Tuesday, January 14, 2025

Tuesday Morning Links

  • A good book review does some combination of 1) explaining what the book has to say and 2) expressing the reviewer’s own thoughts on the matter. (That way, of course, you get both the novelist's ideas as well as the critic's thinking.) Different reviews hit this balance differently: sometimes I come away from a book desperate to tell people about, say, the ways fuel choices change society, and sometimes I really want to talk about some interesting idea the book sparked for me (is wokeness WEIRD? why do I hate contemporary fantasy so much?). [Mr. and Mrs. Psmith’s Bookshelf
  • When we look more closely at the historical record, it shows not a neat sequence of energy transitions, but the accumulation of ever more and different types of energy. Economic growth has been based not on progressive shifts from one source of energy to the next, but on their interdependent agglomeration. Using more coal involved using more wood, using more oil consumed more coal, and so on. An honest account of energy history would conclude not that energy transitions were a regular feature of the past, but that what we are attempting – the deliberate exit from and suppression of the energetic mainstays of our modern way of life – is without precedent. This is the argument of More and More and More, the latest book by the French historian of science Jean-Baptiste Fressoz. [Adam Tooze]
  • The People’s Republic of China is the hyper-modernist state par excellence. Chinese communists are quite taken with their slogans about “Chinese style modernization,” but this mostly amounts to standard modernization but with a Leninist party in charge. If there is a country whose leaders are more inspired by Enlightenment rationalism than China, I have not found it. India is different. In fact, India is the only country I have visited where a post-liberal polity seems plausible. Hindu nationalists conceive of their project much the same way Western post-liberals do—they aim to create a country animated by a “non-Western worldview,” to strip away the hegemony of Enlightenment ideas on the Indian mind, and to find a separate path toward wealth and power. As Nehru’s India was liberal in conception, a successful Hindutva program means an actual post-liberal order. [Scholar's Stage]
  • The leek has been known to be a symbol of Wales for a long time; Shakespeare, for example, refers to the custom of wearing a leek as an "ancient tradition" in Henry V ( c. 1599). In the play, Henry V tells the Welsh officer Fluellen that he, too, is wearing a leek "for I am Welsh, you know, good countryman." The 1985 and 1990 British one pound coins bear the design of a leek in a coronet, representing Wales. [wiki]
  • In some of the wonderful screwball comedies from the 1930s, you really see the class divide in America. A country bumpkin from the middle of America arrives in New York City, and there’s a scene of culture clash in an elegant art deco apartment, where the women wear those slender gold lame gowns. Today, Americans wear pretty much the same clothing all over the country, and drive pretty similar cars (more likely SUVs.) I’m not sure the Gini coefficient numbers pick up this regional leveling of living standards, but if they don’t it may be due to the fact that the richest areas have seen explosive rises in housing prices, so today’s nominal inequality greatly overstates the degree of real inequality. In 2025, I doubt there’s much meaningful difference in living standards between the typical resident of New York City and the typical resident of Oklahoma City. [Scott Sumner]
  • Altogether, MGP is the source of beverage spirits sold under about 50 different brand names, although these are often sold misleadingly by their bottlers as distinctive products with minimal disclosure of the actual source of the spirits. Some industry experts have commented negatively about the practice, such as the whiskey writer Charles Cowdery who has decried such bottlers as "Potemkin distilleries". As one example, in a class action settlement announced in 2015 about the marketing of the Templeton Rye brand which was actually produced using MGP spirits, Templeton was required to add the words "distilled in Indiana" to its label and remove claims of using a "Prohibition Era Recipe" and "small batch" production. The settlement also offered refunds to customers who had bought Templeton Rye since 2006. [Midwest Grain Products]
  • Under a conventional franchise arrangement, the Company generally owns or secures a long-term lease on the land and building for the restaurant location and the franchisee pays for equipment, signs, seating and décor. The Company believes that ownership of real estate, combined with the co-investment by franchisees, enables it to achieve restaurant performance levels that are among the highest in the industry. Franchisees are responsible for reinvesting capital in their businesses over time. In addition, to accelerate implementation of certain initiatives, the Company may co-invest with franchisees to fund improvements to their restaurants or operating systems. These investments,
    developed in collaboration with franchisees, are designed to cater to consumer preferences, improve local business performance and increase the value of the McDonald's brand through the development of modernized, more attractive and higher revenue generating restaurants. The Company requires franchisees to meet rigorous standards and generally does not work with passive investors. The business relationship with franchisees is designed to facilitate consistency and high quality at all McDonald’s restaurants. Conventional franchisees contribute to the Company’s revenue, primarily through the payment of rent and royalties based upon a percent of sales, with specified minimum rent payments, along with initial fees paid upon the opening of a new restaurant or grant of a new franchise. The Company's heavily franchised business model is designed to generate stable and predictable revenue, which is largely a function of franchisee sales, and resulting cash flow streams. [McDonald's Corporation]
  • Cipolla divides people into four categories: helpless, bandit, intelligent and stupid. In any normal interaction between two people, he contends, the helpless person suffers a loss while the other gains. The bandit exacts a benefit while levying a loss on the other. The intelligent person gains while enabling the other person also to gain. The defining trait of the stupid person is that he gains nothing while obliging the other to take a loss. Mr. Trump’s fans can argue with his despisers about whether he belongs in the category of bandit or intelligent, but he definitely can’t be classified as stupid according to Cipolla’s definition. [WSJ]
  • About 40 years ago I happened upon a Toastmaster toaster at a yard sale. I researched its serial number - it was made in April of 1935 - and found that it was one of the very first pop-up toasters ever made. It does not have a thermostat but rather an escapement timing mechanism (old fashioned wind up clock type mechanism) that is controlled by a small ‘light/dark’ dial. It ticks like those old fashioned clocks - faster for lighter toast, slower for darker. The sides, top, front and back are heavily chrome plated steel. The sides, front and back metal itself is scalloped vertically about 1” wide each, to give it some style - very Art Deco looking. AND it still worked - well almost - I had to take it apart to repair the main spring - and it’s worked pretty much marvelously ever since. Now I realize it’s not designed for bagels and other really wide breads. Its nichrome wire heating elements are very close together (yielding a fabulous even heating next to the bread-no stripes ever!) and because you adjust the actual TIME of toasting and not a bi-metal heat sensitive thermostat, your toast comes out consistently - time after time after time. Bi-metal thermostats take time to cool off - if you pop in another few pieces of toast right after doing two, the second set will be less done as the bi-metals haven’t cooled enough in between tastings. I also realize that most toasters today take advantage of digital technology and may not even use thermostats anymore but I still feel what I have is a treasure. I did have to have it repaired once by a guy in NYC who does this kind of thing  - (ToasterCentral.com) -  he’d put on a new period cord. It’s gorgeous. It has style, reliability and functionality. It cost me I think about $3.00). My younger daughter says she wants it when I go. Today it’s 85 years old - 13 more than I. Now I ask you - what appliance do you still have in your kitchen that still works and is that old? Only saying! [Which Slot Toaster Makes the Best Toast?]

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