It’s Free for ALL Friday! Each week I keep track of some of the off-the-path things I've found, and work extra-hard to make sure you never hit a paywall, using my own subscriptions, gift links, and other (legal) hocus-pocus.
A Digital Dark Age? The People Rescuing Forgotten Knowledge Trapped on Old Floppy Disks
From lectures by Stephen Hawking to the letters of British politician Neil Kinnock – it’s a race against time to save the historical treasures locked away on old floppy disks.
Some of the world’s most treasured documents can be found deep in the archives of Cambridge University Library. There are letters from Sir Isaac Newton, notebooks belonging to Charles Darwin, rare Islamic texts and the Nash Papyrus – fragments of a sheet from 200BC containing the Ten Commandments written in Hebrew.
But when the library received 113 boxes of papers and mementoes from the office of physicist Stephen Hawking, it found itself with an unusual challenge. Tucked alongside the letters, photographs and thousands of pages relating to Hawking’s work on theoretical physics, were items now not commonly seen in modern offices – floppy disks.
They were the result of Hawking’s early adoption of the personal computer, which he was able to use despite having a form of motor neurone disease known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, thanks to modifications and software. Locked inside these disks could be all kinds of forgotten information or previously unknown insights into the scientists’ life.
The archivists’ minds boggled.
This has created concerns among archivists, historians and archaeologists that future generations may face a sort of “digital dark age” when they look back for material from the past 50 years or so. Much like the Dark Ages of Europe that followed the collapse of the Roman Empire, it’s not that nothing happened. But if no records from the time exist, then it will be impossible to know what people thought, felt and how they lived.
80-Year-Old Grandmother Becomes Oldest Woman to Finish the Ironman World Championship
For most of Natalie Grabow’s life, she didn’t know how to swim. At age 59, she decided to change that, so she could face an even bigger challenge.
“It was a big hurdle I had to overcome,” Grabow told NPR via email, “in order to do a triathlon.”
Grabow is now being hailed as an inspiration. Not only did she learn to swim and then compete in a triathlon, but the 80-year-old grandmother just became the oldest woman to finish the grueling Ironman World Championship in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii.
“Absolutely incredible,” the PA announcer said as Grabow crossed the finish line to loud cheers and a crowd chanting her first name.
Grabow, who lives in Mountain Lakes, N.J., plunged into the ocean water of Kailua Bay on Saturday morning. She swam 2.4 miles and then hopped on her bike to cycle 112 miles on a highway twisting through lava fields and notorious coastal crosswinds. She then ran the 26.2-mile road course — the length of a marathon — where steep stretches contribute to an elevation gain of more than 1,000 feet.
She finished the unforgiving course well within the race’s 17-hour cutoff time, at 16:45:26, on a day when more than 60 other athletes in the field of more than 1,600 failed to finish.
These 2 Quick Tests Can Tell You if You’re as Fit as an 80-year-old Elite Athlete
Apropos of nothing: Measure your strength, power and coordination with these two simple fitness checks.
Are you as fit as an 80-year-old elite athlete?
The answer might be a mortifying surprise.
In a recent study of 4,659 masters athletes who’d qualified for the National Senior Games (a competition that happens every other year and was once known as the Senior Olympics), most participants’ strength and aerobic conditioning were high and their overall health enviable. Few had experienced heart disease, cancer, high blood pressure, diabetes or other chronic conditions, and fewer than 10 percent had needed a joint replacement.
As a group, they “challenge conventions of age-related limitations,” the study concluded.
And now, you can see how you measure up: The study’s primary purpose was to detail new fitness tests specifically focused on competitive older athletes, ages 50 to 90-plus.
Virginia Roberts Giuffre, In Her Own Words: How a 16-Year-Old’s Life Unraveled at Mar-a-Lago
Before she died by suicide earlier this year, Virginia Roberts Giuffre wrote Nobody’s Girl, a devastating memoir of her abuse, including at the hands of Jeffrey Epstein. This excerpt is her account of meeting Ghislaine Maxwell at Mar-a-Lago, and the life-altering ramifications of that encounter.
One steaming hot day some weeks before my 17th birthday, I was walking toward the Mar-a-Lago spa, on my way to work, when a car slowed behind me. I wish I could say that I sensed that something evil was tracking me, but as I headed into the building, I had no inkling of the danger I was in.
In the car I didn’t see were two people I’d not yet met: a British socialite named Ghislaine Maxwell and her driver, Juan Alessi, whom she insisted on calling “John.” Alessi would later testify under oath that on this day, when Maxwell spotted me—my long blond hair, my slim build, and what he called my notably “young” appearance— she commanded him from the back seat, “Stop, John, stop!”
