ZD 26.26: Too Cool For Air Con
A record heat wave, an AI build-out, and a continent that can't say yes to a wall unit.
🥵 Self-Inflicted Heat Insanity (Noah Smith)
Europeans despise AC. The people want AC, the elites are actively campaigning against it while also enjoying the cool, forced air in their upper-floor offices. Degrowth and not-invented-here syndrome are making this heat wave count.
🌡️ The Missing Pipe (Material World)
Britain chose “wet” radiator heating a century ago. There are no ducts, installing a modern, forced-air heat pump on a typical British home requires major renovation. Portable air conditioners are missing a key pipe that lets them pull in fresh air to work with.
🔌 Why American Data Centers Can’t Plug In (Works in Progress)
You can build your data center much faster than you can get through the interconnect queue. Current waits are measured in years and getting longer. Restacking the deck and auctioning fast-track slots might help.
🚪 Half a Million More for American Doors (Affordable Housing Handbook)
Build America, Buy America requires federally funded infrastructure projects use American-made components. Housing is included in infrastructure. One builder was forced to buy American-made operating room doors, costing nearly a half million dollars more than typical imported interior doors. Many are walking away from projects rather than being forced to make impossible decisions.
The Old Ways of Making New Land (Of All Trades)
Humans have been extending land at a continental scale for thousands of years. Many major American cities are more landfill than not. A pair of century-old laws leave America with a very limited dredging fleet making projects astoundingly slow and expensive.
🚇 The Wrong Kind of Careful (Changing Lanes)
America should be better at building subways than Italy. Yet Italy pays $800 million per mile of Subway, we paid $2.6 billion per mile for the 2nd Avenue Subway in New York. Rules designed to shift blame and prevent lawsuits. Following the rulebook takes precedence over project delivery.
😫 Prepare for More Memory Pricing Pain (Semiconductor Business Intelligence)
Micron had an amazing quarter and is running 85% gross margins. Five years of strategic customer agreements have locked in supplies for the hyperscalers while leaving consumers to wait on scraps.
🛒 Kirkland Signature (SatPost by Trung Phan)
Kirkland does more business than Boeing or FedEx by following a simple rule: make the product at least 1% better than the leading national brand and make it cost 15% less.
🦠 How Christianity Went Viral (Uncharted Territories)
Christianity might be the most successful viral organization in the history of western civilization. It was compounding by 40% per decade in a world with no mass communications.
🗳️ Democracy Is Bullshit (Everything Is Bullsh!t)
Crowds might be wise, but groups are dumb and Democracy runs on groups. Even if
democracy is tough, autocracy is worse.
📖 The Original Porn (Polymathic Being)
Before Pornhub we had romance novels. Videos become a vice and the books become self-care.
✉️ The Third Letter (Trillion Dollar Hashtag, by Antony Slumbers )
AI’s destruction is easy to see. Jobs of today are fading fast. We are blind to the gains. The jobs of 2035 don’t exist yet. But they will.
📦 Cargo Culture (Where’s Your Ed At)
The tech industry has run out of ideas. AI is the ultimate Cargo Cult. The spending ritual echoes past successes, but this time it is bigger and there still is no endgame.
🗂️ Your AI App Should Not Own Your Work (Fort Human)
Making sure you have data portability is a rule this technologist has long lived by. The data is the real product, and you should own it and be able to transfer it to a new system. All of the AI vendors try to keep you in their ecosystem, but AI loves text files and so does Git. A simple solution of a folder — your binder — creates a magically simple yet usable solution you can own long-term.
🏎️ Rad Daily Drivers From 10k–$100k (IYKYK)
A very well curated list of 10 daily driving options at a variety of price points. Great post-depreciation-cliff models for the discerning consumer. A great place to start your next car purchase.
The Look
Heat domes like this make me appreciate ubiquitous air conditioning in my country. Europe is not as lucky. Brilliant maps shows us how the world stacks up.
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