Joseph Unruh

It's holiday season so of course a couple with their camper van thought it acceptable to break my fence and camp overnight on my land. They are now blocked in with our small tractor, should be fun when they wake up.

Let's talk Jews. Everyone knows Jews are high-achieving. But has this always been true? Well, let's see: Were Jews always beneficial to the cities in which they lived? Seemingly not! Here are results for 1500-1850. Jews today are a demographic dividend, so why not pre-1700?

This is basically a map of parts of the United States that will be unsurvivably hot for ~ 2-4 months a year by mid-century. I.e., people signing a 30-year mortgage today in Texas or Arkansas. Love the SUV ads at the bottom, really brilliant touch. washingtonpost.com/weather/intera…

@dwarakbakshi They should do what they feel like they need to do. Sometimes it's safer to suck with what you already know you're good at. Sometimes you have to take the risk and shoot for something you'll like more, knowing you have to sacrifice a lot to get there.

A random question that came out of a conversation. Should someone do something they are good at but don’t like doing or strive to do things they like doing but not necessarily the best at?

Having a little too much fun stressing out Bing/GPT-4 using its new ability to recognize images...

DOJ just released the report from its two-year investigation of the Minneapolis police department. Here's a thread of notable excerpts. This first one happened *while a DOJ investigator was on a ride-along.*

'Seeing the World through Your Eyes' by Hadi Alzayer et al. A model that allows 3D reconstruction of a scene just from the reflection in an observers eyeball. Presumably using both could result in even higher volumetric fidelity! world-from-eyes.github.io arxiv.org/abs/2306.09348

Lots of well deserved remembrances of Ellsberg’s heroism today. I’ll just post my favorite passage from his incredible memoir, Secrets. He’s telling Henry Kissinger (who as many have noted is somehow still alive) what access to truly secret information can do to a person’s mind.

Japanese labor use is horrifically inefficient. Here's an example: Do you need three people whose job it is to tell singular cars to pass? Do you need five restaurant or grocery store workers standing around? If you answered "yes", then you may live in Japan or South Korea.

These clips are two of the best pieces of writing advice you will ever get about writing on the internet. I promise. It is so good we show it to our newsletter students. 1st: Most of us should write to help ourselves think.

I LITERALLY stopped working on my memo so I could read this indictment. I am on page 24 and JESUS LUPITA NYONG'O CHRIST. HOW this man still has the capacity to shock me after everything that's happened, i'll never know. but I am sitting here *STUNNED*.

Education research in a tweet: Yes phonics Learning styles == myth 1:1 == wow “Transfer” == hard Knowledge begets method Thought begets memory Space repetition Practice past mastery Praise with precision Tell stories Aid self-regulation Helpful: sleep, health, wealth

The business model of Hindenburg Research is fascinating: They produce some of the best, in-depth investigative journalism, aiming to expose shady actors, which are *always* publicly traded companies. They do this for free: as they short the stock when they publish the report.

Are we headed to a future where even QR codes are beautiful, not ugly? Believe it or not, these images contain working codes! (Generated by AI trying to create a beautiful image, with the constraint that it contains a working code.) reddit.com/r/StableDiffus…

@athuras Disconnecting from commerce! looks like you're growing enough that you wont need to buy food

@josephcu disconnecting? We’re slowly repurposing/moving grow bags from the greenhouse skeletons to a more convenient/smaller garden location close to the house (maybe 10-30?) hoping veggies survive the squirrels.

photo dump

Good advice. I've had medical bills go to collections and it has never impacted my credit score.

A Chinese salvage ship has been caught red-handed trying to tear apart World War 2 shipwrecks for scrap. But why would they desecrate these underwater graveyards which are protected by UN treaties? The reason: Low Background Steel.

@athuras make the wire yourself! That'd be hardcore

@josephcu funny you should mention i actually do have a big pile of scrap aluminum waiting to be scavenged (wreckage from an old greenhouse) …

after spending like $200 at home depot for the same thing, i just came across some AWG 10 wire in the forest…

@athuras sounds like installation is slightly harder. maybe the difference in labor costs means the total cost isn't much better? But for DIYers like ourselves...

@athuras that is a good find. Copper is so expensive you might as well have found cash on the ground. On a related note, I just learned that aluminum wire can replace copper for half the cost! neonresearch.nl/copper-scarcit…