I have been trying (albeit not very hard) to come up with the best way to describe the stinky hand sanitizer that is going around these days. Then today somebody in the office described it as bad tequila and I immediately thought, "yup, that's exactly it. It's bad tequila." See above tweet.
Turns out, there's some science behind this stink. Here is an article by Gregory Han from the New York Times that was shared in response to my tweet. And here is the excerpt that explains where this stink comes from:
“That off-putting smell—sometimes described as rotten garbage or tequila-like—is the natural byproduct of ethanol being made from corn, sugar cane, beets, and other organic sources,” explained Zlotnik. “[Ethyl alcohol] production is highly regulated. It stinks because these new brands—many made by distillers who’ve pivoted from producing drinking alcohol to meet public demand for hand sanitizer—are making and using denatured ethanol. This ethanol costs significantly less than ethanol filtered using activated carbon filtration, which would typically remove almost all contaminants and the malodor with it.”
I have been trying (albeit not very hard) to come up with the best way to describe the stinky hand sanitizer that is going around these days. Then today somebody in the office described it as bad tequila and I immediately thought, "yup, that's exactly it. It's bad tequila." See above tweet.
Turns out, there's some science behind this stink. Here is an article by Gregory Han from the New York Times that was shared in response to my tweet. And here is the excerpt that explains where this stink comes from:
“That off-putting smell—sometimes described as rotten garbage or tequila-like—is the natural byproduct of ethanol being made from corn, sugar cane, beets, and other organic sources,” explained Zlotnik. “[Ethyl alcohol] production is highly regulated. It stinks because these new brands—many made by distillers who’ve pivoted from producing drinking alcohol to meet public demand for hand sanitizer—are making and using denatured ethanol. This ethanol costs significantly less than ethanol filtered using activated carbon filtration, which would typically remove almost all contaminants and the malodor with it.”
Those organic contaminants aren’t the only reason unfiltered and denatured ethanol smells downright foul. According to Zlotnik, denatured ethanol is also intentionally tainted with an unpalatable cocktail of chemicals (denaturants) such as methanol, acetone, methyl ethyl ketone, and denatonium to make it undrinkable. In other words: The base material is intentionally stinky.
So now you can judge accordingly after you've cleansed your hands with rotten garbage tequila.
On a somewhat related note, Jill Lepore has an interesting piece in this week's New Yorker about the great indoors, and how quarantine has forced us to spend even more of our time indoors. (Though, that hasn't been the case for me this summer.) Here's a snippet:
The Great Confinement varies by place and by wealth, and, historically, it’s new. “Over several millennia, humans have evolved from an outdoor species into an indoor one,” Allen and Macomber write. Citing E. O. Wilson, they explain, “We evolved in the African savannah’s wide-open expanses, intimate with nature and seeking protection under tree canopies,” and so “our genetic hardwiring, built over millennia, still craves that connection to nature.” To satisfy this craving, photographs of redwoods adorn hospital waiting rooms; you can pop into the Grand Canyon via Zoom. I used to think these dodges were better than nothing, but I’ve changed my mind. Zoom is usually not better than nothing.
A recent market report from Zillow has found that urban and suburban housing markets in the US haven't actually diverged all that much as a result of this pandemic. Despite what you might be reading in the news, Zillow's national listing data does not seem to suggest that an urban exodus might be underway. Suburban and rural home listings are seeing about the same attention (views) as they were last year. And the rates of appreciation seem to be holding. As of June, annual home value growth was 4.3% for urban areas and 4.1% for suburban areas.
There are, however, some exceptions and local nuances. Rents in urban zip codes have fallen more compared to their suburban counterparts. This seems to make intuitive sense given that I would have expected demand to be less from young professionals, students, and immigrants. Many cities probably also saw a bunch of their short-term rental inventory flip over to the long-term rental market (how much, I don't know). But my view is that this will prove to be a short-term phenomenon.
