauty of destinations and promotes showcasing locations without artificially enhancing them.
Finding the best sleeping bag for your outdoor adventure can be the difference between comfort and catastrophe. We've extensively tested 14 top sleeping bags to bring you the best picks of 2023.
This spot alongside the western shore of the Missouri River has, since 1953, been the final resting spot of the mortal remains of the acclaimed Lakota military and spiritual leader Tatanka Iyotake (more commonly known by his name's English translation, Sitting Bull).
Sitting Bull was made a chief in the early 1850s. Soon after, he began organizing a movement to resist the United States' westward expansion. He had a vision of a great victory, which came to be true in June 1876 when the combined forces of the Lakota Sioux, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho tribes defeated the U.S. Army's 7th Cavalry Regiment. The Lakota and other Plains Indians called it the Battle of the Greasy Grass, while U.S. history books often refer to it as the Battle of the Little Bighorn or Custer's Last Stand.
Following the battle, Sitting Bull moved to territory that had been claimed by Canada for five years before returning to his home territory and surrendering to U.S. authorities. On December 15, 1890, he was shot to death by police who were trying to arrest the Lakota leader to prevent him from attending a Ghost Dance ceremony.
Initially, Sitting Bull was buried by the Standing Rock monument near Fort Yates, North Dakota. Years later, the chief's remains were exhumed and moved to a new burial site closer to his birthplace. The site is memorialized with a statue by the renowned artist Korczak Ziolkowski, who is best known for having initiated the ongoing construction of the Crazy Horse Memorial.
When architect Elijah E. Myers submitted his winning design for the Texas State Capitol in 1881, the drawings included a female statue crowning the dome. Of Greco-Roman classical design, she was likely inspired by similar contemporary architectural figures, including the Statue of Freedom atop the U.S. Capitol and New York’s Statue of Liberty. Myers’ Goddess stands 16 feet tall and weighs over 2,000 pounds. Intended to represent justice, truth, and art, she poses with a downturned sword in her right hand and a gilded, lone star held aloft in her left. The statue was fabricated from molded zinc and iron. Aided by mules, workers hoisted her to the top of the Capitol’s dome in four pieces and joined her sections with iron bolts.
Myers used a novel design technique in creating his Goddess. Her facial features were intentionally exaggerated so that her face would look normal when viewed from the ground more than 300 feet below. The finished effect was breathtaking—but probably not in the way Myers intended. Many found her appearance unattractive, if not downright ugly. A local reporter dubbed her “Old Lady Goddess.” Another writer compared her face to that of Abraham Lincoln. As if her appearance wasn’t startling enough, an early repainting resulted in ebony hair, rosy skin, and a periwinkle-blue robe tied with a gold sash. In 1939, she was returned to her original monochromatic white coloring.
Over the years, the Goddess became the subject of apocryphal stories. There were rumors that her head was home to a hive of bees which spectators observed flying in and out of her large, flared nostrils. Another tale claimed that a severe storm left her dangling from the Capitol dome by one rusted bolt. Some said that a bipartisan group of elected officials climbed the dome during the storm and reattached her in a fit of uncharacteristic collaboration. And, there were stories of men who insisted that their wife or girlfriend was the model for the statue. Not surprisingly, there was no record of a woman ever coming forward to claim that distinction.
In 1983, workers noticed large cracks on the statue while painting the Capitol dome. The State Preservation Board determined that significant deterioration caused by exposure to inclement weather, pollution, lightning strikes, high winds, temperature changes (and perhaps bees) necessitated her removal from the dome. In 1985, a helicopter lifted the Goddess off the dome and placed her on the Capitol’s South Lawn for a period of visitation by the public. After close examination, the decision was to replace her with a lighter, corrosion-resistant aluminum replica. The replacement was cast from molds of the old Goddess and installed on the Capitol dome on June 14, 1986.
After extensive conservation work, the original Goddess assumed permanent residence at the Bullock Texas State History Museum on September 18, 2000. Because of her size and weight, she was placed before the building was completed, and the museum was built around her. During the statue's restoration, a time capsule containing ephemera from the 1880s was discovered in her star. Her original left arm and star are displayed in the Capitol Visitors Center. They were left unaltered to show her condition when removed from the dome. Now restored to most of her former glory, the Goddess of Liberty monitors the Museum's activities from a comfortable perch on the southwest corner of the building’s second floor.
