The NYTimes has made a pretty compelling argument that the SAT is still the best option we have for deciding on college admissions. The article also included data showing that SAT scores were good predictors of post-college outcomes. Here's a longer thread about the data. There's also a long thread arguing that the NYTimes' data is wrong or misleading, but the main stronger predictor pointed to is *which* high school the student went to. Seems like that would have some really bad equity concerns, poor kids don't go to elite high schools! The SAT is a better option. Finally, how many SAT points can parents buy for their kids? 300 hours buys less than one standard deviation.
I found this much much more compelling than I expected to.
Longer Reads
– There's a reason it's not common to find venues that combine coworking space/coffee shop/daycare: they have such different economic requirements that it's unlikely they can coexist in one location. (src)
– German politicians are upset that they are providing half of all EU aid to Ukraine. If they don't like it, they should create an EU-level fiscal structure with spending and borrowing capabilities! Become the United States of Europe! (src)
– Section 8 Housing voucher system has been significantly improved (src)
– When that door fell off a plane recently, one passenger's phone got pulled out. Someone found it by the side of a road, still in airplane mode, no cracks in the screen. Power cord severed right past the socket. (src)
– The IRS finally might put turbotax out of business with free tax-filing software (src)
– The proportion of cars sold worldwide that are EVs is rising steadily. But look at the top 20 models, they're basically all either Tesla or a Chinese brand. (src)
– Predicting Taiwan invasion timing based on CCP politics: as long as senior military leadership keeps shifting, it's not going to happen yet. (src)
– When pollsters ask americans about the economy they seem to just lie. (src)
– Republicans are screaming about crime in DC while also blocking DC from automating traffic enforcement which would free up police to stop other crime (src)
– Uruguay, Scotland, South Africa's North Cape are all 100% renewable electricity now. South Dakota is 96% and Iowa is 81%. Pretty good (src)
– Exciting to see the Impulse induction stove with a built in battery available for pre-order now (src)
– Number of disasters is up (bar graph) but cost of those disasters is down (lines graph) (src)
– Deal on the table in congress: Child tax credit + R&D Tax break, both of these are good policies, but we need to pay for them somehow (src)
– Don't look at manufacturing employment numbers, we expect that to become even more automated with time, the question to ask is the value of the output, you want to see that going up. (src)
– The Houthis sure have a lot of kinds of missiles (src)