@ekanderb
A fish mystery at the national museum in New Zealand, from the Te Papa Museum blog.
Fish of the day (carpe diem) | Te Papaâs Blog
On the morning of Thursday 16 of October, Curator Vertebrates Alan Tennyson came in and asked Curator Fishes Andrew Stewart if he knew anything about the fish lying out in the carpark up at the TorâŠ
blog.tepapa.govt.nz
On agates in New Zealand, but really about the widespread human urge to find things and collect things.
One moment, please...
nzgeo.com
Of interest to Sally Rooney fans, or people who remember their twenties. A snippet: "This is why the most shocking piece of writing in recent contemporary fiction is, to my mind, not any of the sexually explicit or morally disturbing stories we have come to expect, but this short passage from Sally Rooneyâs third novel, Beautiful World, Where Are You."
Would You Rather Have Married Young?
Lena Dunham, Sally Rooney, and The End of Experience
metropolitanreview.org
I know sharing the prize-winning most atrocious first line to a novel, is exactly the opposite of what Seabird is about, but I can't resist: "He slammed the door in my face, loud and sharp, like an acoustic lemon."
The 2024 Lyttle Lytton Contest
adamcadre.ac
I love a long form essay, but sometimes a couple paragraphs is great, too. Here's a few interesting things about why Americans have a lower life expectancy than Europe, an explanation of American fertility, and a little about solar energy and AI tutoring.
Patrick Collison interview + at least five interesting things (#58)
Patrick interviews me; the energy transition; Americans die young; family and fertility; educating the poor; AI and growth
noahpinion.blog
A little glimpse behind the scenes at the NYTimes, by my college contemporary Shefali Kulkarni.
My First Byline: Shefali Kulkarni
Editor of digital storytelling and training, The New York Times
yourfirstbyline.substack.com
Virginia Postrel with a look into when cities used to burn often.
Reflections on Burning Cities
I'm safe in Orange County, waiting to see what happens in the next couple of days.
vpostrel.substack.com
For Reason magazine, an uncharacteristic take: regulation is not the problem with the L.A. fires.
The L.A. fires are a natural disaster, not a policy disaster
The Golden State has many bad policies in desperate need of reform. It's not obvious they had more than a marginal effect on the still-burning fires in Los Angeles.
reason.com
It's always nice to have more things to be thankful for. Aming other things: "That as you gaze into space at night, in fact Earthâs atmosphere is 100% opaque to most wavelengths, with various parts blocked by water vapor, carbon dioxide, oxygen, ozone, methane, nitrogen oxides, and Rayleigh scattering, but there happens to be a window of near-transparency between 0.3 ÎŒm and 0.7 ÎŒm which happens to be where the Sunâs emissions peak, meaning..."
Underrated reasons to be thankful IV
even more
dynomight.net
I was unaware of the meme about thinking about Rome, but found it fascinating to read and the specific instances of thinking about Rome in other people's minds.
How Often Do Men Think About Rome?
Exegi monumentum aere perennius
astralcodexten.com
If @courtney.knapp got you thinking about pizza, let me share my go-to pizza recipe - easy to make dough, with helpful guidelines for whether you are making it the night before, the morning of, or at lunchtime for dinner.
lazy pizza dough + favorite margherita pizza
No kneading, no proofing, no babysitting, no machinery, no refrigeration, and one-bowl â this pizza fits itself into your life, not vice-versa.
smittenkitchen.com
I always thought these were kind of a joke but apparently not. A lot of George Foreman grills have been sold!
The spectacular rise and surprising staying power of the George Foreman Grill
The grill made its debut 30 years ago. Tons of people still buy them.
thehustle.co
On the logistics of feeding all the Olympic athletes.
How to Feed the Olympics
Step one: Get 3 million bananas.
eater.com
Today I learned about worm charming (or worm grunting).
The Worm Charmers
A hint of blue on the horizon meant morning was coming. And as they have for the past fifty-four âŠ
oxfordamerican.org
Exciting Wellington housing news
Housing wins the war
The War for Wellington is over, and there is one overwhelming winner: housing.Â
thespinoff.co.nz
A little bit about the birth and death of the New Zealand Productivity Commission, and the incentives that go with different institutions.
RIP NZ Productivity Commission 2011â23đ
Why NZ needs a Productivity Commission, but couldnât sustain one
nzae.substack.com
On liberalism, and defending it from attacks from the left and the right
Opinion | Why I Am a Liberal
Perhaps more than ever, there is an urgent need for a clear understanding of liberalism.
nytimes.com
Big news in the worlds of birding and ornithology: birds named after people will be renamed.