A trip to the grocery store should be simple, but if you’re shopping with the hopes of walking away with organic and ethically sourced food you may need to do a little extra work.
Lloyd “Teddy” Johnson, proprietor of Teddy’s Juke Joint, will tell you he’s only ever had one address. It’s here, at the end of a dirt road off of Highway 61—one of the last remaining juke joints on the “Chitlin Circuit,” a word-of-mouth network of venues that welcomed Black musicians across the American South during segregation.
Teddy was born here in what was once a shotgun shack in the thick woods north of Baton Rouge. After touring the country as a record DJ in the 50s and 60s, he returned to Zachary, Louisiana, in the early 1970s to expand his childhood home into a bar. He allowed gospel groups to practice in the building, but when they began to form blues bands of their own and needed a place to perform, Teddy’s Bar & Lounge became Teddy’s Juke Joint. By the late 1970s, blues musicians from around the Delta and as far away as Chicago were lining up to perform at Teddy’s.
Today, the venue hosts a broader range of musicians including rock as well as blues acts, both local and touring. One thing Teddy never stopped doing, however, was collecting decorations. The venue is coated in year-round Christmas lights, disco balls, tinsel, CDs hanging from balloon strings, and music memorabilia illuminated by flashing bulbs; but personal effects like Teddy’s childhood tricycle, toy tow truck, and a photo of the owner as a young child adorn the walls as well. Ceiling fans make the whole place shimmer and dance—one visitor aptly described it as feeling “like [you’re] inside a kaleidoscope.”
For musicians, there’s an open mic on Wednesday nights, and a rotating calendar of bands otherwise, but the nights without live music are a treat as well: that’s when Teddy spins. From behind what appears to be a stand-up piano, Teddy churns stacks of blues, soul, and R&B records while peppering his DJ alter ego—flashy, raunchy, and smooth-talking—across every track. Framed in stuffed animals, from under a gaudy cowboy hat, the born-in-house owner will banter with regulars and bartenders, crack lewd jokes, and muse on daily life. It’s not your home, but it may end up feeling like it.
Plenty of songs have been inspired by cars: Wilson Pickett’s “Mustang Sally,” War’s “Low Rider,” and Prince’s “Little Red Corvette,” to name a few. There’s likely only one car, however, that’s been inspired by a song: Johnny Cash’s “One Piece at a Time” Cadillac, located in Bon Aqua, Tennessee.
His 1976 song of the same name, written by Wayne Kemp, was Cash’s last song to make the Billboard Hot 100. It’s a bouncy number about a Detroit auto worker who, assembling Cadillacs day after day, dreams of owning one himself. He hatches a plan to fashion himself a car out of parts he patiently steals off the assembly line—one piece at a time. After 25 years, he assembles the stolen parts only to realize they’re freakishly mismatched. The 1949–1973 patchwork car is the laughing stock of the town, but the narrator ultimately gets the free Cadillac he’d been dreaming of, which is of course, completely one-of-a-kind:
I got it one piece at a time and it didn't cost me a dime,
You'll know it's me when I come through your town.
I'm gonna ride around in style, I'm gonna drive everybody wild,
'Cause I'll have the only one there is around.
In 1976, Cash’s team hired a Nashville auto shop to construct a frankensteined Cadillac Coupe DeVille to promote the song, but it was ultimately destroyed the following year. In 1977, an Oklahoma car collector named Bill Patch constructed his own “One Piece at a Time” DeVille from salvaged parts, but this time as a gift to Johnny Cash himself.
The meticulously constructed car features not just mismatched headlights (“now the headlight was another sight / we had two on the left and one on the right”) and asymmetrical rear-end (“the backend looked kinda funny too / but we put it together and when we got through / that’s when we noticed that we only had one tail-fin”), but incongruous seating and headrests in the interior as well.
After Patch presented it to Cash free of charge, no strings attached, the two became lifelong friends. When Cash found out Patch’s hometown of Welch, Oklahoma, needed funding to construct an auditorium for their local community center, Cash and his wife June played a series of benefit concerts there, also free of charge. In fact, they drove Patch’s “One Piece at a Time” Cadillac to get there.
