Thingdown

9 Objects That Mattered This Week

1. My Object of the Week for Marker: Birkenstocks + Birken Bags = Birkinstocks, the ultimate consumer-culture troll.
2. I finally found a facemask design I actually like.
3. RIP the Lear Jet. Long an icon of mega-wealth and the high life, it is now considered “cramped and not as luxurious as other planes.”
4. Was LAX Jetpack Guy actually an object?
5. “Pringles chips are the shape of a hyperbolic paraboloid.” Mathematicians discuss.
6. How the stress ball indicts late-stage capitalism.
7. Super Bowl LV was attended by 30,000 cardboard cutouts. Fans could pay $100 to get theirs in the stands. Make it stop.
8. Need a reason to question humanity? Counterfeit N95 masks.
9. Object in progress: the IRL Mute Button. (Links are not necessarily endorsements, y’all.)

Have a nice weekend!