Birds Named after People Will Get New English Names
Standard English names for North American birds will now focus on the animals rather than people
scientificamerican.com
It's wild to think that plate tectonics was only figured out in my parents' lifetime. This is the guy who figured it out.
W. Jason Morgan, discoverer of plate tectonics (1935â2023)
Geophysicist who showed how segments of Earthâs crust move. Geophysicist who showed how segments of Earthâs crust move.
nature.com
I was really hoping for more about how coffee filters work, but other applications of science are also interesting, I suppose.
Bizarre Quantum Theory Explains Why Your Coffee Takes So Long to Drip through a Narrow Filter
Physicist John Cardy and his colleague just won the 2024 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics. We spoke with Cardy about conformal field theory, 2D black holes and coffee filters
scientificamerican.com
"...Iâve become increasingly worried that scienceâs replication crises might pale in comparison to what happens all the time in history, which is not just a replication crisis but a reproducibility crisis."
Age of Invention: Does History have a Replication Crisis?
Back in 2011, the field of psychology went into crisis. Some of the most famous and widely-cited experimental results could not be replicated by others. These were findings published in the fieldâs most prestigious academic journals, and going back for decades. Since then, more and more scientific fields have turned out to have been the victims of replication crises. But what is the problem even worse in history?
ageofinvention.xyz
"Then there are the places and things that hold power for a small, mysterious reason. The childhood toy I canât get rid of because it would insult the toy. The impulse when moving to a new home â no matter how bare and clean it may be â to sweep the whole place before moving my own things in. Or how, when thrift shopping, there are items that seem to âcallâ to me, and I say âI think this wants to come home with meâ in a tone somewhere between a light joke and simple observation."
COMPOST Issue 01: Sacred Servers by Zach Mandeville
An exploration of the essence we share online, and how to cast our magical powers responsibly.
one.compost.digital
"In other words, the further we peer back into the origin of human law, the more legal history blends into the musical vision quest. A singer encounters a divine force in a visionary state, and returns with rules for a better way of living. It took thousands of years before law could separate itself from these musical origins"
How Musicians Invented the Law
Songs are far more powerful than you think
honest-broker.com
Nuts!
Switched at Birth, Two Canadians Discover Their Roots at 67
Two Canadian men who were switched at birth to families of different ethnicities are now questioning who they really are and learning how racial heritage shapes identities.
nytimes.com
This story about figuring out mechanisms and outcomes related to childbirth deaths in 1840 Eastern Europe is really something. Thank goodness for curious and careful thinkers!
Difference
Ignaz Semmelweis reasoning out mechanisms through heterogeneity analysis and designed non-randomized experiments.
causalinf.substack.com
A very interesting character from Beloit, Wisconsin!
Indiana Jones grew up in Beloit
Roy Chapman Andrews grew up in Beloit and later traveled the world, defying death and making ground-breaking discoveries.
madison.com
"[A]s a society weâve decided to award people with stasis instead of stuff. In many dysfunctional societies, the governmentâs guarantee of economic inclusion comes in the form of a specific physical good â usually, cheap fuel. In the United States, the in-kind subsidy we provide our people is the option to keep their world from changing."
The Build-Nothing Country
Stasis has become America's spoils system, and it can't go on.
noahpinion.substack.com
Interesting to consider how "culture wars" look in places that aren't America.
Challenging Progressivism in New Zealand's Culture Wars
Like it or not, the culture wars have entered New Zealand politics and look set to broaden and intensify.
cranmer.substack.com
Who would have thought that doctors figured out intravenous treatments for cholera before they figured out to give people water with sugar and salt?
Salt, Sugar, Water, Zinc: How Scientists Learned to Treat the 20th Centuryâs Biggest Killer of ChildrenâAsterisk
Oral rehydration therapy is now the standard treatment for dehydration. Itâs saved millions of lives, and can be prepared at home in minutes. So why did it take so long to discover?
asteriskmag.com
A nice piece on the Niskanen Center
The Most Interesting Think Tank In American Politics
"Liberal democracy is in the balance"
time.com
On energy and Africa
Every generator is a policy failure - Works in Progress
Power outages force businesses across Africa to rely on expensive, dirty diesel generators. Price caps block improvement, but removing them isnât easy.
worksinprogress.co
Today I learned about the Frisky Sour.
Remembering When Cocktails Were Just Soup
Canned beef bouillon on the rocks, anyone?
atlasobscura.com
I always wished we had such a group where I lived, but I guess the heyday is over. (But recently joined a different kind of the same thing, which doesn't quite yet have the network effects you'd hope for)
The Battle for the Soul of Buy Nothing
How an idealistic community for exchanging free stuff tried to break away from Facebook, and ended up breaking apart.
wired.com
From Works in Progress, where almost every piece is interesting. On how plutonium cannot easily hurt you.