Today, the Cadillac rests at Johnny Cash’s one-time private country-home getaway, Hideaway Farms, where he would often unwind after long tours. The car is part of the Storytellers Museum, which features Cash’s personal memorabilia, several small performance stages, and the home that Cash once called “the center of my universe”—a uniquely personal window into the private life of the Man in Black.
Hurricane Ida was none too kind to Mandeville, Louisiana—Katrina and Zeta didn’t pull their punches either. Through it all, the Dew Drop survives, a wooden shack elegantly framed in Spanish moss. It’s too storied to succumb to a 100-year storm: this building was the headquarters of a historic Black benevolent society and remains the oldest virtually unaltered jazz hall on earth.
Built in 1895, the structure was once home of the Dew Drop Benevolent Society, an association offering social services to Black community members barred from healthcare, loans, childcare, and other services. The Benevolent Society held fundraisers, collected donations, and once in a while, put on legendary live performances.
Because Mandeville was about 10° degrees cooler than New Orleans at the time, moneyed urbanites of the late 19th and early 20th centuries often ferried north to weekend in cooler climes. Black musicians of the day would ride along too, playing on the ferry for tips before playing in the formal dance halls of the north shore. At the time, Blacks weren’t allowed to stay at hotels in Mandeville proper, but the Dew Drop sat three blocks outside city limits, offering prominent jazz musicians a third act and a place to crash. The venue saw performances from Buddie Petit, Buddy Mandalay, and Louis Armstrong, to name a few, while continuing to offer much-needed attention to the surrounding community.
With advances in civil rights, the benevolent society became obsolete by the end of World War II before shows dried up in the 1960s. By the 1980s, the building was abandoned, but in 2000, the city of Mandeville obtained rights to the building and teamed up with the National Park Service to hold the first Dew Drop jazz show in decades. In 2002 a non-profit called Friends of the Dew Drop formed to organize performances and maintain the building, ensuring that this historic venue doesn’t go quiet.
Of the 27 public bandshells built across the U.S. under President Roosevelt’s Depression-era WPA program, the Levitt Shell in Memphis, Tennessee, is one of a handful still standing. It probably didn’t hurt that it happens to be the site of Elvis Presley’s first concert.
Originally named the “Overton Park Shell,” the open-air amphitheater—built for a humble $12,000 in 1936—primarily hosted operas, musicals, and orchestras in its early years. It began hosting big bands in the 1940s while making all shows free admission. Then, on July 30th, 1954, a nineteen-year old singer from Tupelo, Mississippi, with a couple talent show wins under his belt opened for Slim Whitman. “We were all scared to death. He was kind of jiggling,” said guitarist Scotty Moore of a young Elvis Presley. After missing his cue, Presley began nervously shaking his legs, inducing a frenzy among the 5,000-strong mostly teenage crowd and cementing a trademark stage-move for the nascent star. “With those old loose britches that we wore, you shook your leg and it made it look like all hell was going on under there,” said Moore.
The Shell was also the site of a bold festival series held in the thick of the Civil Rights era. In June of 1966, 400 KKK members burned a cross in the Shell’s parking lot. The inaugural Memphis Country Blues Festival took place just a week later. Black musicians like Bukka White, Nathan Beauregard, and Furry Lewis—blues acts that had fallen into obscurity by the late 60s, but to whom rock and rollers nonetheless owed a massive cultural debt—played for a massive integrated audience in a city marred by racial tensions and violence.
Despite its rich history, the Shell faced down demolition regularly over the years. It was nearly razed in the 1960s to make room for a $2 million theater; again in 1972 to create a parking garage; and again in 1984 in a second attempt at the same parking garage. Through it all, the Shell was spared by one charitable foundation or another, the most recent being the titular Levitt Foundation.
Today, the stage typically hosts 50 shows a year including orchestras, ballets, rock shows, and blues acts, but also rappers, health classes, and TED talks as well. Most shows are still free admission, with the exception of a ticketed fundraising concert series called “Shell Yeah!”
Ciderville defies simple categorization: It’s a country music store, it’s a live music venue, it offers music lessons from area bluegrass musicians, and it’s something of a flea market, but it’s also home to an array of utterly unique installations, monuments, and folk art. One thing it does not do is sell cider. Not anymore, at least.
