Your annual reminder that the economics "Nobel" isn't one of the five Nobel Prizes established by Alfred's will in 1895 but was created in 1968 by Sweden's central bank.

There is a man at my local pub who only ever comes in on Wednesdays, at 1pm. His weekly routine is identical; he orders a bottle of champagne (on ice), and drinks it slowly, in silence, whilst reading an old book. This man is winning at life.

60% of the requests to ban books in US schools come from just 11 people.

Fascinating. I was looking for some early predictions of the cloud and its impact on working/living for my book and came across this clipping. Arthur C Clarke predicted remote working, the cloud, the death of distance and the decline of cities in 1964. #ContrarianReads

The annual Lit Crawl, the biggest literature event in San Francisco, is returning to the Mission this weekend — and we have prepared an interactive map so you can plan your entire night. via @xueer_lu and Will Jarrett missionlocal.org/2023/10/map-pl…

Word of the Day: MISOMANIAC - someone who hates everything.

Hybrid work is only coming into the office because it has AC and no apartment in SF does

This is a desperate cry for help.

The difference between Seattle and San Francisco in a nutshell:

Just incredible accuracy on this McKinsey parody video. The most impressive grift in the history of business.

NEW: California DMV has revoked Cruise's permit to operate driverless vehicles, effective immediately. California DMV cites an "unreasonable risk to public safety." email.dmvonline.ca.gov/t/y-e-xnltyk-d…

Judi Dench was on Graham Norton last night to push her new book about her life and work with Shakespeare. After making the point we quote Shakespeare daily without knowing it, this happened:

Writers

News: we just made Fed Chairman Jerome Powell **flee** his own keynote address. Powell could phase out fossil fuel financing but he refuses. He fiddles as we burn. This man is a monstrosity. His grandchildren will curse him. We did what we did and we do not apologize.

Plenty of water for California and Nevada - stop growing silage for cattle! One family of farmers takes more Colorado River water than the entire Las Vegas metro area, to grow hay to feed livestock: projects.propublica.org/california-far…

I’m not interested in art made by nice people.

It doesn’t matter that George Santos spent campaign cash on OnlyFans. We have entered a suicide pact with the fossil fuel industry. Each day our window of opportunity to escape this death cult narrows. Catastrophe is imminent. This cannot go on. Don’t you see?

Fun fact is that Seattle has approximately the same population density as Staten Island

Literary agent.

Not because I'm Jewish, but because I'm a sentient adult with a sense of compassion for all humans, I'm logging off here for good. Here's hoping Austin Kleon Matthew Yglesias and everyone else I follow fully moves to one of the other short-post social media sites, too.