Favorites August 21st 2024
Not only are they rolling out new cars, but they also announced that they're doing 100k paid trips per week. It was 50k in May (cached). This rollout is happening very fast.
I know what you're saying: "I want newer data", well here you go. I also found this ACX article about GLP1 inhibitors interesting, for one thing, it now seems that the method of action of bariatric surgery is not the same as for GLP1s.
Batteries are relatively small, and they can go almost anywhere, so California's been able to build a ton of them really fast. Note how much of the capacity comes from relatively few utility scale installations.
As we get in more and more data (cached), it becomes clearer that murder rates are down.
Longer Reads
โข The ban on direct-from-manufacturer sale of automobiles is horrible, and eventually democrats should consider getting rid of the ban. This short thread discusses why, and the huge fight that would ensue. Maybe we should allow dental hygenists to operate independently while we're at it. (src)(cached)
โข If you're looking for a thread summarizing the situation with the alleged $10M Egyptian bribe to Trump, this is the thread to check out. (src)(cached)
Flotsam and Jetsam
โ "Price gouging" is not a well defined economic term, so discussion of laws about it may or may not be bad, it depends on specifics. Overall, being nonspecific is probably advantageous (cached) to Harris. It's a disadvantage for Harris that people take her policy proposals seriously, even hints at policy proposals. With Trump, people just assume he's lying, but he's actually less constrained by his party (cached), so he might actually implement his worst ideas. (src)(cached)
โ While murder is down, homicide clearance rates have been falling for years, which is bad. But what's even sadder is that if you break it down by race of the victim, it seems to be almost entirely black victims. (src)(cached)
โ While the presidency is a toss-up, the Senate is looking grim. Sotomayor really needs to retire. (src)(cached)
โ Tim Lee is no fan of 'no taxes on tips', but makes some pretty good steelman arguments for such a policy. (src)(cached)
โ Germany just demolished (cached) a fully functional nuclear power plant, "If Germany had stuck with nuclear power it would have saved โฌ350 billion and cut emissions by 73% more since 2022.". Merkel remains lucky that the bar for "Worst German Leader" is so high. (src)(cached)
โ It seems obvious, but if you're going to moderate to try to win an election, you don't move all of your policies towards the center. You fully replace your unpopular policy positions with more moderate ones, but keep your more 'extreme' positions that are also popular. (src)(cached)
โ Singapore was successful in part because of how Georgist it's policies have been. (src)(cached)
โ The DSA un-endorsed AOC this year, but here she is at the DNC delivering an incredible speech. (src)(cached)