Kickoff For January 15, 2024
Welcome to this week’s edition of the Monday Kickoff, a collection of what I’ve found interesting, informative, and insightful on the web over the last seven days.
Let’s get this Monday started with these links:
What are roundabouts?, wherein we get some background information about what those circular intersections are and why they can help improve traffic safety.
What 2,500 years of wildfire evidence and the extreme fire seasons of 1910 and 2020 tell us about the future of fire in the West, wherein we get a look at some research that points to the consistent links between the climate and the prevalence of wildfires.
Talking out loud to yourself is a technology for thinking, wherein we discover why and how the titular act can help us clear the cruft from our brains and, as a result, help us solve problems.
Climate Change Is Turning Up the Heat for Winemakers, wherein we explore the effects that human-led damage to the planet’s climate has on viticulture, and what’s being proposed to do something about that.
The Localist, wherein Jonathan Levy examines the influence of Adam Smith’s economic theories on the so-called Chicago School and the results of that influence (which are still felt today).
The World’s Garbage Can: On the Human Consequences of Mass Export of Waste, wherein we get a capsule history of the export of waste from richer countries to poorer ones, and the impact that has on the environments and the health of those countries.
Don’t Learn Value From Society, wherein Wolf Tivy examines how social failure, to differing degrees and in different forms, isn’t confined to any one strata of society.
Ostalgie: Revisiting East Germany, where Matthew Longo looks at nostalgia (for lack of a better word) for East Germany before the Berlin Wall fell, and why that nostalgia is especially strong today.
The Year A.I. Ate the Internet, wherein Sue Halpern looks back at the impact that artificial intelligence and large language models had on the world in 2023, and what’s in store for us in the coming months and years.
And that’s it for this Monday. Come back in seven days for another set of links to start off your week.