Latest / Stuff Keeps Happening / The Coolest Rock

Transcript

The Coolest Rock · Stuff Keeps Happening

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Hello. I burned my tongue while testing some
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pasta. But stuff still happened. So what's up?
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We found the coolest rock ever. Humans have been
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around doing a lot of stuff, doing a lot of rock
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collecting, but we found the coolest of them.
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Ever. On Mars. Also possibly life on Mars, but
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the rock is more important. So a few billion
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years ago Mars had like an atmosphere and running
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water and stuff like that. It is not currently
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a few billion years ago, which makes it difficult
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for us to identify life on Mars. We can't quite
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go to a telescope and just see like Martian Jeremy
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just sort of like splorking it, whatever that
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means. But let's talk about this rock. The Perseverance
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Rover found a cool looking rock. It rolled over
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a rock that had some spots on it and the scientists
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were like, that's a cool rock. It was cool enough
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that they looked further into it, and what they
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found was that those specks were actually evidence
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of material that is the output of a potential
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organic reaction. Essentially, they found some
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minerals which, to our knowledge, can only be
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created one of two ways, one of which requires
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intense heat. The other is from organic interaction,
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and this rock was at the bottom of a cold riverbed,
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so it probably wasn't the heat. Now, it could
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have been something else that we just don't know
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about. We don't know what we don't know, but
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this is cool. They've been studying this for
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a year, and they are confident enough to say,
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like, hey, this might be the closest we have
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to confirmation of life having existed on Mars.
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The way that they could actually confirm it is
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by sending out a mission to bring back a sample
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and studying it, but we've been cutting a lot
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of funding to NASA, so that's probably not gonna
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happen. But it was a really cool rock. Stateside!
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I already made a video about Charlie Kirk, and
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I'm not gonna rehash too much here. There's way
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too much stuff going on around the world right
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now to be focusing on this one thing. for too
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long, so real quick. Last week, Charlie Kirk,
1:50
a popular conservative commentator most well
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known for his Prove Me Wrong series where he
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debated liberals on college campuses, was murdered.
1:57
Since then, there has been a massive amount of
2:00
escalation between commentators calling for war
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despite most elected officials saying that this
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was awful and then condemning political violence.
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After about a two -day manhunt, the suspect was
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taken into custody by his own father so that
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the FBI didn't even get the guy but that didn't
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stop them from turning around and having a press
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conference where they were like we got him i
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am not going to dive into the details about the
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suspect because frankly there's too much dust
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in the air right now and i trust me i have seen
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the takes from all sides this has been an embarrassing
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stretch for the news media there have been so
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many things that have been published and retracted
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from institutions that i respect and Have been
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shaken by I usually give grace to outlets because
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like I know they are just going through their
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filter of their editor but generally have strict
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reporting requirements for actually saying what
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is a fact and A lot of that has just been busted
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over this past week. And so until we have more
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concrete information, I'm just gonna move on
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Let's talk about that Venezuelan boat that we
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bombed. There has been new reporting around the
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boat carrying 11 people that the U .S. military
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bombed, killing everyone on board off the coast
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of Venezuela. This was already kind of fucked.
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Like, this was already a thing where it should
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not have happened. The military does not have
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the authority to go after foreign civilians,
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period. But now it turns out that national security
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advisors have briefed the press in a closed -door
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conference about how the boat was actually headed
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back to shore. The boat... was heading back to
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Venezuela when it was bombed. And it was bombed
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twice. Once to blow up the boat, and again to
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kill the survivors. This is awful. Like, it's
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awful. And international legal experts basically
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all agree this is fucked and illegal. Except
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there's not much that can happen. Like the ICC,
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the International Criminal Court, one, can't
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really do anything about the US, and two, can't
3:57
really do anything unless it's systemic, which...
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It is, but it needs to be more systemic. Legal
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experts have drawn connections between this and
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someone like Rodrigo Duterte who did a lot of
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extrajudicial killing and is now being held by
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the ICC and tried for crimes against humanity.
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So like that's kind of it. Like we are still
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pressuring Venezuela a lot with military force
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and that's weird. We claim that we are at war
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with gangs within Venezuela, which allows us
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to go to war with Venezuela because we say that
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their government is involved with the gangs,
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but we're not at war with the government, we're
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at war with the gangs. It's gross, and I don't
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want to go to war with Venezuela. What? Well,
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let's talk about Chicago, where it's gotten quite
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icy recently. Ice has landed in Chicago and has
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already started causing havoc, chaos, and already
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murdered someone. The Department of Homeland
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Security has launched Operation Midway Blitz,
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which, quick aside, The government naming a law
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enforcement operation like some kind of military
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operation with regards to one of their own cities
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within our sovereign borders is fucking whack.