Owner and musician David West was born on the property, nestled along the Old Dixie Highway, which his family has owned for generations. To hear West tell it, an accomplished Texas muralist fell in love with the surrounding area in 1958 and rented studio space on his family’s land. After the muralist's wife expressed an interest in making cider, the Texan built her a cidery on the West’s lot. Within two weeks, she lost interest in the venture and the cidery fell to the 13-year-old West.
Being the only game in town—as far as drinking establishments went in this rural area at the time—the cidery became a popular hangout for country musicians traveling along the Dixie Highway, according to West. Spending so much time with the songwriters, a young West took up guitar and banjo himself and continued collecting, learning, and trading instruments through his teenage years until gradually the music replaced the cider.
Today, there is a “Music Barn” that has hosted Chet Atkins, Bill Carlisle, and Kenny Chesney, according to West. The music shop sells a host of bluegrass instruments from guitars to banjos and harmonicas, and a non-musical section offers vintage trinkets, t-shirts, and merchandise, but it’s the non-commercial aspects of Ciderville that is truly confounding.
There’s a car half-crashed through the front of the building, hearkening, as West said, to a time a Cadillac actually crashed into the store; There’s a 9-foot tall rooster in the parking lot named “Ro-Ho” in reference to a 1966 Archie Campbell song about cockfighting; There’s a trio of rusted out, decades-old pick-up trucks with an eerie set of scarecrows behind each wheel; There’s a Cessna rather subtly crashed into a hillside below the parking lot; a wooden Noah’s Ark full of ceramic ducks; And a magnolia tree that is—as a wooden sign reads—“from [the] white house / took [sic] by President Andrew Jackson.”
The closest West comes to explaining Ciderville’s perplexing outdoor art is that he was once in the monument business and thought the installations might draw in more business. Come for the music, stay for the questions.
Only 45 minutes, northwest, from Atlanta’s Hartsfield Jackson airport but a Million Miles Away lies a pristine hidden Gorge. Secluded in Carroll County, the Snake Creek Gorge (and home to Historic Banning Mills Conservancy) boasts a pristine eco system- unusual at best!
Historic Banning Mills Conservancy sits on 300 preserved acres with another 2000 preserved acres surrounding it. The goal of the conservancy was and is to preserve the unique eco system of the gorge as well as its significant historic contributions to Georgia history.
Historic Banning Mills conservancy is supported by donations but is also self-supporting through educational and eco adventure opportunities.
With two current Guinness Book of World Records under its belt (the largest zipline canopy course and the tallest free standing climbing wall), visitors will be amazed at the varied and numerous opportunities to be experienced.
The conservancy has several suspension bridges over the gorge which are some of the longest in the USA. Trails course near and by the Snake Creek, along ridges and of course over the very cool bridges.
Live Bird of Prey Shows: Come meet one of the very few flighted Bald Eagles in the USA, Miss Liberty. Our educational live shows are a must for the family.
Zip Line canopy tours and Aerial Adventure Parks: Historic Banning Mills has the Guinness World record for the largest zipline canopy tour in the world. Situated in the Snake Creek Gorge, the tours have breath taking views through old growth forests, the Gorge and Creek. So don’t be ODD (Outdoor Deficit Disorder)! Come out and experience a walk through the trees that won’t ever be forgotten. Everyone needs some outside Fun!
Numerous options to choose from: beginner to extreme courses. The Aerial Adventure Park offers a tier 1 that even a four-year old can manage. With the patented closed belay system on all courses, one can’t disconnect! This makes for a safer experience.
Climbing Wall: Make it to the top and get a Guinness World Record certificate!
Groups:Team building courses with second to none facilitators, meeting spaces, lodging and dining available.
Too Much to Do in One Day? Stay overnight onsite! There is even a Tree House Village! Romantic and Adventure packages all year long as well as Chef prepared Gourmet dinners. RSVP a must.
Need a New experience? Try out the new Eco Spider tours. This is a guided tour in a rugged four-wheel electric ATV with spider like arms moving independently. Low environmental impact! Smooth and quiet ride! Fantastic trails to conquer! Capable of allowing those with reduced mobility to wheelchair transfer to the eco car for the ride of their lives. (restrictions apply)
Need some quiet time? Peruse through the history interpretive center, relax on the bridge benches overlooking the creek, have a quiet evening dinner or explore the gorge for a quick reboot and relaxation time.
