Kat’s Kable #314

Hello there, reader, and welcome to another issue of Kat’s Kable. I am very pleased with myself right now for filling a spare bucket I had with soil and putting a plant in it with the grand plan of a vine-covered mesh outside my living room window. Time will tell if I will succeed. I am also annoyed at myself for making a two-portion dessert but adding too much baking soda. Since it didn’t taste wonderful, I couldn’t let half of it remain for a second serving. So.. I ate the whole thing. Totally logical. The past hour has seen me ride the crests and troughs that come with eating a bunch of sugar in one sitting. Phew.

I’ve been cooped up at home and one of my basic rules in life is that I need to step outside at least once per day. So yeah, I’m heading out for a walk. I’ll leave you with the usual list of ten articles, so do enjoy! And as always, feel free to hit reply to this email if you have anything to say–I love when you write back.

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1. The search for an AC that doesn’t destroy the planet (Vox):

An exploration of various alternative AC technologies that are coming up. With a heating planet, ACs are becoming necessary rather than luxuries in some geographies. We need ACs to be more sustainable, and that means moving away from our current compressor-based model (or at least making those more efficient).

2. We’re going to need a lot of solar panels (Casey Handmer’s blog):

Handmer here talks about a company he’s founded, called Terraform Industries. Terraform is in the business of converting excess renewable electricity to synthetic hydrocarbons, which can be used as a drop-in replacement for current gas and oil. This is part of a paradigm or line of thinking which simply accepts that we have to overbuild over solar energy capacity, so we better find ways to store that energy somehow (which are not batteries).

3. The End of Manual Transmission (The Atlantic, paywalled):

Ode to manual transmission cars. The article states a point that I’ve thought of often, too: that a manual car gives you more control , making you feel more at one with the machine you’re driving.

Interesting story about Erlang the programming language, which was one of the primary factors responsible for the backend architecture of WhatsApp.

5. AI and the automation of work (Benedict Evans’ blog):

Well, I suppose everyone’s worried about AI changing our lives and taking our jobs. Evans makes a good point, hearkening back to the invention of computerized accounting and document copying. These advancements did things far quicker than humans, but then companies ended up hiring more clerks and accountants. We seem to have a habit of filling ourselves up and keeping busy even as we invent things that (are supposed to) make life easier.

6. The housing theory of everything (Works in Progress)

These longer-term trends contribute to a sense of malaise that many of us feel about our societies. They may seem loosely related, but there is one big thing that makes them all worse. That thing is a shortage of housing: too few homes being built where people want to live. And if we fix those shortages, we will help to solve many of the other, seemingly unrelated problems that we face as well.

7. Land Ownership Makes No Sense (Wired, soft paywalled):

This article is about economist Henry George’s proposal for taxes on land value. The best part is this particular proposal is mentioned in the previous article! In a bit more detail:

Under Georgism, you would pay the same tax for your home as for an equivalent vacant lot in the same location, because both your building and the vacant lot use the same amount of finite land.
and

The benefit of this system is that improving the land is incentivized, since it increases the landlord’s revenues but doesn’t increase their tax burden, while merely holding land for speculation is disincentivized, which frees it up for others.

8. Rebuilding After the Replication Crisis (Asterisk Magazine):

“Over a decade has passed since scientists realized many of their studies were failing to replicate. How well have their attempts to fix the problem actually worked?”

9. On Mother Trees: What Old-Growth Trees Taught Me About Parenting (Catapult)

There are two jars of fig jam remaining in our pantry, golden and flecked with fruit flesh. For breakfast I open a jar and spread it thick on a buttered slice of toast. I know that, like the fig tree, a changing climate will take from me more of what I love, what I cannot protect. When that happens, I hope my neighbors will have fruit enough to share. Warm and sweet, I take a bite that reminds me of a tree I truly loved, of something I preserved before I knew it was gone for good.

10. Why 500,000 People Are Lining Up to Watch Paint Dry (Outside Online):

Wow! This article introduced me to Martijn Doolaard, “a semi-hermit Dutchman who has turned the slow, steady process of Alpine-cabin restoration into a masterpiece of performance art”. Love it! I immediately proceeded to watch his latest YouTube video, and loved it.

Kat's Kable #314