The most dangerous substance known to man - Works in Progress
We have learned to fear plutonium â one of the worldâs most useful materials. But as long as you donât eat it, youâre probably safe.
worksinprogress.co
The Dutch versus the English in 1665.
Age of Invention: How the Dutch Did it Better
Youâre reading Age of Invention, my newsletter on the causes of the British Industrial Revolution and the history of innovation. This edition went out to over 15,600 subscribers. To support my work, you can upgrade your subscription here: One of the weird things about Britain, despite its being the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, is that its financial infrastructure was for a long time remarkably backward. Its âFinancial Revolutionâ, by which both people and the state began to borrow at ever lower interest rates, only really took off in the early eighteenth century â long after Londonâs extraordinary growth in 1550-1650, when it had suddenly expanded eightfold to become one of Europeâs most important commercial hubs. Indeed, even for much of the late seventeenth century, England lacked many of the most basic financial institutions that had been used for decades and decades by their most important rival and trading partner,...
antonhowes.substack.com
On preserving or censoring Roald Dahl's nastiness. I always thought of it as naughtiness.
Roald Dahl Can Never Be Made Nice
Rewriting his novels is about corporate safetyism, not social justice.
theatlantic.com
Facebook showed me this article (paid/boosted): "Then, it started to cram your feed full of posts from accounts you didn't follow. At first, it was media companies, whom Facebook preferentially crammed down its users' throats so that they would click on articles and send traffic to newspapers, magazines, and blogs. Then, once those publications were dependent on Facebook for their traffic, it dialed down their traffic."
The âEnshittificationâ of TikTok
Or how, exactly, platforms die.
wired.com
Today I learned about "greedy jobs."
I'm a professional dad who "leaned out" to support my wife's career
If we want an equal society, we need to get more comfortable with unequal marriages.
fullstackeconomics.com
"While thereâs an undeniable ease-of-use factor to housing a phone, internet browser, entertainment center, camera, and GPS in a lightweight rectangle that fits inside my pocket, the proximity of each of these tasks to one another leads, inevitably, to constant distraction. If youâve ever tried to find the perfect angle for a photo while your Instagram post is blowing up, or answer a work email while your mom is calling you, you know what I mean."
The Case For Digital Minimalism
Dedicated devices are the vibe shift we need.
persuasion.community
Virginia Postrel, on taking shopping seriously.
Taking Shopping Seriously
Why do people buy things they "don't need"? And why should we care? (Be sure to read to the end.)
vpostrel.substack.com
Reading about what top athletes do to get better is fascinating, and I will never be a top athlete. HT: Marginal Revolution
Practice Different
âWhat is it you do to practice that is analogous to how a pianist practices scales?â â Tyler Cowen (professor, blogger, podcaster, and co-author of Talent) Since reading Talent, I havenât been able to get this question out of my head. In a subsequent
carolinastories.substack.com
About in-person experiences increasingly requiring a paired digital presence "Once upon a time, you could just go to Disneyland. You could get tickets at the gates, stand in line for rides, buy food and tchotchkes, even pick up copies of your favorite Disney movies at a local store. It wasnât even that long ago. The last time I visited, in 2010, the company didnât record what I ate for dinner or detect that I went on Pirates of the Caribbean five times. It was none of their business."
Data Free Disney
Each day, 50,000 people enter Disneyâs theme parks, along with their phones, purchases, locations, and photos. What happens to the data?
publicbooks.org
News from New Zealand: Labour government worries about the cost of food and yet has import duties on food.
Cost of living absurdities
Peaches come from a can. They were put there by a man. In some factory in Greece. When they made their little way out to brighten a Kiwiâs d...
offsettingbehaviour.blogspot.com
How ATMs work. Fascinating!
The infrastructure behind ATMs
ATMs are connected to banks by networks which operate little-understood payment rails.
bitsaboutmoney.com
Much of this piece didn't make a lot of sense, but there was something about how when in your life you face the problem of needing childcare you don't have time to solve the problem and then when you have time it's not a problem any more for you resonated with me, and I've been thinking about how many other things that might be true for.
What If We Make Affordable Child Care About Wellness?
Then we might finally see some change.
thecut.com
This story is for people who like reading very long sentences, like me today.
Tap Water
The reason theyâd settled on that apartment with its large, open-plan kitchen and windows with sizable balconies to both the south and east sides wasnât any particular passion for cooking on Natsumiâs part, let alone any special pride she took in her culinary abilities, but because...
theparisreview.org
If you'd asked me to guess the largest city in Western Europe in 1050, I would have gotten it wrong.
The Most Important City in the History of Music Isn't What You Think It Is
We can learn from the CĂłrdoba Miracleâand not just about music
tedgioia.substack.com