Whether a day trip or a week long vacation, Historic Banning Mills, in the hidden Snake Creek Gorge, affords almost everyone wonderful, memory making experiences.
Traveling well can be one of life’s great pleasures, whether you’re alone or with family and friends.
But what does it mean to travel well? We’d say that along with traveling safely (of course), traveling well involves avoiding hassle, carrying a single bag (if possible), and bringing only the necessities.
“Traveling well is a fine balance between finding inspiration in the unknown while being grounded in something,” said Wirecutter founder Brian Lam. “Sometimes that is a memory of home, a family, a significant other, friends, etc. Sometimes it’s just the familiar, reliable stuff in your bag.”
Over the past decade, we’ve spent hundreds of hours researching and testing dozens of products to find the most dependable items that will help you travel well. On top of that, we sought the advice and wisdom of Doug Dyment, author and creator of OneBag—a traveling businessman and public speaker, he has logged millions of miles over the past few decades—as well as travel-gear reviewer Eytan Levy, the Snarky Nomad.
And we relied heavily on the experiences of Wirecutter staff, an especially mobile group of individuals. Our staffers have worked remotely from every continent except Antarctica—the five most frequent flyers among us travel about half a million miles in any given (normal) year.
After hundreds of hours of research and 1,500 miles behind the wheel, we’ve singled out the gear that’s absolutely essential for your next journey on the open road.
This Honda CB175 was one of many small-displacement bikes sold at the Barrett-Jackson auction in Scottsdale, Arizona, January 22-30, 2022. Photos by the author.
The Barrett-Jackson automobile auction is an annual extravaganza with a major stop staged at Westworld in Scottsdale, Arizona, January 22-30, 2022. This year’s 50th anniversary iteration was a sensory overload of rare, antique, classic, and exotic cars and trucks. However, there was also a shiny, tidy collection of motorcycles at the expansive event.
Rare vintage motorcycles, classic dirtbikes, and moto-themed art and memorabilia were all featured. However, by far the largest representation of motorcycle history was of the minibike variety. Based on the fan and bidder attention that the large stable of minis garnered, car enthusiasts have a serious soft spot (and deep pockets) for the little rides of their youth.
Classic dirtbikes like this 1978 Yamaha YZ125 were hot sellers at the auction.
The Hondas of the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s made up the lion’s share of the minbike contingent at the auction. Dozens of diminutive Z50s, step-through Trail 90s, and the once ubiquitous CT70s were offered in both original form and correctly restored examples. The “you meet the nicest people on a Honda” advertising slogan from the bellbottom era has clearly transcended to a modern movement of sentimentality and financial means.
So what did the small-displacement Honda bikes garner at the Barrett-Jackson auction? Here is just a sampling.
Yesterday we came across a story about an artist blowing up a Lamborghini to sell 999 videos of individual pieces of shrapnel as NFTs. And there you were thinking NFTs would never have a useful purpose…
In today’s email:
SWIFT: The global payments network and powerful political tool.
Chart: Tech jobs are leaving the West Coast.
Morgan’s Musings: The 3 most important skills in investing.
Around the web: A VC glossary, very old pants, and more cool internet finds.
🎧 On the go? Listen to today’s 10-minute podcast to dive deeper on SWIFT, the theme park boom, TikTok’s lengthy videos, Nike’s new playbook, and more.
The Big Idea
What the heck is SWIFT?
The unfortunate fate of financial acronyms is that for most people, their meaning goes in one ear and out the other (shoutout to EBITDA, SPAC, ETF, and countless others).
Such is the case with SWIFT, which stands for Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (say that 5 times fast).
With Russia facing SWIFT sanctions, we did a little digging to go beyond the acronym and figure out why SWIFT matters, and what the sanctions actually mean.
So, what does SWIFT do?
The primary function of SWIFT is to serve as a messaging system that provides transaction instructions for international transfers among its members (AKA banks).
Before SWIFT, when transferring funds internationally, banks needed to describe transactions manually — using sentences — which opened the door to human error and long processing times.
SWIFT’s key innovation is the use of codes, which apply to both its members and transactions:
Each member institution gets a code, which identifies its country, city, and the institution
Each transaction type gets a code specifying what’s happening (e.g., customer payment, bank transfers, etc.)