Alessi did as he was told, and Maxwell got out and followed after me. I didn’t know it yet, but once again, a predator was closing in. This one, however, would prove different from any I’d met before. Unlike others who had abused me, this was an apex predator—as greedy and demanding on the inside as she appeared to be beautiful, poised, and self-assured on the outside. Again, I wish I could say that I saw through Maxwell’s polished facade—that, like a horse, I intuited the immense threat she posed to me. Instead, my first impression of Maxwell was the same one I formed when I greeted any well-heeled Mar-a-Lago guest.
I’d be lucky, I thought, if I could grow up to be anything like her.
He Won the $2 Billion Powerball. Now He’s Buying Up Lots Burned in the L.A. Fires.
Edwin Castro is one of the biggest investors snapping up destroyed properties—and he wants to lead in rebuilding his hometown of Altadena.
On a recent overcast morning, a group of investors surveyed one of their newly purchased, wildfire-scorched land plots, when a silver-haired woman approached.
“Who are all of you?” asked the woman, the resident across the street. “This is Edwin,” said one of them, nodding toward a stocky, ponytailed man in the group.
The woman sighed in relief. She, like many longtime Altadenans, knew exactly who Edwin Castro is: the guy who bought a record $2 billion Powerball lottery ticket at a local gas station in 2022.
He’s also one of the biggest buyers of Altadena lots after the Eaton fire tore through his hometown in January, and he wants to lead the rebuilding effort there. The blaze in the San Gabriel Mountain foothills coincided with the nearby Palisades fire and several others, killing at least 31 people while destroying more than 16,000 structures.
“This is for a family that wants to move in,” Castro said, while walking through the fire-charred neighborhood on a recent weekday. “Those are the people that need to be looked out for right now.”
A Real-Life Treasure Hunt Is Underway in These American Cities
Stack’s Bowers Galleries is hiding certificates for rare coins and banknotes this month as it celebrates the 90th anniversary of its first auction in October 1935.
It may sound like something out of an adventure novel, but a real-life treasure hunt is underway in America.
Stack’s Bowers Galleries, a rare coin dealer and auction house, is hiding “treasure”—in the form of certificates that can be redeemed for rare coins and banknotes—around several East Coast cities this month. The company is organizing the treasure hunt to celebrate the 90th anniversary of its first auction in October 1935.
The festivities kicked off last week in Boston. This week, the firm is hiding the certificates at five iconic locations around New York City, with one location revealed every day for five days. The treasure hunt will next move on to Philadelphia (October 21 through 25) and Miami (October 28 through November 1). The company has storefront retail galleries in each of the cities.
Stack’s Bowers Galleries is posting riddles that double as clues to the hiding spots on social media. For instance, in Boston, one of the clues read:
Where fashion stands in retail grace,
Once stood a store of bygone pace.
Amid the modern, seek the old—
A coin of pine, a cent of gold.
Meanwhile, the Great Canadian Treasure Hunt is also underway. It’s being organized by the trade publication Northern Miner and other sponsors, and the grand prize is 217 one-ounce gold coins valued at around $700,000 (1 million Canadian dollars), with other smaller prizes along the way.
These People Ditched Lawyers for ChatGPT in Court
From pickleball disputes to eviction cases, litigants are using ChatGPT to fight their court battles — and they’re starting to win.
Lynn White was out of options.
Allegedly behind on rent payments to her trailer park in Long Beach, California, and facing an eviction notice, she worked with a lawyer from a local tenant advocacy network but lost in a jury trial.
White wanted to appeal, saying she was protected by Los Angeles regulations enacted in response to Covid that allowed a 12-month deferral of rent. So she decided to consult ChatGPT. Having previously used AI to generate videos for her small music production business, she thought it might be able to help in the legal arena, too.
“It was like having God up there responding to my questions,” White said after using the chatbot and an AI-powered search engine called Perplexity to help represent herself in court.
Several months of litigation later, White managed to overturn her eviction notice and avoid roughly $55,000 in penalties and more than $18,000 in overdue rent.
“I can’t overemphasize the usefulness of AI in my case,” White said. “I never, ever, ever, ever could have won this appeal without AI.”
With a slew of generative AI tools available to anyone with an internet connection, a rising number of litigants are using AI to assist in their legal cases. Many are eschewing lawyers altogether, representing themselves in court with AI as their primary guide.
The Iron Man story gives me hope! I am a young 64 wondering when it’s to to stop running marathons. Looks like I have a few more decades to go . . . . .
I still have a couple of floppy disks. And the smaller ones in the hard cases. don’t have the ability to read whatever is on them, my current devices don’t even have DVD players. So I kept my old laptop with a broken keypad, the drive still works!
Good on the Powerball winner, good use of his winnings.
Bill, you found some cool items today!
Happy No Kings weekend!
I love our country - and democracy - and will be attending our local protest here in Greenville, SC tomorrow.
NoKings.org