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Just wanted to put that out there, just as a
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little kernel. But anyway, they've been causing
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havoc. And no one in Chicago wants this. Silverio
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Viegas Gonzalez was murdered by ICE. He was a
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42 -year -old cook at a restaurant in a suburb
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of Chicago, and he was driving when ICE accosted
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him in unmarked cars. They cornered him in his
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car, got out, and started to approach the vehicle.
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Witnesses in the area described it as people
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thinking that it was a robbery at first. These
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men approach his car, start saying things at
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him, and he's not fully fluent in English, so
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he's like, what the f— What the fuck is going
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on? Who are these people in these unmarked cars?
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Presumably thinking it was a robbery, he hit
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the gas and tried to speed away, and in doing
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so, ICE claims that he dragged one of their agents,
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who then opened fire. ICE maintains that since
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he tried to escape and in doing so hurt an agent,
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that he is the cause of his own death because
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the agent used acceptable force. I would argue
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that... Chicago doesn't want ice there. And here's
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ice in Chicago, and a man's already dead because
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of it. I learned from my Charlie Kirk video that
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a person having children makes it so that them
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being killed is completely unacceptable. So for
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those who need to know that number, the guy had
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three kids. Since the killing, local organizers
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have banded together and come out in force. There
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have been incredible demonstrations, and community
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organizers and faith leaders alike have made
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statements of unity. It's really been amazing
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in general in all the places that ICE has been
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sent in force to see people rising up and pushing
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back. It's almost like when people don't want
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an oppressive force in their locality, you shouldn't
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try to do that. It's almost like they didn't
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fucking vote for you. So far in 2025, 15 people
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have died in the custody of ICE, and this is
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only really on pace with 2020, where we had an
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excess of deaths from COVID. Meanwhile, the ICE
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raids are already creating a chilling effect
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for foreign investors. That raid on the factory
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in Georgia? South Korea's pissed! They recently
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published an article explaining what those people
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went through in ice custody. They were chained
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up. They had to lap up water because they couldn't
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use their hands or feet. They had about a fist
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sized hole to see the sky. They were held for
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days. They had one toilet and the only real privacy
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was a sheet to go over the lower half of their
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body. These are people whose crime was some paperwork
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didn't have a certain check mark on it. I'm sure
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that'll be good for business elsewhere. It turns
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out you can hold criminal leaders accountable.
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Brazil has sentenced their former president Bolsonaro
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to 27 years and three months in prison. He was
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found guilty of attempting a coup to maintain
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power after the elections in 2022. Now, Bolsonaro
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has already said this is a witch hunt, blah,
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blah, blah, blah, et cetera, et cetera. The things
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that they say. Trump also was like, well, that's
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like what they did to me, which was also a witch
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hunt. But the wildest part is that U .S. Secretary
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of State Marco Rubio made a statement that the
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U .S. was going to respond in kind like. The
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US was going to retaliate for Brazil doing this?
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To which Brazil's response was essentially, the
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fuck you on about? This is, as far as I know,
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the second former president just this year to
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go to jail in a country that's not the US. Someone
8:09
tell Merrick Garland about this. Meanwhile, Israel
8:12
has struck Qatar, and they are not happy. Israel
8:15
launched an airstrike against Hamas leaders who
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were in Qatar, which is a US ally, and where
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some peace negotiations are supposed to be happening.
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peace negotiations that were interrupted by hellfire.
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This got worldwide condemnation pretty much immediately,
8:27
including from the UN Security Council, including
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from the US. The US, for once, agreed to vote
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for a condemnation of actions taken by Israel.
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Except the condemnation letter specifically does
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not say Israel. It references the attacks, but
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it doesn't say who did it. It just says that
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the attacks are awful. Can't be too specific.
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Anyway, after the attacks, Trump was like, oh,
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well, that was stupid, and that won't happen
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again. To which Netanyahu clarified, yes, that
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actually may happen again if Israel wants to
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do it. So I'm not sure who's going to be sitting
9:00
at the table with Israel in the future. The EU
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is already talking about trying to end trade
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deals and more sanctions are incoming against
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certain members of parliament and settlers. So
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like, maybe don't bomb everyone. That's been
9:13
my strategy. And I've got friends. Speaking of
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friends, NATO is... basically a country group
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chat. Several Russian drones were shot down and
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collected as debris in Polish airspace. This
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is the first time that a Russian drone has been
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detected crossing into NATO borders, and it's
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also the first time that a NATO member has fired
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ammunition in this war. Following the drone's
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presence, they invoked Article 4 of NATO, which
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you might not be familiar with Article 4, you
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might know Article 5. Article 5 is the, yo, you
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mess with my friends, you're gonna mess with
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the whole crew. That's it's that article right?
