Pierre

@patrickc While retail has suffered from Covid, this is not the case for fromageries and poissonneries in France 🪤 Fromageries stayed stable (+13 in Paris alone since 2020) and poissonneries grew nationwide 🐟

Maybe a very prosaic observation, but I've been reflecting on just how much the pandemic changed the world in ways that are completely unrelated to the pandemic itself. I think I've underestimated it 'till now. In a recent interview, I was struck by the comment that so many of the shops that we associate with the best of France—the poissonneries and the fromageries—closed during the pandemic, to be replaced by take-out pizza shops and the like. College professors almost uniformly describe big changes in student behavior: lecture attendance and willingness of students to complete reading assignments are both way down. A UK government official recently told me that British economic statistics have become much less reliable since the pandemic: data on trade, employment, and population is suspect. (The true GDP per capita figures are probably worse than what is indicated by the published data, since the 2021 census is believed to be an undercount.) In the West, there are far fewer bustling workplaces than there used to be. In recent conversation with a well-traveled friend, he bemoaned how so many cities—places like Madrid, Buenos Aires, and Bali—have lost so much of their erstwhile vibrant nightlife. Immigration accelerated enormously across many countries, including the US, the UK, Canada, and Australia. In China, I hear descriptions of how fear, caution, and conservatism have persisted since the COVID lockdowns. (And Western travel to China remains massively depressed.) Lots of the changes are neutral, or even good. Retail participation in the US stock market almost doubled overnight, say, and has persisted at that elevated rate. Firm creation in the US increased by around 50%, which is probably a very good thing. Overall, the number of time series (either literal or figurative) that jumped discontinuously during COVID and then didn’t return to baseline is just very striking. Which are the best historical analogs? Are there any apart from major wars? I want to read this book!

The European mind cannot comprehend this.

This may be the best single sentence ever written in tech journalism

En se "baladant" sur Google Maps, on remarque également le même suspect... transportant le sac (et potentiellement le corps de la victime) dans une brouette.

San Francisco being San Francisco

Of all the ways to publicly address your senior colleagues leaving OpenAI, this was certainly one of them

@AnaisMoutot Il ne reste plus qu'à aller à Próspera pour faire exploser le WTF-ometer

Clairement dans la top liste de mes meilleures découvertes WTF de reportages lesechos.fr/weekend/busine…

Dans le beau reportage sur le projet de ville des magnats de la Silicon Valley par @AnaisMoutot lesechos.fr/weekend/busine…

Où l'on apprend que Hewlett-Packard a un têtard à son nom 🐸

Sequoia's Michael Moritz on Trump.

Contre le RN, il y a cette tribune @Mediapart du numérique d'intérêt général (blogs.mediapart.fr/francoishuguet…) et cette motion des chercheur•ses du @cis_cnrs (cis.cnrs.fr/motion-du-cis-…). A lire. Mais, existe-t-il des déclarations officielles du secteur de la tech française à ce sujet ?

@AnaisMoutot Oui, les Convois de la victoire et Circos Pivots linktr.ee/circospivots

Ces manifs à Republique ont en effet un petit goût de « virtue signaling » vu que les duels ne sont pas a Paris. Aux US, les militants démocrates californiens organisent des bus pour aller militer dans les swing states. Quelqu’un a déjà vu une initiative similaire en France?

aaaaand it’s July

Et une pensée pour les binationaux franco-américains en PLS 🥲

Literally all vendors right now.

NEW: The S-1 of healthcare data company founded by the Groupon founder revealed, well, a lot of fun details: - A last-minute $200M deal w/ SoftBank. - a name change to add AI but only ~1% of AI revenue - 30:1 voting power for founder - lots of cash burn theinformation.com/articles/tempu…

Une trentaine de sujets ont été dépubliés des sites de France Télévisions : le risque de réidentification de personnes floutées grâce à des nouvelles technologies était trop important, raconte @Xeutrope. L'IA est à la fois un poison et son propre remède. larevuedesmedias.ina.fr/urgence-france…

Modern office poetry mcsweeneys.net/articles/my-co…