1. Zuckerberg: The Dictator’s Dilemma
“For 23 years, the single fact dominating every moment of every room he’s been in is that he is Mark Zuckerberg,” writes Jeremy Stern, in a probing and thoughtful profile of the Meta founder. Stern examines the problem all powerful leaders have faced through millennia – how to get reliable information or have honest relationships:
According to nearly all the three dozen people I interviewed for this story, Zuckerberg is hyperaware of the dilemma’s potential, which is to say paranoid. He is an inveterate micromanager and voracious consumer of data. Aware that any chief’s inner circle is most incentivized to act as courtiers, he frequently engages the direct-reports of his direct-reports, and the subordinates of the reports’ reports. He is known for inviting outside experts and commentators to visit him and argue about his decisions (although he is not known for ever giving an inch). He often accepts personal blame in public for the mistakes of others, perhaps in part because he accepts the reality of Meta, which they accept, too: He is the company, and the company is him. He is, in any case, subject to certain types of feedback an Augustus never faced: stock prices, litigation, tell-all “whistleblower” memoirs, and the international free flow of online ridicule.
2. Fall Back
Congress, once again, is trying to enact legislation to make daylight savings time permanent. In Science Politics, Emma Reid cites the many medical and mental health experts who agree that the clock change messes up our circadian rhythms. But the best critique was written nearly 15 years ago by Michael Downing, in Spring Forward: The Annual Madness of Daylight Saving Time:
The Chamber [of Commerce] understood that if you give workers more sunlight at the end of the day, they’ll stop and shop on their way home. It’s not just golf – the barbecue industry loves daylight savings, so do the home good stores, because people tend to go out of their houses, see that their roofs need replacing, and buy more shingles. It’s a really important part of niche marketing for the retail industry.
3. Words to Ban
New York editor Carl Rosen writes about the words banned from the magazine. Good advice for everyone:
Watch out for (1) journalese (e.g., donned, sported, garnered — no one talks this way IRL), (2) publicistspeak (cutting edge is anathema, as is hype; also avoid textworms), (3) ambiguous words (nondescript — our advice is to describe it!), (4) clichés (weighty tome, not his first rodeo), (5) overused trendy terms (unhinged, the math isn’t mathing, and the worst example ever: shizzle), (6) overly casual language (anyway, what I mean is…, if you were wondering …), (7) junky writing (needless to say, not to mention, the aforementioned — too legalistic, use your own words!), and (8) just the wrong word (including when you mean featuring, two-year anniversary when you mean second anniversary, effect when you mean affect and vice versa).
4. The Medical Return on AI is Big and Getting Bigger
Anyone who argues that there has been no return on AI investment isn’t paying attention to the medical field. The Rational Optimist Society rounds up all the ways that AI is reshaping healthcare, and, while the examples aren’t new, together they are head-spinning. One example:
Google researchers showed that a deep-learning model analyzing ordinary retinal photographs can estimate a person’s cardiovascular risk, guess their age to within about three years and tell whether they smoke. Other studies have since extended the approach to identifying signals for stroke and kidney disease. None of it requires blood tests, DNA sequencing, or anything beyond an image of your eye.
5. Shhhh
Salon describes a Seattle “listening room” – a club for listening, in silence, to vinyl records in their entirety. These rooms are common in Japan and spreading in America:
Cedar planks line the walls. Louis Poulsen chandeliers hang from the ceiling, along with several plush, crescent-shaped loveseats, acquired from Benaroya Hall when the concert hall underwent a redesign. A pair of deep seats covered in nubby upholstery sit close to this sacred space’s altar — a vinyl-stacked media console holding a vintage receiver and turntable, flanked by two ATC SCM50 loudspeakers…The rules of engagement are consistent. Soft, comfortable seating is a must. No phones for the duration, or talking, singing or other interruptions once the needle hits vinyl until the very last track finishes. Afterward, time is set aside for quiet journaling and discussion.
6. Deep Throat II
For decades, Bob Woodward has been the chief scribe of presidential administrations, always finding insiders to spill the tea about the inner dynamics of the White House. Now Woodward reveals his secret: his best source was also his best friend, Dick Darman, the former head of the Office of Management and Budget. Woodward’s confession in The New Yorker ought to be required reading for anyone who wants to understand just how cozy the relationships can be between journalists and public officials:
I should have realized the danger. But the information flow and the time with Darman was so valuable and at times exciting that it started to have a narcotic effect. We had such fun. I didn’t want to lose him or his information channel…I believe Darman felt that because we were such close friends he could say anything and I would protect him from news where he was the subject.
Webpages Worth Reading
California’s Ballot: State and local measures
Patrick Collison: Stripe founder on The Brothers Karamazov
The Misery Index: Now in real-time
Feeds We Follow
@BadCallOfficial: Bad calls in sports
@Globalstats11: The world in numbers
@SketchesbyBoze: Reading Jane Austen
