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College rankings never really mattered

The fact of college graduation matters far more, if you’re worried about jobs, than *which* college you attended. For most employers and most jobs, the fact that you graduated college shows that you’re a finisher. Over a four-year period, you took courses in a variety of fields and, within a narrow timetable (quarter or semester) completed all the tasks at an acceptable proficiency year over year.   “ In high school I used to OBSESS over the US News and World report college rankings, naively thinking school prestige = long-term career success.| Fast forward a decade later, I think these ranking lists are less of an indicator of the quality of education you’ll receive, and more so of the network you’ll have access to (both of your peers and alumni). So my biggest tip for soon-to-be and current college students: No matter where you go to school, surround yourself with people who give a f*ck about their future. Because the clearest indicator of long-term success is how much you and th...
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The Communist Manifesto

I'm currently auditing an online lecture series by historian Timothy Snyder on Hitler and Stalin. The most recent lecture was on Communism. Snyder recommends that his students read The Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels. It's mercifully short and the Kindle version cost 99 cents, so I read it.  As I say, it's short and cheap, so although I found it a complete waste of time and money, the damage was modest. I realize it's a manifesto, not a work of scholarship, but the polemical reliance on assertions and the poverty of evidence for them is certainly an affront to my intellect. I guess I'm not the intended audience, Then there's the fact that it didn't age well. The claim that Germany was particularly ripe for a communist revolution is risible in light of the fact that millions of German workers supported the Kaiser and later Hitler. And, there's the enormities that were the starvation, suffering and death of tens of millions in the "communist...
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Listen to your body

“ Former first lady Jill Biden  said she noticed a troubling bedtime tendency that may have foreshadowed  former President Joe Biden's  aggressive prostate cancer diagnosis: he would use the bathroom as many as seven times at night.   “Jill Biden shared the details during an interview Wednesday, Aug. 5, on SiriusXM’s “ Let’s Talk Off Camera With Kelly Ripa, ” saying she had previously raised concerns about her husband’s frequent nighttime trips to White House physicians.” In the waning months of 2017, I had to pee two or three times a night. My wife made an appointment for me with my PCP, who misdiagnosed the problem. Long story short, I found myself in the urology clinic with a Foley catheter that drained 1.2 liters from my bladder. Again, long story short, the diagnosis was benign prostate hyperplasia and I had green light laser prostate reduction surgery. Nearly nine years later, it’s all good. Guys, pay attention to your bladder (and your wife). https://www.usato...
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Totally nuts

“Ever the hype man, Musk suggested thinking of SpaceX’s satellites as robots, given that “they’re autonomous and don’t need servicing.” In the not-so-distant future, Musk mused, robots will be used to scale manufacturing on the moon. From there, moon-based robots will enable SpaceX to build a mass accelerator with solar production. Even Musk admitted it all sounded “totally nuts” but claimed that it could lead the company to scale to 1,000x the economy of Earth. From there, factories will be built, and robots “will be helpful with that,” Musk added. “It sounds super sci-fi right now, but it’s going to happen,” he said.” Don’t bogart that joint, Elon https://fortune.com/2026/08/04/elon-musk-spacex-earnings-trillion-revenue-target-capex-stock-reaction/
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Quote of the day

It seems extremely unlikely that the Trump administration will be chastened by its failure in Iran. Shamelessness has been central to Trump’s business and political success, and his reaction to setbacks is to deny objective facts and construct fantasies of achievement. The rigors of war do not seem to have persuaded him of the need for a more coherent process of policy formulation and assessment; he continues to blurt out his every whim, and a cabinet of sycophants and amplifiers is unlikely to impose discipline on an undisciplined principal. Nor can the two parts of the government that have apparently provided solid strategic judgments—the CIA and the military—salvage the process. They are advisory bodies, not policy actors, and Trump repudiates or ignores their counsel whenever it conflicts with his claims or preferences.   ~Kori Schake
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Carrot maxxing

When I was very young, I consumed lots of carrots. It turned my skin orange, according to my mom. “ People are touting "carrot maxxing" on social media as a natural shortcut to golden skin. "Week 6 of drinking my self-tanner," one woman  said on TikTok , downing a glass of carrot juice. “A different woman who went viral for her carrot maxxing results frequently posts  slideshows  of her before-and-after skin. In the before photos, she is very pale. After months of carrot maxxing, her face has a noticeable orange-y.   “While eating a large amount of carrots can indeed shift a patient's skin tone, it's not the same as an actual tan, doctors told  MedPage Today .”   Let’s be clear. This is not the same as Trump’s spray-painted complexion.  “Raman Madan, MD, chief of dermatology at Northwell Health's Glen Cove Hospital in New York, said that for most people it takes eating two to four large carrots or about 16 ounces of carrot juice daily for a week or mor...
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Trump’s war on Iran makes Iranian nukes more likely

Before the US/Israeli war on Iran, there was zero evidence that Iran had a nuclear weapons program. The claim that they were weeks away from a bomb were based on fabrications and projection. Was Iran enriching uranium? Yes. But the claim that it was for a weapon was a counterfactual. Remember those non-existent Iraqi WMDs? “Over his decades as Iran’s religious and government leader, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had consistently rejected nuclear weapons.   “Khamenei ruled that these ridiculously violent explosives, with their promise of indiscriminate killing and environmental poisoning, were simply incompatible with Islam.   “A devout Muslim might well see it that way.   “Mohammed’s “rules of war”  cited  in the [sayings of the first Caliph] include:   “Do not kill any child, woman, aged or sick person Do not destroy the villages and towns Do not spoil the cultivated fields and gardens Do not uproot, burn or cut down fruitful trees Do not destroy an inhabited...
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