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The asbestos times

Asbestos was a miracle material, virtually impervious to fire. But as we fixed city fires in other ways, we came to learn about its horrific downsides.

2023-11-15 7:18am Works in Progress 3,000 words

Rated 2024-3-21 8:01am - sethherr

Indonesia’s e-bike shops are building their own batteries - Rest of World

restofworld.org

Rated 2024-3-20 8:01am - sethherr

How Israel turned homeowners into YIMBYs

Homeowners are often the biggest opponents of building new homes. An Israeli reform reversed this by making homeowners the main beneficiaries of development.

2024-2-16 5:30am Works in Progress 6,000 words

Rated 2024-3-20 7:50am - sethherr

Using axis lines for good or evil

add them only if they mean something

2024-2-29 9:00am Dynomight Internet Newsletter dynomight 1,000 words

Rated 2024-3-19 11:20pm - sethherr

Less Utilitarian Than Thou

...

2024-2-27 9:03pm astralcodexten.com Scott Alexander 65,000 words

Rated 2024-3-19 11:08pm - sethherr

Vaclav Smil and the Value of Doubt

David Owen interviews the author and scientist Vaclav Smil, whose books on environmental issues include “Size: How It Explains the World” and “How the World Really Works.” #Climate Change #Environmentalism #Renewable energy #Science

2024-2-20 3:00am The New Yorker David Owen 4,000 words

Rated 2024-3-19 10:44pm - sethherr

TinyLetter had a big moment

On February 29th, 2024, Mailchimp shuttered TinyLetter, a simple email service that attracted a number of personal and experimental writers in the mid-‘10s.

2024-2-29 6:00am The Verge Kevin Nguyen 3,000 words

Rated 2024-3-19 10:27pm - sethherr

Lies, Damned Lies, and Manometer Readings—Asterisk

America’s HVAC labor force is plagued by dishonesty and frequently incapable of meeting industry standards. Interventions in indoor air quality are the next frontier in pandemic prevention — but are they up to the task?

asteriskmag.com 3,000 words

Rated 2024-3-19 7:13am - sethherr

An Interview with Scott Alexander

Disambiguated AI, brain emulations, Scott’s writing schedule, figuring out life with newborn twins, and a whole lot more.

2024-2-23 8:05am NeoNarrative Sotonye 6,000 words

Rated 2024-3-18 11:35pm - sethherr

Driving at ridiculous speeds should be physically impossible

Intelligent Speed Assistance, a type of speed-limiting tech, is being tested in New York, DC, and Europe. But will it take off?

2024-3-1 4:00am Vox David Zipper 1,000 words

Rated 2024-3-18 11:20pm - sethherr

Britney Spears’s Instagram is secretly being used by Russian hackers

Comments on her photos are the key to the Russian hackers’ operations. #Social Media

2017-6-8 12:30pm Vox Lindsay Maizland 500 words

Rated 2024-3-18 10:50pm - sethherr Rated 2024-3-11 5:01pm - &e

Diseconomies of scale in fraud, spam, support, and moderation

danluu.com

Rated 2024-3-18 10:49pm - sethherr Rated 2024-2-21 10:59am - elll

Gary Stevenson: This Is How You Make Money Trading

nymag.com

Rated 2024-3-18 8:24am - sethherr

40 years of programming

liw.fi

Rated 2024-3-12 4:12pm - sethherr

My Notes on GitLab Postgres Schema Design

I spent some time going over the Postgres schema of Gitlab. GitLab is an alternative to Github. You can self host GitLab since it is an open source DevOps platform. My motivation to understand the schema of a big project like Gitlab was to compare it against schemas I am designing and learn some best…

2022-7-8 9:16am Shekhar Gulati 6,000 words

Rated 2024-2-21 10:59am - elll

“Rabbit Test” unwins the Hugo

I cannot convey the supreme depths to which I'd rather be doing anything else with my Saturday afternoon other than writing this blog post, but here we are. If you have been blessedly insulated from the current furor over the 2023 Hugo Awards -- good for you! (I'm going to have to explain this post…

2024-2-17 5:08pm SAMANTHA MILLS 2,000 words

Rated 2024-2-18 9:22pm - sethherr

Berkeley's Upzoning Would Be Among Nation's Largest

A proposal to end exclusionary zoning would allow for 100,000 more homes in Berkeley's neighborhoods.

