November 22, 2018
Climate Change Slows Oil Company Plan To Drill In The Arctic. Ha. But a sad, angry ha.
Break up Facebook (and while we’re at it, Google, Apple and Amazon). I would be fine with just destroying Facebook altogether.
November 21, 2018
Nancy Pelosi, hoping to retake the reins as House Speaker, has pledged to revive so-called “Pay-Go” rules, requiring that any new federal spending be offset with tax hikes or budget cuts. No one who supports this should be Speaker; it’s a way of blocking Medicare for All and any climate change commitments without seeming to have done so. It’s also profoundly economically ignorant.
Why everyone can — and should — learn quantum mechanics. It’s not rocket science — it’s a fundamental part of how our world works, and not as complex as you might fear. QM is easy compared to many things considered “hard” if you are willing to abandon your macro intuition.
Overstating the Role of Environmental Factors in Success: A Cautionary Note. So if environmental factors don’t matter that much, and genetic factors don’t matter much…what matters?
Review: ‘Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché’ sheds light on the first female film director. Fucking hell, why didn’t someone tell me it was a woman who first came up with the idea of narrative films and who basically invented modern cinema?
November 20, 2018
The Secret of Amazon’s Success. It isn’t just size. Unlike many big American companies, Amazon is not squandering its profits on stock buybacks. Amazon does loads of R&D and business development. This is accurate, whatever you think of Amazon.
November 19, 2018
Somebody Had to Set a Bad Example. Hell, that is some good writing.
November 18, 2018
In 1993, I did not picture people having their online experience being “fed” to them by large corporations using mysterious algorithms. Instead, I envisioned individuals in control, creating and exploring on their own. Most people want to be fed. Even force fed. Sartre’s “freedom” is not appealing to many.
Estates of Mind. Technological and societal stagnation is a political choice, just like most other problems that bedevil us.
November 17, 2018
American Household Debt is Nearly a Trillion Dollars Higher than it was Before the 2008 Recession. That’s going to leave a mark.
UN poverty envoy calls UK poverty a “political choice” that inflicted “great misery.” Any poverty in a rich country is a political choice.
November 16, 2018
Humans are having huge influence on evolution of species, study says. I would be very surprised were this not the case.
Amazon and Google Are Taking Over Cities. The Smartest Startups Are Going Virtual. Opting out of geography offers startups the best of both worlds–a deeper and cheaper talent pool. The agglomeration effect is overstated, mainly by post hoc ergo propter hoc thinking.
Please, Hillary, don’t do it. Can we donate money so she doesn’t run? I’m in for that.
November 15, 2018
Dutch Culture Taught Me to Be Brutally Honest: The Dutch Directness. Germans are also this way. I worked for a German company for a while.
Tantalizing But Preliminary Evidence of a ‘Brain Microbiome.’ I wrote an sf story a long time ago about human intelligence being the result of parasitism, and the philosophical implications thereof.
November 14, 2018
Armored school doors, bulletproof whiteboards and secret snipers. Billions are being spent to protect children from school shootings. Does any of it work? I never thought I’d live in a time where mass slaughter of children would just be…normal.
Something Happened to U.S. Drug Costs in the 1990s. This conceals more than it reveals; totally ignores the question of why the US diverged so much. Propaganda by omission.
November 13, 2018