An adrenaline junkie’s quest to become a cocaine kingpin
The British de Havilland DH-112 Venom is one of the most iconic combat jets of the Cold War, with a distinctive two-pronged tail design that stretched out far behind the main body of the aircraft and a striking red and black paint job. That was the aircraft 50-year-old Marty Tibbitts flew one summer afternoon at a Wisconsin air show in July 2018. A millionaire who made his money launching call center businesses, he regularly flew historical aircraft. People on the ground saw the Venom’s wings rock back and forth, then the plane stalled. Tibbitts crashed into a nearby barn and flames engulfed the plane and set the barn and other buildings on fire too. As news of Tibbitts’ death spread, his wife received a phone call from one of those business associates: Tibbitts, it turned out, had a secret life. The pair commissioned the construction of an elaborate underwater drone that would be stuffed with cocaine and latch onto ships with magnets. Tibbitts was the money and brains behind the operation. (via 404 Media)
WNBA players had an ace up their sleeve in pay negotiations: A Nobel Prize-winning economist
After Claudia Goldin became the first woman to win a solo Nobel in economics in 2023, she received hundreds of invitations and requests. She accepted just three.One of them was advising the WNBA players union as the women prepared to negotiate a new labor deal with the league. When Goldin replied via email to Terri Carmichael Jackson, executive director of the players union, “I remember just reading it and screaming,” Jackson said. Goldin had one requirement: She refused to be paid. This month, the two sides reached a collective bargaining agreement that gave Women’s National Basketball Association players a nearly 400% raise. Starting this season, players’ average salary will top $580,000. It isn’t just the biggest pay increase in U.S. league history. It is the biggest increase any union anywhere has ever negotiated. (via the WSJ)
The story of Porky’s Rising, the greatest April Fools’ Day prank in Alaska's history
Mount Edgecumbe is a dormant volcano in Southeast Alaska. It last erupted more than 4,000 years ago. But on April 1, 1974, smoke once more rose from the volcano’s peak, startling locals. The phones rang nonstop at the police and radio stations. The Coast Guard sent a helicopter out to investigate. When the pilot arrived, he looked down not upon lava or some smoldering caldera, but a pile of burning tires and a spray-painted April Fools message. The architect of this prank was Oliver “Porky” Bickar (1923-2003), a World War II veteran who survived the storming of Normandy Beach. Bickar, then 50 years old, had lived in Sitka for 15 years. The idea for the volcano prank came to him in 1971, and he spent the intervening years gathering tires and waiting for an April Fools' Day with clear visibility. Finally, in 1974, conditions were optimal, and he told his wife, "I have to go do it today." In the immortal words of wives everywhere, she replied, "Just don't make an ass of yourself." (via Anchorage Daily News)
Hi everyone! Mathew Ingram here. I am able to continue writing this newsletter in part because of your financial help and support, which you can do either through my Patreon or by upgrading your subscription to a monthly contribution. I enjoy gathering all of these links and sharing them with you, but it does take time, and your support makes it possible for me to do that. I also write a weekly newsletter of technology analysis called The Torment Nexus.
One of the world's greatest mathematicians had to be tricked into getting his PhD
Stefan Banach was born on March 30, 1892, in the small town of Krakow, Poland. From an early age, Banach displayed a remarkable aptitude for mathematics, and it was clear that he possessed an extraordinary analytical mind. Banach’s brilliance was recognized by a professor at the Jagiellonian University, where he began his formal studies in mathematics. According to Professor Hugo Steinhaus, a renowned mathematician of the time, while he was strolling through the gardens in Krakow he was surprised to overhear the term “Lebesgue integral” (a fairly new idea in mathematics). One day Banach was stopped in a corridor of the Jan Kazimierz University and asked: “Would you come to the Dean’s office? There are some people there with questions you should definitely be able to help them with”. Banach went and readily answered all the questions that were put to him, all the time completely unaware that he was in front of a specially convened commission which had arrived from Warsaw for his PhD examination. (via Research In Poland)
She had sex with identical twins and now it's impossible to tell who is the baby's father
A woman who had sex with identical twins separately within four days of each other has been told it is not possible to identify which one is the father of her baby. The mother, who cannot be named for legal reasons, and one of the twins took the case to court after the other brother was named as the father on the child's birth certificate. The pair launched the legal action as they wanted to be legally recognised as having parental responsibility for the baby, known as child P. A family court judge declined to remove the name of the alleged "father" on the birth certificate, prompting the woman and the other twin to take the case to the Court of Appeal in London. But a panel of judges there have now ruled it is "not possible" to know for sure who the father is. The court heard that DNA testing could not distinguish which of the men was the father, although scientists may potentially be able to do so in the future. (via Sky News)
The Foo Fighters invite Rick Astley on stage to sing Never Gonna Give You Up
Acknowledgements: I find a lot of these links myself, but I also get some from other places that I rely on as "serendipity engines," such as The Morning News from Rosecrans Baldwin and Andrew Womack, Jodi Ettenberg's Curious About Everything, Dan Lewis's Now I Know, Robert Cottrell and Caroline Crampton's The Browser, Clive Thompson's Linkfest and Why Is This Interesting by Noah Brier and Colin Nagy. If you come across something you think should be included here, feel free to email me at mathew @ mathewingram dot com
