Favorites January 19th 2024
There's also an interview with BART's project manager, and in one excerpt he says that certainly some of the work could still be done by consultants, but the key to getting it done fast was to bring as much in-house as possible. State capacity is good! It's not like the state should never hire consultants, but it's clear that on the margin they do it too much.
Neither side believes good news about Democrats! This is why Will Stancil has to spend all his free time pointing out that we're not actually in a recession.
I'm a big fan of this photo, and I'm in favor of integrating it into new memes. The story behind it is so good.
I promise this video is worth watching with sound
Flotsam and Jetsam
– Somehow people think The Expanse is apolitical. Wat? (src)
– Jerusalem Demsas has an article about a fight between two kinds of environmentalists in Minneapolis, Crisis Greens and Cautious Greens. But I've gotta say, the Cautious greens sure seem like NIMBYs. (src)
– Satya Nadella, in Davos, publicly stating that he thinks there has been zero economic growth recently. This is flatly untrue, and he knows it's untrue, but spreading bad vibes about the economy is good for Republicans, and good for corporate tax cuts. (src)
– Someone used AI to dub Javier Milei's speech at Davos into English using his own voice and modifying the video to fix mouth movements. I'm particularly wild about the guy, but if I didn't know this wasn't the original I wouldn't notice. (src)
– Standard US government budget estimates assume that immigration won't change the population. But once you integrate the change in population it shows that immigration massively reduces government deficits. (src)
– Netanyahu has decided that there will be no place for an independent palestine once the war is over, literally quoting "from the river to the sea". Not great! We probably shouldn't be supporting this guy, there are some not unreasonable diplomatic options on the table, find someone who will take them. (src)
– Article in The Economist about Taiwan's election, includes quotes from random Chinese people: China needs to become more appealing, economically, politically and culturally, if Taiwan is to choose unification. Yet his patience co-exists with a belief that force cannot be ruled out. “If we promise to give up the threat of force altogether, and promise that in front of the world, then the island would just declare its independence, right?” (src)
– Story about a Roman inventor who supposedly discovered some sort of unbreakable glass, it explains why technology moved so slowly for so long. (src)
– A lot of Bernie Sanders' former staff have turned out to be pretty terrible. Choosing good staff is a big part of being President, this would have made him much less effective. (src)
– Apple Vision Pro is reportedly very heavy, get ready with some neck strength training (src)
– I still haven't had a chance to try Runway for adding motion to photos, but it keeps getting better. (src)
– iPad apps can be run natively on Apple Vision Pro, but not if the developer unchecks the box allowing it. Netflix and Youtube both unchecked the box at the last moment. (src)