Favorites May 14th 2024
I was actually confused about which of these the voters liked vs disliked, I checked the write-up. and they liked the top two best, the pink one was liked by designers and hated by voters. Also, voters liked Republicans’ logos better, despite them being less interesting.
A few days late, but the photos from the solar storm this weekend were amazing. Visible also from San Francisco, Norway.
XKCD's author got some photos as well, saying "I didn’t know the sky could do that".
Flotsam and Jetsam
– Harvard student made a short film that got the attention of a famous director, he has now dropped out and is adapting it into a feature length film. 12 minutes long, it's pretty good (src)(cached)
– Some discussion of semiconductors was reminiscent of an Arthur C Clarke short story, Superiority (src)(cached)
– New frontrunner for the next Apple CEO is reportedly their head of hardware, John Ternus (src)
– Works in progress published a long article analyzing the baby boom, it opens with a surprising claim: the west has had below replacement rate fertility before the baby boom. Here's a summary thread (src)(cached)
– People don't know what 'affordable housing' means. This is why Darrell Owens argues for calling it 'subsidized' housing. (src)(cached)
– AI is changing how coding is taught, but things are changing so fast that I'm not sure how long until it changes again. (src)
– Arguments against student debt cancellation from a bunch of different angles. (src)(cached)
– Monetarists should probably blame Trump for inflation, he sure printed a lot of money. (src)(cached)
– Using Airtags to catch package thieves. Seems like it could be a cost-effective police technique, if it works. (src)(cached)
– As much as AI is worse than humans at some tasks still, it's better at persuasion than humans (if only slightly), which may be a bit wild as it is rolled into ads. (src)
– A long article, "beware your audience", about ways that people change their positions to match what their audience wants to hear. (src)(cached)
– Cool video where a Waymo vehicle reacts perfectly to hand gestures from a person directing traffic. (src)
– For many air pollutants, we're past peak pollution, and we're on the way back down now, that's good news! (src)(cached)
– The situation around why RFK said he had brain worms makes him look even worse: he was doing it to try to avoid paying alimony. (src)
– There's now a Lego tower of Barad-dûr from LoTR. Looks pretty cool (src)