How small changes in customer demand can produce considerable disruption upstream in the supply chain. For instance, a sudden surge in the buying of toilet paper may cause retailers to put in larger orders to make sure they can keep up with demand. Manufacturers, in turn, may put in even larger orders for raw materials to make sure they don’t get caught out. In the meantime, customers had bought all the toilet paper they ever needed and demand suddenly dropped causing retailers to cancel all their orders, manufacturers to halt production and suppliers to be left with big stockpiles of unwanted raw materials.

I learned about the bullwhip effect from Tomas Tunguz where he considers economic effects of the coronavirus. He explains it with a brewery example in his article on proxy metrics for startups.

The Bullwhip Effect

On the equinox there is nearly exactly 12 hours of daylight and night — the day and night are perfectly balanced. On these days the sun rises almost due East and sets due West. The Spring equinox and Fall equinox are the transition between the seasons of Winter to Spring or Summer to Fall, depending on if your days are getting longer or shorter. The other seasons transition at the solstices.

Technically, the equinox is the instant “the plane of Earth’s equator passes through the center of the Sun.” (wikipedia) This usually happens around the 20 March and 23 September.

The equinox exists due to the tilt of the Earth. See Seasons

Equinox

It’s pretty hard to get to grips with the scale of the solar system when Venus, the closest planet, feels really far already. But we’re practically squished together compared to Uranus and Neptune — they are a really, really, really long way away.

James O'Donoghue has made some brilliant videos about the solar system that explain this and more.

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Solar system planets — distances to scale