Favorites September 28th 2024
This sounds so cool! Right now the main thing that slows down our family's vaccinations each year is finding time to get everyone to a pharmacy. Self-administering would be way easier. I recall some discussion of Nasal COVID vaccines being more effective but shorter lasting, but nothing in this article indicates anything along these lines for this Flu vaccine.
This was a good post, one datapoint someone else added is that in the entire world, there are currently 60 Nuclear power plants under construction, they take about 5 years to complete. The world will add solar capacity equivalent to all 60 of those nuclear power plants in the next 6 months (cached).
In a follow-up Max included some visualizations of how few new homes get built in North Beach and how old the buildings are.
Hardly the craziest military event that's happened in the last few days, but this one seems worth noticing.
This is mostly a joke, but of course there's a real couple who did this joke except possibly even funnier.
Longer Reads
• Tim Lee, who previously was a bit skeptical of LLM progress says that OpenAI o1 represents a real step forward. He has a thread that summarizes his article. (src)(cached)
• A thread explaining how most lots in SF are now allowed to be redeveloped for market rate housing with 4 to 9 units, and can be designed any way they want as long as it conforms to some zone somewhere in the city. (src)(cached)
Flotsam and Jetsam
– Malaria Vaccine in the DRC has reduced child mortality 13% (src)(cached)
– Microsoft is paying to restart Three Mile Island (the reactors that didn't melt down) so that they can get clean energy. Nuclear is a good match for data centers, which have relatively constant power requirements. (src)(cached)
– Don't forget, a 1% change in polling does not result in a 1% change in percentage outcomes. Probabilities by polling exist on an S-curve. Nate Silver gives his model's current predicted outcome in various national polling average change environments. a 3% improvement in the polls takes Harris from a dead heat to a 73% chance to win. (src)(cached)
– There are folks in Canadian British Columbia who don't know provincial elections are coming up, but say they plan to vote for Harris in November. We should go ahead and grant BC statehood. (src)(cached)
– Some people worry that fancy new high density apartments might actually raise rents in nearby homes. This is sometimes called an "Amenity effect", and a new study found no evidence that this happens. Further, rent reductions from new homes are city-wide, not localized. Here's the full study. (src)(cached)
– The US has singularly high costs pre mile for constructing new subways. There's a huge difference between various western countries, not to mention an even bigger gap against asia. (src)(cached)
– Qualcomm is reportedly trying to aquire Intel, combined they'd still be a tenth the size of Nvidia's market cap (src)(cached)
– A lot of complaints about how modern iPhones work to eliminate all shadows, Nilay Patel isn't a fan of this look, here's his review on Youtube for The Verge (src)
– Unclear whether Newsom will veto the AI safety bill, but it seems that he's at least familiar with the pros and cons. (src)(cached)
– Caltrain is now 100% electric trains! Here's Anna Eshoo with the train they named after her. (src)
– Really really looks like Musk illegally gave some Cybertrucks to a Chechen Warlord (src)(cached)
– Project 2025 is polling worse than Hamas, 4% vs 8% among American adults. (src)(cached)