Favorites July 26th 2022

Geothermal, Consumer Electronics, and Choco Tacos

San Diego Zoo, June 2022

Chris Murphy @ChrisMurphyCT

I’m sorry for what I have set in motion. “The case against using the Defense Production Act to save Choco Tacos”

taskandpurpose.comThe case against invoking the Defense Production Act to save the Choco TacoThe same defense industrial base that gave us the F-35 should not be responsible for making Choco Tacos.

They discontinued the Choco Taco on Monday Senator Chris Murphy suggested in jest using the Defense Production Act to bring it back. This article explores the problems with doing things using the military to make things quickly, "The defense industry is like a factory that only produces broken toys."

Tim Latimer @TimMLatimer

Big geothermal news. Gov. @jaredpolis of Colorado announces a new Western Governor's Association initiative, "The Heat Beneath Our Feet" a bipartisan, multi-state effort to rapidly scale up geothermal power in the western United States.

westgov.orgThe Heat Beneath Our FeetGovernor Jared Polis of Colorado launched The Heat Beneath Our Feet (HBOF) as his 2023 WGA Chair Initiative. The initiative will examine opportunities for and barriers to the increased deployment of geothermal energy technologies for both...

The advanced geothermal stuff is still pretty speculative, but I'm quite excited. Here's a short video about it that I really enjoyed.

M.G. Siegler @mgsiegler

Hard to overstate how wild it is for a two-year-old product to go *up* in price. By any amount. Let alone a significant percentage. https://t.co/TfxzcjgCJV

Techmeme @Techmeme

Meta increases the price of Meta Quest 2 headsets to $400 for the 128GB model and $500 for 256GB, starting on Aug. 1, and will bundle Beat Saber through Dec. 31 (@hmltn / UploadVR) https://t.co/W2rbi169Ci https://t.co/KQzrOwREcV

Are they worried about some new device from Apple? Is it just inflation eating into their margins too much? Are they planning to release a new device at a much higher price point? Very unusual for consumer tech to go up in price like this.

Disclose.tv @disclosetv

JUST IN - Germany could restart three more nuclear power plants, in addition to the three that are still in operation, within "a few months or weeks," says the chief of the Technical Inspection Association (TÜV).

It's a "question of political will, not safety". Seems pretty urgent given that Russian Gas is probably gonna be fully cut off by the end of the year.

Renato Mariotti @renato_mariotti

Big news. Emails like this are the sort of proof DOJ is looking for in its investigation of the fake electors scheme. The author of the email describing the electors as “fake” is a lawyer. He now needs a lawyer of his own. https://t.co/fo7nbrsx7u

Maggie Haberman @maggieNYT

SCOOP: @lukebroadwater and I reviewed dozens of emails between Trump campaign officials and lawyers, including one in which a lawyer described the slates of electors they were putting together as “fake” https://t.co/P36lgMtFuA

In related news, DoJ is now investigating Trump's actions on January 6th.

Salim Furth @salimfurth

This is an excellent proposal. I'm jealous that @mattyglesias came up with the idea of converting parking passes to taxi medallions - it caps street parking and flips residents' stance toward parking demand 180°.

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

I would simply allow unlimited amounts of housing to be built on residentially zoned land. https://t.co/7jr2rD6BLm

Here’s a link to the specific section of Yglesias’ post that deals with parking as a property right. I feel like this is very close to what's recommended by Shoup, but either way, I'm on board.