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
"Not only is Zillow my personal self-worth destruction/enhancement machine, but it’s like TikTok for adults."
(Kris Frieswick)
Autos
- The international trade in used cars is helping to keep high carbon cars on the road. (axios.com)
- Does GM's ($GM) Hummer EV help or hurt the cause of de-carbnonization? (bloomberg.com)
- EVs are upending the definition of 'muscle car.' (nytimes.com)
- Consumer Reports ranks GM's Super Cruise above Tesla's Autopilot. (engadget.com)
- Dead bugs are wreaking havoc with AV systems. (debugger.medium.com)
Transport
- The inter-city business has nearly ground to a halt. (cnn.com)
- Can the bike boom keep going, post-pandemic? (msn.com)
- Harley Davidson ($HOG) has built a cool, new e-bike. (bicycling.com)
- How close are we to autonomous ships? (wired.com)
- A look at where cruise ships go to die. (nytimes.com)
Energy
- ExxonMobil ($XOM) is no hurry to shift away from oil and gas. (ft.com)
- How the wind industry has been slowed by the pandemic. (nytimes.com)
- Japanese companies are building data centers in colder climates to reduce cooling costs. (finance.yahoo.com)
Carbon neutrality
- Japan has pledged to be carbon neutral by 2050. (nytimes.com)
- South Korea has also pledged to go carbon neutral. (ft.com)
Animals
Science
- There's more water on the Moon than previously thought. (scientificamerican.com)
- The reduce in air travel has hampered the collection of weather data. (nytimes.com)
- Why is the human body, on average, cooling over time? (bigthink.com)
Travel
- The wealthy are choosing to fly private to avoid commercial flights. (ft.com)
- Female commercial air pilots were making great progress and then pandemic hit. (bloomberg.com)
- Berlin’s new international airport is opening behind schedule and overbudget. (ft.com)
- This airport isn't expecting a return to 'normal' until 2024 or 2025. (indystar.com)
- Flying can be relatively safe if people wear their masks. (cnn.com)
Technology
- Covid has breathed new life into the lowly QR code. (ft.com)
- The Apple ($AAPL) One subscription bundle is here. (theverge.com)
- How link previews can be a security risk. (wired.com)
Behavior
- Four steps to overcome loneliness. (markmanson.net)
- How to boost hope when everything feels horrible. (wsj.com)
- The state of Oregon is on the verge of approving therapeutic psilocybin. (gq.com)
- How to make teletherapy work for you. (nextavenue.org)
- Why 'contingency management' isn't used much to help in addiction treatment. (nytimes.com)
- Pro golfer Bubba Watson talks about his struggle with anxiety. (golfweek.usatoday.com)
Health
- Experts now recommend colon cancer screenings start at age 45. (statnews.com)
- Female doctors spend more time with patients but make less money. (npr.org)
- We are underplaying the risk of air pollution from wildfires. (npr.org)
- On the dangers of using CRISPR to edit embryos. (statnews.com)
Dogs
- A genetic examination of how dogs came to be domesticated. (arstechnica.com)
- Why and how dogs bond to their humans. (theconversation.com)
- Somebody has to deliver all those 'pandemic puppies.' (wsj.com)
- How dogs view the world. (freakonomics.com)
Food
- The pandemic has completely upended the cheese market. (wsj.com)
- Spice makers are having a hard time keeping up with increased demand. (washingtonpost.com)
- Chobani is upping the minimum wage of its hourly workers to $19/hour. (fortune.com)
- Ordermark wants to build out decentralized ghost kitchen brands. (techcrunch.com)
Entertainment
- The pandemic has taught us how to live without movie theaters (msn.com)
- The continued decline of pay TV is pretty much baked in the cake at this point. (cnbc.com)
- Netflix ($NFLX) is raising its prices. (variety.com)
- The best movies of 2020, so far including 'First Cow.' (polygon.com)
Sports
- Professional sports came back. Now the hard part begins. (nytimes.com)
- Callaway Golf ($ELY) is buying TopGolf. (axios.com)
- MLB teams are laying off employees by the hundreds. (theathletic.com)
- Pandemic is accelerating the youth sports exodus. (axios.com)
- The Locker Room app wants to change how we talk about sports. (axios.com)
- Why South Korea is such a hotbed for e-sports talent. (wired.com)
College
- Companies are being more proactive in trying to recruit students from HBCUs. (wsj.com)
- It's getting ugly out there: colleges are cutting tuition to lure students back. (cnbc.com)
- Colleges are cutting budgets. (nytimes.com)
Earlier on Abnormal Returns
- Coronavirus links: losing badly. (abnormalreturns.com)
- What you missed in our Friday linkfest. (abnormalreturns.com)
- Podcast links: not-so common sense. (abnormalreturns.com)
- Starting something new is hard, staying with it even harder. (abnormalreturns.com)
- Jon, thanks for including us in your journey. (abnormalreturns.com)
- Every Friday I send out five links for advisers to help them think a little differently about the world. Sign up now! (newsletter.abnormalreturns.com)
Mixed media
- Ken Thoelke, "Patient recruitment and retention is the longest, most difficult part of the clinical trial process." (statnews.com)
- Tim Harford, "We should all spend more time thinking about the prospect of failure and what we might do about it. It is a useful mental habit but it is neither easy nor enjoyable." (ft.com)
- Shane Parrish, "When you encounter a representation of something, it’s useful to consider which parts are descriptive and which parts are prescriptive." (fs.blog)