A grand old time

When the Flintstones drove all the way to Texarock to visit Fred’s wealthy cousin, they were happy to pass by one of nature’s wonders: the Grand Canyon. Of course back then, it was the measly Not-So-Grand Canyon. Best site gag ever 🤣

How far we’ve come. Nowadays, people travel from all over to camp around the genuinely grand, Grand Canyon. And camping has come a long way too. Just check out the new glamorous two storey tents from design studio BIG! 

When things change, do as Winwood does ;)

Event tickets and hotel bookings will no longer be listed for one price up front, but then sold for a much higher price at the final checkout page.

The Federal Trade Commission officially passed the rule, executing another in a series of moves by the Biden administration to end the use of hidden junk fees.

“We all know the experience of encountering a hidden fee at the very last stage of checkout — these junk fees sneak onto your bill and companies end up making you pay more because they can. Those fees add up, taking real money out of the pockets of Americans,” Biden said in a statement.

The FTC proposed a much wider-reaching rule last year, ostensibly banning all junk fees for all online transactions, including late fees for credit cards and baggage fee structures for airlines. However, both of these provisions were ultimately struck down by federal judges.

FTC Chair LIna Khan believes the rule would have saved consumers 53 million hours a year by not having to meticulously investigate exactly how much they were charged and for what.

“I urge enforcers to continue cracking down on these unlawful fees and encourage state and federal policymakers to build on this success with legislation that bans unfair and deceptive junk fees across the economy,” Khan said in a statement.

California flavor development company T. Hasegawa has been publishing its Food and Beverage Trends Report every year for several decades, each including a special section to describe each edition’s Flavor of the Year.

It’s hard to ever go wrong with brown sugar, but plenty of consumers and businesses spent 2024 finding creative new ways to get it right. Brown sugar lattes, brown sugar milk tea, brown sugar cinnamon Pop Tarts; even brown sugar sauce was being offered at Yankee Stadium at one point this past summer.

Brown sugar continues to enjoy its popularity renaissance while maintaining the sweet and cozy sense of nostalgia. It’s undeniably T. Hasegawa’s Flavor of the Year.

“Consumer preferences are continually evolving in food and drink categories, and the flavor industry is on the frontline of these trends,” Mark Webster, vice president of sales and marketing at T. Hasegawa U.S.A., said in a statement.

“By working with many of the world’s top food and beverage brands, our research and development team have direct insight into the ingredients, culinary trends, and consumer demand that will influence restaurant menus and CPG products well into the future.” 

A new study based on data collected from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found taxi drivers appear to die with statistically significant lower rates of Alzheimer’s disease than the general population.

The researchers found just 1% of taxi drivers die with Alzheimer’s, whereas 3.9% of everyone included in the data had died with the disease. They did note, however, that cab drivers have a considerably lower life expectancy as well, suggesting it’s possible they may have developed Alzheimer’s at a similar rate had they lived longer.

Still, the lower rate would appear to make sense based on how much time taxi drivers spend in constant navigation, exercising areas of the brain associated with cognitive function.

For example, the hippocampus is among the key regions of the brain destroyed by Alzheimer’s, and it’s also the area associated with memory and navigation.

The paper hasn’t been peer-reviewed yet and its researchers likely have to do more to legitimately prove the causal relationship. Nonetheless, it’s a good reason to try using your memory instead of GPS whenever possible! 🤔

Without offering many details, Honda and Nissan announced the other day that they’ve resumed talks for what appears to be a potential merger of two of the biggest auto manufacturers on the planet.

“As announced in March, Honda and Nissan are exploring various possibilities for future collaboration, leveraging each other’s strengths,” the companies said in a statement Tuesday. “If there are any updates, we will inform our stakeholders at the appropriate time.”

Just like General Motors, the two Japanese outfits are having a difficult time staying afloat in the EV race, particularly because of China’s massive domestic subsidies that essentially make it impossible for foreign companies to compete.

Honda and Nissan turned to each other earlier this year for collaboration on certain EV projects amid the struggles both had been facing.

Honda also confirmed Mitsubishi is involved in discussions, suggesting the possibility that three of Japan’s largest automakers could become a single mammoth entity.

MacKenzie Scott continues to exemplify exactly what most would want of society’s handful of billionaires, as she continues to give sizeable amounts of her fortune away a couple billion dollars at a time.

She announced a $2 billion donation in a blog post the other day, bringing her total amount donated to $19.2 billion since 2019 alone.

The settlement in her divorce from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos set her up for a million lifetimes. Forbes believes her current net worth is $31.7 billion, despite giving away nearly $20 billion.

Her latest donation was mentioned in a blog post in which she pondered the concept of “investing,” saying it “seems to have undergone a kind of semantic shriveling. On the list of its big, beautiful, original definitions? To devote resources for a useful purpose. To endow with rights. To clothe.”

So far, MacKenzie has awarded unconditional grants to 2,450 non-profits through her “trust-based philanthropy.”

If you hit that arrow and watch the video, you’ll see just how big a year it was. 255 issues of the newsletter, 34 trivia nights, 16 giveaways, 94 prize winners, and more fun than we could ever imagine.

Thank you to each and every one of you for being here and for letting us be a part of your day. We can’t wait to see what 2025 brings!

Did you think we’d write a story about brown sugar and not make the leap to the Rolling Stones? 🤣 

If you’re a fan of some of rock’s finest, you’ll love today’s trivia ;)

Have a great weekend Staker!

Trivia courtesy of funtrivia.com. Today’s issue written by Michael Cowan, Joey Cowan, and Maureen Norman.