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Ice Scrapers and Billionaire Bunkers

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Payton Mitchell & John Green
February 21, 2025

Hello!

Here in Indianapolis, it has been winter forever and it will never not be winter. I am not particularly charmed by the cold, but I’m trying to see it through the lens of people who love the winter—people like my kids who are thrilled to be sledding, breaking ice, and all that good stuff.

This morning, I drove the kids to school and we saw someone scraping ice off their car. My daughter said, “Maybe that’s not even his car. Maybe he just had the scraper and wanted to do a stranger a favor.”

Here’s to looking at the world that way—with a hermeneutic of generosity—and here’s to cleaning off a stranger’s car just because you have a scraper.

John

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This Week in Stuff

Please send us stuff you think we should feature to [email protected]

The global sales of combustion engine cars have peaked

Hannah Ritchie

To decarbonize road transport, the world must move away from petrol and diesel cars and towards electric vehicles and other forms of low-carbon transport.

This transition has already started. In fact, global sales of combustion engine cars are well past the peak and are now falling.

As you can see in the chart, global sales peaked in 2018. This is calculated based on data from the International Energy Agency. Bloomberg New Energy Finance estimates this peak occurred one year earlier, in 2017.

Sales of electric cars, on the other hand, are growing quickly.

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

Cows in North America are getting bird flu. What happened? How did we get here? And is this the next pandemic? In a deep dive narrative history of avian influenza, SciShow takes on these questions.

It’s the end of the world as we know it. Or is it? The latest episode of Crash Course Religions explores end-of-the-world predictions across time and faith traditions. It turns out that, more often than not, these predictions have been more about a group’s present problems than any future calamity.

Some Games to Play!

Notice (by Jake Berry)

SpellCheck.xyc (by Answer in Progress)

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This Gubbins postcard was made by Autumn. Send yours to [email protected]

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Your “hear me out” food

Last week, we asked for wacky food pairings. Thanks for giving us new snack ideas (and a few horrors).

When I was a little kid, I'd always eat ketchup and rice. I could never just eat the rice plain, there had to be ketchup. I don't know why; it was disgusting. But I liked it!

N

Cheez-its and Nutella. Don't knock it 'til you try it.

Molly

Ever since I was a little kid, I’ve put pickle relish on the Costco combination pizza. It’s amazing, and I will die on this hill.

Jonah

I have no idea how I discovered this, and so far, I'm the only person I know that enjoys this, but Mars Bar and cheese and onion crisps (or potato chips). Being Irish, I can really only vouch for Tayto Cheese and Onion in this combo, but I love it!

Take a bite of Mars Bar, then shove a few Cheese and Onion crisps into your mouth as well. The sweetness of the chocolate bar mixed with the umami of the crisps! Delicious!

Denis

My weird food combo?

Oreos and Guacamole. You’ve gotta try it.

Jesse

This one isn't weird at all when you think about it, but cinnamon toast crunch and vanilla ice cream is absolutely delightful. If you like those two things separately, put them together asap.

Sierra

My husband likes to mix chocolate milk with Sprite (lemon lime soda).

Why.

Blair

My favourite weird food combo, that I eat at least once a week, is dulche de leche with freshly grated parmesan cheese and a sprinkle of sea salt. A dairy-rich perfect combination of salty and sweet, soft and chewy, complimenting each other in both taste and texture.

Maria

Strawberry jelly on a cheese stuffed hotdog. It started as a gas station dare my brother and I had when we were kids. After being decently surprised by the salty/sweet combo its something we both still like!

Sydney

My weird food pairing is chili and cinnamon rolls. I’m from Iowa and we had it as school lunch all the time. Then I moved to the east coast and when I mentioned it people looked at me like I had 3 heads. I just had it again recently and I think it holds up!

Isaac

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We're Here is the newsletter of Nerdfighteria; the community of people that sprung up around Hank and John Green's YouTube videos. That community has many focuses and has spawned many projects but the overarching theme is that hopelessness is the wrong response to imperfection. What makes the world better is groups of people trying to understand and solve problems, and people can only do that for an extended period if they're having at least a little bit of fun.

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