December 2021

This Week on the Lindy Newsletter

I wrote about money and the concept of retirement. Everyone worries about when and if they will retire. After a certain age you stop worrying about getting rich and start worrying about how you. will retire. People plan their whole lives around retirement. Retirement is only about 2-3 generations old. So it's no surprise people are bad at it.

Weekend Reads

Omicron seems a bit like the lol nothing matters phase of covid - none of the typical interventions seem to make much of a difference. It’s going massively vertical in extremely vaccinated places, places with mask mandates, places with abundant free at home tests, etc. Although vaccinations do seem to have an impact.

I guess the male version of cosmetic procedures to look young is taking testosterone or other drugs to keep up vitality.

Tyler Cowen answers the question, why has Classical Music declined?

John Madden recently passed away. There's never going to be another announcer like Madden who becomes an all-purpose celebrity like that, it's impossible to imagine another on-air analyst who gets a video game series. How many public figures are there that would elicit a “damn” when their deaths crossed the wire because of their significance? Maybe 1,000? NYT has just over 1,800 obits pre-written. A bunch of those are probably NY folks who don’t resonate outside the state (old mayors, governors, etc). Every 20th century celebrity is known by everyone because there was so few options for entertainment.

Some interesting stories and ideas in this thread:

Very nice design. This bike channels the 1936 Henderson Courtney Prototype while using a new BMW C400X as its basis.

Decades ago, sulfur dioxide pollution – mostly from coal-fired power plants – was causing acid rain and snow, killing aquatic life and forests. I grew up in the 90s hearing about the threat of Acid rain. You never hear about it anymore. It was SUCH a huge topic back in the 90s. They talked about it in school, in textbooks, on Captain Planet, etc. And then it was just dropped, gone and forgotten like Y2K. But I always remembered it. So what happened? It turns out it's the greatest green success story of the past decade. The cap and trade program was a huge success and the US reduced SO2 emissions by a whopping 95% between 1970 and 2020

What Happens When You Kill a Bicyclist? Twenty months after a surgeon was killed riding her bike, a controversial police investigation ruled it a tragic roadside collision. But that’s just the beginning of the story.

A very interesting thread on how the environment can switch on genes.

I visited the Belgian city of Ghent this week. It was a very pleasant place. Ghent has the median income of a city like Kansas City or Cleveland but those places aren't enjoyable to live in. Architecture and culture matter. StrongTowns did a big report on Kansas City. Click Here for the report.

Pick a country on the map of the world, pick a decade from the 1900s to today and just let yourself get carried away by the music. This app has a great editorial team is there too which actually listens and analyses the songs added to be perfect for each country and decade. Recommended as always

Marie Kondo's advice is relevant during the holiday season. The true purpose of a present is to be received. You don’t have to keep using the gift forever. If you try using the item and decide that it still doesn’t suit you, thank it for the joy it brought when you first received it – and bid it farewell. The true purpose of a present is to be received, because gifts are a means of conveying someone’s feelings for you. When viewed from this perspective, there is no need to feel guilty about parting with a gift that ultimately doesn’t spark joy.

I wonder if Americanization will continue