Favorites November 10th 2021

Massimo @Rainmaker1973

Boxabl folding house is 40 square meters—about the size of a studio apartment—and they’re calling it the Casita. It costs $49,500 and can be set up in a day once it’s delivered [read more: buff.ly/37bRNle]

Wow! it packs so small! I wonder how much the folding gets them vs flat packing like Ikea furniature.

Timothy B. Lee @binarybits

TFW you have a large 30-year mortgage with a 2.5 percent interest rate and the inflation rate is 6.1 percent.

I am also not going to sell my house in my ethical commitment to you, my readers.

Darrell Owens @IDoTheThinking

This is a problem with public transit boards all across the country. They're used as easy political ladders to climb rather than the people who actually rely on transit. Only 1 out of an 18 member board in Santa Clara County uses its public transit system

sanjosespotlight.comHow many VTA board members actually use public transit in Silicon Valley?VTA’s board has 18 members, but it seems that only one of those elected officials actually uses the transportation agency’s buses and light rail trains.

I'm not saying 100% of them need to be regular riders, but half would be nice...

Jim Roberts @nycjim

EV startup Rivian prices IPO at $78 a share, valuing electric vehicle company at $66.5 billion. *At its $78 offer price, Rivian is already worth almost as much as Ford ($79 billion) and General Motors ($85 billion). Which is CRAZY. cnb.cx/3qrOK3h

wat. Follow up, their shares jumped to $106 per share once trading started.

nilay patel @reckless

Today we’re updating The Verge’s policy on agreeing to “background” from tech companies. We’re doing this publicly to provide cover for other newsrooms covering tech to do the same. It’s getting a little ridiculous out there. theverge.com/press-room/227…

From their examples of bad behavior: "A food delivery company insisted on discussing the popularity of chicken wings on background." 😆

Scott Manley @DJSnM

Spin Launch's site shows their orbital accelerator spinning at 450rpm, it's also mentioned that it's 300 feet across. That's about 2.1km/sec. At a 35 degree launch angle that puts the projectile to 75km with no drag losses, and lateral speed of 1.7km/sec at apogee.

Very cool, but downside: "you need to make your hardware robust enough to handle 10,000g for an hour"

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

The pious thing to say is that inflation hurts the poor most but if you look at it nominal wage growth for the bottom 25% has been super strong, it's the top 75% who are taking it on the chin.

Inflation numbers came in at 6.2%, this point is true, but of course the very top have assets that are going up in value. (Stocks and of course.. real estate)

Nat Bullard @NatBullard

Today @BloombergNEF published its Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) Factbook. Great stuff in here, starting with this: EV sales were 7% of passenger vehicle total in 2Q 2021. 🧵/1 bloomberg.com/professional/d…

There's more interesting stuff in the full thread, the scale of the jump in EV sales surprised me, I also didn't know how close price parity is in most countries.

Noah Smith 🐇 @Noahpinion

Zero Covid made sense with an R_0 of 3, and does not make sense with an R_0 of 6. What was once an advantage is now a disadvantage.

Bloomberg Next China @next_china

A top Chinese virologist warned the country risks economic collapse if local officials maintain their Covid Zero strategy https://t.co/3mdqeHMA7I

This is an interesting thought, I suspect the relative weakness of the chinese vaccines could be as big a problem as delta.

Tomás Aragón, MD, DrPH @TAragonMD

"All California adults who received their original COVID-19 shots six months ago and think they would benefit from a booster should get one, California’s top health official Dr. Mark Ghaly said Wednesday." @CHEAC @OfficersHealth @CAPublicHealth sacbee.com/news/politics-…

The eligibility requirements seem to be getting pretty close to 'If you want it you can have it'. Especially with this newest phrasing.

De Young Museum, San Francisco, September 2021