Category: Worth Your Time

1. This article on environmental scientists suffering emotionally as the natural world shrinks under the onslaught of Mankind (and mostly men within our species) rings true with me. It’s so sad to see dying corals, burning forests, etc. 
2. Listen: I teach liberal arts and sciences (LAS). I’m not sure if our students know how lucky they are, but these prisoners earning their LAS degrees sure do.
3. Read: Divorce in an Indian couple is no longer unimaginable
4. Listen: Sal Khan, the founder of Khan academy, on better education
5. Read: Amsterdam tries to rebalance away from mass tourism
6. Read: “Extreme weather is wreaking havoc on olive oil production” — this is the beginning of the end of food security, which will affect people in poorer countries much more than most of us.
7. Read: Tap water in the US is more polluted than it should be (as I said a few years ago when Flint was in the news).
8. Read: ADHD in women manifests via self-doubt and confusion
9. Read: American drivers — unlike those in other countries — are killing more pedestrians and bikers despite driving less. Why? US road rules are designed for speed not safety. Watch this for a humorous (but exacerbating) explanation.
10. Read: Dutch recycling: ‘we don’t know what is going on’

1. Read: Stronger storms and waves have doubled the number of shipping containers “lost” at sea from cargo vessels. Another cut into our quality of life.
2. Read: Inside Israel’s lucrative (and occasionally evil) cyber security industry
3. Read: A look at the business model of influencers
4. Read: Some German festival organisers (think Burning Man) have decided to take (health) matters into their own hands, in defense of culture. Bravo.
5. Listen: Archaeology from space
6. Try? “We build desirable, open source, privacy-enabled smartphone operating systems” — basically “de-googled” android systems
7. Listen: Climate change is entering business models and (very interesting!) negative real interest rates are raising the cost of inaction. 
8. Watch: The best NFT description I’ve seen (via SNL 😉
9. Watch: How to (properly) compare COVID vaccines
10. Read: Don’t say media has no impact. “Birth of a Nation” (1915), formerly called “The Klansmen” spurred racist violence:  

1. 1. Read: The right and wrong way to assess students (by one of our alumni)
   2. Read: How to Put Out Democracy’s Dumpster Fire (fueled by social media) and (related) how Facebook (mis)uses AI
   3. Listen: The business of making a new pasta shape
   4. Listen: A nice look into crypto, NFTs and innovation 
   5. Read: California mulls over plans to buy houses that will be flooded by rising seas, as that will be cheaper than fighting with millionaires who want “government” to protect their houses.
   6. Read: Private schools are not facing their hypocrisy of perpetuating class divides
   7. Read: Intrinsic vs extrinsic motivation, and how they get into each other’s way
   8. Read: Wanna thrive? “Start by scheduling more varied activities into your days, weeks, and months and removing variety from your hours and minutes.”
   9. Read: Email broke the office: “This convergence of factors has made the last two decades of office work like standing in an increasingly crowded and rowdy bar. Offices might be silent while everyone communicates through their screens, but inside our minds, things have gotten noisier and noisier without anyone stopping to ask why—and when communication about work never ceases, it leaves little time to actually execute the work.”
   10. The State of the Nation(al hypocrisy):

H/T to DPG

1. Listen: A biophysicist explains Aristotelian ethics and a life well lived
2. Read: In many countries (not the US or NL), there is a “human right to a healthy environment”. Surprisingly (?), it seems to have an effect!
3. An interesting look at utilities, regulators and “regulatory capture” (corruption) that misses the (very common) problem of poorly performing municipal utilities.
4. Read: “GME, Doge, Supreme: How Getting Rich Went Full Internet“
5. Listen: A really great discussion on group cohesion, belonging, and relationships with Robin Dunbar (of the Dunbar number)
6. Read about innocent people executed for crimes they did not commit: “If I were to be murdered,” wrote Prejean, “I would not want my murderer executed. I would not want my death avenged—especially by government—which can’t be trusted to control its own bureaucrats or collect taxes equitably or fill a pothole, much less decide which of its citizens to kill.”
7. Read: “Sperm counts have dropped almost 60% since 1973. Following the trajectory we are on, sperm counts could reach zero by 2045. Zero. Let that sink in. That would mean no babies. No reproduction. No more humans.“

H/T to CD

1. Read: Sasha Baron Cohen took off his Borat mask to ask real questions about how social media is fomenting hate and attacks on others
2. Read: 100 years ago, we knew about airborne viruses, then we forgot.
3. Read: When will the Pandemic be over for society (for you)?
4. Read: “Email is making us miserable” — just as “randomised win/lose” social media.
5. Read: Persuading the unpersuadable (quite insightful)
6. Listen: How the Russians used asymmetric methods to take over Crimea — and how that method will be used again in … Taiwan? Bulgaria? Where next?
7. Read: Paul Krugman on MMT (wtf), bitcoin (bubble), and deficits (not relevant?)
8. Listen: “Should universities be the leaders in educating people how to be more sustainable?” (I’m one of 2 guests.)
9. Read: Stockholm’s basic income experiment has good results
10. Read: “In Peterson’s view, the bill exposed the larger agenda of postmodernism, which he portrayed as an ideology that, in denying the existence of objective truth, “leaves its practitioners without an ethic.” (This is not how theorists of postmodernism define it, and if you have a few hours to spare, do ask one of them to explain.)”

