Favorites September 10th 2023
They expect to start mining operations in 2026. When a mineral that was previously uninteresting becomes valuable, suddenly we find a ton more of it!
That's electric bikes and trikes displacing 2x the emissions of all electric cars so far.
From the video, I think one of the bigger takeaways is that what makes 'catching up' on connected works become homework is if the films you're required to watch aren't good. Marvel had a string of successes for a long period, but you can't go on like that indefinitely.
Before we can terraform other planets, it might make sense to do some practice terraforming of Earth.
Flotsam and Jetsam
– New research argues that the ancient American megafauna died out because of a combination of climate change, humans, and wildfires. (src)
– You can use an Apple Watch Ultra as a bath thermometer (src)
– Site for registering your bike in case it's stolen. (src)
– Essay in Foreign Policy arguing that the US is failing at deterrence against China in Taiwan. There's some good news (other countries in the region like us) but mostly bad news (The war would be horrific, and Chinese leadership might not care). (src)
– You don't have to agree or disagree with Musk that Starlink could have caused WWIII in Crimea to think that the decision should be in a private citizen's hands. (src)
– Ron DeSantis' campaign found that texting people advertisements constantly had a measurable effect on voting outcomes. So that's bad news for texting becoming unusable. (src)
– Rotary phone as age verification (src)
– Lots of reasons that congestion pricing is good (src)
– Higher rates of alcohol consumption associated with higher rates of spousal abuse. (src)
– Argument that there will be no nationwide urban-doom-loop (src)
– People worried that e-bikes aren't safe enough are ignoring that it's cars that cause the danger (src)
– Ezra Klein recommends science fiction book "A Half-Built Garden" (src)
– These FPV drones blowing up Russian Tanks in Ukraine are still mostly human controlled. But the hardware to make them autonomous is about $20. (src)