2024-2-17 7:02am The Discourse Lounge Darrell Owens 3,000 words

Rated 2024-2-17 9:20pm - sethherr

Paying people to work on open source is good actually - Jacob Kaplan-Moss

If you have a problem with maintainers getting paid then you have a problem with me and I suggest you let that one marinate.

jacobian.org 2,000 words

Rated 2024-2-16 8:44pm - sethherr

Taste games

or why I avoid midrange beer

2024-2-15 9:01am Dynomight Internet Newsletter dynomight 3,000 words

Rated 2024-2-15 8:46pm - sethherr

Activists vow to keep installing guerrilla benches at East Bay bus stops

Berkeley has replaced one DIY bench with a city-approved one. A pair of activists have added at least four more wood benches in the East Bay. #Transportation

2024-1-12 4:30pm Berkeleyside Iris Kwok 2,000 words

Rated 2024-2-11 9:22pm - sethherr

Jacques on X: "Sharing a long, but insightful comment @Gwern made in response to the question: "EA had a pretty weak hand throughout and played it as well as can be reasonably expected"? Gwern: It was a pretty weak hand. There is this pervasive attitude that Sam Altman could have been…" / X

X (formerly Twitter) 1,000 words

Rated 2024-2-11 1:27pm - sethherr

What it was like working for GitLab

yorickpeterse.com 6,000 words

Rated 2024-2-11 11:43am - sethherr

The rise of the American oligarchy

What targeting Russia’s wayward billionaires revealed about our own.

2024-1-22 11:26am Mother Jones Tim Murphy 7,000 words

Rated 2024-2-10 12:02pm - sethherr

40 Years Ago, This Ad Changed the Super Bowl Forever

An oral history of Apple’s groundbreaking “1984” spot, which helped to establish the Super Bowl as TV’s biggest commercial showcase. #Apple #TV

2024-2-9 8:53am The New York Times Saul Austerlitz ($) 2,000 words

Rated 2024-2-9 6:39pm - sethherr

How to hire low experience, high potential people

Finding diamonds in the rough

2024-1-26 8:51pm Working Assumptions Tara Seshan 2,000 words

Rated 2024-2-7 7:06pm - sethherr

The New Jersey Governor’s Wife Has Decided to Be a Senator

nymag.com

Rated 2024-2-5 5:43pm - &e

Why You Should Be a Luddite

Tech columnist Brian Merchant takes us back to the 19th century to see who the Luddites really were and what they fought for. Luddism, he says, is about “questioning who machinery serves.”

Current Affairs 6,000 words

Rated 2024-1-31 9:27pm - sethherr

Inside the Crime Rings Trafficking Sand

Organized crime is mining sand from rivers and coasts to feed demand worldwide, ruining ecosystems and communities. Can it be stopped?

2024-2-1 6:00am Scientific American David A. Taylor 4,000 words

Rated 2024-1-30 10:35pm - sethherr

At Penn, Tensions May Only Be Growing After Magill’s Resignation

Professors at the University of Pennsylvania have begun to organize, fearing what they view as a plan by the billionaire Marc Rowan to upend academic freedom. #College

2024-1-29 9:20am The New York Times Stephanie Saul ($) 2,000 words

Rated 2024-1-29 7:12pm - sethherr

How “Co-regulation” Became the Parenting Buzzword of the Day

Jessica Winter on why parenting experts claim that co-regulation is the single goal from which all other family aspirations can flow. #Parenting

2024-1-25 9:17am The New Yorker Jessica Winter 1,000 words

Rated 2024-1-28 3:22pm - sethherr

That Smartphone in Your Hand Changes How You Walk

Hunching over a device can mess with your gait, slow you down and poison your mood. And that’s before you trip and fall.

2024-1-23 12:00am The New York Times Markham Heid ($) 1,000 words

Rated 2024-1-28 2:49pm - sethherr

In case you missed it: America just effectively got much bigger

No shots fired. No flags raised. No land gained. Still, the U.S. recently grew by the size of about two Californias.

Big Think 1,000 words

Rated 2024-1-28 8:46am - sethherr

Why do people post on [bad platform] instead of [good platform]?

danluu.com

Rated 2024-1-27 10:49pm - sethherr

Rising Leqembi Prescriptions Are Straining Clinic Capacity | ALZFORUM

alzforum.org 4,000 words

Rated 2024-1-27 4:47pm - sethherr

On “owning” software

When it comes to services supporting software teams, ownership is expensive.

