Thursdays are all about longform links on Abnormal Returns. Wherever possible, free links behind the paywall are used. You can check out last week’s linkfest including a look at how one university is cutting to the bone.
Quote of the Day
"You have an industry with falling demand and overcapacity. We would be foolish to expect anything other than consolidation and shakeout."
(Michael Frandsen, president of Wittenberg University)
Books
- A Q&A with Kelly and Zach Weinersmith co-authors of "A City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through?" (insidehook.com)
- An excerpt from "The Greatest Capitalist Who Ever Lived: Tom Watson Jr. and the Epic Story of How IBM Created the Digital Age" by Ralph Watson McElvenny and Marc Wortman. (theatlantic.com)
Media
- Ted Gioia, "The microculture is the source of all the growth in media." (honest-broker.com)
- How Twitter broke the news business. (theverge.com)
- Jeremiah Johnson, "People really don’t like having their worldviews popped, and that’s what is required if we’re going to break through social media doom loops." (infinitescroll.us)
Vehicles
- The rising pedestrian death rate is due to a rise in nighttime deaths. (nytimes.com)
- Replacing small vehicles with electric versions will do more to eliminate carbon emissions that big EVs. (nytimes.com)
Environment
- In the green transition, are we swapping one kind of extraction for another? (noemamag.com)
- Why Jakarta, Indonesia is sinking and what can be done about it. (bloomberg.com)
Risk
- How behavioral science can inform us better how to avoid triggering avalanches. (behavioralscientist.org)
- Are we not taking the risk of tsunamis in the Pacific Northwest seriously enough? (politico.com)
Longreads
- 'Reverse logistics,' i.e. product returns, is complicated and ultimately disappointing. (theatlantic.com)
- Identifying problems is easy. Change is hard. (etftrends.com)
- Who blew up the Nord Stream gas pipeline? (theatlantic.com)
- Extremists have flocked to Discord. (wapo.st)
- How Mark Duplass copes with depression. (newyorker.com)
- On the life of a handyman. (plough.com)