Sep & Oct '25

How France achieved the world’s fastest nuclear buildout.

How China raced ahead of the US on nuclear power.

Book Review: Storia do Mogor, by Niccolao Manucci.

At some point, in the Springtime of your life, you bumped up against the universe, you pushed the boundaries, you pushed your limits. On that day, the universe pushed back. Hard. You learned your lesson, like a little kid who touched a hot stove. NPCs are formed from scar tissue, a fibrous mass of tough lessons about the nature of the world. But, as we have just deduced, there must exist people who, whether by divine ordinance or fluke of probability, had a very different experience on that fateful day. They pushed against the universe, and the universe gave in and gave them everything they wanted. And what lesson does that impart? Something like: “Rules are for the sheep, but you can hack the matrix and get what you want.” Now they are awakened. And the crazy thing is that if you keep getting lucky, not 6σ lucky, but just on-a-roll lucky, the awakened state can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Some parts of the world really can be hacked with a little luck and a lot of determination. So there’s a feedback loop that can rapidly amplify mere one-in-a-billion luck into miraculous, reality-altering luck.

Shah Jahan famously built the Taj Mahal in a romantic gesture to honor his dead wife, but what’s less well known is that he went on to have one heck of a rebound. As the Sultan of Hindustan and King of the Kings of India, he had a harem full of thousands of eager women, yet he gradually destroyed his kingdom by repeatedly seducing or raping the wives of his most faithful advisors. Even this was not enough to satisfy his libidinity, and he established an annual fair where, for eight consecutive days, all men besides the king were expelled from the palace and tens of thousands of women of all races and nationalities were locked inside, while he toured them with his female attendants like a vast meat market

[During the civil war between Dara and Aurangzeb]: As his odds grow longer, Dara turns to supernatural assistance and recruits holy men to petition Muhammed in paradise and request his intervention. The holy men go away and give it a try, then come back and dejectedly report that Muhammad is busy. Busy? Yes, busy, Aurangzeb is talking to him nonstop, and as a result their messages cannot get through.

Review: The Russo-Ukrainian War.

I think our modern culture has built a very strong taboo around certain parts of the human experience, and I understand there are valid reasons for that taboo, but I can’t help but roll my eyes a little bit at the idea that there is nothing cool or ennobling about war. Really, nothing? Have you ever felt the rush of seeing an enemy tank destroyed?

Before my experiences in Ukraine I used to desperately feel like I had to do something, without even necessarily knowing what it was. I think a lot of young men feel this way, and have felt this way since prehistory. For most of human history war has been a powerful answer to that longing. From ancient indo-european tradition we have the concept of the Koryos, a group of young unmarried men who would spend some time living outside of normal society, raiding rival tribes and living by violence. After this period, those who survived would return to their people and be fully integrated into society.

So you want to be a writer? - Bukowski

if it doesn’t come bursting out of you

in spite of everything,

don’t do it.

A $19bn industry is about to pay its workforce for the first time.

In 43 of 50 states the highest-paid public employee is a university football or basketball coach. Texas A&M, the largest university in the country, is paying about $77m in severance over eight years to Jimbo Fisher, its former head coach, while handing his successor $7m a year. For comparison, the median manager in the English Premier League earns $6m a year.

Major religions in China.

The Fatima sun miracle.

The Islamic argument for competence.

In daily life in much of the third world, especially the Arab and South Asian world, there’s no such thing as a civil conversation done for objective, unemotional, detached purposes. Every single topic is interpreted as having some ulterior motive or signalling behind opening it up in conversation, and with it the assumption that you’re fully endorsing whatever ideas you’re bringing out in the open. You are always expected to perform an eastern “Song and Dance” to express yourself as a matter of decorum instead of just politely and directly saying how you feel.

How hawker signboards tell the story of Singapore.

When and where did blue eyes appear? And why?

An estrogenic effect is especially likely for red hair, which is the hair color that differs the most in prevalence between men and women. Female redheads do worse on average than other women in ten health categories and better in only three. They are especially prone to four types of cancer: colorectal, cervical, uterine, and ovarian — three of which are estrogen-dependent. A higher degree of fetal estrogenization may explain why several studies have found an association between blue eyes and certain feminine traits.

Age and cognitive ability.

The pattern that longitudinal studies show, namely, increase in both fluid and crystalized intelligence until age 50 or 60, and only start to very quickly decline after age 70.

How the boomers crippled France & it’s even more insane than you think.

A quarter of all public spending in France goes towards pensions, well above the EU average. Worse still, pension spending keeps rising. In 2024, France increased pension spending by another €14 billion in 2024, just to keep payouts in line with inflation, despite the government scrambling to find billions in cuts elsewhere. And this was far from a one-off occurrence: of the €1 trillion of additional debt taken on during the Macron presidency, half can be traced back to pension spending.

Thomas Peterffy: Market Maker.

The visions of Neil Mehta.

The process looks something like this: Greenoaks selects for people who believe that it’s really hard in the world of capitalism—which is filled with “me-too products swimming in a river of beta,” in Mehta’s phrase—to build something that delights human beings at a differential rate. The world therefore moves forward only through the products and companies built by generational founders who break tradeoffs and build competitive moats by creating a Jaw Dropping Customer Experience, which “usually starts with doing something perceived to be impossible, either technically or operationally, that gives competitors nightmares. Everything else is just a shell game,” Mehta believes.

How Rockefeller and his partners built Standard Oil.

Cloudflare founder Matthew Prince on the internet history and pay-per-crawl.

Video: Why complex exponents matter.

Tesla’s approach to autonomy.

Creation of Lambda notation.

The quantum mechanics of greenhouse gases.

Birds’ vocal warnings provide new insight into the origins of language.

The researchers wondered why birds from locations spanning Australia, China and Zambia all use the same call to identify their parasites, despite never coming into contact with each other.

Protein powders and shakes contain high levels of lead … or are they actually fine?.