100 links so everybody at the dinner table thinks you are an asshole. 2024 Edition.
Let's be fucking pedants; Elon pays us for something.
This year I’m doing the English edition, because you are all so sophisticated you don’t need me in Spanish.
For reasons I still don't understand, during January I was obsessed with the Disputation of Barcelona. At some point in History we cared about the important stuff, and here we are today, at the same place. The funny thing is that nobody is been able to do a good movie about it but the brits.
The Jewish residents of Barcelona, fearing the resentment of the Dominicans, entreated him to discontinue; but the King, whom Nachmanides had acquainted with the apprehensions of the Jews, desired him to proceed. At the end of the disputation, James I awarded Nachmanides a prize of 300 gold coins and declared that never before had he heard "an unjust cause so nobly defended." On the Shabbat after the debate, the king also attended the Sinagoga Major de Barcelona, arguably one of the oldest synagogues in Europe, and addressed the Jewish congregants there, "a thing unheard of during the Middle Ages".
And, of course, Derry Girls.
The history of Tiger Woods and Nike parting ways.
“Tiger is at his core a socially awkward introvert. He was this nerdy Stanford kid who was really good with a golf ball who didn’t have a lot of friends. And he’s softened over the last five years or so, but he doesn’t trust anyone. Does this sound like someone who’s going to set a vision, hire a team of people and sample tons of product? He’s not that guy. Jordan isn’t either, but he’s an extrovert and extremely charismatic.”
Evren Ucok. Trendyol / Earlybird founder and owner of the most transparent investment operation ever, through his Linkedin profile.
The CRISPR by Design podcast episode, with Ben Oakes.
22 minutes of Nick Cave being Nick Cave.
People say she's broken but I see her as normal
Leonard Susskind got, as he deserves, the most beautiful book covers ever done by Penguin Random House. Buy them here, here, here and here.
Derinkuyu is a multi-level subterranean city. But let’s start from the joke: Derinkuyu means “deep well” in Turkish and “malacopia” in Latin. This area of the world is one of the first Christian cities, established by Paul, The Apostle himself. The whole story is nuts.
Alfonso is just an old man. And it’s the only person on Twitter who made me trigger the Allow Notifications button. It’s just a man who understood what matters. Be more like him, hijos de puta.
Many big tech PMs have become what Nikita Bier calls "a glorified internal alignment secretary." We’ve become far too focused on internal artifacts and processes that make internal stakeholders happy.
This almost physical horror of confrontation is captured in that weasel phrase, “read the room”. Rooms can be wrong. The eternal mistake is to conflate liberalism, a set of specific beliefs, involving trade-offs and hard choices, with what we might call liberality: an openness of spirit, a generalised niceness. You can only build a society on the first of these things.
It’s still possible to make good movies and not good franchises.
These two countries are historic rivals with irreconcilable goals. Vision 2030 appeals to national aspirations, whereas Vision 1979 taps into national grievances. Vision 2030 seeks a security alliance with the United States and normalization with Israel; Vision 1979 is premised on resisting the former and eradicating the latter. Vision 2030 is propelled by social liberalization; Vision 1979 is anchored in social repression.
There’s a vaccine for HIV. Well, an antiviral which lasts 6 months, but it’s practically the same.
No participants receiving twice-yearly lenacapavir acquired HIV infection. HIV incidence with lenacapavir was significantly lower than background HIV incidence and HIV incidence with F/TDF.
Elon did a lot of stuff this year, but I almost forgot Neuralink also implanted a chip in a human.
Benito keeps dropping bangers with Adidas.
It’s really remarkable how good Adidas is doing against Nike. Theoretically, Yeezy’s scandal should be huge, but seems it’s worse to put theoretical salesmen, aka 20-years-in-Bain, in charge of a product company. The old new guy looks better.
Drake tried to burn Kendrick. Kendrick came back with the most brutal diss track you can imagine.
…strategic questions can be grouped into five domains: investigative, speculative, productive, interpretive, and subjective. Each unlocks a different aspect of the decision-making process.
Gene therapy > 16 minutes surgery > toddler hearing restored. Sounds magical.
Opal Sandy was born unable to hear anything due to auditory neuropathy, a condition that disrupts nerve impulses travelling from the inner ear to the brain and can be caused by a faulty gene.
But after receiving an infusion containing a working copy of the gene during groundbreaking surgery that took just 16 minutes, the 18-month-old can hear almost perfectly and enjoys playing with toy drums.
