Weekend edition—Anticlimactic Brexit, spacecraft disposal, discerning robots

Hardcore Brexit backers wanted Big Ben to bong on Jan. 31 at 11pm (midnight Brussels time), to mark the hour Britain left the EU. They set up fundraisers to bring the clock out of refurbishment for the historic occasion, with the largest amassing £272,000 ($356,217). [Quartz Daily Brief]( Good morning, Quartz readers! Hardcore Brexit backers wanted Big Ben to bong on Jan. 31 at 11pm (midnight Brussels time), to mark the hour Britain left the EU. They set up fundraisers to bring the clock out of refurbishment for the historic occasion, with the largest [amassing £272,000]( ($356,217). Then their hopes were dashed. Though prime minister Boris Johnson first floated the idea, the government had made no plans and Parliament has no mechanism to accept donations. A face-saving [projection of a giant clock]( on 10 Downing Street, a light show around Whitehall, and Union Jacks flown at Parliament Square were arranged instead. The bungled plan might’ve been a blessing. The 43 months since Brits voted 51.89% Leave to 48.11% Remain has sunk two prime ministers and left the country divided and tired. Voter fatigue helped Johnson’s “Get Brexit Done” campaign secure a decisive election win in December. The government recognizes that Brexit remains toxic; Downing Street [once pledged]( to stop using the word. Apart from small changes—issuing blue passports instead of the EU’s burgundy ones, and a new [50p commemorative coin]( UK will maintain nearly all aspects of EU membership, including trade arrangements and freedom of movement, during the transition period that runs until Dec. 31, 2020. Johnson will thus spend the next 11 months trying to strike a free trade deal with the EU. European leaders say the timeline is “[impossible]( Johnson has ruled out an extension. Close to 50% of the UK’s exports go to the EU, contributing [up to 15%]( to the domestic economy. Which means the UK has a fundamentally weak negotiating position. Failure would lead to trade under WTO terms—in effect the dreaded “no-deal” Brexit we’ve heard about for three years. Johnson [famously drafted two columns]( ahead of the 2016 referendum—one backing Leave and the other Remain—and settled on the former. He will now be basking in the post-Brexit afterglow. Big Ben, it seems, will return to service in 2021. But the bell may toll for Boris’s EU trade deal sooner than that. —Adam Rasmi FIVE THINGS ON QUARTZ WE ESPECIALLY LIKED The riveting architectural feat unfolding in Wuhan, China. Two hospitals are being constructed for coronavirus patients in a matter of days. Millions are watching livestream footage that shows a ballet of bulldozers and trucks racing to complete a 1,000-bed hospital by Feb. 3 and a 1,300-bed one a few days later. [Anne Quito asked experts]( the questions on many minds: How can the timelines be that compressed, and can such rapidly built structures be safe? Electronic music is about to go HD. Nearly 40 years ago, electronic instrument manufacturers agreed to a protocol for digitizing music. The protocol, called MIDI, just received its first major update. As [Dan Kopf explains]( MIDI 2.0 might mean big changes for the sound of music. With more memory, it should allow electronic music to have a more analog feel. Also, instruments besides keyboards, like guitars and violins, will better communicate with computers, opening up a new world of possibilities. Chinese spy games. China’s “whole of society” approach to intel collection is how someone like Jian Fun Tso—who owns a restaurant in Liverpool, England—gets wrapped up in an international espionage case. As [Justin Rohrlich reports]( Tso was seeking to buy highly restricted US-made microchips used in satellites and missiles, but his story didn’t add up. A suspicious sales rep tipped off authorities, who set up an elaborate sting operation. Tso pleaded guilty to federal charges this week. What do you do with a defunct satellite? With satellite deployment accelerating to never-before-seen levels, space companies and their regulators are working to figure out how to dispose of defunct spacecraft when their missions are complete—or risk dangerous, debris-generating collisions. [Tim Fernholz examines]( three recent examples of aging satellites—a near-crash, a ticking time bomb, and a careful deorbiting—to learn what the future holds. How the Super Bowl became the Super Bowl. The biggest annual entertainment event in the US wasn’t always the way it is today. Starting from more humble origins in 1967, the event has gradually grown into a monstrous cultural phenomenon. As [Adam Epstein explains]( TV, marketing, and a strange link to patriotism have each helped turn the NFL championship game into a quasi-religious spectacle. QUARTZ MEMBERSHIP Fears of a looming recession have followed the world into 2020. “The structure of the global economy has changed in ways we still don’t understand,” reports Quartz’s Gwynn Guilford. [This week’s state of play]( demystifies the risks facing markets in 2020 and tells you what could be behind the next global crisis. FIVE THINGS ELSEWHERE THAT MADE US SMARTER Warehouse robots are catching up to humans. Last year, a contest run by automation powerhouse ABB sought software that would allow a robotic limb to sort through bins of random items. Most entrants failed miserably, but one succeeded so well it’s now operating efficiently in an actual warehouse near Berlin—and improving with practice. As Adam Satariano and Cade Metz [write for the New York Times]( it marks a major advance in artificial intelligence. A surreal detainment in Iran. Nicolas Pelham, the Economist’s Middle East correspondent, was about to leave Tehran last July when guards whisked him away to be interrogated by intelligence officials from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard. A slight delay turned into seven weeks, but for much of that time he was allowed to wander the city’s streets, leading to a [fascinating profile in 1843]( of what “may well be the least religious capital in the Middle East.” The secretive market for your browsing data. This week Avast, a maker of free antivirus software, shut down a subsidiary called Jumpshot. Days earlier a [joint investigation between Motherboard and PCMag]( detailed how the company tracked everything users clicked online (including adult content) and sold the data for millions of dollars to tech giants. Experts said that in some cases individual users could be identified from the “anonymized” data. Western students’ homework is big business in Kenya. Professors in the US and UK have unwittingly given good grades to papers written not by one of their students, but by somebody in Africa hired to do the job. For the “contract cheating” industry—worth more than $1 billion globally—Kenya in particular is a rich source of highly qualified people ready to take on assignments, as [Halima Gikandi reports]( for Public Radio International. Artists who paint with their feet are helping neuroscientists. If researchers in the emerging field of brain-computer interfaces have their way, it will one day be common for amputees to control robotic limbs and fingers using only their thoughts. First, the sensory maps of the brain need to be better understood. The ones present in armless painters who use tools with their toes are proving especially illuminating to science, as [Claudia Lopez-Lloreda writes in Smithsonian](. Our best wishes for a relaxing but thought-filled weekend. Please send any news, comments, homework bids, and bulldozer-ballet footage to hi@qz.com. Get the most out of Quartz by[downloading our app]( and[becoming a member](. Today’s Weekend Brief was brought to you by Steve Mollman and Annaliese Griffin. Enjoying the Daily Brief? Forward it to a friend! They can [click here to sign up.]( Want to advertise in the Quartz Daily Brief? Send us an email at ads@qz.com. To unsubscribe from the Quartz Daily Brief, [click here](.