Saturdays are the day we catch up with all the non-finance related stuff we didn’t get to during the week. You can check out last week’s edition here.
Quote of the Day
"Sports are played by real people, and organized by real people, and watched by real people, and they are influenced by vast sums of real money. There is something dehumanizing to pretend otherwise, and the best sportswriters have always realized that it takes nothing from the joy of watching people play a game to point that out."
(Louisa Thomas)
Autos
- Toyota ($TM) is "the only Japanese car company with a full lineup of trucks and SUVs that competes with Detroit across the board." (wsj.com)
- Rolls Royce, and others, can't make enough ultra-luxury SUVs to meet demand. (cnbc.com)
- Lamborghini wants to make an electric supercar, but only if its still a Lamborghini. (cnn.com)
- If you wanted a third-row, you used to need a minivan. Now its all about SUVs. (carmax.com)
- Comparing the Tesla ($TSLA) Model 3 and the new Nissan Leaf. (businessinsider.com)
- CarMax ($KMX) no longer sells Teslas. (media.thinknum.com)
Energy
- The obsolesence of coal plants, due to the rapidly dropping price of solar and wind power, is truly stunning. (finance.yahoo.com)
- Solar projects, both residential and consumer, keep growing in size. (axios.com)
Environment
- Alexis P. Madrigal, "Almost everywhere you look in the built environment, toxic technical-debt bubbles are growing and growing and growing." (theatlantic.com)
- Global warming is a less informative term than 'global weirding.' (klementoninvesting.substack.com)
- Higher sea levels are pretty much locked in. Which countries are most at-risk. (axios.com)
- Can fast fashion ever be sustainable? (ftalphaville.ft.com)
- New refrigerants could greatly reduce the impact of air conditioning. (fastcompany.com)
Rivers
- It's more effective to capture trash in rivers before it reaches the ocean. (kottke.org)
- Four of the five largest polluting rivers are in Asia. (wsj.com)
Transport
- Startups, like Lilium, are racing to make electric jets that can serve as urban taxis. (nytimes.com)
- Another sign that ride-sharing is taking over the world. (nymag.com)
Drones
- Police are increasingly having to deal with drone-related crimes. (nytimes.com)
- Robot drones are delivering food on college campuses. (nytimes.com)
Science
- The evidence keeps mounting that Neaderthals were more like humans than we previously thought. (smithsonianmag.com)
- The Vikings killed off Iceland's walruses. (arstechnica.com)
Technology
- Lessons learned from 72 hours without electricity. (macworld.com)
- These apps want to be TikTok. (slate.com)
Psychology
- How these injections are being used to successfully treat PTSD. (wsj.com)
- Omega-3 fats have little or no effect on anxiety and depression according to new research. (sciencedaily.com)
- How the Crisis Text Line was born. (seths.blog)
- Why we take joy in repeated experiences. (nytimes.com)
Medicine
- How a woman who was predisposed to early onset Alzheimer's could provide a key to treating the disease. (nytimes.com)
- Air ambulance prices have doubled over the past decade. (axios.com)
- A look at the brain chemistry behind addiction. (variety.com)
Fitness
- Maybe your next office chair should be a gaming chair. (onezero.medium.com)
- Still more evidence that exercise can help with brain function. (nytimes.com)
- How is beer as a post-workout recovery drink? (npr.org)
Food
- Grocery stores are closing across rural America. (nytimes.com)
- Demand for salmon is booming. You are going to have to go to Norway to find a stock to invest in the theme. (barrons.com)
- Making fake meat taste like the real thing involves a lot of chemistry. (washingtonpost.com)
- "Despite queso’s lack of clear-cut origins, most Texans consider it their birthright." (vinepair.com)
- Why bottled water is kind of a scam. (npr.org)
- Seedless lemons are now a thing. (latimes.com)
- Why nutritionists love nuts. (elemental.medium.com)
Drink
- Alcohol really does make you more social. (daily.jstor.org)
- Spiked seltzer is still largely a US phenomenon. (ft.com)
- A vodka that actually helps capture CO2. (fastcompany.com)
Coffee
- Mark Bittman on how to make better coffee at home or the office. (heated.medium.com)
- "Coffee is a so-called orphan crop—there hasn’t been much research into its genetic variety or adaptability." (daily.jstor.org)
Weed
- "Does smoking lots of pot make you dumb or do dumb people smoke lots of pot?" (marginalrevolution.com)
- Drake is teaming up with Canopy Growth Corp. ($CGC) for a new venture to sell recreational cannabis and accessories in Canada and abroad. (bnnbloomberg.ca)
Sports
- The college football playoffs ruined regional rivalries. (slate.com)
- Rock climbing is the hot new college sport. (wsj.com)
Entertainment
Kids
- Adam Grant and Allison Sweet Grant, "The real test of parenting is not what your children achieve, but who they become and how they treat others." (theatlantic.com)
- Why do better-looking kids do better in school? (washingtonpost.com)
- Why its okay for parents to express their emotions. (behavioralscientist.org)
- Fertility rates are in decline around the world. (alephblog.com)
MBA
- According to Businessweek, Stanford is the best MBA program. (bloomberg.com)
- Women are making up a larger percentage of the population at elite MBA programs. (wsj.com)
- MBA programs are stepping up their data science game. (bloomberg.com)
Earlier on Abnormal Returns
- Longform links: attractive anti-heroes. (abnormalreturns.com)
- What you missed in our Friday linkfest. (abnormalreturns.com)
- Podcast links: fighting human bias. (abnormalreturns.com)
- ESG links: shared-value investing (abnormalreturns.com)
- Moving forward in your own skin. (abnormalreturns.com)