Its use of codes, along with the security of its platform, have made SWIFT the dominant network for global transaction communications.
Powers 40m+ messages per day that influence trillions of dollars in transactions
This scale poses a problem for Russia. Cutting off its banks from SWIFT means banks will have to deal with each other directly, adding delays and costs to the country’s global transactions.
This isn’t the 1st time sanctions have been imposed
In 2012, as part of sanctions due to its nuclear weapons program, Iran was booted from SWIFT. The total sanctions resulted in a 50% drop in oil revenue and a 30% decrease in foreign trade.
The news of sanctions has already caused a sharp drop for the ruble, Russia’s local currency, and is figured to have wider implications down the line.
For more: Check out this running Twitter thread from The Atlantic’s Derek Thompson, who is tracking the economic fallout from Russia’s sanctions.
SNIPPETS
Malls are becoming more experiential, offering entertainment like indoor skydiving, pickleball, and craft beer bars. #ecommerce-retail
Green Germany: Germany’s goal is to achieve ~100% clean energy by 2035, proposing annual capacity additions of both wind and solar power. #clean-energy
Nurse Alexa: Amazon and Teledoc have partnered to allow patients to seek nonemergency medical appointments via Alexa. #emerging-tech
Meta says it found Russian attempts to spread misinformation and to hack profiles of Ukrainian journalists and military officials on Facebook and Instagram. #privacy
Crypto exchange Binance refused to block Russian accounts despite requests from Ukrainian vice prime minister Mykhailo Fedorov, saying it won’t “unilaterally freeze millions of innocent users’ accounts.” #fintech-crypto
Epic TikToks: Tiktokers can now make videos up to 10 minutes long! Previously, the platform introduced 3-minute videos. #big-tech
Chart
Visual: Selina Lee
The West Coast looks east for hiring
Working in tech outside of Silicon Valley is a trend that started pre-covid, but accelerated rapidly with it.
At the start of 2019, 30% of the jobs for West Coast tech companies were listed outside of the region. That’s now 43%.
You could say the big winners here are states that attracted lots of this talent like Texas and Virginia, but then again, rent in Austin was up ~25% last year.
Opinion
Morgan Housel’s 3 most important investing skills
The stock market’s been wild lately — plenty of high-profile tech stocks are down 50% or more in the last year.
It hurts.
And it’s a good time to focus on the few skills that truly matter over your lifetime as an investor.
3 stick out in my mind:
Low susceptibility to FOMO (fear of missing out): The urge to buy an investment because its price went up means you probably don’t know why the price has gone up. And if you don’t know why the price has gone up, you’re more likely to bail when it falls — which can be the worst possible time to sell. Quash the need to own what’s going up the most, and you reduce the urge to abandon whatever eventually goes down.
Becoming comfortable being miserable: And misery can come in many forms. Losing money can be miserable. So is the honest admission that your investment success may not have come entirely from skill. The trick is not assuming you can avoid being miserable, but becoming comfortable with and accepting the feeling when it arises.
Defining and understanding what game you’re playing: Many investing debates don’t reflect genuine disagreement; they reflect investors playing different games talking over each other. Nobody should pretend a 17-year-old day trader is playing the same game as a 97-year-old widow on a fixed income. Understanding your game, without being swayed by people playing different games, is an investing power.
TRENDS
How Sahil Bloom grew a 500k Twitter following
The business Twittersphere is a… particular kind of ballgame.
But of course, the managing partner of SRB Ventures quickly established himself as a leading voice, proliferating to half-a-million followers in just 1.5 years.
🏞️ On this day: In 1872, President Ulysses S. Grant signed a bill establishing Yellowstone as the 1st national park.
👖 That’s interesting: Researchers were impressed with a pair of fashionable pants, 3k+ years old and found on a mummified body near Turfan, China.
🤓 Useful: What’s burn rate? What’s CAC? What’s non-participating preferred stock? You’ll find out in this glossary of 40 key terms for your VC meetings.
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At 2 a.m. one night in mid-November, a nearly full moon brightens a strip mall along Chamblee-Dunwoody Road. A busy thoroughfare by day, the road is starkly quiet now and mostly dark, with just a little light emanating from the back of one of the strip mall’s shops. Inside, under fluorescent panels, a slight man wears an apron and ball cap. He leans over a wooden kitchen island to undertake a ritual he’s performed just about every night—seven nights a week—for more than 30 years.
