Favorites February 7th 2024
To get specific, the cost per patient has gone from $10,000 to $500,000 in a few decades. If you want to read more here is an extremely long article that I didn't have time for.
The underlying article goes on to include some great graphs comparing a gas car's emissions to an EV backed by a coal plant. Roberts goes on to point out that this efficiency element is true across more of electrification than just cars, citing a recent interview he did.
I'm not sure it's by the same metric, but my quick research indicated that 9.1 million people are employed in the Tech sector in the US. Relatedly, the January 2024 total job growth came in the highest in a year. And it was a pretty good year for job growth, it was even revised up!
Longer Reads
• Long article detailing changes to rates of interracial marriage since Loving v Virginia (It's increasing, slowly, seems good)
Flotsam and Jetsam
– The discovery of the possibility of CO2-driven climate change is now closer to the beginning of the industrial revolution than to now. Probably should be doing something about this. (src)(cached)
– Hoboken has had 7 years with no traffic deaths. Take a look at what a US street looks like in a city with no traffic deaths. Any city repaving with a different design is knowingly failing at their job. (src)(cached)
– In the Bay Area, by trip count, Muni is the only commonly used transit. (src)(cached)
– Consumer sentiment is up even more (src)(cached)
– Nobody is better at proxy warfare than Iran. They've got 11 proxy groups fighting on their behalf! (src)(cached)
– New Yorker cartoonist guides someone through drawing a cartoon without being able to see what they're doing. (src)
– Arguments for why the Fed should be seriously considering cutting rates soon (src)(cached)
– Swedish study finds that when a new apartment is built and people move into it, the home they vacate is most likely to be rented next to someone from the bottom quartile of the income distribution. The second move in a chain of moves benefits the poorest. (src)(cached)
– "the central function of housing and cities is not their aesthetics, not their vibes, but their connection with *large efficient labor markets*" (src)(cached)
– Sugar intake per person has fallen significantly over the last few decades across many countries. (src)(cached)
– Republicans and Democrats agree that having a job they enjoy is more important than having kids. This is a problem because jobs are fundamentally zero-sum. (src)(cached)
– Why no pickpockets in the US? Darrell Owens quips: "Can’t develop a pick pocket culture in a country that doesn't walk." (src)(cached)
– Bart was designed to handle wind on the golden gate bridge for the Marin line that never happened. (src)(cached)
– Check out what happened when Auckland legalized building apartments. People want to live in apartments! (src)(cached)
– Tolkien wrote multiple conflicting stories for some characters, with the idea being that it would be standard for things to be contradictory in a mythology that has developed over centuries. (src)(cached)