Thursdays are all about longform links on Abnormal Returns. Wherever possible, free links behind the paywall are used. You can check out last week’s linkfest including a look at how Boeing got so far away from its engineering origins.
Quote of the Day
"Everyone is winging it, experts and schlubs alike, muddling through with at best fragmentary understandings of a fast-moving world and its inscrutable future."
(John F. Harris)
Books
- An excerpt from "Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture" by Kyle Chayka. (theguardian.com)
- An excerpt from "Eat, Poop, Die: How Animals Make Our World" by Joe Roman. (nautil.us)
- A Q&A with Simon McCarthy-Jones author of "Freethinking: Protecting Freedom of Thought Amidst the New Battle for the Mind." (nautil.us)
- An excerpt from "Infectious Generosity: The Ultimate Idea Worth Spreading" by Chris Anderson. (tim.blog)
Trucking
- How Walmart ($WMT) become a logistics powerhouse. (freightwaves.com)
- Who becomes a trucker today? (thebaffler.com)
Business
- Family-owned firms are finding it increasingly difficult to find a successor. (bloomberg.com)
- What happened to the America machine tool industry? (construction-physics.com)
Environment
- Switzerland's glaciers are melting and causing all sorts of knock-on effects. (nytimes.com)
- Everyone agrees that soil health is important, but measuring it is challenging. (on.ft.com)
- The illegal trade in sand is ruining local ecosystems. (scientificamerican.com)
Longreads
- Pointed criticism has done little to slow private equity momentum. (institutionalinvestor.com)
- The state of video gaming in 2024. (matthewball.vc)
- You can only experience so much trauma before it bleeds into the rest of your life. (longreads.com)
- Just how big a problem is illegal steroid use? (thebaffler.com)
- Athletes ask themselves 'who am I' after they leave the sport. (nytimes.com)
- Why fertility is plummeting across Asia. (ggd.world)