Not sure what to do with your loose change? Perhaps don’t throw it at Thibodaux, an alligator at Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha, Nebraska, who just had $7 worth of coins surgically removed from his stomach. There are 10 other gators in the enclosure now headed for the same procedure, which is the best argument we’ve seen yet for a wider adoption of cryptocurrency.
In today’s email:
Zoning: It isn’t sexy but it’s key to fixing the housing crisis.
Monopoly’s monopoly: Dissecting a board game’s dominance.
Ransomware: Hacking gangs unfortunately had a big year.
Around the web: Track rocket launches, why it’s not your fault if you’re annoying, and more.
👇 Listen: Is Apple’s new Sports app a threat to ESPN?
The Big Idea
Could a big map solve affordable housing?
An ambitious project seeks to make confusing zoning regulations more accessible.
2024-02-22T00:00:00Z
Juliet Bennett Rylah
The simplest solution to a housing shortage would seemingly be to build more housing, but that’s often complicated.
Many municipalities have outdated zoning regulations that do not allow for density — apartments, townhouses, duplexes, etc. — in in-demand neighborhoods, leading to rising housing costs and segregation across race and class.
Worse, these rules are often difficult to parse with confusing, convoluted language that varies from city to city.
But what if…
… you had one place where these rules were simple and easy to compare?
That’s the idea behind the National Zoning Atlas, a project from Cornell University professor Sara Bronin, perBusiness Insider.
The research project’s ambitious goal is to make the regulations across the US’s ~30k jurisdictions easier to understand, implementing standard definitions, and allowing for “apples-to-apples comparisons” across cities.
For example: The atlas allows users to see on a map where people can build single-family homes, ADUs, apartments, and more, with filters for things like minimum parking requirements or height caps.
This is useful for both local lawmakers and residents who want to advocate for changes in their communities.
And have they?
Examining zoning laws has led to some change:
Montana passed new zoning regulations to curb urban sprawl after comparing its regulations to those of California — specifically LA, home of sprawl.
A Connecticut woman successfully petitioned her town to allow homeowners to build guest houses in their backyards.
But…
… there’s still a long way to go. The National Zoning Atlas currently accounts for 2k jurisdictions — so, about ~7% of the US.
And whenever there’s a change or new construction, it usually leads to a lot of bickering and legal drama — which is exactly what’s happening in Montana with its new laws.
Still, knowledge is power and we’d never say no to more public data.
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Mmm: Despite suffering an $11m operating loss in Q3 on endless shrimp, Red Lobster is back at it again with an endless lobster promotion, offering unlimited lobster for two hours to 150 winners. The chain continues to flounder with minority investor Thai Union Group looking to ditch its stake — but those Cheddar Bay biscuits are just so good, aren’t they?
SNIPPETS
AI keeps on booming: Industry bellwether Nvidia scored big with its latest quarterly earnings, which showed sales tripling YoY and revenue reaching a higher-than-forecasted $22.1B.
Elon Musksaid the first Neuralink patient — who had a chip implanted in their brain a few weeks ago — made a full recovery and can now control a computer mouse using only their thoughts.
The Biden adminannounced $1.2B in student loan forgiveness for ~153k borrowers who’ve been repaying for 10+ years and originally borrowed $12k or less.
Apple just released Apple Sports, an iPhone app that, same as dozens of other apps, lets users track real-time scores across teams and leagues.
ChatGPT had a wild Tuesday night, spitting out nonsensical responses to users’ requests. OpenAI said it had resolved the issue Wednesday morning, but did not share what caused it.
Meanwhile, Google launched two new AI models for developers, Gemma 2B and Gemma 7B, plus a “responsible” toolkit for how to create safe AI apps using Gemma.
Japan’s Uber Eats is onboarding new staff members — robots. The company is partnering with Cartken, a robotics firm, and Mitsubishi Electric on autonomous robots that will be slinging takeout orders through the sidewalks of Tokyo.
Beyond Meat, with its sales and stock price in decline, rolled out the latest iteration of its faux beef product. Beyond IV will pack in more protein, less saturated fat, and less sodium than its previous plant-based patties.
Disney is done with physical media. All future DVD and Blu-ray discs from the Mouse House will be handled through a licensing agreement with Sony Entertainment.
Don't miss this...
Studies show a 106% boost to sales and marketing KPIs when those teams are aligned. So why don’t more companies do it? We sat down with LinkedIn’s global product marketing leader for her top 7 tips to align sales and marketing.
Watch
How Monopoly became the world’s best-selling board game
What do a cannon, thimble, top hat, iron, battleship, and boot have in common?
All of them are flying across the damn room the second your most unstable family member (if you don’t know who that is, it’s you) runs out of patience and decides to fling the Monopoly board against the wall.
On one hand, rude. On the other hand… they’re not wrong to lose their cool?
A tedious game about real estate that can take 2+ hours to play doesn’t seem like it should be the world’s most popular board game.
It sure is, though: By one estimate, Monopoly accounts for ~30% of all mass-market board game sales in the world — equivalent to Google’s share of the US ad market.
How did we get here?
Ask industry observers and fans why Monopoly has thrived, and they point to the game’s unique storyline, nostalgia, and a desire to escape screens.
But there’s another factor at play: The game’s publisher, Hasbro, has created a real-life monopoly that allowed Monopoly to flourish.
How did Hasbro corner the market? And can anyone give it a run for its fake, colorful money?
There are thousands of companies valued at $1B+. How many clues do you need to identify today’s billion-dollar brand?
Clue 1: This company claims its strategic vision is “to become the Global Integrator,” which checks out for a 130-country operation claiming 7m+ square meters of warehouse space.
Clue 2: One of its vessels made international headlines when pirates hijacked the 17k metric tons of cargo it was carrying — and then once again a few years later when Tom Hanks and his 17k metric tons of starpower depicted the incident.
Clue 3: Remember when that ship got stuck in the Suez Canal in 2021? Of course you do. Who could forget? This company, which runs ~15% of the world’s container fleet, sure didn’t — it sued the wedged ship’s operator for millions in damages over the blockage.
👇 Scroll to the bottom for the answer 👇
Data Point
Not great: You know who absolutely killed it in 2023? Ransomware gangs. Chainalysis, a crypto forensics company, released data showing that ransomware payments doubled last year, from $567m in 2022 to $1.1B in 2023. That’s a far cry from the $220m hackers got their hands on in 2019. Last year was filled with notable hacks, including C10p’s MOVEit campaign that reeled in $100m+ in ransom payments and the Caesars casino cyberattack that ended in a $15m payout to hackers.
AROUND THE WEB
🫎 On this day: In 1983, murder mystery “Moose Murders” opened on Broadway only to close that same night amid terrible reviews.
🐒 That’s interesting: Research suggests being a nuisance predates human evolution.
✈️ Giveaway: Huckberry is giving away two first-class tickets anywhere in the world. The upgrade’s on them, the adventure’s on you.
🚀 That’s cool: A website for tracking upcoming rocket launches and learning about previous ones.
Today’s Fit the Bill answer is Maersk (market cap: $26.42B)
Today's email was brought to you by Juliet Bennett Rylah and Sara Friedman. Editing by: Ben “Monopoly lied about ‘free parking’ being a thing” Berkley.
