Claude Opus 5 Is Highly Capable, But Is No Mythos

Claude Opus 5 is a weirder than usual release to evaluate, for two reasons.

30 notable sales of rare books by AbeBooks over the past...

30 notable sales of rare books by AbeBooks over the past 30 years, including first editions of Moby-Dick, Winnie-The-Pooh, and Leaves of Grass.

What is America's Creed?

Justice Gorsuch vs. Vice President Vance

Tuesday assorted links

1. The economics of personal holding companies, including in the Nordics. 2. Jongkuch Mach is a good name for a very tall basketball player. 3. Can AI predict who will be the most important philosopher in 2046? For econo…

19th Century Japanese Woodblock Prints Creatively...

19th Century Japanese Woodblock Prints Creatively Illustrate the Inner Workings of the Human Body. Love these.

Tuesday links: depleting alpha

Contra "Why I'm An Atheist"

An atheist substacker wrote a very good piece laying out the case for atheism. Here's why I don't agree.

Marked to Model

The Fed's instrument panel has no gauge for fiscal risk.

0%, 50%, or 200%

A lot of companies are making a big mistake. It’s becoming clear that AI makes people more capable than they were before. Let’s say, for this thought experiment, AI makes white collar…

All US Cities Which Used to Have More Than 100,000 People But Don’t Anymore

Here’s a map of the 21 US cities that used to have a population of 100,000 people but don’t anymore. Many of these are Rust Belt cities, in which manufacturing employment fell steeply during the latter part of the 20th c…