# Progress links and tweets, 2023-07-06:
Terraformer Mark One, Israeli water management, & more

**Opportunities**
-----------------

*   [Free virtual course for people in tech who want to work on biology](https://frequency.pillar.vc/bio/) (via [@kulesatony](https://twitter.com/kulesatony/status/1674078896134709249))

**News**
--------

*   [A background of gravitational waves pervades the cosmos](https://www.quantamagazine.org/an-enormous-gravity-hum-moves-through-the-universe-20230628/) (via [@QuantaMagazine](https://twitter.com/QuantaMagazine/status/1674522454134276097))
*   [The Terraformer makes cheap natural gas from sunlight & air](https://terraformindustries.wordpress.com/2023/06/26/the-terraformer-mark-one/) (via [@TerraformIndies](https://twitter.com/TerraformIndies/status/1673426860515160065))

[![](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fzk9BW-XgAAt6xt.jpg)](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fzk9BW-XgAAt6xt.jpg)

**Obituaries**
--------------

*   [Henry Petroski, “America’s poet laureate of technology,”](https://today.duke.edu/2023/06/henry-petroski-poet-laureate-technology-and-professor-engineering-and-history-dies) author of *To Engineer is Human*, *The Evolution of Useful Things*, and other books
*   [John Goodenough, age 100 (!)](https://news.utexas.edu/2023/06/26/ut-mourns-lithium-ion-battery-inventor-and-nobel-prize-recipient-john-goodenough/) “His discovery led to the wireless revolution and put electronic devices in the hands of people worldwide”

**Links**
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*   [Great SpaceX video about iterating towards reusable rockets](https://youtu.be/bvim4rsNHkQ) (via [@pronounced_kyle](https://twitter.com/pronounced_kyle/status/1673718701680476168))
*   [Scott Alexander on the “illusion of moral decline”](https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/is-there-an-illusion-of-moral-decline) (but see [Matt Clancy’s pushback](https://substack.com/profile/534857-matt-clancy/note/c-17984148))
*   [Three auto maintenance philosophies](https://books.worksinprogress.co/book/maintenance-of-everything/vehicles/three-maintenance-philosophies-fought-for-control-of-the-auto-industry), from [@stewartbrand](https://twitter.com/stewartbrand/status/1674477335586955264)’s book in progress
*   [As the opportunity cost of time increases, so does our concern about wasting time](https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2023/06/the-harried-leisure-class.html)
*   [How to do great work](http://paulgraham.com/greatwork.html) (by [@paulg](https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1675152564743028743))
*   [The “undercurrent of tacit knowledge” in any scientific literature](https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2023/06/what-does-it-mean-to-understand-how-a-scientific-literature-is-put-together.html) (by Tyler Cowen)
*   [GLP-1 drugs are amazing for weight loss, says Derek Lowe](https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/new-world-obesity-therapies) (via [@curiouswavefn](https://twitter.com/curiouswavefn/status/1674143114804731904))
*   [Why you can ignore the “aspartame causes cancer” headlines](https://inews.co.uk/news/aspartame-ignore-who-diet-coke-sweetener-cancer-risk-2444109?ito=twitter_share_article-top) (by [@StuartJRitchie](https://twitter.com/StuartJRitchie/status/1674717153474248705)). Related, [the IARC puts bacon in the same category as plutonium](https://twitter.com/TomChivers/status/1674779727092142081)

**Queries**
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*   [What use cases is hydrogen best for? And what are the front-runners for long-term energy storage?](https://twitter.com/tomaspueyo/status/1673664608643477508)
*   [What are the best films about capitalism, business, and market economics?](https://twitter.com/JimPethokoukis/status/1674571141560561665)
*   [Why does DNA use base 4 rather than base 2 for encoding information?](https://twitter.com/MatjazLeonardis/status/1674182089598435328)
*   [How to roll back as much bad regulation as possible in one tweet?](https://twitter.com/eshear/status/1674814085584805891)
*   [Any indicators of misuse threat of adversarially fine-tune-able 10^25 LLMs?](https://twitter.com/andy_matuschak/status/1673108221849124869)
*   [What intellectuals refocused New Left types towards remaking the physical world?](https://twitter.com/Scholars_Stage/status/1675178420446035968)

**Quotes**
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*   [Real history is not politics but the story of those who make a better life](https://twitter.com/_brianpotter/status/1674116581020913664)
*   [Academics and nonprofits act as if someone else will translate their papers into policy](https://twitter.com/lauralondon_/status/1673828971438563330)

**Tweets & threads**
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*   [The saga of Israeli water management](https://twitter.com/devonzuegel/status/1674932862926176258)
*   [A biodefense roadmap from Kevin Esvelt](https://twitter.com/kesvelt/status/1592203831047327744). Excellent work
*   [Chicago went all in on railroads and Cincinnati went all in on canals](https://twitter.com/moultano/status/1673748513241575425)
*   [A path to prosperity for small cities within one hour of a major city/airport](https://twitter.com/ryrzny/status/1674298136024719361)
*   [Update from prediction market Kalshi on regulated election markets](https://twitter.com/mansourtarek_/status/1673690840995180546)
*   [I push back against Dustin Moskowitz’s list of AI safety “strawmen”](https://twitter.com/jasoncrawford/status/1673420972064673792)
*   [Many good ideas are killed for reasons unrelated to their promise](https://twitter.com/abiylfoyp/status/1674116514667024384)
*   [As we make progress on social problems, we broaden the definition of the problem](https://twitter.com/StefanFSchubert/status/1674423548214149120). A case of the [Shirky Principle](https://twitter.com/jasoncrawford/status/1674516624257294340)
*   [In 1844, the Secretary of the Navy was killed during a military demonstration](https://twitter.com/ByrneHobart/status/1673847458277871616)
*   [Most attempts to disrupt education do project-based learning, which is overrated](https://twitter.com/mbateman/status/1673887049126952961)
*   [SF can’t even find actual collisions to cite against self-driving cars](https://twitter.com/annatonger/status/1673403230804385813)
*   [As Bezos says: “Let me assure you, this is the best planet”](https://twitter.com/xkcd/status/1674806994178387970)
*   [“We can’t answer every question.” “No, but I think we can answer *any* question.”](https://twitter.com/mbateman/status/1673668642112774145)

**Charts**
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*   [The US electrical grid has been getting less reliable for decades](https://twitter.com/AlecStapp/status/1674116902333960197)

[![](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FzunfytX0Ak7a3T.png)](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FzunfytX0Ak7a3T.png)

[![](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FzunkEhWcAEIedW.png)](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FzunkEhWcAEIedW.png)

*   [How many ships Bethlehem Steel built during WWII](https://twitter.com/NickPinkston/status/1674420502809686016)

[![](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fzy8OiDaYAEcxN0.jpg)](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fzy8OiDaYAEcxN0.jpg)