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Brief

Today you'll read about the trending Pasta Puffer coat, the 27th Pan-African Film and Television Festival, what's blocking the Hubble Telescope's view, Russia's secret weapon against sanctions, what may replace your smartphone in future and a list of fun things to try out this weekend.
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Happy weekend, and expect our next newsletter on Monday morning 😁

Pasta Puffer

The Rachel Antonoff Parker Puffer, a short black jacket printed with golden images of bow-tie pasta, has become a seasonal phenomenon in cities such as New York, Chicago and San Francisco. Social media is littered with photos of people posing in it, and the farfalle has become Antonoff’s best-selling print. The jacket, which retails for $425, has sold out three times since it was introduced at the end of 2021. Although it's not unheard of for outerwear to develop a cult following, the pasta puffer seems more niche. Antonoff, who has been making food-themed garments like babka sweaters and dresses decorated with seafood towers since 2015, suggests that before the pandemic, such items were often considered too loud or too much, but the lockdowns happened, and many people spending their workdays on Zoom calls were looking for a way to provoke conversation.

The popularity of the pasta puffer has also been influenced by rental companies such as Nuuly and Rent the Runway, with the coat being rented over 1,000 times via Nuuly. Rentals of the coat grew by 10% from fall and winter of 2021 to the same period in 2022 on Rent the Runway. A bold jacket like the pasta puffer is ideal for temporary ownership, said Sarah Margulies, a Boston-area lawyer who rented the coat in January. Rental companies have also played a role in the pasta puffer’s ubiquity. But, many pasta puffer enthusiasts have also acknowledged the jacket’s downsides: it's not very warm, it's boxy, and it's expensive. However, with a coat like this, it's not really about the fit. It's about the joy.

Apolline Traoré's Sira

The 27th Pan-African Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou (FESPACO) is taking place in Burkina Faso despite the violent insurgency that has plagued many of the country's regions. With 170 films being screened, including 15 feature films and 30 short films in competition, FESPACO is the continent's premier film festival.

The festival's delegate-general, Alex Moussa Sawadogo, believes that despite the insecurity, it's crucial to show the world that Burkina Faso's culture and people continue to thrive. In the feature film category, movies from 13 countries, including Burkina Faso, are competing. The homegrown talent Apolline Traoré's movie Sira tells the story of a young woman abandoned in the desert who decides to stand up to a group of terrorists. If successful, Traoré would become the first female filmmaker to win the Golden Stallion award. The films showcased at FESPACO provide a unique opportunity to experience diverse cultures and storytelling from across the African continent.

Blocking Hubble's View

The Hubble Space Telescope's images of the cosmos are being ruined by thousands of satellites launched by private companies. These satellites are photobombing the telescope by producing bright streaks and curves of light, making it difficult to remove them. A study published in the journal Nature Astronomy reveals that the number of spoiled images recorded by the telescope is increasing, and the problem is only going to get worse as more satellites are launched. "There will be science that can’t be done. There will be science that’s significantly more expensive to do. There will be things that we miss," said Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

The Hubble Space Telescope has revolutionized our understanding of the cosmos. Its images have revealed the age of the universe, the existence of supermassive black holes at the center of galaxies, and the processes by which stars are formed. However, the number of satellites launched into space has increased significantly since the Hubble's launch in 1990. As a result, the telescope is now facing interference from satellite constellations.

The researchers used an archive of images taken from 2002 to 2021 and found that the chance of seeing a satellite in a Hubble image from 2009 to 2020 is only 3.7%, but it is 5.9% in 2021. The increase in the percentage of images recorded by the Hubble that are spoiled by passing satellites corresponds to the launch of Starlink by SpaceX. The chances of spotting a satellite in Hubble's images would rise significantly if only 100,000 satellites launch in the coming years, and many more are scheduled to do so. However, most of the satellite streaks are readily removed using standard data reduction techniques, and the majority of affected images are still usable, according to NASA.

Russia's secret weapon

Pavel Sorokin, Russia's deputy energy minister, has become a key figure in Russian politics, playing an important role in navigating sanctions and defying Western expectations, according to the Wall Street Journal. Along with a group of other young technocrats, Sorokin has significant knowledge of the West, including finance studied in London, and has helped negotiate deals in Africa and the Middle East, as well as played an early role in the development of OPEC+. Last year, Sorokin was instrumental in exaggerating the impact of damage to the Russian-controlled pipeline to the Black Sea, which pushed oil prices higher. The move also helped to draw $8.2bn in taxes to the country's treasury.

Sorokin has been labelled "Russia's secret weapon" in blunting the impact of the West's sanctions. He is part of a new breed of young people who had choices and decided to work in the Russian government. Other rising officials within the Kremlin include deputy finance minister Alexey Sazanov, who was educated at Oxford, and Denis Deryushkin, the energy ministry’s head of research, who began representing Russia at OPEC advisory meetings at age 29.

To make up for lost revenue due to falling oil and natural gas prices, Russia is looking to cultivate new trading partners. Sorokin's outreach has included deals with the Republic of Congo and Bahrain, as well as meetings with the Taliban-led government in Afghanistan. He is helping to find ways to plug Russia's fast-expanding deficit, which has been exacerbated by sanctions.

The New Tech That May Take Us Beyond the Smartphone.

At the MWC 2023 mobile trade show, industry leaders are pitching all sorts of future technologies, with many believing that smartphones are on the decline. Instead, the focus is on innovations that will soon come to headsets, wearables, vehicles and more. For instance, AI is expected to make phones smarter and Samsung Electronics is looking at incorporating generative-AI products from Microsoft and Google, which recently introduced its ChatGPT competitor, Bard. The use of generative AI is expected to lead to changes in how we interact with computers, and it is likely that we will want the services on our pocket computers to be faster and more power efficient. Meanwhile, executives believe that mixed reality, a combination of VR and AR, headsets are the next big thing that will change our interactions, although the headsets have to shrink in size, while getting better battery life, to make them devices we really want to wear.

Another area of focus is IoT, which will connect everything. Wearables, cars and home devices are already communicating with our phones and each other, and as sensors, modems and other components get smaller, better and faster, and cellular 5G networks get snappier, more and more devices will be added to the IoT network.

Some weekend ideas for you

Have fun trying out any of these activities.

• Have a movie night: Pick a movie or two, grab some snacks, and settle in for a cozy night in. You can even create a theme for your movie night like "classic comedies" or "80s favorites".
• Try a new recipe: Experiment in the kitchen and try making something new. You can browse Pinterest or a cookbook for inspiration. Who knows, you might discover a new favorite dish!
• Have a game night: Gather some friends or family and have a game night. You can play classic board games like Monopoly or Scrabble, or try out a new game like Cards Against Humanity.
• Take a day trip: If you're up for a little adventure, plan a day trip to a nearby town or attraction. You can explore a new place and have some fun along the way.

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