Favorites June 4th 2024
This research can help us massively reduce peanut allergies in the very near term. One concern that I didn't think to consider, but is addressed: "No, the results were not driven by mortality among the exposed." Sam D'Amico mentioned something very interesting though: apparently exposure to an allergen in your gut is good, but eye/skin exposure can train your immune system to attack it.
One follow-up I liked: because the US is one of the oldest democracies, the chief executive is unusually close to being a King still, since that's what their basis was. Noah Smith argues that it's certainly not necessarily a sign of health, arguing the core principle at work is that "no one is above the law". A major thing to be impressed with here is the courage of the jury. In response to people saying this is democratic officials using the justice system to go after republicans, a Democratic Senator is on trial right now, and a Democratic House Rep was just charged. Not to mention the president's own son.
Aww yea, Builder's Remedy. Good stuff.
Longer Reads
• Very long post where someone discovers that cheap wired earbud manufacturers are making wired headphones that require bluetooth. Wild story, with an adendum by Daring Fireball that contains the most likely explanation for why this is happening. (src)(cached)
Flotsam and Jetsam
– Proposed concept of "degrowth communism" seems tailor made to be the least popular policy you could propose. Not only is the name bad, if you look at the details of the proposal, one commenter calls it "What if we did the debt limit but for energy". (src)(cached)
– It took three years to get from GPT3 to GPT4, it could still be quite a while before GPT5. From this article going over where OpenAI said they'd be today a year ago. They're surprisingly close to the mark. (src)(cached)
– Automation already took everyone's job a long time ago, it's not like many people work on farms anymore. (src)(cached)
– "There's also a very specific nuance on battery cell tech: The safer the chemistry, the larger the cells can be." Lithium ion is relatively unsafe, which is why each battery has to be quite small. LFP batteries are much more stable, so they can be huge, making them simpler to manufacture. (src)(cached)
– Biden leads significantly among people very likely to vote, but still trails among low/mid engagement voters (src)(cached)
– Trump's defenses in each of the cases he's charged in are legal and technical, the behavior each time is clearly gross, before you even get to legality. (src)(cached)
– The behavior that Trump was prosecuted for, falsification of business records, is actually quite commonly charged in NY, 39 different people were charged with it in 2022. (src)(cached)
– Susan Collins argued that Bragg campaigned on a promise to prosecute Trump. For one thing, that doesn't seem true, for another, the first thing he did after coming into office was ended a bunch of Trump investigations. Liberals were mad about his election! (src)(cached)
– The leaks about Apple and OpenAI working together are extensive, and they're evidence that OpenAI has an unusual amount of power in that relationship. Apple is usually super harsh about their partners leaking stuff ahead of time. (src)
– The US has broken OPEC, and the use of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve was a big part of that in what Noah Smith called the 'Reverse OPEC Maneuver' last year. (src)(cached)