OVERWORLD:
-Steroid-pumped Olympics wants to raise $300 million, damn-

ONE BETWEEN:
-Japan finally, finally, finally, stops using floppy disks.-

THE DEPTHS:
-Sadist, pedophile, serial killer and artist.-

“Luck, is largely responsible for my reputation for genius. I don’t walk into the office in the morning and say, ‘Am I smart today?’ I walk in and wonder, ‘Am I lucky today?’”
— Jim Simons

✦DISCOVERY PICKS✦

▶️ YouTube:
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how do they even install these in the middle of the freaking ocean ..

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Mystery link.

To roid, or not to roid

Steroid-pumped Olympics wants to raise $300 million, damn.

Some philosophical questions for you: What’s the maximum human potential? And are technology and drugs included in unlocking it?

Some very, very rich people have a simple “Let’s just find out”-orientation about said questions. A prime example is “the Enhanced Games,” a planned Olympics-style sports event where athletes won’t be drug tested.

Now, it wants to raise $300 million. Here’s the gist of it:

✦Haters✦

Obviously, the concept has faced strong criticism. Specifically, from the classic school; the International Olympic Committee, and anti-doping authorities. They argue it undermines fair play and poses significant health risks to athletes.

Co-founder Angermayer, however, believes in the scientific basis of their approach. He cited numerous anonymous surveys indicating widespread doping in competitive sports, “I believe science is on my side,” he tells Bloomberg.

Details: All competitors would undergo medical screenings and could only use substances approved by the US Food and Drug Administration. That includes anabolic steroids and growth hormones. Supposedly, these have minimal risk if administered correctly.

While the games are set to include ten disciplines, such as freestyle swimming, the 100-meter dash, and combat sports, specific dates and locations are yet to be confirmed. Angermayer told Bloomberg that several cities have shown interest in hosting the inaugural event.

✦QUICK HITS✦

✦Business & Tech✦

Haha: Tesla short sellers lost $3.5 billion as the stock surged 27% this week, recovering its yearly loss and causing following a better-than-expected Q2 deliveries report.

Still going: Epic Games criticized Apple's rejection of its proposed iOS app store, claiming it violates the Digital Markets Act. Epic aims to offer an alternative to Apple’s App Store, challenging Apple's dominance.

Ladies winning bags: Women's soccer is the shit, and private equity investors agree. Sixth Street bought Bay FC for $54M, and Carlyle valued Reign FC at $58M. Women's sports revenue to surpass $1B, with soccer contributing 50%.

Nasty: Crypto thefts more than doubled to $1.38 billion in the first half of 2024, with five major attacks making up 70% of the stolen amount. Despite this increase, it's less than the $2 billion stolen in the same period of 2022. The largest 2024 attack stole over $300 million from DMM Bitcoin.

✦Fashion & Culture✦

Nasty, again: Prosecutors in Milan allege Dior and Armani exploited labor for luxury handbags, paying migrant workers as little as $2/hour. Dior paid $57 for bags sold at $2,780; Armani paid $100 for bags sold at $1,950.

BAPE teased a collaboration with XBOX, set to release on July 13. Expected items include a limited-edition console, hoodie, shorts, t-shirts, and sneakers. It will most likely be tacky and suck.

Anti-boner police: Nintendo plans to take "appropriate action" against inappropriate use of its characters online. If you don’t know what that means; porn, Nintendo porn. President Furukawa emphasized their goal to ensure players feel comfortable, maintaining their policy of "bringing smiles through entertainment." Lol.

✦Hmm… Interesting✦

Cozy 3-minute read: Cities need more trees

Sick 6-minute read: How to think in writing

Deep: Against the Burden of Knowledge

r/SecurityClearance Is the Best Subreddit

ONE 

BETWEEN

Slow death

Japan finally, finally, finally, stops using floppy disks.

The last floppy disk made in Japan was manufactured 13 years ago. Still, the country has been using them for administrative purposes.

Numbers, baby:

✦The “war on floppy disks”✦

Japan is famously a cutting-edge tech society. Still, it squeezes out every drop of old-school tech. It’s a new-tech/old-tech hybrid society.

Japan has long clung to outdated tech, including floppy disks, fax machines, and cash. This devotion to old tech survived until about two years ago when Taro Kono, Japan's digital minister, declared a "war on floppy disks."

Kono's campaign was sparked by an American cancer clinic's billboard suggesting that those familiar with floppy disks should get cancer screenings, to which he responded that such knowledge did not indicate age in Japan.

Kono’s efforts continue as he targets the prevalent use of fax machines in government operations, advocating for email adoption. Despite the benefits of modern technology, miss the old system’s security; floppies can’t be hacked so easily.

THE DEPTHS

Deep

Sadist, pedophile, serial killer and artist.

When Henry J. Darger died in 1973 in a nursing home in Chicago, nobody knew who he was.

Not the nurse who attended him, not the physician who signed the death certificate, and none of the nuns who ran the nursing home where he lived out his last days.

Nobody had a clue that Darger, 81 years old when he died, was a novelist who illustrated his texts with hundreds of vibrant watercolors.

More importantly, nobody knew that he was about to be one of the 20th century’s most important painters.

✦The art itself✦

His magnum opus is called… get ready… ready?

Okay, here goes: "The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion."

And it’s fucking huge - a sprawling 15,145-page work.

In it, hundreds of pages of magazines and catalogues are the canvas for vivid illustrations taking you through the story of the Vivian Girls - heroic young girls caught in a brutal war between good and evil forces.

✦Sadist, pedophile, serial killer✦

Darger is, and always was controversial.

Critics constantly accused him of being a sadist, pedophile, and serial killer. Not for anything he did, but because of how disturbing his art could get.

The Vivian Girls are often portrayed naked and under various forms of danger and torture by adults.

It is suspicious, but there’s no real evidence that supports accusations of crime.

✦Darger’s lived life✦

Darger led a solitary, impoverished, and terrible life. Some argue the content might’ve had more to do with Darger’s troubled psyche than real criminal activity.

To start, his mother died when he was four, and his father struggled to care for him. And so, he was put in a Catholic boys' home. Bad behavior at the nursing home landed him in the “Illinois Asylum for Feeble-Minded Children.” Then his father died.

Darger escaped from the asylum as an orphan teenager, returning to Chicago as a lonely, unstable outsider.

For the rest of his life, he was a hospital janitor.

…And the 20th century’s most prolific artist.

Inside a single rented room on Chicago's North Side, Darger devoted his existence to creating a complex, fantastical world through his art and writing.

But the art never saw daylight. At least until his landlord found it in 1972. Remember, Darger died in 1973 - and never got to hear the obscene accusations.