1. Read: “Natural” gas propaganda explains why many homes have gas — and so many people suffer from indoor air pollution.
2. Listen: Michael Mann has coined a new word (“inactivists”) to describe the oil & gas lobbyists who urge us to do nothing while their products destroy our atmosphere. Listen in and vote for change (carbon taxes, no more energy subsidies) before you worry about your carbon footprint (another inactivist ploy borrowed from the cancer cigarette industry)
3. Read: Good news! The EU’s ETS market is coming alive (prices over €40/ton), and [my prediction] profit seekers are going to push to make it bigger (so they can make more money)
4. Read: Repair and reuse your clothes!
5. Read: The value of macroeconomics in a few points (b/c that’s all there are)
6. Listen: New world order? An interview with a member of Facebook’s “Supreme Court of free speech”
7. Listen: A discussion with Anand Giridharadas on profits vs society
8. Read: Zoom fatigue is a thing and there are ways to reduce it
9. Read: I told you so Part I: Back in 2008-2011, I was writing about the failures of federal (US) flood insurance. It seems that US legislators (bounced by climate chaos) are starting to catch up…
10. I told you so, Part II: Back in 2013, we were unable to fly via Dallas due to “freak” cold weather. I blogged on that event as a harbinger of climate chaos to come. A few weeks ago, Texas was again hit by “freak” cold weather… and now they are dusting off recommendations from 2014 that lobbyists fought to stop. What about next time?

1. Watch: Why Dutch bikes (omafietsen) are better
2. Read: Trust among colleagues is decaying as we work from home, and it will take quite some time to restore.
3. Listen: Only gringos visit Cuba to “see it before it changes” (guilty!)
4. Read: Hong Kong property developers are building in the path of future flooding
5. Read: Texas is facing power shortages as its “capitalist grid” collapses. Perhaps they should have thought more about the “borders” where the market would stop working? That’s why regulation exists.
6. Read: The danger of collapse of aging dams is increasing
7. Listen: A lovely podcast on why we need poetry to understand life
8. Read: Yes, online sites do hide their fees to make more money
9. Watch: This video on the origins of “Insomnia” (one of the top dance hits from 20 years ago) is really amazing.
10. Daft Punk has retired. Watch my favourite “cover” of their Better Faster Stronger

1. Can your coffee fix the planet? (Maybe, if you use paper cups?)
2. Good news! Climate change denial is “out”. Bad news: We have to adapt like crazy to the chaos we’ve created. The rich? They are making other plans
3. If You Want Peace, Study War
4. A crazy biofuel scam
5. Are antiracists the new racists?
6. Can we just print money to fix all our problems (MMT)? Will that money go to special interests or commoners?
7. Plant-based “junk food” is good for the planet but maybe not (any healthier) for you
8. (Alienated) young people are stressing out over social isolation
9. What stupid crypto is next? I vote for Driverfy. Bonus: Some good analysis of bitcoin
10. WTF San Francisco, with the school names? SMH.

H/Ts to BZ, GS and PB

1. Read: A scientist who took climate change seriously found himself trapped between a future truth that contradicted present reality.
2. Read: The Dunning-Kruger Effect is not real: It’s a data artifact.
3. Watch: The Lock-picking lawyer wants better locks!
4. Read: Fascinating (but predictable): migrant Eastern Europeans are returning home
5. Listen: The founder of Belligcat describes how the “detective collective” catches Russians (and others) responsible for crimes, assassinations, etc.
6. Read: Meanwhile, the US government is losing masses of top secret data to state-supported hackers from China, Iran, North Korea, Russia and others.
7. Read: “Without a coherent response from local government, cities lashed by climate change will gradually lose their populations. The demise won’t be spectacular, even if the storms are monstrous. Instead, people will leave in dribs and drabs, and the exodus could take generations.”
8. The Japanese culture of “cleaning up”
9. DNA-ancestry services trace your roots back to your neighbors, not your origins
10. Explore: Amsterdam’s air quality improved under COVID:

1. Read: How to blow up a pipeline (and why that’s necessary)
2. Listen: Truth vs lies (information “warfare” among countries)
3. Listen: Discussing climate chaos with the author of There is no Planet B
4. Read: A brief history of peanut butter (steak-replacement!)
5. Read: The War on Professionalism (led by populists)
6. Read: Central banks are pumping up asset bubbles. Next stop: the bubble bursts (they cut off the cheap money) or inflation (they don’t)
7. Read: A good summary of r/wallstreetbets vs Wall Street and excellent advice for FOMO n00bs annnnd a great debate on winners and losers.
8. Read: Get control of your todo lists (hint: set aside chunks of time for big projects)
9. Read: A scary story of online slander that makes me agree that Section 230 (a US law that protects platforms from liability for their content) needs to be revised.
10. Read: UC Davis decides its best defence against COVID is to protect its surrounding community… for free. Related: Another case of universities doing it right.