2024-1-24 2:01pm avdi.codes Avdi Grimm 4,000 words

Rated 2024-1-27 9:05am - sethherr

Driving Faster Takes Longer

I often drive between Boston and New Haven. While on the road, I find myself pondering a simple question: If my only goal is to arrive as fast as possible, how fast should I drive? Ignoring things like ethics (or fuel efficiency), the solution would seem to be simple. Drive as fast as possible. But there's a…

2024-1-27 7:17am Algorithm Soup 1,000 words

Rated 2024-1-27 9:04am - sethherr

Review | A love letter to intellectualism

Nikhil Krishnan’s “A Terribly Serious Adventure” is an entertaining and informative homage to philosophers at Oxford.

2024-1-19 2:00am The Washington Post Michael Dirda ($) 1,000 words

Rated 2024-1-27 9:00am - sethherr

Dangerous chemicals found in recycled plastics, making them unsafe for use – experts explain the hazards

Recycled plastics are not safe if the chemicals used in creating them in the first place are harmful. #Cameroon #Mauritius #Microplastics #Nigeria #Togo

The Conversation Bethanie Carney Almroth 1,000 words

Rated 2024-1-26 4:39pm - sethherr

Sex, aggression, and humour: responses to unicycling

Sam Shuster compares men and women’s responses to the sight of a unicyclist

2007-12-22 12:00am PubMed Central (PMC) 3,000 words

Rated 2024-1-23 8:45am - sethherr

Japan’s Housing Crisis: What The YIMBYs Don’t Understand

What Really Drives Housing Prices — And Why Japan’s Haven’t Increased Since 1995!

2022-11-25 10:34am Radical Contributions Conrad Bastable 8,000 words

Rated 2024-1-23 5:56am - sethherr

‘America Is Under Attack’: Inside the Anti-D.E.I. Crusade

The backlash against “wokeism” has led a growing number of states to ban D.E.I. programs at public universities. Thousands of emails and other documents reveal the playbook — and grievances — behind one strand of the anti-D.E.I. campaign. #College #Texas

2024-1-20 1:35pm The New York Times Nicholas Confessore ($) 7,000 words

Rated 2024-1-22 6:03pm - sethherr

Should I Open Source my Company?

The unexpected upsides of building in public

2022-3-25 12:00am Supabase https://github.com/awalias 2,000 words

Rated 2024-1-22 11:52am - sethherr

Book Review: What's Our Problem?

...

2023-2-22 8:05pm astralcodexten.com Scott Alexander ($) 30,000 words

Rated 2024-1-21 8:37pm - sethherr

Why Holes at the Bottom of the Ocean Disappear and Reappear

Scientists made a new discovery about other causes for holes on the seafloor. Find out what is causing the pits to disappear and reappear all over again. #Animals #Ocean

2024-1-18 3:05pm Atlas Obscura 1,000 words

Rated 2024-1-19 8:31am - sethherr

The Quiet Death of Ello's Big Dreams

Ello launched in 2014 with big dreams, but the artsy social network suddenly shut down last year, deleting nine years of posts without warning. What happened?

2024-1-18 8:23am Waxy.org Andy Baio 6,000 words

Rated 2024-1-18 5:29pm - sethherr

Pinker was right, I was wrong. | Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science

statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu

Rated 2024-1-18 8:18am - crkrenn Rated 2024-1-14 8:42am - sethherr

An Idealistic Cop, a Forbidden Ticket and a Police Career on the Brink

Mathew Bianchi took routine traffic stops seriously and handed out tickets regardless of people’s connections within the Police Department. He says he was punished for it. #Lawsuit #NYPD #Police

2024-1-16 12:00am The New York Times Jonah E. Bromwich ($) 3,000 words

Rated 2024-1-17 6:15pm - crkrenn

Escalation Theory: Compliance, Violence, and Overachievement In Society

How Elites Cause Crime By Acing Marshmallow Tests Some people think crime is caused by poverty. Some think crime is caused by criminals. Some even think crime is caused by the climate. Don’t swallow these easy-to-digest popular narratives — society is shaped by its elite, always has been, always will be. It all comes back to the marshmallows.

2024-1-7 8:09am Radical Contributions Conrad Bastable 10,000 words

Rated 2024-1-16 9:04am - sethherr