Apparently there is an 85 decibel safety standard for all personal music players sold in the EU

The rush to eliminate standardized testing in college admissions was one of the most hilariously and predictably stupid things I've ever seen play out in real time.

On April 25th, I'm hosting the first live Statecraft interview!

Our guest: economist Chris Snyder, who helped design the advanced market commitment for Operation Warp Speed. Call it 'How to Save 700,000 Lives.'

Registration:

lu.ma/kqx9gr60

Love to see a superstar team come together to focus on an important yet neglected topic: budget scoring

The federal government spends $200 billion+ on R&D per year.

Join Institute for Progress if you want to work on improving this system with one of DC’s highest talent density teams

Help us shape our funding focus areas Astera Institute (a dedicated synbio residency is coming soon)! We welcome any of your wildest dreams, but short & sweet plz. A few sentences is OK, you can submit as many as you want to compete for $1K

astera.org/call-for-ideas/

What an exciting role working with the amazing folks at Institute for Progress who think so carefully about innovation policy that will unlock societal progress!

We're looking for a Chief of Staff (and other roles too!) — come help us build IFP 📈
ifp.org/come-work-with…

This whole saga is a victory for empiricism

It takes courage to try something new!

And it also takes courage to follow through when that new thing turns out to be a legendary failure that should be reverted immediately

My general framework for 'is this a good idea' is imagine your pilot or surgeon had the same requirements (i.e. no exams).

How excited would you be to fly or go under the knife?

Good news of the day:

California legislature established a select committee on permitting reform

Remember the cities that banned Uber early on?

And then we realized all the benefits, like fewer DUIs that Uber brought with it, even though it was a scary transition.

Love this program goal. COVID made clear that we have not done much to improve the built environment for airborne diseases (open windows/put on masks was the same advice 100 years ago). Can we do for air what we did for water, and build a new subfield of R&D.

Amazing news:

ARPA-H is launching a program to develop next-generation building systems that monitor and improve indoor air quality.