On Saturdays we catch up with the non-finance related items that we didn’t get to earlier in the week. You can check out last week’s edition. Have a great weekend!
Quote of the Day
"There is a certain inverse proportion between the quality of the discourse and the frequency of a speaker’s appearances."
(Om Malik)
Autos
- The rise in pedestrian deaths in the U.S. seem to be due to a confluence of small-ish factors. (construction-physics.com)
- Patrick George, "Because of the man he helped propel to the presidency, Musk’s cars are more expensive and less desirable than they could have been." (theatlantic.com)
- Auto insurance premium have risen 50% in the past five years. (wapo.st)
- How narrower roads get drivers to naturally slow down. (bloomberg.com)
- The average new car price hit $50,000. (wapo.st)
Energy
- The U.S. is falling behind China in crucial areas like solar and batteries. (paulkrugman.substack.com)
- Australia is on its way to 100% renewable energy. (canarymedia.com)
- Renewable energy isn't dead yet. (nytimes.com)
Environment
- 2024 saw a record amount of CO2 released. (wmo.int)
- On the relationship between the presence of mangroves and coastal house prices. (papers.ssrn.com)
Travel
- A minority of flights generate the most contrails. (sustainabilitybynumbers.com)
- Overtourism has come to New England in the Autumn. (wsj.com)
- A U.S. passport ain't what it used to be. (insidehook.com)
Animals
- Armadillos are moving north, and that is a danger to native species. (indystar.com)
- How a dog can help the remote worker get out of the house. (wsj.com)
Enshittification
- Five insights from Cory Doctorow's new book, "Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It." (nextbigideaclub.com)
- Will AI be able to avoid the enshittification trap? (wired.com)
- A Q&A with Cory Doctorow. (slate.com)
AI
- AI will never be your friend. (adamgrant.substack.com)
- It's now trivial to use someone's likeness in an AI video. (wsj.com)
- AI is now breaking the job interview. (theatlantic.com)
- How to use AI to read the news. (tomtunguz.com)
- More articles are being written by AI. (sherwood.news)
- A trick on how to better prime a chatbot. (venturebeat.com)
- How do chatbots respond in different languages? (theargumentmag.com)
- Police agencies are increasingly relying on AI-powered drones. (axios.com)
- A review of "What You Need to Know About AI: Primer on Being Human in an Artificially Intelligent World" by James Wang. (cashandcarried.substack.com)
Behavior
- What neuroscience tells us about cutting back on phone use. (calnewport.com)
- On the shifts in the U-shaped happiness curve with 'not flourishing' rising among young adults. (papers.ssrn.com)
- How to spot burnout. (joylere.substack.com)
Rural medicine
- All the trends working against rural hospitals. (axios.com)
- Rural doctors on the front lines of medical misinformation. (npr.org)
Weight loss
- Combination therapies are coming for weight loss. (newatlas.com)
- Eli Lilly's ($LLY) orforglipron showed good results for Type 2 diabetes. (biopharmadive.com)
Public health
- Blue states are banding together to offset the harms of a JFK Jr.-led HHS. (wsj.com)
- How the Harvard School of Public Health is responding (poorly) in the age of MAHA. (theatlantic.com)
Health
- Japan is experiencing a bad flu season. (nature.com)
- Antibiotic resistance is accelerating. (npr.org)
- How focused ultrasound works. (theconversation.com)
- An excerpt from “The Formula for Better Health: How to Save Millions of Lives—Including Your Own” by Dr. Tom Frieden. (wsj.com)
Lead
- How worried should you be about lead in your protein powder? (theconversation.com)
- Lead exposure is not a modern human phenomenon. (sciencedaily.com)
Food
- Protein is showing up in some weird places. (sherwood.news)
- Why we should continue tracking food insecurity. (econofact.org)
- Why avoiding ultraprocessed foods is so difficult. (theatlantic.com)
- Your Starbucks ($SBUX) loyalty app may be working against you. (washingtonpost.com)
- How the Honeycrisp came to take over the American apple market. (wsj.com)
- The case for Kansas City barbecue. (nytimes.com)
F1
- Apple ($AAPL) has acquired worldwide rights to Formula One. (hollywoodreporter.com)
- Which is why we are getting a 'F1' sequel. (spyglass.org)
College
- How elite admissions have changed this year, including fewer foreign students. (bloomberg.com)
- Acceding to the Trump college 'compact' would be a big mistake. (theargumentmag.com)
Earlier on Abnormal Returns
- What you missed in our Friday linkfest. (abnormalreturns.com)
- Podcast links: spontaneous order. (abnormalreturns.com)
- Celebrating our twentieth blogiversary. (abnormalreturns.com)
- The upside to not being stupid. (abnormalreturns.com)
- Don't miss a thing! Sign up for our daily e-mail newsletter. (abnormalreturns.com)
Mixed media
- The top lessons from A.J. Jacobs' many books including "The Year of Living Bibically." (experimentalliving.substack.com)
- A reminder than human communication is nuanced. (surfacearea.beehiiv.com)
- Find something worth bothering about. (investing101.substack.com)
- How to break a losing streak. (permanentequity.com)
