All sizzle

Good morning Staker! Here’s what’s cookin’ today: More airlines are refurbishing their fleets; Start digging through your drawers and you might just uncover the latest nostalgia craze; and the Stones are back but you might not know it! 👀  

Let’s get into it!

These days technology seems like it’s built not to last. When it comes to Boeing aircraft, though, durability is the name of the game.

Consider this. The next time you board a United Airlines flight, you may be stepping onto a refurbished and modern-looking workhorse of the skies, but it may very well be a plane that came off the line before your kids were born.

There are four Boeing 767-300ERs included in United’s fleet of more than 1,000 planes, and they were delivered in the spring of 1991. They’ve got all the features inside the cabin that you’d expect to see when boarding today, and they’re just as able to fly from Washington to Geneva or Newark to London today as they were 35 years ago.

And if you think that’s impressive, Canadian charter flight company Nolinor has a Boeing 737 still fully operational, despite it being 45 years old. According to aviation analytics firm Cirium, this is partly due to lingering supply chain disruptions from the pandemic, but also due to fuel efficiency.

“When you fly long-haul, fuel burn becomes a major concern,” says George Dimitroff, the global head of aircraft valuations at Cirium, who noted single-aisle planes like 737s tend to burn less fuel over long distances than widebodies (duel aisle planes).

Care to dive deeper into the surprising longevity of airplanes? Read on here.

The iPod was officially discontinued in 2022, but much like other pieces of early-2000s technology, its popularity is roaring back in 2026.

According to the Associated Press, second-hand sites such as eBay and Back Market are being inundated with listings and demand for the MVP of MP3 players.

On Back Market specifically (which lists all sorts of nostalgic devices and technology), iPods have been showing up for a while now, with sales rising 48% since 2024.

Nostalgia might be the most potent marketing strategy of all time, but it’s really making inroads right now with technology. Stake’s covered the resurgence of wired headphones, the cassette player, and even certain markets for the CD-playing Walkman.

On top of that, video game makers have heeded the call—especially Nintendo. The Nintendo Switch console, for example, allows users to download and play a whole list of their favorite games that were popular with the Nintendo 64, which debuted in 1996.

The iPod craze, however, isn’t just a product of nostalgia, but an experimental curiosity Gen Z and Gen Alpha are having with the idea of ownership.

The accessibility of streaming platforms is certainly convenient, but the tactile feeling of ownership is driving the younger generation towards gizmos and gadgets that both Stakers and their own kids once took for granted, and are pleasantly watching resurface today.

After witnessing the Artemis II crew re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere the other day, fragments of the C/1861 G1 Thatcher comet want their own piece of the action.

The planet passes through the tail of this comet every year. It’s not fully clear how long the tail is, but the comet itself takes roughly half a millennium to orbit the Sun. Every spring shards of ice and dust burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere, generating the wondrous beauty of the Lyrid meteor shower.

This year’s could be particularly worth viewing, because it’s occurring at a time when the Moon is nowhere to be seen in the middle of the night. A moonless sky viewed far from the lights of a city will yield up to 15 shooting stars per hour.

The shower gets its name from the constellation Lyra, which is the region of the sky these meteorites appear to fall from each year—particularly, the star Vega, which is both the second-brightest star in the Northern Hemisphere, and the first star to ever be photographed back in 1850.

The event starts around April 17, and will peak overnight between April 22 and 23. On top of providing prime viewing conditions for Lyrids, the week will give stargazers a chance to see the galactic core of the Milky Way under truly dark and non-light-polluted skies.

Have you ever heard of The Cockroaches?

Much like how the Rolling Stones plastered cryptic posters around Toronto’s famous El Mocambo in 2023 (a venue where the band played surprise concert in 1977) to promote their upcoming album, similarly mysterious messages have been popping up around London over the last few weeks featuring “The Cockroaches.”

The other day it was revealed that The Cockroaches is an alias being used by the Rolling Stones. The cryptic posters are alluding to a new single by the band called Rough and Twisted, which is expected to appear on their next album Foreign Tongues.

The release will be the follow-up to the 2023’s Hackney Diamonds, a Grammy-winning audio feast that Keith Richards said reinvigorated the band’s songwriting.

The clip posted on “The Cockroaches’” Instagram page features an absolute banger of a guitar riff that promises a truly in-the-pocket Keith Richards. The post’s caption reads “64 and counting,” which appears to refer to how long the Rolling Stones have been around, while confirming they are indeed still around.

According to NME, Foreign Tongues is expected to debut on July 10, though no plans for a tour or any isolated shows have been announced after the rumored world tour was scrapped late last year.

We want…to quiz you up

We’ve got lots of laughs comin’ in hot, with today’s trivia as we take a look back to the classic, early days of Saturday Night Live!

Complete the game and earn a shot at a $25 eGift Card.

Winner will be notified on Wednesday afternoon. Keep an eye on your inbox and don’t forget to check your spam folder! *