Things I learned lately 29 Jul

• Germans are taking advantage of a summer of cheaper travel. A €9-a-month ticket scheme introduced from June 1st allows travel on ALL modes of city and regional transport. The ticket will be available for 3 months until the end of August. This will cost the government €2.5 bn as it will pay the shortfall in income to transport companies, and give a refund to commuters who already bought full priced season tickets. The cost of the ticket is a fraction of the normal cost of travel, amounting to at least 1/6th of the price of the cheapest monthly ticket available for Berlin’s central zones. This is in response to rising energy prices and is intended to offer everyone from commuters and weekend trippers who might normally choose to take the car, the chance to check out the benefits of public transport.
  
  
  
• On an iPhone 8 or later, after pressing side buttons together on both sides of the phone a new screen appears, and soon, a countdown begins and an alert sounds. If no action is taken, a 911 call is triggered. This sequence of events often happens accidentally when iPhones are squeezed into cupholders. As a result, unintentional 911 calls are being placed by unwitting iPhone users.
• The economies of the world visualized. 
• The band Styx formed 50 years ago.
• GM plans to invest $35 billion in electric and autonomous vehicles by 2025. It plans to have manufacturing capacity for 1 million EVs a year and intends to launch over 30 EV models by 2025. It is also building EV trucks for FedEx and Walmart under their Brightdrop brand.
• If you ‘super-cool’ your house with your A/C overnight, getting the temperature below the normal setting, your A/C has much less work to do during the day, because you’ve removed a lot of heat from the structure and objects in your house, turning it into a huge heat sink.