August 16, 2026 edition

Sports · Main story A coin flip turned off live sonar at Lake Champlain

B.A.S.S. settled its loudest rule fight with a coin toss. The first day of the Champlain tournament showed exactly what changed when the screens went dark. 4 min read

Science · Main story SpaceX is a public company now. Here's what it does

For two decades SpaceX was the most valuable company you could not buy. In June 2026 it staged the largest IPO in history. Here is what the company actually does - and what its first earnings report revealed. 5 min read

Money and Tech · Main story What XRP is, and why it keeps flirting with $1

The token, the company, and the ledger are three different things, and most explainers blur them. Here is the clean version, plus why a coin from 2012 is suddenly back in the news. 5 min read

Science · Related read What forward-facing sonar is, and why the name is wrong

The most talked-about tool in bass fishing does not actually face forward. Here is what it really does, and how it turned open water into sight fishing. 3 min read

Science · Related read Why Lake Champlain is one of America's great bass lakes

One lake, two fisheries. A deep, clear smallmouth half up north and a shallow, weedy largemouth half down south, all in a single 120-mile stretch of water. 3 min read

Money and Tech · Related read How SpaceX actually makes money

SpaceX reported $7.8 billion in revenue in its first quarter as a public company. The surprise hiding in the numbers: the rocket business is its smallest source of income. 3 min read

Science · Related read What Starlink is, and why 12 million people use it

Inside SpaceX sits the thing you can actually subscribe to. Starlink beams internet from more than 10,000 satellites to over 12 million people. Here is how it works. 3 min read

Money and Tech · Related read How the XRP Ledger works without mining

Bitcoin needs miners. Ethereum needs stakers. The XRP Ledger needs neither. Here is how a network that has run since 2012 keeps agreeing on transactions in about four seconds. 3 min read

Money and Tech · Related read Who created XRP, and the card-trading detour on the way

XRP's story starts with a 2004 idea about trust between friends, passes through three engineers, and takes one very strange detour through a collectible-card website. Here is who actually built it. 3 min read