NYT: Millions of Movers Reveal American Polarization in Action
These estimates, based on a New York Times analysis of detailed public voter registration records of more than 3.5 million Americans who moved since the last presidential election, offer a new and extraordinarily detailed glimpse into one of the ways that we segregate from each other – down to the street level.
Across all movers, Republicans chose neighborhoods Donald J. Trump won by an average of 19 percentage points in 2020, while Democrats chose neighborhoods President Biden won by the opposite margin (also 19 points). In total, movers started in neighborhoods 31 percentage points apart; they ended in neighborhoods 38 points apart. Across the country, the result is a widening gap between blue neighborhoods and red ones.
NYT: Pennsylvania Voters Worry About the Toxicity of Politics
In a tight presidential race, Pennsylvania, with its 19 electoral votes, will very likely decide the winner. And the state, which Donald J. Trump won in 2016 and President Biden won in 2020 by narrow margins, is up for grabs.
Thatâs clear in Berks County, which lies about 60 miles northwest of Philadelphia where flourishing Democratic suburbs melt into conservative, rural Pennsylvania.
The mountains and low hills that make up most of the county are sprinkled with small towns and farms, while the county seat, Reading, is Pennsylvaniaâs fourth-largest city, with a substantial Latino majority. In 2020, Mr. Trump won the county by around 8 percentage points, the narrowest margin of the 54 counties that he won across the state.
Berks is âa big bag of marbles,â said Matthew Orifice, a longtime resident of Boyertown, Pa., âhalf of which are blue, half of which are red.â
Interviews with interesting people with divergent views.
TorStar: Donald Trump tells Joe Rogan he wants Canadian freshwater
âYou have millions of gallons of water pouring down from the north, with the snow caps and Canada, all pouring down,â Trump said at a press conference in California on Sept 13.
“And they have a very large faucet,” Trump continued. It’s unclear who “they” are or where the “faucet” is. Requests for clarification from Trump’s team were not answered before publication.
Trump is likely talking about diverting fresh water from the Columbia River, which forms in the Rocky Mountains and flows through B.C. and into Washington and Oregon â and though ideas proposing as much have been floated in the past, experts told the Star that we’re unlikely to ever see it happen.
New Scientist: Fresh insights into how we doze off may help tackle sleep conditions
WHEN he was in need of inspiration, the inventor Thomas Edison used to take a nap in a chair while holding a metal ball in each hand. The moment he dropped off, the balls would drop too and crash to the floor, jolting him awake. Edison claimed that this allowed him to capture creative ideas that had fleetingly bubbled up into his semi-consciousness as he fell asleep.
The state Edison was chasing is known as the sleep-onset period (SOP), a little-studied phase of the sleep-wake cycle. Once seen as merely a brief interlude between wakefulness and slumber, it is now being recognised as a distinct and important stage in its own right. Not only is it involved in orchestrating the shutdown of consciousness, but it may also play a vital role in many of the functions of sleep, including memory-processing and, of course, creativity.
New Scientist: The science behind lower carbon pigs
As origin stories go, this is a strange one. Who would have thought that six farmers meeting up in an English pub in the 1950s would have helped to improve the carbon footprint of 21st century pigs?
It might not have been part of those farmersâ original goal â they simply wanted to use science to improve pig breeding. But it turns out that the application of science is playing a pivotal role in creating credible, measurable carbon reductions in the pork industry. âIf we can select more robust, healthy, efficient animals, ultimately we can translate that to improvements in sustainabilityâ says Matt Culbertson, the current chief operating officer of the Pig Improvement Company (PIC), which officially came into being in the White Hart pub in Nettlebed, Oxfordshire in 1962.
PICâs business and research have led to the breeding of pigs that not only lower the carbon emissions in the meat supply chain, but carry the first externally-verified measure of the role of genetics in sustainability. Advances in technology, improved computing power, statistical methodology and genetics enable breeders to select animals with the ideal characteristics to be parents of the next generation, and the benefits are accruing for the planet, as well as the consumer.
Kottke: Letter of Recommendation: DRM-free Audiobooks From Libro.fm
For the last three years, I’ve been been getting my audiobooks through Libro.fm. You can listen through their app or download DRM-free mp3 or m4b files to listen in the app of your choice. They are a social purpose corporation, 100% employee owned, and partner with local bookstores to offer audiobooks & share profits. They don’t have every title because of Audible’s strategy of locking up exclusives (like Emily Wilson’s translations of The Iliad and the Odyssey), but they have most of what you’d want to read. They also make it easy to gift audiobooks to friends and family (and I suppose, enemies and strangers if you want?)
Last Updated: 01.Nov.2024 19:59 EDT