George Gurdjieff taught that most humans exist in a state of "waking sleep" and emphasized the necessity of conscious effort to achieve higher states of awareness. He was nuts. But it’s worth noting his mix of Stoicism and Buddhism makes, surprisingly, some sense.
Mario Gabriele did a full analysis on what it means Messi as a company.
Megamix Brutal is a recreation of Spain’s 80’s and 90’s hype for remix albums. Ideal for Christmas and dancing Duro de Pelar.
Juan Carlos Ortega is one of the most authentic, charismatic, innovative, creative, reasonable people we have in the Spanish journalism. And he is so fun you need to take it seriously.
Simon Rich has million of things on his back that are worth noting. He is talented as hell -so is his brother. I hate he asks for forgiveness every time somebody talks about his origins. But I love this story and I like Neal Brennan.
Furlan Marri is making the best value for money, around-$1k, watches out there
The ultimate guide to holding world class dinner parties, and the most important take: only people with small minds host dinners with speakers
Solar EV Charging Solutions are accelerating. Would love to see something like Sunnoo coming from Spain.
Tiger & Charlie shoot 57
Balenciaga totally lost their mojo: Balenciaga x Alipay
Está muy bien leer y estudiar, pero lo importante es la curiosidad
Palantir & the Ontology: organizes data into semantic elements (objects, properties, links) and kinetic elements (actions, functions), enabling dynamic workflows, granular security, and real-time decision-making.
[I leave this just here]
33. Nike AF1 Linen
This is, by far, the book of the year: A.N. Prior’s tense logic and the concept of branching time + existential Heidegger + Aristotelian scientific understanding + isolation, memory, and identity.
I have too many podcasts on my queue, but Against The Rules with Michael Lewis is not one I leave waiting for too long.
This is how lateral thinking works:
Velvetiser. Hot Chocolate. YES. Seriously worth it.
Last-second KO
What does Latino mean?
Instead of appealing to a broad “Latino” or “Hispanic” vote, they doubled down on specific segments of the electorate in an attempt to chip away at Democratic dominance. They played up the specter of “socialism,” “communism,” and “Marxism” in both Trump’s and other down-ballot candidates’ appeals to Cuban and Venezuelan American voters in Florida. It’s here where one 2020 jingle that was recycled for the 2024 cycle stands out: A Cuban band’s “Latinos for Donald Trump” salsa song that went viral four years ago was used by Trump’s campaign this year to double down on a segment of the Latino electorate they thought was already likely to surge for him at the polls.
Luke Littner is a kid (17), who looks like a 57 yeard old, and is one of the most impressive sportsmen I’ve ever seen in my life. The issue is that the sport is darts.
"Fame after life is no better than oblivion."
Mk.gee is the coolest person on Earth
Singapore’s Lee dynasty ends after half-century Under Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew (1965–1990), Singapore evolved from a colonial trading post into a global economic powerhouse, achieving significant economic growth and development; and his son followed the path. A real miracle.
Bon Iver - Awards Season
Reverse Museum Heist in Munich: A museum employee clandestinely hung his own painting in Munich's Pinakothek der Moderne Museum. The unauthorized artwork remained on display for a day before its removal, leading to the employee's dismissal.
Somebody lost his emotional-support alligator.
Andrew Garfield @ The Chicken Shop Date
“The guns have fallen silent. The stars have aligned. The great wait is over. Come see. It will not be televised.”
On the topics of EVERYFUCKINGYEAR: education is broken.
“We need to get there before the AI takes over,” he told engineers in 2023, according to his biographer Ashlee Vance. “We want to get there with a maniacal sense of urgency. Maniacal.” Musk believes that with brain implants, humans will be able to prevent a future artificial superintelligence from wiping us out, and so he wants Neuralink to perform surgeries on more than 22,000 people by 2030.”
How to make the most out of your 20s
Make coffee.
A woman named Pam Kearney visits a local bakery shop to meet the owner. She tells him that a few years earlier, there was a visitation at the funeral home across the street on a bitterly cold winter day. People were lined up around the block in the cold, when a mysterious man appeared and gave them all hot coffee.
She tells the bakery shop owner that she suspects that man was him. He nods and replies, "Yes, I felt so bad for them and wanted to do something, but all I could do was make coffee, so I made coffee."
She proceeds to tell him that the visitation was for her 16-year-old son, who had sadly passed away, and thanks him for that tiny act of kindness that meant so much.
How Wealthy Are You? The Wealth Score is a product of…
Time Wealth: Freedom to choose how to spend your time.
Social Wealth: Connection to others.
