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The real reason there's sticker shock is that the real cost of road transportation is hidden from most voters.

The new $40 I-66 tolls offer great insight into commuter psychology

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As we gain more experience, we have noticed that decisions to follow the path of least resistance generally result in a tax somewhere down the road and that the hardest decisions usually end up making a return,

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Bonus rule: Mind the gap. It wasn’t one of her official guidelines, but during Q&A, Boo gave advice on finding story ideas. She suggested journalists follow the London Tube’s injunction and “mind the gap”: What is the thing that everyone has the theory on, but no one has done the reporting? Additionally, rather than “follow the money” or “follow the lies,” she says “follow the policy.”

Katherine Boo's 15 rules for narrative nonfiction -- now this is a 'must-read'

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“Wean yourself off of the tit of your own ego,”

Katherine Boo's 15 rules for narrative nonfiction -- now this is a 'must-read'

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I kind of cold-called him—and I said, “Listen, I work in television.” And at that point I was freelancing for other companies as a producer and a shooter and an editor. I called Tony, and he was still working in a kitchen at the time, and I said, “Would you mind if me and my husband, Chris, came and shot a short demo and we try to sort of pitch the idea of A Cook’s Tour—meaning you traveling the world, kind of exploring the way other people eat—as a television series?” And he was like, “Yeah, sure. Whatever.” I don’t think he had any expectations at that point. Again, he hadn’t really traveled.

A Q&A with ZPZ’s Lydia Tenaglia-Collins

Predicting things is hard

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Hodlers expect that Bitcoin intermediaries/exchangers (exchanges, wallets) will be in a position to provide them with dollar liquidity when they wish to take their profits (dollar liquidity which, I am reliably informed, is provided by mainstream commercial banks on a very short-term basis at very high rates). With some notable exceptions (i.e. Tether), Bitcoin companies’ ability to provide this liquidity will be dependent on either having sufficient deposits to meet fiat conversion demand, or banks continuing to extend credit so that they can do so. We should ask ourselves: with the market cap of Bitcoin rising by $10 billion a day, is it realistic to expect that exchanges and other service providers are prudently hiving away their profits to stave off a liquidity crunch?

The Bear Case for Crypto, Part II: The Great Bank Run

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I know how to play chess,” he said. “I don’t know much else.” The author Malcolm Gladwell popularized the idea that world-class success can be earned through a certain amount of serious practice, which became known as the 10,000-hours rule.

A Chess Novice Challenged Magnus Carlsen. He Had One Month to Train

The cost of 10k hours, you don’t know much else

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His style is unpredictable, which makes opponents uncomfortable. He’s less mechanical than previous world champions and far more creative.

A Chess Novice Challenged Magnus Carlsen. He Had One Month to Train

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Magnus is now an international star and such a Norwegian hero that nearly half the population stayed up past midnight to watch last year’s world championship.

A Chess Novice Challenged Magnus Carlsen. He Had One Month to Train

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The prevailing idea before Koppen was that ice ages occur when the earth’s tilt supercharges the wrath of cold winters. K0ppen showed that wasn’t the case. Instead, moderately cool summers are the culprit. It begins when a summer never gets warm enough to melt the previous winter’s snow. The leftover ice base makes it easier for snow to accumulate the following winter, which increases the odds of snow sticking around in the following summer, which attracts even more accumulation the following winter. Perpetual snow reflects more of the sun’s rays, which exacerbates cooling, which brings more snowfall, and on and on. You start with a thin layer of snow left over from a cool summer that no one pays much attention to, and after a few tens of thousands of years the entire earth is covered in miles-thick ice.

The Freakishly Strong Base

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When you work for one corporation and go to one church there is an illusion of eternalism: One, True Answer. Much of what The Organization Man believes to be deterministic today will be shown to be probabilistic in the eyes of The Blockchain Man.

The Blockchain Man

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Instead of a paycheck, The Blockchain Man’s income will be a large number of micropayments from past projects. The tokens from different projects will appreciate or depreciate based on the success of the project (and perhaps pay dividends).

The Blockchain Man

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Up to now, the internet has been the most socially scalable technology ever invented. It enabled new business models by bringing transaction costs down by an order of magnitude. For the first time, it was possible to participate in the global economy without being part of a large corporation. This spawned a wave of micro-multinationals, so-called “lifestyle businesses” that might operate out of half a dozen different jurisdictions with only a dozen employees.

The Blockchain Man

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The logic behind the rise of the Organization Man was simple. Participating in the global economy lead to a huge quality of life increase. Doing so was only possible through large organizations.

The Blockchain Man

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A study from Duke University (disclosure: I went to school there) finds that we evaluate evidence – even scientific evidence – based on whether we see its policy implications as ideologically palatable. If we do not, we tend to deny the problem even exists. “The more threatening a solution is to a person, the more likely that person is to deny the problem,” according to study co-author Aaron Kay.

“I’m Joining a Cult!” (said nobody, ever)

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When false information is central to our sense of self and self-worth, it becomes almost impossible to correct.

“I’m Joining a Cult!” (said nobody, ever)

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When you focus on DCF and free cash flow you can do the type of long term investing that Jeff Bezos talks about here: “If everything you do needs to work on a three-year time horizon, then you’re competing against a lot of people. But if you’re willing to invest on a seven-year time horizon, you’re now competing against a fraction of those people, because very few companies are willing to do that. Just by lengthening the time horizon, you can engage in endeavors that you could never otherwise pursue. At Amazon we like things to work in five to seven years. We’re willing to plant seeds, let them grow—and we’re very stubborn.”

What Killed Post-Break Up AT&T What Lessons can be Learned from this Titanic Modern Failure