Thursdays are all about longform links on Abnormal Returns. Wherever possible, free links for premium sites are used. You can check out last week’s linkfest including a look at the history of Uber and its two CEOs.
Quote of the Day
"In acting and narrating we talk about intention. The intent of the author as well as our own in narrating. A machine cannot have intent."
(Adam Verner)
Book excerpts
- An excerpt from Elie Honig’s new book "When You Come at the King: Inside DOJ’s Pursuit of the President, From Nixon to Trump." (nymag.com)
- An excerpt from “Adam Smith’s America: How a Scottish Philosopher Became an Icon of American Capitalism” by Glory M. Liu . (wsj.com)
- An excerpt from Stefan Fatsis’s new book, "Unabridged: The Thrill of (and Threat to) the Modern Dictionary." (theatlantic.com)
Author Q&As
- A Q&A with Cass Sunstein, author of "On Liberalism: In Defense of Freedom." (bigthink.com)
- A Q&A with Mary Roach, author of "Replaceable You: Adventures in Human Anatomy." (npr.org)
- A Q&A with Michael Grunwald, author of "We’re Eating the Earth: The Race to Fix Our Food System." (motherjones.com)
- A Q&A with Shoshana Walter, author of "Rehab: An American Scandal." (annehelen.substack.com)
Cities
- There is no practical way to move around New York City and avoid being tracked by cameras. (nytimes.com)
- The science of population density or how cities formed. (unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com)
Commodities
- Fracking is literally shifting the ground in West Texas and and New Mexico. (bloomberg.com)
- It's easy to forget how messy it is to extract gold from underground. (sapiens.org)
History
- An engineering history of the Manhattan Project. (construction-physics.com)
- What does it even mean to apologize for centuries-old wrongs? (newyorker.com)
- How Britain banned slavery. (marginalrevolution.com)
Longreads
- The UAE got access to advanced chips. The Trump family got $2 billion in World Liberty Financial. (nytimes.com)
- The earliest climate models highlighted the dangers of rising CO2 levels. (quantamagazine.org)
- Oklahoma's medical marijuana business is in shambles. (politico.com)
- How BrainCo, backed by China, has been harvesting brain data from elite athletes. (hntrbrk.com)
- Fanatics and Panini are battle for supremacy in the trading card market. (wapo.st)
- How Judd Apatow became central to the American comedy scene. (theatlantic.com)
- You can now buy self-defense insurance. (newyorker.com)
