Favorites November 5th 2021

Dr. Zeke Hausfather @hausfath

Big news: recent CO2 emissions have been revised notably downward in the just-released @gcarbonproject dataset. The revisions – due to a major reassessment of land-use – suggest emissions have likely been flat rather than increasing over past decade: carbonbrief.org/global-co2-emi… 1/19

I'm never sure how to feel about news that's only good because we were wrong about it being bad earlier.

Heather Long @byHeatherLong

BREAKING: US economy added back 531,000 jobs in October – beating expectations and a big rebound from September. Unemployment rate falls to 4.6 (down from 6.3% in Jan.) **The US has recovered ~80% of jobs lost during the pandemic**

Continuing with the theme of positive corrections. Also, good news, countries' cumulative pledges to reduce emissions, if met, would now get us to a relatively good place.

Beskar Hal @Hal_RTFLC

A lot of the times, there are two sides to each issue. But the Jones Act increasingly seems like something that needs to be killed with an axe. It's making us old, dirty, inefficient ships on our waterways.

Scott Lincicome @scottlincicome

"the last time the Great Lakes fleet saw a new ship was the same year Michael Jackson unveiled the moonwalk and the first cell phone was released for commercial use." https://t.co/Cq9SyPwXbN https://t.co/Nko4ZjeCQ7

If you're curious: "It requires that all goods transported by water between U.S. ports be carried on ships that have been constructed in the United States and that fly the U.S. flag."

Eric Topol @EricTopol

At interim analysis, overwhelming efficacy necessitated stopping the trial for ethical considerations: 389 people who got Paxlovid: 3 hospitalizations, 0 deaths 385 people who got placebo: 27 hospitalizations, 7 deaths washingtonpost.com/health/2021/11… @Carolynyjohnson

People are saying, we should get ready to declare victory in January!

Lauri Myllyvirta @laurimyllyvirta

Saying that "global CO2 emissions are back to pre-pandemic levels" doesn't capture what's happening. China's emissions are far above pre-pandemic levels and those of the rest of the world are still significantly below.

Dang it China! You make all the solar panels, stop building so much coal!

Timothy B. Lee @binarybits

Buffett's wrong view was unfortunately widely held at the time. Lots of people in 2006, 2007, and 2008 thought we had millions of homes we didn't need. But look at the data. At the 2005 peak, we were producing fewer homes than we did in 1978!

Timothy B. Lee @binarybits

I don't think it's fruitful to argue about whether the 2006 prices were "really" a bubble, since that's largely a matter of semantics. But one thing we can do is look at other countries.

Timothy B. Lee @binarybits

We use the term bubble to describe a situation where easy credit and irrational optimism drive assets prices to unreasonably high levels. This, for example, was allegedly a housing bubble.

I thought this thread on the 2006 recession was enlightening, the thread has more details, and the article is goes into even more detail.

Emily Stewart @EmilyStewartM

the unspoken part of the"random actor got super jacked for superhero movie" story is steroids. incredible, from @alex_abads

vox.comOne dirty trick for huge muscles fastHow performance-enhancing drugs helped create the new male body standard.

I guess this should have been obvious, but I had not really considered how they do it. But, it's not the Olympics... so...

State Senator Scott Wiener speaks at the YIMBY Action Gala November 5th 2021

His main message is that YIMBY has managed to move public opinion, SF denying housing above a mall parking lot would not have gotten more coverage than a short mention in the SF Chronicle, not only did it get massive coverage, but the state is moving to investigate whether it was even legal.