Favorites November 27th 2024

May 2023, Costanoa California

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I got Netflix set up on my TV so visiting family could watch and yea, it was rough. If you're wondering, the director above is Chantal Akerman, one of her films is considered one of the greatest of the 20th century and is famously, painfully, slow. Here's Cinefix discussing it.

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This is an excerpt from Ezra Klein’s podcast (transcript) earlier this month, the way in which some Democratic Legislators misunderstand where their power base comes from is a serious problem that needs to be fixed. Maybe it's related to staffing, but fundamentally it's confusion about who exactly interest groups are representing. You need to win over voters not groups. Nonprofits don’t vote, and they can be just as misaligned as corporate lobbyists.

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I found this really surprising! Here's a bit more detail on European tomato labeling, he went and found details on tomato concentrate conversion factors. This doesn't necessarily mean US food is safer, but we sure do force everyone to be quite detailed in the labels.

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A surface level reading of complex situations is not a good way to understand them. "Crops gotta take turns" certainly does sound silly, but it's an effective system!

Longer Reads

• Great article by Dan Schwarz about the prediction market he founded at Google. (src)
• Thread summarizing FT analysis of Democratic and Republican elite's views vs the general public. Three bell curves, shifted a bit left, centered, and on the right, except some Democratic elites hold way way left views. Here's one that's instead broken down by issue, shows the same problem. To win elections we need to police our fringes (cached). (src)(cached)

Flotsam and Jetsam

– Sounds like Harris didn't go on Rogan because staffers thought there would be backlash from progressives, which seems like a very dumb reason not to go. (src)(cached)
– Nominating Gaetz for AG is so insane that maybe he's a sacrificial lamb for Republican Senators to vote down, on the other hand, he didn't make it to the voting! (src)(cached)
– Working paper that uses wind direction as an instrumental variable to show that increases in pm2.5 pollution decrease cognition (and increase car accidents) in real time. People get measurably stupider immediately when exposed to air pollution. (src)(cached)
– The Onion made the winning bid for Alex Jones' Infowars, but it's worth noting that it's not clear that the judge will let them buy it. The onion isn't actually sure what they're going to do with it. (src)
– Article about why Tulsi Gabbard is dangerous to US national security. (src)(cached)
– "Those who paid "a great deal" of attention to political news were Harris +6 while those who paid "none at all" went +19 points for Trump" (src)(cached)
– Regarding RFK Jr's insane anti-progress views, worth remembering when Sri Lanka went 100% organic farming and it crashed their economy. Also, RFK Jr is a terrible person (cached) (src)(cached)
– Here's Musk praising Argentina's Milei for lowering Tarrifs just this month. Trump supporters say he's just lying about wanting to raise tarrifs, and it's true that he's a huge liar, so I guess we'll see. (src)(cached)
– Teamster's union got unprecidented favors from the Biden admin and then endorsed Trump. (src)(cached)
– Preprint uses regression discontinuity to show teaching kids Algebra and Geometry in middle school leads to twice as many girls getting STEM degrees, but no effect on boys. (src)(cached)
– I'm still angry Amazon removed all order details from all emails they send you just to try to block google from knowing purchase info. (src)
– Wow, Ben Affleck has a surprisingly detailed and Nuanced understanding of AI and how it can be expected to impact the film industry. (src)
– Tech CEO in Norway explains why their Wealth tax sorta blocks successful startups. (A tax on a billion dollars of stock that you're not allowed to sell isn't gonna work) (src)(cached)
– Since electrifying, Caltrain has surpassed COVID-19 ridership levels, and has doubled weekend ridership. (src)

Finally, drop me a note about whether you think the quote from the director is funnier before the reveal that it’s about the Paul/Tyson fight, or if it’d be funnier after.