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It's the one where it's like you fight any of
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us you fight all of us My boys got me article
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four is yo, you mess with us. We're gonna have
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a drum circle about it We're gonna we're gonna
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have a mixer. We're gonna have a get -together
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at the local community center We're gonna bring
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snacks and chat article four is essentially like
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hey y 'all this happened what? Can we have a
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chat about it? Like, can we talk about what we're
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going to do? But it's still notable. It's a notable
10:08
step. It's only been used eight times since the
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formation of NATO. Not long after that whole
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incident, drones were then detected in Romanian
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airspace, and they actually gave permission to
10:17
their fighter pilots to shoot the drones out
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of the air, and the fighter pilots chose not
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to to minimize collateral damage. Russia maintains
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these drones were perfectly innocent. They had
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had a great explanation. They were simply on
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their way back from striking Ukraine. It's just
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a return trip. Can we just borrow your airspace
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real quick? We're just gonna do some war stuff.
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It won't be a problem. Don't worry about it.
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Alright, we're gonna talk Nepal and then we've
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got so much cool technology shit to talk about.
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So Nepal. That was fast. Nepal essentially just
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had a revolution. Like in real time. It's whack.
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Things got real real real fast. Here's a timeline.
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September 4th, the government of Nepal bans a
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bunch of social media apps. This pisses off a
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lot of people, especially the younger generation,
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who are already feeling like they have no real
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future. At the same time, a handful of apps are
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not banned, and so organization begins there,
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places like Discord. September 8th, thousands
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of people march towards Parliament. Cops open
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fire on some of the protesters and 19 people
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die on the first day. That makes everything way
11:15
worse, and in an attempt to... calm things down
11:18
a bit. They try to unban the social media apps,
11:20
but it's too late. September 9th. Parliament
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is burning. The then prime minister resigns and
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escapes off the roof in a helicopter. A bunch
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of other high -level officials' houses are burned
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down. Casualties increase. September 10th, things
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settle down a little bit. There's initial discussions
11:37
between protesters, the army, and representatives
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of the government about what happens next. September
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12th, former Chief Justice Karke is named as
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the interim prime minister and is the first prime
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minister of Nepal to be a woman. Notably, consensus
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for her appointment happened on Discord. Which
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is just like, like that's now in their history.
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Like, that's gonna go in a book. The protesters
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turned around and immediately became a cleanup
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crew. They started to clean up their country
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and put things back in their place. As of now,
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the death toll is at 72, with a little over 2
12:08
,000 people injured. The newly appointed interim
12:11
prime minister is looking to do right by the
12:13
families who lost people in the uprising. There
12:16
are elections scheduled for March 5th, 2026,
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and we're just gonna see what happens. I do want
12:22
to note that the people who were cast out of
12:24
the government, the corrupt politicians that...
12:26
they rose up against, they're complaining, and
12:29
they feel that they should be reinstated. There
12:31
there, you did your best. If you like what I
12:33
do and you want to help me keep doing it, and
12:34
you want to help me not be beholden to, like,
12:36
advertisers and stuff, head to isupport .dev.
12:40
There are a whole bunch of ways to support my
12:42
work. I've got Patreon, Ko -Fi, YouTube memberships,
12:44
a merch store, but if money is not really an
12:47
option, just sharing my content goes a very long
12:49
way. Thank you so incredibly much for being here,
12:52
and there's a lot of new folks. So, hi. Uh...