Mental Wealth: Purpose, growth, space.
Physical Wealth: Health and vitality.
Financial Wealth
Rogan #2221, with JD Vance
The Simpsons, Episode 769. Watch it. 100 million times.
The Longevity Imperative explores the profound societal, economic, and personal transformations required to adapt to increasing life expectancies.
If you don’t love Michael Cera, you are not on my side
“Untitled (after François Gérard)”
Bryson taking Youtube Golf by storm
Juve kit
A cutter. Yes, a cutter. Best cutter ever.
Parachute mattresses.
At some point we would really need to ban screens and remove stupid playing regulations.
A text chain
The Puritans of Venture Capital is a great piece.
Firms like Benchmark, Union Square Ventures, and First Round are textbook examples of the "cottage" vibes for a venture partnership. Small groups of people pursuing high ownership, both of their work and their companies, and often relying on strong individual conviction to drive group efforts in winning deals.
(…)"A16z was designed not merely to succeed but also to deliver payback: it would right the wrongs that Andreessen and Horowitz had suffered as entrepreneurs. Most of those, in their telling, came from Benchmark Capital, the firm that funded Loudcloud (Horowitz's previous company)—a five-partner boutique with no back-office specialists to provide the services they’d craved. “We were always the anti-Benchmark,” Horowitz told me. “Our design was to not do what they did.”
Thiel & Zuck analyze the world-to-be in just a couple of emails. Also, you can feel Nick Clegg so out-of-the-way. Enlightening insights about Millennials, and beyond.
The SaaS cycle is gone [according to Coatue & Avenir, but those are always a great reference. As usual, check Coatue’s EMW 2024]
Été is the most beautiful game.
Any sweater from Todd Snyder. Will last 15 years and are cool and confy. Cardigans and polo necks for extra flow.
"The working class has the right to insure itself through organizations composed of its members or through government, thereby eliminating the investing class."
IWC Portuguese Eternal Calendar is another mechanical engineering level, but without losing (even gaining) on design.
Seneca
"All the things which cause complaint or dread are like the taxes of life—things from which, my dear Lucilius, you should never hope for exemption or seek escape."
Figma’s new visual identity
Negroni Sbagliato and a pizza in ViceVersa, Miami
Kith x Adidas - Summer Flavours
Buy your kid Blokus
Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend x Werner Herzog
Derek Guy year-of-mainstream has been crazy. He picked beef with everyone. My favourites: Tate, Ted Cruz, Australian Politicians, the Gorka-Anton thing…
The U.S. no longer manufactures new plutonium, so workers at PF-4 take old pits from retired warheads sent from the Pantex plant in the Texas panhandle, which assembles, disassembles, and stores parts for America’s nuclear arsenal. The pits are recycled through a process that purifies them of radioactive elements, which accumulate over time. To do this, plutonium winds its way from glovebox to glovebox through an overhead trolley system snaking through the complex. Dumbwaiters move it up and down from the trolley. The plutonium is melted, machined, welded, and inspected.
Some researchers have argued for years that A. hitleri and other species names, including the many that honor racists and colonizers, are offensive and should be changed. A few societies have taken steps toward doing so.
Understanding Bill Ackman’s mind is insightful, to say something neutral.
NASA is closer and closer to achieve Icarus’ dream.
We were looking for cancer metastasis at the wrong place
“We have been so focused on the cancer cells, the ‘seeds’, that we’ve ignored the germline—’the soil’. It’s now clear that focusing on the soil is critical.”
(…)
The PCSK9 variant drives metastasis. By degrading the LRP1 receptor on cancer cells, the variant appears to unleash a cascade of gene activation ideal for metastatic initiation. Interestingly, the lab’s prior work on melanoma found that the APOE alleles that promote or suppress metastasis also act on LRP1. “It’s remarkable that, in two different cancers, the mechanism of metastasis converges on this one receptor,”
A real map of the brain. Even tiny.
A comicbook about Caravaggio.
You got out of jail and decide to steal a truck with ten Corvettes, because why not.
Google is, officially, a monopoly. Ok, boomer. And?
Sugarcane. Must watch.
In 2021, evidence of unmarked graves was discovered on the grounds of an Indian residential school run by the Catholic Church in Canada. After years of silence, the forced separation, assimilation and abuse many children experienced at these segregated boarding schools was brought to light, sparking a national outcry against a system designed to destroy Indigenous communities.
Kino transforms your iPhone camera into yourself becoming that father in the 90’s that thought he was Spielberg. App of the year.
very nice