Richard Florida has a three-part essay over on Bloomberg CityLab about the forces that are currently shaping American cities. In part three, he argues that this pandemic will likely accelerate many of the trends that were already underway -- families will continue to like the suburbs and young people and businesses will continue to cluster in dominant global cities. At the same time, he argues that we will see a kind of "urban reset." A window of opportunity where we just might be able to rebuild our cities to be more affordable, more inclusive, and more productive. Could this be the moment where we commit to transforming our suburbs into more walkable mixed-use communities? Could this crisis actually strengthen our cities, as I have argued before on the blog? At this point in time, the only thing I really know for sure is that most of our predictions will be wrong.
Those organic contaminants aren’t the only reason unfiltered and denatured ethanol smells downright foul. According to Zlotnik, denatured ethanol is also intentionally tainted with an unpalatable cocktail of chemicals (denaturants) such as methanol, acetone, methyl ethyl ketone, and denatonium to make it undrinkable. In other words: The base material is intentionally stinky.
So now you can judge accordingly after you've cleansed your hands with rotten garbage tequila.
On a somewhat related note, Jill Lepore has an interesting piece in this week's New Yorker about the great indoors, and how quarantine has forced us to spend even more of our time indoors. (Though, that hasn't been the case for me this summer.) Here's a snippet:
The Great Confinement varies by place and by wealth, and, historically, it’s new. “Over several millennia, humans have evolved from an outdoor species into an indoor one,” Allen and Macomber write. Citing E. O. Wilson, they explain, “We evolved in the African savannah’s wide-open expanses, intimate with nature and seeking protection under tree canopies,” and so “our genetic hardwiring, built over millennia, still craves that connection to nature.” To satisfy this craving, photographs of redwoods adorn hospital waiting rooms; you can pop into the Grand Canyon via Zoom. I used to think these dodges were better than nothing, but I’ve changed my mind. Zoom is usually not better than nothing.
A recent market report from Zillow has found that urban and suburban housing markets in the US haven't actually diverged all that much as a result of this pandemic. Despite what you might be reading in the news, Zillow's national listing data does not seem to suggest that an urban exodus might be underway. Suburban and rural home listings are seeing about the same attention (views) as they were last year. And the rates of appreciation seem to be holding. As of June, annual home value growth was 4.3% for urban areas and 4.1% for suburban areas.
There are, however, some exceptions and local nuances. Rents in urban zip codes have fallen more compared to their suburban counterparts. This seems to make intuitive sense given that I would have expected demand to be less from young professionals, students, and immigrants. Many cities probably also saw a bunch of their short-term rental inventory flip over to the long-term rental market (how much, I don't know). But my view is that this will prove to be a short-term phenomenon.
Richard Florida has a three-part essay over on Bloomberg CityLab about the forces that are currently shaping American cities. In part three, he argues that this pandemic will likely accelerate many of the trends that were already underway -- families will continue to like the suburbs and young people and businesses will continue to cluster in dominant global cities. At the same time, he argues that we will see a kind of "urban reset." A window of opportunity where we just might be able to rebuild our cities to be more affordable, more inclusive, and more productive. Could this be the moment where we commit to transforming our suburbs into more walkable mixed-use communities? Could this crisis actually strengthen our cities, as I have argued before on the blog? At this point in time, the only thing I really know for sure is that most of our predictions will be wrong.
There are also some markets that have performed quite differently. San Francisco is one of those cases. The city proper has seen home prices fall 4.9% and inventory (listings) increase by 96% year-over-year. This is a massive outlier. If I were to speculate as to why this is the case, it would be that (1) this was brewing even before COVID-19 and (2) the tech community is perhaps more convinced of this whole working from home thing. Why remain in expensive San Francisco? It'll be interesting to see how this plays out. For a full copy of Zillow's urban-suburban market report, click here.
There are also some markets that have performed quite differently. San Francisco is one of those cases. The city proper has seen home prices fall 4.9% and inventory (listings) increase by 96% year-over-year. This is a massive outlier. If I were to speculate as to why this is the case, it would be that (1) this was brewing even before COVID-19 and (2) the tech community is perhaps more convinced of this whole working from home thing. Why remain in expensive San Francisco? It'll be interesting to see how this plays out. For a full copy of Zillow's urban-suburban market report, click here.