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Let's move on. Technology! Okay, I'm going to
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try to get through this without going too deep
13:02
into each individual one, but I might because
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it's cool. There's just a lot of neat tech stuff
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recently. All this has happened in the past like
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five -ish months. First up, how do you want to
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be powered by sand? A town in Finland is using
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a giant sand battery to heat their town in the
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winter. It's just got deployed. Essentially,
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it's this device that's just a big silo full
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of sand and pipes, and it gets heated up by renewable
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energies. Sand is really good at maintaining
13:27
heat without breaking down as a material, so
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they can heat this thing up to extreme temperatures,
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and it just kind of stays there. So during these
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sunny and warm months, they can use renewable
13:36
energy to heat this thing up, and it can stay
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hot throughout the winter and heat the entire
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town. Not like emanating heat from the one place,
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but there are pipes in it that can then take
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air, heat it up, and deliver it to places. That's
13:50
rad. And like, there have been heat storage systems
13:54
before, but this is sand. Like, it's pretty available
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and pretty cheap. There's still drawbacks. It's
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mostly good for heating. It's a lot worse to
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try to convert that. back into electricity, it's
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not very efficient that way. But still, a single
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big thing of sand to heat a whole town? I'm genuinely
14:11
floored by, like, I had to double, triple, and
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quadruple check because they're saying it can
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hold the heat for months at a time. That's just,
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I can't reconcile that in my head. I guess the
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point is, who needs classic batteries when you
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can just use sand? Except, let's go back to classic
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batteries. You are most likely familiar with
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lithium ion batteries, which power most consumer
14:30
electronics. They're those good good batteries
14:32
that every once in a while explode. It just makes
14:35
for a little, it's just a little fun, you know?
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It's a little side thing it does. So inside lithium
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ion batteries is sort of like power sludge. And
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that's the thing that can blow up. I'm so tired!
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It's like the end of the day and I'm recording
14:47
late because there was like a music festival
14:49
literally behind where I live and so there was
14:52
no way I could record. So - Bear with me. Lithium
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-ion batteries. They are good, but mostly they
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suck and they blow up. So let's talk about how
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ion storage systems is working on a solid state
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battery that shows some serious promise. This
15:05
is a Maryland -based company that is working
15:07
on a solid state battery. The idea is that instead
15:09
of having that power goo, you just have like
15:11
a brick of battery material that just holds power.
15:15
Like a power crystal. They should call them power
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crystals if you need a marketing person! Talk
15:20
to me! Yo, they're power crystals, not batteries.
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So they're working on these power crystals, and
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they could be potentially up to 50 % more efficient
15:27
by size, and also have virtually no chance of
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just exploding. This could be transformative
15:33
for a lot of consumer electronics and things
15:35
like electric vehicle adoption and safety. There
15:37
was a bunch of research into solid -state batteries
15:39
years ago, but it kind of fizzled out because
15:41
nothing really worked. But this company has been
15:44
giving prototypes to the military and to a couple
15:47
of private tech firms that have not been identified.
15:49
both of which are giving good feedback. So you
15:52
might have your very own power crystal soon in
15:56
several years. Power crystals! Power goo! Anyway,
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koalas be fucking. Did you know that koalas be
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fucking? And it's not good for them because chlamydia
16:06
is rampant in koala populations. Is this common
16:09
knowledge? Am I just learning this? Scientists
16:11
at the University of the Sunshine Coast in Australia
16:13
have been developing a vaccine for chlamydia
16:16
for koalas. for like a decade. Apparently chlamydia
16:20
rates in some koala populations can be as high
16:22
as 70%. They'd be fucking. But chlamydia is bad
16:26
and is threatening their entire population. So
16:28
instead of trying to find each individual one
16:30
with chlamydia and treat it, they're trying to
16:32
make a vaccine and introduce that into the population.
16:34
They did it. It got approved. Now they need money
16:38
to actually distribute it, so if that's what
16:40
they're working on now, hopefully that happens.
16:42
Big day for copper alloys! Actually, huge day
16:45
for copper alloys. Have you ever heard of a super
16:47
alloy? It's like an alloy, but make it super.
16:50
Super alloys are metal alloys that maintain their
16:53
structure at incredibly high temperatures very
16:55
close to their melting point. Think like taking
16:57
a bar of iron and you heat it up to near -melting,
17:00
but it still doesn't bend. Basically that. These
17:03
have some very specific uses, but they are mostly
17:05
made of... I don't see, I don't know actually.
17:08
I'm going off my notes. They are mostly made
17:11
of nickel, cobalt, and iron. Those are elements.
17:14
However, nickel, cobalt, and iron are not as
17:16
conductive as copper, but copper hasn't really
17:19
had an alloy that can actually act as a super
17:22
-alloy. Until now. Because Martin Harmer, leading
17:25
a team at Lehigh University, has discovered a
17:28
method for, like, atomically constructing stronger
17:32
copper. Quote, Essentially, they wanted a more
17:47
conductive super alloy option, and they went
17:50
down to the atomic level. and analyze the structure
17:54
of the materials, and effectively use the flaws
17:57
in the structures to create reinforcement points.
