fun facts
Dealership sells car out from under woman who brought it in for repairs.
It feels like there’s more to the story here, but it’s certainly a weird occurrence. ~ learn more
big ideas
Bank of Spain: we need 24 million migrants.
I found this interesting in the context of John Doerr’s talk of future climate refugees. Maybe these problems help alleviate on another to some extetent? The bank “has warned that the country’s economy will need around 24 million migrant workers […]
big ideas
John Doerr on OKRs and the climate crisis.
An episode of the Tim Ferris Show from November 2021. Doerr is the famous investor who backed Larry & Sergey with the biggest check his firm had ever written when they were 24 years old without a business model. He […]
under the microscope
The brain science of obesity.
A TED talk given by researcher (and Novo Nordisk employee?) Mads Tang-Christensen in September 2021, before most of us had ever heard of GLP-1. ~ learn more
under the microscope
A new efficiency frontier in thermal power cells.
“A new heat-to-energy converter has reached a record efficiency of 44% – the average steam turbine manages about 35%, for comparison. This thermophotovoltaic cell is a major step on the way to sustainable, grid-scale renewable energy storage.” ~ learn more
retail therapy
The 30-year mortgage is an intrinsically toxic product.
Byrne Hobart spent a lot more time thinking about this than the rest of us: “The thirty-year fixed-rate prepayment-option mortgage is an economic disaster. It encourages mass malinvestment. Policies designed to help low-income people build wealth actually trap them at […]
retail therapy
Home is where the cartel is.
“My view is that the “market urbanist” diagnosis of the problem is more persuasive than its prescription for addressing it. As a positive matter, they just won’t win the political fights they propose. On normative grounds, I’m not sure that […]
to your health
Monoclonal antibodies and its production.
This is a youtube video with great animation and explanation, but poor sound quality. ~ learn more
to your health
A critical view on the war against prediabetes.
Science reporter Charles Piller questions the pharmaceutical industry incentives in the fight against prediabetes. “A third of Americans are considered prediabetic—but many may be better off without treatment.” My take: I think he makes a good point about incentives but […]