Hello!
For over a year now, the Good Store team and I have been working on underwear. Our first goal was to work with some of our existing partners to make a new product from scratch. This was definitely worth trying. I love trying things that I know are going to be hard, but I don't know how hard.
There are a lot of things that are more marketing than product, like Gucci t-shirts, expensive vodkas, and Fiji Water. These things are very simple products that people know how to make, but the brands tell a good enough story that people will pay extra for it. It turns out underwear isn't like that. Underwear fabrics are still right on the edge of materials science. The cutting and sewing is complex, and the design of the cut has to work for a lot of different body types.
This is what we found with coffee and tea, too. Actually, we're finding it with more and more products. We realized that the EcoGeek cleaning products, for example, would be much better if we worked with existing small businesses that are super focused on making something great.
In short, what I'm telling you is that Good Store is now getting big enough that we can do cost-effective partnerships with interesting companies that are making very good stuff.
Which brings me to... THE AWESOME UNDIES CLUB by Good Store x MeUndies!
MeUndies has hundreds of thousands of positive undie reviews because they make amazing things. Now they're working with us, and they're doing it in a way that actually allows us to sell undies for, in many cases, LESS THAN THEY DO!! They are so soft and delightful, and they feature art from some of our most popular Awesome Socks.
Good Store is such a weird, good thing, and it's very cool to see its impact grow. Thanks for taking a chance on a weird idea! If you’d like to subscribe to the Awesome Undies Club, you can use code UndiesEarlyBird to get your first pair for $12.
Hank
You can always email us at [email protected]
This Week in Stuff
MinuteEarth shared what they learned from Monkey Island after it was hit by a hurricane. (YouTube)
You can collaboratively paint the globe in real time! (wplace.live)
An engineer is looking for advice on how to teach an octopus how to play piano. (YouTube)
Someone created a unique way to make tea with a Rube Goldberg machine, or as one commenter described it, a Rorb Gorrlblorp machine. (TikTok)
A dog named Jelly played fetch with a rock that mysteriously grew while underwater. (Instagram)
Please send us stuff you think we should feature to [email protected]
Homophobic attitudes have fallen in Western Europe and the United States
Simon van Teutem
Forty years ago, public views about homosexuality were extremely negative in many rich countries. As the chart shows, back in 1984, one in three Dutch people believed homosexuality was “never or rarely justified”. In Spain and Great Britain, that view was held by the majority. Perhaps most strikingly, three-quarters of Americans thought the same.
Since then, levels of discrimination have plummeted. Today, the share of people in these countries who think that homosexuality is “never or rarely justified” makes up a shrinking minority. That’s good news — everyone should be free to decide for themselves who they are attracted to.
It might sound odd today to ask whether someone else’s sexuality is justified. But that’s how the long-running World Values Survey phrased it when they began decades ago. Keeping the phrasing consistent helps show how attitudes have changed, but the fact that it may sound outdated now is, in itself, a reflection of how much has changed.
Our World in Data is a UK-based non-profit organization that publishes research and data to make progress against the world’s largest problems. You can find more of their data insights here.
This Week at Complexly
Hornbills have great big beaks – and often bigger casques on top of those beaks – which certainly make it easy to remember their dinosaur origins. But don’t let their appearance intimidate you: at the end of the day, the real defining feature of hornbills may be their role as interspecies besties with mongooses.
You may have heard of Blue Zones, these isolated pockets of the world where people seem to live into the triple digits way more often than everywhere else. But what's really going on, and does the research say it's as simple as eating like the elderly? SciShow investigates the true-blue story of these Blue Zones.
Some Games to Play!
Typing Challenge (by Daniel Linssen)
SpellCheck.xyc (by Answer in Progress)
This Gubbins postcard was made by Gia. Send yours to [email protected]
Last week’s 4×3 answer key:
Keyword: Blue
Blue, Humpback, Sperm (Whales)
Blue, Blood, Strawberry (Types of moons)
Blue, Robin, Cardinal (Birds)
Blue, Steve, Pepper (Blue's Clues characters)
If you post your results on social media, we’d love it if you post a link for folks to subscribe to “We’re Here” (https://werehere.beehiiv.com/subscribe)
Your favorite travel snacks
Last week, we asked for your go-to travel snack. We’re taking notes for next time we’re on the go.
We went on a 20 hour trip over several days and the best snack we had was peaches :) they start cold and refreshing and as I forget then in the car they get hot and juicy. (Be safe with unrefrigerated foods and eat within 2 hours of out of the fridge.)
Andy Cap's Hot Fries are the best for road-tripping across New York State!
As an adult, my go-to travel snack is whatever trail mix or granola bars I have in the house, but what I CRAVE from childhood road trips is my mom’s puliogare (tamarind rice) and thayir sadam (yogurt rice), that she would dish out at a perfectly timed rest stop as lunch or a snack. I don’t have the forethought that she did for a substantial prepared snack like that.
I try to avoid eating during on train rides, but if I feel I'll get hungry on the way, I'll likely grab a chocolate croissant from a (train station) bakery. there's also one station bakery in particular that has a very good (bottled) choccy milk that I sometimes pick up if I'm feeling that I deserve a treat.
The elite gas station combo is a Coke and Jalapeño Cheddar Cheetos.
I can't drive from Phoenix to Los Angeles without a bag of the pull-apart Twizzlers. I don't even really like them, but they make it into the beach cooler to eat during sunset, just like I did with my mom growing up.
My favorite Travel Snack is original pringles, I never buy them unless I'm traveling somewhere... too luxurious.
Puppy Chow! It’s a deeply Midwestern snack. Somehow finds its way into every road trip.
It has to be sunflower seeds - they give you something to do so you don't fall asleep and you can spend a lot of time eating them without really consuming too much food. If I spent that much time snacking on chips let gummy bears, it would be a bad time.
Anytime I fly I get what I call “airport breakfast”: a diet dr. Pepper and Welch’s berries and cherries fruit snacks. I have it outside an airport sometimes now, but it originated when I was spending too many early mornings in an airport.
Undies are back, with a brand new fit!
Why stop at fun socks when you can rock matching undies, too?
Last year, we released our first run of awesome undies. You loved a lot about them—but you also told us the fit wasn’t quite right. So we did what we always try to do when something isn’t good enough: we made it better. This time, we teamed up with the pros at MeUndies—makers of breathable, cozy, softer-than-soft undies made with sustainable UltraModal™ (yes, it comes from beechwood trees, and yes, your butt will thank you). With hundreds of thousands of five-star reviews, they're basically underwear royalty.
So now, for the first time ever, you can get the awesome art you know and love from the Awesome Socks Club... on undies every month. And just like the Awesome Socks Club, 100% of the profits go to charity.
The presale is now live and spots are limited, so don’t wait—sign up now and treat your cheeks. And as a small gift to this community, please enjoy your first pair for $12 (that's 33.3333…% off the price of $18) with code UndiesEarlyBird.
You made it to the end!
Have you ever taken a big risk that paid off? What did you learn through that process? Tell us about it!
Send your risk to [email protected].