18:01
If you think about, like, how can I even describe
18:03
this? Think about a stick, and you take it and
18:07
you go to bend it, and as you're starting to
18:09
bend it, bits and pieces of it begin to crack
18:12
and spike up. That stick is pretty weak, right?
18:15
Like, you bend it and it cracks at its fractures.
18:17
What if, instead of cracking at its fractures,
18:19
you reinforce all those points, And now it's
18:22
really strong. So you go to bend it, and it doesn't.
18:27
That's the end of the analogy. I did a great
18:30
job with it. So how does this help us? I don't
18:33
know. But it's being hailed as one of the top
18:36
10 scientific discoveries of the year. Last thing
18:38
for science, let's talk about flamethrowers.
18:40
Let's talk about plasma flamethrowers, specifically.
18:43
Let's talk about plasma flamethrowers that recycle
18:46
plastic, specifically. Engineering researchers
18:49
in South Korea made a plasma torch that is capable
18:52
of taking plastic and breaking it down into core
18:55
components to be reused and recycled. They are
18:58
able to take some plastic scraps, put it in their
19:00
machine, and in just 0 .01 seconds it's exposed
19:04
to so much energy that the plastic just breaks
19:07
down back to its base components. This is still
19:09
nascent, it's not quite industrial grade and
19:11
it won't be for several years still, but if it's
19:14
powered by renewable energies, it could be a
19:16
completely zero -emission method of recycling
19:18
plastics. The only other zero -emission method
19:21
of the recycling plastics is... me. Gaming. Nintendo
19:27
did a Nintendo Direct, and holy shit, new Fire
19:30
Emblem. They're making a new Fire Emblem. Did
19:32
you see? Did you see they're making a new Fire
19:35
Emblem? Allow me to talk at you about Fire Emblem.
19:37
No? Don't click away. My retention stats, wait!
19:41
Nintendo did a Nintendo Direct, they announced
19:43
a whole bunch of stuff, and here are a few highlights.
19:45
A Fire Emblem game. Alright. Metroid Prime 4
19:50
is going to be released on December 4th, 2025.
19:53
It's finally happening. They are releasing a
19:55
bundle of Mario Galaxy and Mario Galaxy 2 as
19:58
a re -release. They announced the sequel to the
20:00
Super Mario movie called the Super Mario Galaxy
20:03
movie. There's gonna be a new Mario Tennis, which
20:04
I want to highlight because I just have a weird
20:07
affinity for Mario Tennis. I specifically loved
20:10
Mario Tennis 64. I don't know why. There's a
20:12
whole bunch of more announcements. I've linked
20:14
to it in my newsletter. You can find the links
20:16
at there. And our last story for today, we're
20:19
going to talk about Sony pulling a Hasbro. Back
20:23
in June, in the UK, a video game reseller had
20:26
his house raided by the cops and had some of
20:29
his merchandise taken. The merchandise in question
20:31
was a box of old Nintendo development kits for
20:33
some old consoles. The guy was like a video game
20:36
reseller. He just like collected stuff and resold
20:38
it. And he went to a clearance sale for a Sony
20:42
headquarters. He bought stuff ranging from furniture
20:44
to boxes of old crap, and among them was... this
20:48
box of dev kits. So he eventually gets a prospective
20:51
buyer that's kind of sus, and a month later,
20:53
the cops show up at his house, arrest him, charge
20:56
him with money laundering, and confiscate the
20:57
box. There's an important detail here that clears
21:00
a few things up, which is that those aren't Sony's
21:03
dev kits. Dev kits are rented out. So Sony had
21:07
those dev kits on rent from Nintendo, and probably
21:11
accidentally threw them out. and then went to
21:13
the cops and had the cops go after the guy who
21:16
ended up with them because of Sony's mistake.
21:18
This is all allegedly, I should be clear, it's
21:21
just the current state of play. That's how it
21:24
looks. I say they pulled a Hasbro because this
21:26
very much reminds me of the time that Hasbro
21:28
sent the literal Pinkertons to go collect Magic
21:32
the Gathering cards that had not yet been released
21:33
that accidentally found their way into someone's
21:35
house. Imagine getting like shot. because of
21:39
an unreleased Magic card. Thank you so much for
21:41
listening to today's episode of Stuff Keeps Happening.
21:44
Head to SKH .News for sources, bonus content,
21:47
and more stolen paraphernalia from the Sony office.
21:51
My name is Endeavourance, we'll talk again soon,
21:53
take care, and be well.