Favorites July 10th 2023

Jul 11, 2023

ethan_mollick 22h Air conditioning is a vital educational tool. Students do worse when its hot. Over 13 years in NYC alone, "upwards of 510,000 exams that otherwise would have passed likely received failing grades due to hot exam conditions," and these failures delayed or stopped 90k graduations! Also: “Without air conditioning, a 1°F hotter school year reduces that year's learning by 1%. Hot school days disproportionately impact minority students, accounting for roughly 5% of the racial achievement gap” — (src)

I'd like to say that just overall, Air Conditioning is good. I'm sorry if this means some people have to bundle up, but at least the option is available.

See new Tweets Conversation Mark Joseph Stern @mjs_DC "During the 2008 presidential campaign ... a 23-year-old fundraising staffer got into the car with Biden. "Okay, senator, time to do some fundraising calls," the aide said. Biden responded by looking at him and snapping: "Get the fuck out of the car." axios.com Angry Joe: When President Biden loses his cool In public, President Biden likes to whisper to make a point. In private, he’s prone to yelling. — (src)

I've gotta side with Ben Dreyfuss on this one, everything about this story makes me like Biden more. "oh no, he said 'fuck' once in 2008!" The whole point of politicians is that they're more polished in public!

It's a very long article, and I mostly looked through the photos, which were great. The main takeaway is that this city in Honduras is supported by remittances from drug dealers in San Francisco.

josephpolitano 15h US Liquefied Natural Gas exports held near all-time highs in May, with the vast majority of that destined for European shores! — (src)

LNG is a great compliment to renewables, this is great to see. US oil production has ramped up in a way no other country could have without hitting Dutch Disease or other economic problems.

arpitrage 1d NYC mega projects we should do: - Alon’s subway expansion assuming Nordic costs - LGA expansion - Long Manhattan - Sea Wall - Sunnyside Yards - Through-running trains at Penn Station - Retrofit the top of the Empire State Building to accept transatlantic zeppelins - “Superblock” the whole city so through traffic only allowed on some streets - Protected bike lanes everywhere and new bike bridges across Hudson + East River - Through run freight into Long Island — (src)

Obviously while NYC should do all of these wild ideas, there's plenty to accomplish in the more basic categories: one commenter suggests trash containerization perhaps?

Yes, I’ve been known to snap pasta to get my kids to eat it.

Ok, and if this final silly item isn't for you, may I offer you instead this image of Hugh Jackman in the Yellow Wolverine costume for Deadpool 3

Threads

• A couple more great economics graphs I missed yesterday: death rates by age over time (people are living longer). Give Indian fishermen access to cell phones (radically changes the market price of fish).

• Cookie Cutter SF architecture allows for fun analysis of how buildings have been modified over the years.

• Looks like the new California math standards, which have been quite poorly received, are not going to be accepted by the UCs, so the whole thing may get reworked.

Tugboat for Today

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