I am writing as an ordinary citizen of Minneapolis/St Paul ─ one of America’s 20 largest metro areas. I have kids in the public schools, own a house, go to work every day, pay taxes, volunteer in my community (e.g., coaching youth sports, helping in the schools). I am certainly not a radical of any kind. I had never done any community organizing work before last month.I am writing this to share with the outside world what is really going on ─ the terror being inflicted upon a U.S. city and state by our federal government.

First-hand account of federal ICE operations in Minneapolis.

Thread on NYC rent control policies and their impact on housing market dynamics via marginalrevolution.com

Many fake stories are not that hard to spot, but it requires a moment of time and effort to do so.This may explain why so much misinformation seems to favour populist viewpoints.

Tim Harford on populism.

NYT on congestion pricing finds fewer cars, less traffic, more public transit, less noise, more business, and fewer car related injuries.

Using lidar, scientists discovered a 400-foot-long wall composed of “60 massive granite...

Scientists used lidar to discover a 400-foot underwater wall made of 60 granite monoliths built 7,000 years ago in France. via kottke.org

The study, published Dec. 18 in the Journal of Marketing Research, links survey data on GLP-1 receptor agonist use – a class of drugs originally developed for diabetes and now widely prescribed for weight loss – with detailed transaction records from tens of thousands of U.S. households. ...Within six months of starting a GLP-1 medication, households reduce grocery spending by an average of 5.3%. Among higher-income households, the drop is even steeper, at more than 8%. Spending at fast-food restaurants, coffee shops and other limited-service eateries falls by about 8%.

Cornell research on the proader market impact of GLP-1 drugs.

The struggle resizing returns in macOS Tahoe. Nice to know I'm not losing my mind.

Cult Brand Behavior by Alex Tran

Visualization of 291 million Citi Bike rides in New York City over 12 years, rendered at 60+ FPS directly in a web browser. via x.com

Merry Sky for the best weather UI since Dark Sky, via Hacker News

I am a somewhat odd duck in all this, being a “humanities person” who also learned to code and hack around on a computer at a young age. Therefore I feel it is especially incumbent upon me to demonstrate how coding agents can be useful to non-coders of all backgrounds, ages, and interests. Today, I’d like to do just that. I hope it is useful to as broad a range of people as possible, and in service of that goal, I am going to write assuming no prior experience with coding agents, command-line interfaces, or coding.

Dean Ball on using coding AI agents.

We're more than a quarter way through the new century and we can now ask: what is the aesthetic of the twenty-first century? Which are the important secessionist movements of today? Which will be the most important great works? Today, futuristic aesthetics often mean retrofuturistic aesthetics. So, what should the future actually look like?

A call for new aesthetic perspectives and creative approaches.