Bitcoin News Australia

If your childhood dream job was archaeologist, marine biologist, or pirate — we’re about to make your day.

Deep-sea exploration experts say it’s a great time to go looking for shipwrecks, per The New York Times.

And technology is playing a big role in treasure-hunting’s heyday:

• Autonomous underwater vehicles can cover large sections of ocean floor and travel to locations that were previously inaccessible — like 25 miles below an ice sheet.
• Satellites can spot shipwrecks from space by the plumes of sediment that surround a wreck.
• The digitization of historical archives and increased accessibility of telepresence systems, which livestream images of the ocean floor on the internet, let more people discover wrecks from the comfort of their homes.

But there’s another unfortunate reason that shipwreck discoveries have become more common: climate change. Rising sea levels, eroding shorelines, and powerful storms are increasingly washing shipwrecks ashore.

X-ploring marks the spot

More shipwrecks are also being discovered because, well, more people are looking for them — or stumbling upon them.

Private companies and research groups are exploring the ocean floor to map the world’s seabed while others are surveying for oil and gas leases, pipelines, and cables.

Some big names in tech and business have set their sights on the ocean floor:

• The Schmidt Ocean Institute is a nonprofit research organization founded by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and his wife, Wendy Schmidt.
• Billionaire investor Ray Dalio founded ocean exploration company OceanX with his son.

And then, of course, there are those who are not experts but tempted by the pull of extreme tourism — which sometimes ends in tragedy, like the OceanGate sub.

Before you go diving for gold, know that finding shipwrecks has become more about studying history and less about stealing buried treasure. Those who do find riches often end up in legal disputes with nations, rarely winning.

England, for example, is taking no chances with its treasure: It’s testing out new forensic marking technology to protect 57 of its shipwrecks from thieves.

Yesterday, we wrote about a massive Dungeons & Dragons Lego set that sounds pretty cool, if you’re into that sort of thing.

But The Lego Group hasn’t scored a home run with every kit; back in 2014, Lego designer Mark Stafford posted to Reddit about the toy company’s many failures, per Business Insider.

What happened?

Stafford said that in the ‘90s, Lego replaced many of its more experienced designers with “innovators” who knew little about toy design or what it took to manufacture them.

They created several products that had way too many parts, causing all sorts of issues — storage, logistics, pricing, etc. These products included:

• A “fiber optics” kit with plastic tubes connected to LED lights. Cool, but they cost more to produce than the kits sold for.
• Primo, or Lego bricks for babies. Babies don’t play with Legos because, well, they are babies.

But Stafford hated Galidor the most

“Galidor: Defenders of the Outer Dimension” was a short-lived children’s sci-fi show co-created by TV creator Thomas W. Lynch and The Lego Group as a way to break into the action figure market.

According to Lego podcast Bits N’ Bricks, the toy designers felt lackluster about the show before it aired. After it aired, it received mixed reviews and failed to find an audience.

Also:

• The line competed against another Lego Group product, Bionicle.
• The toys contained several pieces that were costly to make and, counter to Lego’s typical strategy, no bricks.

The show lasted only two seasons and sales were a complete flop. Some went so far as to blame “Galidor” as a contributing factor in Lego Group’s near bankruptcy.

In 2004…

… Jorgen Vig Knudstorp became CEO of The Lego Group. He cut unprofitable lines and turned the company around.

But “Galidor” toys still have their fans and collections, and The Lego Group did learn from its experience. Bits N’ Bricks notes that the toys’ system for connecting limbs is used in various toy lines today.