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 Challenger disaster forty years on.
Quote of the Day
"Success in golf rides on physical skill, of course, but the closer you get to the top, the more it becomes about intangibles, like the ability to deal with these hairsplitting variations in performance and not lose your grip on probabilities."
(Hugo Lindgren)
Books
- A Q&A with Christopher Mathias, author of “To Catch a Fascist: The Fight to Expose the Radical Right.” (hamiltonnolan.com)
- An excerpt from "The Microbiome Master Key: Harness Your Microbes to Unlock Whole-Body Health and Lifelong Vitality" by B. Brett Finlay and Jessica M. Finlay. (thewalrus.ca)
- An excerpt from "Mattering: The Secret to a Life of Deep Connection and Purpose" by Jennifer Breheny Wallace. (thequietlife.net)
Business
- The story of 3G Capital. (colossus.com)
- The Boring Co. is going to start digging under Nashville. (bloomberg.com)
- The decline of the Washington Post is a failure of vision. (theatlantic.com)
Energy
- Just how fast the world is shifting from fossil fuels, think oil, toward renewables. (unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com)
- Data centers are transforming the electric grid across the U.S. (ft.com)
Global
- We don't reliably know the population of many countries. (davidoks.blog)
- Russia is recruiting people from overseas to be sent to the the front lines in Ukraine. (msn.com)
History
- How Victorian era cities grew so quickly. (worksinprogress.news)
- The smells of the past are lost to history. Researchers are trying to change that. (knowablemagazine.org)
Art
- Fanfiction is no longer in the shadows, it's mainstream. (defector.com)
- AI is making inroads into music faster than you think. (giftarticle.ft.com)
- 'Breaking Away' is a quiet, American masterpiece. (tremblesighwonder.com)
Longreads
- In an ideal world you wouldn't have to join an 'elite finance club' your freshman year in college to get a finance job. (giftarticle.ft.com)
- How 'Bitcoin Jesus' avoided prison time for tax evasion. (propublica.org)
- Lahaina is still building back from fire three years ago. (nytimes.com)
- Green burial options are growing in popularity. (wsj.com)
- In professional golf the difference between top of the leaderboard and the middle is not all that much. (nytimes.com)
- Americans trading off connection for convenience is nothing new. (afterbabel.com)
