PJH Studios

Author: Patrick

  • Ocean carbon removal

    It feels like science fiction. Sinking carbon into the ocean to combat climate change. But that one on the key idea is to address the problem.

    Researchers are looking into a wide range of approaches to removing carbon from the atmosphere. Some are straightforwardly technical, like direct air capture in giant facilities can use massive fans and specialized membranes to trap carbon dioxide. Other approaches lean on nature, like growing trees and trapping carbon in their biomass underground. 

    Oceans cover the majority of our planet, and in fact they already suck up roughly 30% of human-caused greenhouse-gas emissions through a whole host of routes. 

  • Ice cream cone chocolate seal on a cake

    Ice cream cone chocolate seal on a cake

  • Guns, anxiety, America

    In 1991/1992, ‘Jeremy’ by Pearl Jam captured a specific distillation of American culture. Anxiety, youth, pop culture, parental responsibilities, and guns.

    Because it’s so easy to sit and watch. Let the world slip by. See the images on the screen and scream along with the words, nevermind what they mean. We were already afraid. A few years before, we had watched the Satanic Panic sweep the nation, along with a fear of Dungeons & Dragons and serial killers, but it seemed we had not yet learned anything about fear and how it gets inside us. How the 24-hour cycle gives us no respite from the news. Turn to any channel any time of day for breaking news, and now with the internet and social media, we have instant access to stories from around the world, all the killings and kidnappings, all the bullets and bombs.

  • How to get better at anything

    One idea in order to get better at anything: mimic/copy successful people.

    I think this should be at least a little bit surprising, the fact that our mimicry abilities can extend to latent space like this. Some combination of largely unconscious mental processes gives us the ability to simulate the thinking of others, even though we have no direct ability to observe it. Think of how quickly you can tell, just from an unusual text message, that a friend is unhappy. Even if we have only a small sample of observations of someone whose instincts we trust deeply, we probably have enough material to ask, “Does it seem like they would do this?” Trying to explicitly reason about the basis of ethical action is complicated.

  • Poetry in our modern world

    An MIT professor discovered their students meeting to create poetry. The essay explores what poetry does and how it can function in our modern world.

    In work like this, musicians, writers, and engineers all share space. They collaborate in service of human life and the preservation of all we adore. They remind us that poetry has always been a technology of memory and human connection: a way to remind ourselves of who and what we are to one another. Which is something infinitely more than we can say with words, although we must try—and in that striving, be made more lovely, and alive.

  • Americans drinking less

    Alcohol consumption in the United States trending downward.

    A record high percentage of U.S. adults, 53%, now say moderate drinking is bad for their health, up from 28% in 2015. The uptick in doubt about alcohol’s benefits is largely driven by young adults — the age group that is most likely to believe drinking “one or two drinks a day” can cause health hazards — but older adults are also now increasingly likely to think moderate drinking carries risks.

    As concerns about health impacts rise, fewer Americans are reporting that they drink. The survey finds that 54% of U.S. adults say they drink alcoholic beverages such as liquor, wine or beer. That’s lower than at any other point in the past three decades.

  • The best college football TV guide listing

    College football start this weekend. One of the more annoying first world problems is finding out what game is at what time and on what channel. Enter https://cfb.guide/

    It does just that. If you create an account, you can set your time zone and your favorite teams. During game day, it even tracks the scores.

  • Facial Stimulation Clears Brain Waste and Boosts Aging Minds

    An interesting therapy possibility: clear brain waste with facial stimulation.

    Researchers have discovered a safe, non-invasive way to enhance the brain’s waste clearance system by mechanically stimulating lymphatic vessels just beneath the facial skin. This gentle technique significantly improves cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) drainage—a critical function that declines with age and contributes to cognitive disorders like Alzheimer’s.

  • Middle class restaurants disappearing

    Those casual dining restaurants where you could walk in with out a reservation are slowly disappearing.

    Once rapidly growing commercial marvels, casual dining chains — sit-down restaurants where middle-class families can walk in without a reservation, order from another human and share a meal — have been in decline for most of the 21st century. Last year, TGI Fridays and Red Lobster both filed for bankruptcy. Outback and Applebee’s have closed dozens of locations. Pizza Hut locations with actual dining rooms are vanishingly rare, with hundreds closing since 2019.

  • American state capitalism

    Not sure if Reagan envisioned American state capitalism.

    We wouldn’t be dabbling with state capitalism if not for the public’s and both parties’ belief that free-market capitalism wasn’t working. That system encouraged profit-maximizing CEOs to move production abroad. The result was a shrunken manufacturing workforce, dependence on China for vital products such as critical minerals, and underinvestment in the industries of the future such as clean energy and semiconductors.

    The federal government has often waded into the corporate world. It commandeered production during World War II and, under the Defense Production Act, emergencies such as the Covid-19 pandemic. It bailed out banks and car companies during the 2007-09 financial crisis. Those, however, were temporary expedients.