Technical Errors

Sanity Break #1

Usually, we recommend something very specific in this space—a piece of art or video. Today, however, we’re recommending this awesome and very fun website called Radio Garden—which lets you explore live radio anywhere in the world, with just a swing of the globe. It’s just sooo much fun! Thank you to our subscriber Vaibhav Singhai for sending this along. Here’s the . Also: did a great story that gives you more context.

Headlines that matter

CHINA HACKING: A QUICK UPDATE Power minister RK Singh that the Mumbai outage was a result of sabotage—attributing it to “human error” instead. But he did admit that the northern and southern electricity grids were targets of a cyberattack—but the malware did not reach the operating system. On the China angle he said: > "We don't have evidence to say that the cyberattacks were carried out by China or Pakistan. Some people say that the group > behind the attacks is Chinese but we don't have evidence. China will definitely deny it." China : > “The relevant allegations are pure rumors and slanders. Cyber attacks are highly complicated and sensitive, and their origin is > difficult to trace. Speculation and fabrication have no role to play on the issue of cyber attacks. It is highly irresponsible > to accuse a particular party when there is no evidence. China is firmly opposed to such irresponsible and ill-intentioned > practice.” Don’t know what this is about? Read our explainer . AMBANI WINS THE AIRWAVES Reliance Jio was the top bidder in the latest government auction of 4G spectrum—cornering three-fourths of the airwaves sold yesterday. The total proceeds from the auction: Rs 778.2 billion (77,814.80 crore). Point to note: the government only managed to sell a fifth of the airwaves it put on the block. The reason: both Airtel and Vodafone are cash-poor compared to their richie rich rival. () Talking about riches: Mukesh-bhai is predictably the wealthiest Indian on the Hurun Global Rich List 2021—with a net worth of $83 billion—and he comes in #8 in the overall global list. At #1, Elon Musk who toppled Jeff Bezos for his debut at pole position. The real stat to note: “The world added 607 new billionaires or more than three billionaires in two days, while India added 55 new billionaires or more than three billionaires every two days in 2020”—right in the thick of the pandemic. () THE GREAT PANDEMIC: A QUICK UPDATE * show that the virus naturally evolved to jump from animals to humans—without any lab intervention. One of them suggests that a change in a single amino acid in a key part of the virus helped the virus become infectious in humans. To sum up an expert’s view: “All those viruses are coming from nature.” * The Brazil variant is raising . Lab experiments show that it can cause reinfection—and weaken the efficacy of the Chinese vaccine widely being administered in the country. * Bad news for Mumbaikars and Mumbai Indians: The new wave of Covid-19 is likely to the city as a venue for the IPL 2021. * On a more fun note: Germans have coined 1,200 new words to describe the pandemic life. The most apt: Anderthalbmetergesellschaft (one-and-a-half-meter society) for a group abiding by distancing rules. has the others. * A Filipino company got into trouble for that “blocks airborne droplets in style.” It boasted of “antimicrobial film with infused copper strands and is effective to kill 99.9% of different bacteria and viruses”—except it had a big hole 🤦🏽‍♀️ GOOD NEWS FROM NIGERIA All 279 schoolgirls who were kidnapped from a boarding school have been safely returned. While the government cited the help of “repentant bandits,” it is likely that officials paid a ransom. Even better news: Most of the children are relatively unharmed. () MICRODOSING IS A SHAM When then Apple CEO Steve Jobs praised the benefits of microdosing tiny amounts of LSD, Silicon Valley types emulate their tech god. And soon there were stories of tech bros touting the "flow state" that it induces—which “aids lateral thinking and encourages more empathetic interpersonal relations.” Umm, turns out these so-called benefits may have been the biggest hallucination of them all. A significant study shows that microdosing LSD has the same effect as a… placebo. We’re laughing too hard to say more. has all the details. SCIENTISTS TALK TO DREAMERS Researchers have established that you can indeed communicate with people who are asleep—and having lucid dreams, i.e. the kind where you are aware that you’re dreaming. Scientists asked people simple questions while they slept. They answered by moving their eyes or twitching their faces in a certain way. > “For example, a typical question would be to ask what is 8 minus 6. A 19-year-old American man was able to respond by moving his > eyes left-right, left-right — two times — to signal ‘2.’ Researchers asked the question again, and he moved his eyes the same > way two times again.” has more on this research. PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE TO BECOME MEGA-PUBLISHER The company is planning to buy Simon & Schuster for more than $2 billion. This is the #1 book publishing company in the world—buying out #3—creating a “book behemoth” that is worrying many in the industry. In a statement, the US Authors Guild said: > “The number of large mainstream publishing houses will go from five to just four, further reducing competition in an already > sparse competitive environment. For authors, it means there will be fewer competing bidders for their manuscripts, which will > inevitably drive down advances offered.” And literary agents worry this ongoing trend of consolidation will favour established authors while leaving the others out in the cold: > “There are projects that would have sold for $150,000 years ago that might not sell at all now to the big five, whereas the book > that would have sold for $500,000 might go for a million… They would rather go in bigger for the thing that they have the most > consensus on.” has the story. To put it in perspective, Franklin Foer in points out that the real threat to the industry is, as always, Amazon. THREE AMAZING THINGS A space hotel: Work has started on the world’s first ever space hotel which will spin at a low orbit over Earth—and have a gravity similar to that of the moon. The giant spinning wheel will have restaurants, a cinema, spa and rooms for 400 people. And outermost spokes will have ‘modules’ that can be sold as private villas. has all the details. And it looks like this: An MIA bird: Asia’s longest-missing bird—black-browed babbler—just came out of hiding after 175 years in Indonesia. It was first spotted and described around 1850 following the collection of the only known specimen of the species. So this is the first time anyone has seen it alive! This one has been released back into the wild—and will likely soon become a tourist attraction for birders around the world. () A ‘singing’ tiger: of an eight-month old tiger cub in a Russian zoo is going viral because he ‘sings’ rather than growls. And the internet if that’s a good thing: DEEPIKA HAS A NEW LEVI’S AD We love dancing/girl-bonding energy—except for the gratuitous panties shot. But others on Twitter are . DINE WITH DATA: ALL ABOUT ZOLVE ✔️ Editor's Note: Here is DWD’s weekly installment of one cool, innovative or just plain quirky startup from around the world. Company: Zolve ✔️ About: The India-America route sees an incredible amount of migration every year. Most of these migrants have to figure out essential services like banking, insurance, money remittance from scratch. Zolve aims to offer frontend banking solutions to migrants moving from India to the U.S. and vice versa through tie-ups with American and domestic banks in the first stage. It's stack of customer services includes remittances, loyalty-based solutions, crypto currency, insurance and credit through partnerships. 🏦 Started by Raghunandan G, who earlier founded TaxiForSure, the two-month old startup already has $15M in seed funding from Accel and Lightspeed. Cred founder Kunal Shah also participated in the round. Food For Thought: Raghunandan faced cross-border banking problems when he first travelled to America for work. After a few chats with friends and colleagues, he realised that it was a universal problem that needed urgent attention. He plans to expand the service to include other popular destinations for Indian migrants. 🌏 DWD Take: Zolve promises to solve a burdening headache for a large chunk of ambitious Indians. Financial insecurities are crippling, and can restrict performance in a new setting. We're hoping Zolve achieves what it's set out to! 🤞🏻 Link: About DWD: 🍴 sends you a short summary on one new startup every day, delivered straight to your Whatsapp Inbox!

Sanity Break #2

We first discovered the great beauty of the Laxmi Narayan Mandir (Orchha, Madhya Pradesh) thanks to historian William Dalrymple’s —which spotlights the fab caricatures of foreign mercenaries who fought for the 18th century Bundelkhand kings. Then gods of Google led us to photographer and a treasure trove of photos of the temple and its paintings.

Smart & Curious

A LIST OF CURIOUS FACTS One: A Singapore-based aerospace company has developed a combat drone capable of reaching supersonic speeds. The price tag: $9-16 million. has the story. And it looks like this: Two: This is what the of Mars looks like. Three: Forget penis enhancement. It’s all about growing dem testicles now. And the latest snake oil fad: A probiotic supplement to help you do just that. below. has the story. Four: Hyderabad airport now has Asia’s first inflatable hangar. Five: The new trend in skincare is called ‘slugging’—basically smearing your face with vaseline. Yup, you read that right. writer tried it for a week—if you care to know how that turned out.