That’s Dandy; the shop is Dandy Donuts.
Dandy pulls out a tub of cinnamon-apple filling and spreads it onto a baking sheet with dough on it. The 67-year-old uses a bench scraper to combine the ingredients, then works quickly to shape the dough into fritters. Dandy’s chopping and the whir of the mixer and fryer are the only sounds. With the exception of his old-fashioned doughnuts, for which he uses a manual extruder, Dandy shapes his treats by hand, a dying art among doughnut makers. He moves around the kitchen fluidly, in the manner of somebody who has been doing this for decades.
Dandy typically gets to the shop between 12:30 and 2:30 a.m., working alone. By the time he’s finished, he’s produced about 50 dozen doughnuts, for which customers will start dropping by as the city awakens. Dandy’s doughnuts are a minimalist contrast to more elaborate modern varieties: Here, sour cream, blueberry old-fashioned, and honey glazed reign supreme.
Dandy grew up in Vietnam, where he served in the South Vietnamese army. After the fall of Saigon in 1975, Dandy, who prefers not to give his Vietnamese name, was captured and imprisoned for seven years in a North Vietnamese reeducation camp. Eventually, he got out and escaped Vietnam by boat, one of thousands making the perilous journey during that period. Dandy eventually found his way to Georgia, whose Vietnamese population grew during the 1980s and ’90s as the U.S. welcomed refugees in the aftermath of the war.
Dandy found a job at Your DeKalb Farmers Market, where he worked for a couple years until a friend purchased a doughnut shop. His friend, who had emigrated from Cambodia, couldn’t get the hang of doughnut making and recruited Dandy—who turned out to have a knack. After a few months, Dandy proposed to buy his friend’s shop: If you don’t sell it to me, I’m going to go run my own doughnut shop, he recalls saying. The friend sold.
Dandy hadn’t ever planned on owning a business but quickly came around to the idea. “You do this job, you don’t have to work for someone else,” he says as he twists dough into crullers. “Some people say, You work at night, and they don’t like it. But if you work at night, then during the day, you don’t have to work.” Dandy laughs. At first, his shop was located nearby on Peachtree Industrial Boulevard, where a Dunkin’ Donuts soon opened. As the Dunkin’ struggled to find its footing, its owner asked Dandy if he would come in and be the general manager. Dandy scoffed at the idea.
When a sandwich counter called Sub-Base went up for sale, Dandy bought it, merging the two businesses; he’s been on Chamblee-Dunwoody Road ever since. “Because of this job, I’ve had customers for 31 years now. Now, they’re married, they have family, they have kids, and they come back,” Dandy says. “I love them.” He became successful enough that, by the time the pandemic hit, he employed three people and often filled special orders for nearby office workers. Today, it’s only Dandy and his wife, who works at the counter in the morning; after noon, and after he’s had a nap, Dandy comes back and takes over for the rest of the day. He says he’d struggle to keep up if customers started ordering in large quantities again. “I cannot handle the job,” he says. “I am the only one.”
Despite loving his work, the reality is he can’t do it forever. “He said he’s getting to a point where he’s too tired,” says Long Tran, the owner of Peachy Corners Cafe and a friend of Dandy’s, who’s here in the middle of the night to translate. Dandy is ready to sell the doughnut shop and retire. He’s had offers, but until recently, he felt particular about who’d buy the business. “Before, protecting the name was really important to him, and he’d hate to see that go,” Tran says. “He’d hate to see that way of making doughnuts go, but he also understands that it might be time. He’s getting too old, too tired to be doing this.” Whoever does buy it, Dandy says, he’ll be happy to train them. He’s made peace with the fact that the new owner might put their name on it and not make the doughnuts by hand.
By 5:30 a.m., the sky is gaining a slight blue tint, traffic is picking up, and most of the doughnuts are made. Right now, they’re stacked on a cart but will soon be on display behind the counter. Once they’re gone, that’s it for the day. As he wraps up, Dandy talks about how grateful he is to Atlanta for 30 years in business, but says the end of the shop is imminent—there may not be much more time left to enjoy his doughnuts. The seriousness passes, though, and the gleam comes back to Dandy’s eyes. With a laugh, he says: “If I was a younger man, I’d open a second location on Peachtree Industrial and put Dunkin’ out of business.”
