neon signs
This article is about the neural conundrum behind the slowness of human behavior. The information throughput of a human being is about 10 bits/s. One is forced to deal with the recognition that human perception, action, and cognition proceed at a glacially slow pace. Our peripheral nervous system is capable of absorbing information from the environment at much higher rates, on the order of gigabits/s. This defines a paradox: the vast gulf between the tiny information throughput of human behavior and the huge information inputs on which the behavior is based. This enormous ratio—about 100,000,000—remains largely unexplained.
Uncertainty is part of being human, so how can we learn to live with it? […] There is no safe level of driving, but we don’t recommend everyone stay at home. […] My main inspiration is my spaniel. She lives in the moment, starts each day with bounding enthusiasm, yelps when she gets trodden on and then immediately forgives you, and leaps at the hint of a sausage. She accepts the lack of control in her life, but relishes the uncertainty of walking and sniffing in new places. And when it’s time for her to die, she will curl up and go quietly.
People who walk a higher number of steps each day are less likely to have depressive symptoms
Researchers analyzed US death certificates for almost 9 million people who died during 2020–2022, linking occupational data across 443 professions with Alzheimer’s as a cause of death [and found that] driving an ambulance or taxi as your job may provide some protection against Alzheimer’s.
Drugmakers including Purdue Pharma paid pharmacy benefit managers not to restrict painkiller prescriptions, a New York Times investigation found. [NYT]
Amazon is reportedly hitting pause on its return-to-office (RTO) plans due to a shortage of office space […] Employees in cities like Atlanta, Houston, Nashville, and New York have received notifications that they can continue with their hybrid work arrangements until their offices are ready.
US lawmakers tell Apple, Google to be ready to remove TikTok from app stores Jan. 19
US earnings growth would not look so exceptional if not for the supernormal profits of its big tech firms, and massive government spending. Over time, supernormal profits get competed away. Growth and profits are also getting an artificial lift from the heaviest deficit spending ever recorded at this stage of an economic cycle, by far. […] My calculations suggest it now takes nearly $2 of new government debt to generate an additional $1 of US GDP growth — a 50 per cent increase on just five years ago. If any other country were spending this way, investors would be fleeing, but for now, they think America can get away with anything, as the world’s leading economy and issuer of the reserve currency. More likely, by some point next year, investors will balk and demand higher interest rates or a demonstration of fiscal discipline, triggered perhaps by an even larger deficit or ever bigger auctions of Treasuries. Those demands will wean the US off its dependence on government spending, at least temporarily, and in turn undermine economic growth and corporate profits. To be clear, this is a bubble in America’s performance relative to the rest of the world, not a 1990s-style mania in the US market. So, it can deflate in a benign way if the alternatives begin to look more attractive. [Financial Times]
MIT study explains why laws are written in an incomprehensible style — The convoluted “legalese” used in legal documents conveys a special sense of authority, and even non-lawyers have learned to wield it.
Cyborg cockroach armies can now be mass-produced at a rate of one every 68 seconds
Popeye and Tintin enter the public domain in 2025 along with novels from Faulkner and Hemingway
Rockefeller Center application to NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission to replace its neon signs with LEDs [PDF]
