Saturdays are all about longform links on Abnormal Returns. You can check out last week’s linkfest including a look at the tyranny of forced cheerfulness.
Quote of the Day
"Anarchy doesn't scale!"
(Paul Romer)
Excerpts
- An excerpt from Mike Isaac's new book "Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber." (vanityfair.com)
- An excerpt from "That Will Never Work: The Birth of Netflix and the Amazing Life of an Idea" by Marc Randolph. (wsj.com)
- A talk with Jonathan Haidt co-author of "The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure." (heleo.com)
- An excerpt from Bruce Handy in "The Peanuts Papers: Writers and Cartoonists on Charlie Brown, Snoopy & the Gang, and the Meaning of Life." (theatlantic.com)
Amazon
- Amazon ($AMZN) is effectively avoiding the costs of its same and next-day delivery promises. (buzzfeednews.com)
- How Amazon ($AMZN) has shielded itself from liability when a delivery truck crashes. (nytimes.com)
Government
- Why is America governed by old people? (politico.com)
- Some small towns are dangerously addicted to fines and forfeitures to meet their budgets. (governing.com)
- How student debt is transforming American household formation. (newyorker.com)
Cities
- A city can change a lot over fifty years: the case of Indianapolis. (storymaps.arcgis.com)
- Why do we keep rebuilding in areas that are destined to be destroyed by weather? (longreads.com)
- Cities build up based up the commuting technologies at the time. (citylab.com)
History
- A look at the 'end of history' illusion. (rpseawright.wordpress.com)
- If "Sapiens" were a blog post. (neilkakkar.com)
Entertainment
- Revisiting 1990's era 'SportsCenter' with Keith Olbermann and Dan Patrick. (theringer.com)
- Why 25 years after its launch 'Friends' is still so popular. (nytimes.com)
- A profile of Steve Cohen, a.k.a. the Millionaires' Magician. (newrepublic.com)
Longreads
- Statistics work in aggregate, not in every individual case. (newyorker.com)
- How the plastic water bottle went from convenience to environmental scourge. (nationalgeographic.com)
- Why would someone go to the trouble of inventing a fictitious hedge fund? (institutionalinvestor.com)
- Dual career couples go through many phases. (hbr.org)
- What would happen if somebody really did create a perfect lie detector? (theguardian.com)