Other doughnuts worth your time
A-Town Cream Sublime Doughnuts Home Park, North Druid Hills
Filled with custard (plain or mocha), chocolate glazed—and, for obvious reasons, an Atlanta icon
Strawberry Hero Doughnuts & Buns Summerhill
An Alabama import, Hero has mastered the art of yeast doughnuts that are light and airy and have a slight tang—like this cheery, pretty-in-pink creation.
Sunflower Sarah Donuts Various locations
The petals on this beautifully designed, cinnamon-spiced doughnut aren’t just for decoration: They create an irresistibly craggy shell concealing a pillow-soft interior.
Orange Pistachio Revolution Doughnuts & Coffee Decatur, Inman Park
The pistachio crust adds a little crunch to the bouncy, citrusy dough—a standout example of the kinds of yeast-raised doughnuts at which Revolution excels.
Blueberry cream
Vincent Bakery Cafe Duluth, Johns Creek
Buttercream bread—a popular snack in Korea, consisting of pillowy milk bread and a sweet filling—comes presliced and prefilled; just pull apart and enjoy.
Einkorn + spelt Evergreen Butcher + Baker Kirkwood Made with Halfway Crooks beer and Banner buttermilk, plus nuts and seeds. Simply the best vehicle for a big schmear of peanut butter.
Coconut agege DaGashi Bakes Berkeley Lake
A soft, slightly sweet, slightly chewy bread that’s popular in Nigeria
How To Bone and Carve Wild Birds Bone Clean the bird as usual and singe. With a sharp-pointed knife, begin at the extremity of the wing, and pass the knife down close to the bone, cutting off the flesh fro the bone and preserving the skin whole; run the knife down each side of the…
Every Saturday morning, which is blissfully later each year that my children have grown old enough to fend for themselves for a couple hours, we stumble out of bed and do these exact things in this exact order: Make Americanos in the Moka pot. Hard-boil several eggs and plunge them in very ice water so they’re not warm-centered (shudder) by the time we sit down. And then I mix up a simple wholegrain soda bread but bake it as scones, so it can be done in 15 minutes. We use these minutes to pull out all the fruit left in the fridge and cut it up; fanning it out on a platter makes us feel fancy, and not like it’s the dregs that were left at the bottom of the produce drawer. If we’re feeling ambitious, we juice a couple oranges. If we have grapefruits, I loosen the sections of a few (I’m team grapefruit knife, not spoon, not that you asked) halves. I’ve been known to slice up pears and blue cheese with walnuts when the craving hits in the winter, and or apples with sharp cheddar in the fall. In the summer, it’s an abundance of berries or stone fruit or melon, sometimes with homemade ricotta if I have it. If we have avocados, I like to slice them.* Then we nudge the kids to set the table, which always includes salted butter and apricot jam (my favorite), and, because I do not have any argument left in me by Saturday, Nutella and raspberry jam (everyone else’s).
At 2 a.m. one night in mid-November, a nearly full moon brightens a strip mall along Chamblee-Dunwoody Road. A busy thoroughfare by day, the road is starkly quiet now and mostly dark, with just a little light emanating from the back of one of the strip mall’s shops. Inside, under fluorescent panels, a slight man wears an apron and ball cap. He leans over a wooden kitchen island to undertake a ritual he’s performed just about every night—seven nights a week—for more than 30 years.
A-Town Cream
Strawberry
Sunflower
Orange Pistachio
Challah
Blueberry cream
Epi baguette
Einkorn + spelt
Coconut agege
Marble rye sandwich loaf
Olive
Country sour
Multigrain
Pan de jamón y queso
ST | Sticky
GR | Green
CL | Classically French
CR | Crunchy
VG | Vegan
RC | Rich
HA | Handheld
GF | Gluten-free
EA | Earthy
BR | Bready
SP | Spicy
SO | Soulful
FK | Flaky
FA | Fancy
PA | Paleo
FR | Fried
TR | Tropical
RD | Red
MC | Multicolored
FT | Fruity
AM | As American As
MO | Morning
FL | Fluffy
SV | Savory
Finished in Martini Racing livery, this 924 safari was completed in 2022 and has yet to be driven.