Author: Patrick
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FAFOnomics
Kyla Scanlon coins an apt term for our current economic state–FAFOnomics. Fuck Around, Find Out.
Yes, America needs change. But change without wisdom isn’t reform, it’s recklessness.
And of course, there is an important point to all of this, which is that it is all noise. It’s what Tyler Cowen and Ezra Klein have both pointed out as strategic chaos: overwhelming the public’s already limited capacity for attention until exhaustion sets in. It’s the attention singularity that I wrote about last week in action, where power, narrative, and wealth merge into a self-reinforcing system of perpetual disruption.
Welcome to FAFAnomics – F*ck Around and Find Out Economics, something that feels like the policy equivalent of a TikTok influencer doing increasingly dangerous stunts off the side of a building for views. The goal isn’t good governance; it’s capturing attention at any cost. And it’s working! While we debate whether each new crisis is legal, ethical, or even real1(as we should) the broader transformation of American fiscal policy continues.
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Libertarians feed bears
A New Hampshire town was taken over by bears because freedom means being able to feed bears so long as the bears aren’t “my problem.” It’s more complicated than that, because when you don’t believe government services have value, then problems that need government intervention don’t get addressed.
What was the deal with Grafton’s bears? Hongoltz-Hetling investigates the question at length, probing numerous hypotheses for why the creatures have become so uncharacteristically aggressive, indifferent, intelligent, and unafraid. Is it the lack of zoning, the resulting incursion into bear habitats, and the reluctance of Graftonites to pay for, let alone mandate, bear-proof garbage bins? Might the bears be deranged somehow, perhaps even disinhibited and emboldened by toxoplasmosis infections, picked up from eating trash and pet waste from said unsecured bins? There can be no definitive answer to these questions, but one thing is clear: The libertarian social experiment underway in Grafton was uniquely incapable of dealing with the problem. “Free Towners were finding that the situations that had been so easy to problem-solve in the abstract medium of message boards were difficult to resolve in person.”
More evidence that libertarianism is anarchy for rich people.
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Cover roundup: Fields of Athenry
Fields of Athenry, a traditional Irish folk song from 1979 by Pete St. John, serves as an unofficial national anthem for Ireland.
Perhaps the most recognized version is by the Dublinners, sticking to the songs folk origins.
The Drop Kick Murphys channel fury into the lyrics and guitars.
The Ohio St. marching band gave a good rendition
The vocal harmony of Sina Theil & Caitríona O’Sullivan brings a resonance to the lyrics.
With the Ireland national team about to be eliminated from the 2012 Euro soccer tournament, the Irish fans began singing.
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Kevin Kelly’s travel tips
Kevin Kelly has listed 50 travel tips. Here are a few interesting ones:
If you hire a driver, or use a taxi, offer to pay the driver to take you to visit their mother. They will ordinarily jump at the chance. They fulfill their filial duty and you will get easy entry into a local’s home, and a very high chance to taste some home cooking. Mother, driver, and you leave happy. This trick rarely fails.
The rate you go is not determined by how fast you walk, bike or drive, but by how long your breaks are. Slow down. Take lots of breaks. The most memorable moments—conversations with amazing strangers, an invite inside, a hidden artwork—will usually happen when you are not moving.
Even if you never go to McDonalds at home, visit the McDonalds on your travels. Surprisingly, their menus are very localized and reflect different cuisines in a fun and easy way, with unexpected versions of familiar things. Very illuminating!
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Hockey hair
Apparently hockey hair is a thing in Minnesota. So much so, it garners its own highlight reel.
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Magnet Chess
Magnet Chess is an addictive web game where you drop different size and strength magnetic on to a board. You attempt to dispose of your pieces within 15 seconds without causing two or more pieces from connecting. First person to get rid of all their pieces wins or the first person to reach zero (0) loses.
As you level up, you receive different shaped pieces and differ board configurations that drive different strategies for placement.
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Max Scherzer on robo-ups
MLB is trialing robo-umps and a ball/strike challenge system this spring training. Max Scherzer, a smart baseball guy with opinions, raises good points.
“What problem are we really solving?”
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“If you said, ‘Do we like the challenge system versus the status quo?’ Yes,” Scherzer said. “But do we like the challenge system versus maybe some other options here? That’s where I’m kind of skeptical.”
This is where we can almost catch you muttering, Uh-oh. But hear him out. He’s a fan of the technology. But …
“I just think there are two other ways to use the technology,” he said. “Look, the technology, the way we can measure this, it’s great. So how can we use it in a way that minimizes its impact in the game?”
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Forever March 2020
Five years ago, the onset of Covid cracked a schism in time. CNN goes long, detailing stories of iconic photos from those early days.
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Wikiportraits
“ No professional photographers ever have their photos on Wikipedia, because they want to make money from the photos,” said Jay Dixit, a writing professor and amateur Wikipedia photographer. “It’s actually the norm that most celebrities have poor photos on Wikipedia, if they have photos at all. It’s just some civilian at an airport being like, ‘Oh my god, it’s Pete Davidson,’ click with an iPhone.”
Dixit is part of a team of volunteer photographers, called WikiPortraits, that’s trying to fix that problem.