Tootfinder

A look at Apple's management changes and several key executives' futures; sources say Mike Rockwell has considered leaving or taking an advisory role next year (Mark Gurman/Bloomberg)

I'm guilty of being a "competitive pessimist" from time to time... Are you?
"Pessimism is more accurate in the short term - almost always, I'll give it that. Things do go wrong in roughly the ways people predict they will. But optimism is more productive over decades. Optimism is the thing that generates attempts, and without attempts nothing changes.
...
I would rather be wrong about what we're capable of than right about why we shouldn't bothe…

Optimism is not a personality flaw
This newsletter is free to read, and it’ll stay that way. But if you want more - extra posts each month, no sponsored CTAs, access to the community, and a direct line to ask me things - paid subscriptions are $2.50/month. A lot of people have told

In defense of Reviewer 2.
Dear Reviewer 2: Reviewers 1 and 3 snarked uselessly. You, however, did a damn fine job giving me actionable changes, sight reading the missing recall stat from my own graph, pointing out what it meant to my theory, and making my work better. Thank you.
Love, someone going to the conference and who has a brand new peer-reviewed publication thanks to your "weak accept". I ain't proud; I'll take it.

Trump administration's changes to the CFPB cost Americans $19B, a new report says (Ken Sweet/Associated Press)
https://apnews.com/article/cfpb-russell-vought-trump-elizabeth-warren-783a68f170d79e83444fe2350239d098
http://www.memeorandum.com/260209/p111#a260209p111

"Guest post: How changes to coal mining have affected China’s methane emissions"
#China #Energy #Emissions

Guest post: How changes to coal mining have affected China’s methane emissions - Carbon Brief
A study takes closer look at China’s coal-mine methane emissions, which account for roughly 40% of the nation’s total methane emissions.

A classified Israeli military database ... indicated that of more than 53,000 deaths recorded in Gaza, named Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters accounted for roughly 17%. That suggests the rest, 83%, were civilians. These are not the statistics of a war fought with precision, this is a war where imprecision is the aim.
When reported verification times for AI-assisted targets are measured in seconds, ... the consequences are written in rows of small coffins.

What does wealth inequality matter?
Here are three key takeaways from the afternoon’s panels.
⚠️When wealth buys political influence and legal immunity, democracy is threatened
⭐️Hélène Landemore of Yale University argued that wealth inequality isn’t inherently problematic, but becomes dangerous when wealth offers disproportionate influence in other spheres, including political power.
⭐️Wojciech Kopczuk of Columbia University echoed this, emphasizing that wealth is a c…

Why does wealth inequality matter?
A symposium organized by the Stone Center at MIT examined the origins, mechanisms, and political consequences of wealth inequality, and delivers key insights on wealth and political power, authoritarianism, democracy, and the racial wealth gap.

Late in 2024, Elon Musk endorsed Germany’s far-right Alternative für Deutschland. We document that after this, Tesla sales rose by up to 30 percent in right-leaning districts relative to left-leaning ones [..] Divestment in second-hand markets shows no partisan differences, consistent with resale requiring a larger identity cost from Tesla’s image shock than non-purchase. Our lower bound-estimate for the overall loss in Tesla sales is [..] worth at least €241 million."

The elimination of nearly 55 million, Indigenous people in the Americas during European colonization
led to global climate change and the “Little Ice Age” of the 17th century, a recent study finds.

Researchers at University College Londonfound that the Great Dying
— the massive loss of life that followed Christopher Columbus’ 1492 conquest of the Americas through genocide and the spread of disease
— left roughly 56-million hectares of land abandoned.
“Thi…

‘Little Ice Age’ caused by death of 55-million Indigenous people after colonization: study
Colonization of the Americas at the end of the 15th century killed so many people, it disturbed Earth's climate, according to a new study.