12 Trivia Tidbits for Wednesday, April 3, 2024

DARPA’s 10-Year Lunar Architecture Capability Study is an effort to solve some Moon problems before we begin colonization efforts in earnest. It focuses on six main areas: generating power, communications and navigation, construction and robotics, mining resources, market research and transportation. A relatively extensive lunar railroad is essential to most of those, so they’re consulting with a bunch of Earth companies on how best to build one.

Stripe Street Studio was started to corner the market of newly-divorced fathers who have no idea how to furnish a comfortable home. Founder Stacey Herman says it’s not a cynical cash grab; she feels for children of divorce: “I really felt like I was helping these dads and especially their kids.”

Comparing employment data between 1940 and 2018, an MIT economist found that only 4 in 10 modern jobs existed back then.

An entrepreneur who felt spurned by the production of Netflix's 3 Body Problem hatched a plan to murder his colleague. Xu Yao was a lawyer who felt entitled to work on the project, but was sidelined, presumably by gaming billionaire Lin Qi. Directly inspired by the whole Stevia plot from Breaking Bad, Xu packed some probiotic pills with poison and gifted them to Qi. Qi died, and colleagues he shared them with were also hospitalized.

New York University professor and career contrarian Jonathan Haidt has published a book stating that he can “infer causality” between young people growing up with cell phones and having record amounts of diagnosed mental illness. Critics have responded that sure, that could be part of it, but what about 9/11, constant recessions, school shootings and a burning Earth? Not to mention: More people addressing their mental health means more people will be diagnosed.

Noticing the pattern that college is expensive and fruitless, and desk jobs will soon be done by A.I., Gen Z is beginning to opt for trade school instead. Enrollment in vocational schools rose by 16 percent from 2022 to 2023.

People are starting to set up divorce registries that serve the exact same purpose as a birthday or wedding registry. Divorces can be expensive, and you can suddenly find yourself without essentials like furniture or kitchenware. It’s also proven to be a good way for friends and family to support a loved one in an extremely trying time.

The Florida Supreme Court just made two extremely consequential decisions. First, they ignored established precedent and said the state constitution can’t save residents from an impending six-week abortion ban. But they also allowed a constitutional amendment that would enshrine abortion access into law to appear on the 2024 ballot. To date, every abortion rights vote since the fall of Roe v. Wade has tipped in the pro-choice direction.

A sexual health study out of Harvard has uncovered a vast gulf between how much casual sex people think is going on at college, and how much is actually going on. Respondents guessed, on average, that about 80 percent of men are having sex. In reality, it’s closer to 5 percent.

If it can be confirmed that the delicate stone sculpture actually is that incredibly ancient, it would be the oldest known example of humans depicting the likeness of any kind of non-human creature.

A survey on workplace mental health has found that 71 percent of respondents said work-related stress was at the core of their breakup or divorce. Thirty-nine percent said it hurt their ability to care for family, and 37 percent said it’s led to substance abuse and other similar issues.

A 2020 class-action lawsuit brought to light the fact that Chrome’s Incognito Mode actually records and stores your data, contrary to Google’s implication that you can just flip a switch and go full spy mode. Google is now forced to delete a whole helluva lot of data they collected, and may have to pay out several billions of dollars in settlements.