🖥️ Crushing computers, Delco style | Morning Newsletter
And, how to celebrate Lunar New Year.
The Morning Newsletter
Start your day with the Philly news you need and the stories you want all in one easy-to-read newsletter
🌤️ It’s sunny and cold after a weekend of snow, with highs not even getting out of the 20s. Later, watch out for black ice as anything the powerful sun melts today will refreeze tonight.
📱 For today’s big story, get in. We’re going tech scrap “smashing” in Delco, where a crew crushes old computers and phones from companies into high-tech confetti.
🐯 Get ready for the Year of the Tiger. From dining specials to seeing all the brightly colorful dance costume action, we’ve rounded up the best ways to celebrate the Lunar New Year.
🏀 Bonus: Kerith talked to our sports columnist Mike Sielski about his heartbreaker of a story on the miraculous basketball supernova Sultan Shabazz.
— Ashley Hoffman (@_AshleyHoffman, morningnewsletter@inquirer.com)
🎤 And now I’m passing the mic to our reporter Joseph N. DiStefano, who wrote today’s top story:
I mostly write about out-of-control public investments these days, but I’m still a sucker for stories about how stuff gets made.
Last summer I got a call from Joe Connors, who smashes stuff — laptops and smartphones. He claimed his smashers are in big demand. Now that everyone is working from home, their big data piles up on tiny chips, and hackers sift trash looking for info gold. So I drove to his windowless place in Delco.
There were racks of pre-smashed equipment labeled Comcast and DuPont, Penn and Jefferson, Wawa and PayPal. Plus smashers custom-built by his company, CyberCrunch, to turn those mini-libraries into confetti, worth 26 cents a pound after they’ve pulled out the gold. Connors told a good tale, but owners always do. I waited till I found big users willing to talk for the record, and ID’d the buyers who recycle what’s left over. And I learned that Philly, where computers were invented, is now a leader in junking them.
Keep reading for a tour around the computer junkyard.
What you should know today
What became a coastal “bomb cyclone” incited an all-out white-out blizzard at the Shore Friday into Saturday, throwing back several inches for Philly and its burbs to dig out of.
Center City is about to suffer another retail loss next month with the closing of the three-story Walgreens at Broad and Chestnut Streets, once pitched as a flagship for the pharmacy chain.
U.S. Rep. Conor Lamb’s Senate candidacy fell short of getting a formal endorsement from Pennsylvania’s Democratic State Committee Saturday but showed deep party support.
We’ll give ya photos of the storm.
A Pennsylvania court overturned the state’s mail voting law, but an appeal means it’s still in place.
Our columnist Helen Ubiñas spoke with a man calling for safer bus stops after his mom died in a hit-and-run at a stop with no sidewalk.
It’s time to really chill out with photos of the invigorating Polar Plunge.
Only a school can declare a snow day, but we’ve declared the best sledding hills.
And we’re also gliding toward the best skiing and snowshoeing spots.
We turned to a cardiologist for 3 snow shoveling tips.
It certainly looks like the Museum of Illusions is under construction near Independence Mall.
Avoid a serious case of SAD by letting Jillian Wilson brighten the long winter with our Things To Do newsletter. Sign up for Things To Do here.
And get romantically entangled at a $500-per-couple Valentine’s Day dinner at beloved East Passyunk bistro Fond’s big finale.
Local Coronavirus Numbers: Here’s your daily look at the latest COVID-19 data.
More to the Story on Kobe and the Kobe before Kobe
Our sports columnist Mike Sielski wrote about Kobe in his latest book, and a great story about the Kobe before Kobe.
For this one we’re focusing on Sultan Shabazz, a hoops legend on the Main Line, a guy with a very different upbringing than Kobe but one some argue was on the same trajectory.
How did you hear about Sultan’s story?
When I began my reporting and research into Kobe Bryant’s life for my book The Rise, I wanted to get a sense of place with respect to Lower Merion, a sense of the culture of the community and the high school and the basketball program. So I wanted to know who LM’s best players were before Kobe arrived. During an interview, one of Kobe’s former teammates mentioned Sultan. I searched for Sul on Facebook, found him, and messaged him, and he agreed to meet up to talk.
Do you get a feeling that he lives with any regret? Or is he truly past that part of his life?
I had a line in the story: “He neither honors it nor regrets it.” That sums it up. I don’t think he’s proud of that part of his life, but he wouldn’t be who he is now, with the perspective he has now, without it.
Is there a scenario in which, after seeing the life that pulled Sultan in, that he truly ever had a chance to break free and focus on basketball?
Great question. Sultan was two years older than Kobe, two years ahead of him at Lower Merion, and I wonder … if they had been the same age, if he had seen how Kobe’s presence was lifting the team and the program to heights they hadn’t experienced in years … maybe he would have broken away from his life on the corners and come along for the ride. But that might be just wishful thinking. He was pretty entrenched in that life.
You’ve had a busy month with this story and your book on the life of Kobe Bryant, The Rise. What’s next?
For The Inquirer, I’ll get back in the groove of writing columns about the 76ers, the Flyers, college hoops, the Eagles and the NFL draft — all the stuff that’s ahead during one of the busiest sports periods of the year. I still have lots of interviews and appearances scheduled to promote The Rise, and I’ll continue posting about it incessantly on social media and accosting random strangers on the street to demand that they buy it. I’m also looking forward to some good news about the book in the weeks ahead. But I can’t spoil that surprise.
Follow Mike on Twitter at @MikeSielski. And check out his book on Kobe, The Rise.
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❓Pop Quiz❓
Which rival bakery posted this devastating bread burn about national distribution on Facebook a few days after George Norcross bought a majority stake in the iconic Atlantic City bread bakery Formica’s? “We are happy to announce that we are currently going into our 14th year bringing Atlantic City bread across the country.”
Shade thrown. Kerith recommended the story with the answer in Thursday’s newsletter. Hint: 🏃♀️ 🅾️
A) Rando’s
B) Mento’s
C) Panaderia Rodriguez
D) Alexia’s Patisserie
🎶 We come from the land of the ice and snow from the midnight sun where the hot springs flow. 🎶