𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚕𝚎𝚜 𝙲. 𝙼𝚊𝚗𝚗
@CharlesCMann
Writer of 1491, 1493, and The Wizard and the Prophet. Working, inefficiently, on another book. Photo w/ the pig is pretty old by now, but I like the pig.
Hey, I did a TED talk a while ago, and now it's online. Thanks to @TEDchris, @dbiello, & all the TED people for letting me do something a bit different in tone and subject, and for helping me put it together: ted.com/talks/charles_…
Yeah, the ones with good partners are all busy shopping for patio furniture. Speaking of which, we need more articles about the patio furniture affordability crisis.
Once I idly wondered to a pal why so much media focuses on the romantic woes of hyper-literate, upper-middle-class women--a super-unrepresentative group--and my pal gave me a you-idiot look and said "That's who buys books, magazines, and newspapers." nytimes.com/2025/07/21/mag…
This New York Times interview with Julie Brown, the Miami Herald reporter who re-opened the Epstein case, seems like a remarkably level-headed recounting of what is actually known about the guy and what is not, and which questions need to be answered: nytimes.com/2025/07/19/opi…
Great crime novelist Donald Westlake to greater crime novelist Elmore (Dutch) Leonard, on the many bad Hollywood versions of his work: “Dutch, why do you keep hoping to make a good movie? The books are ours; everything else is virgins thrown in the volcano”tinyurl.com/5n7ez945
Once I idly wondered to a pal why so much media focuses on the romantic woes of hyper-literate, upper-middle-class women--a super-unrepresentative group--and my pal gave me a you-idiot look and said "That's who buys books, magazines, and newspapers." nytimes.com/2025/07/21/mag…
More evidence for the millionth-monkey theory of startup riches: Travis Kalanick, college dropout who studied business economics, thinks he has come close to making breakthroughs in quantum physics by talking to GhatGPT. Quick, guys--shut down CERN! gizmodo.com/billionaires-c…
amazon.com/Boston-Drivers… my parents gave me this when i was learning to drive. Boston was always like that.
Massachusetts, where using your turn signal is viewed in the same light as giving information to the enemy.
Dude, you're right about Massachusetts drivers. But I have bad news for you. As someone who has lived in the state for 34 years, I am here to tell you it's not the immigrants, it's the natives. They're called "Massholes" for a reason.
I just drove across the country, Texas to Boston. Smooth ride, wide skies, and mostly good roads. Until I hit the last stretch: Hartford to home. That’s where the mask came off. I grew up here. I know what normal looks like. But what I saw on that road wasn’t just reckless, it…
Big, 1.2 million-person study from Denmark finds no evidence that aluminum-salt adjuvants in vaccines--a favorite target of anti-vaxxers--have any negative effects. Study: acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/AN… News coverage: statnews.com/2025/07/14/alu…
Will raising wages for farmworkers spike the cost of food? No, says ex-farmworker @SarahTaber_bww on the Sky Place. Labor costs are a trivial part of farm costs.
This is my position. We will need several rounds of new models and techniques, the n and timelines still unknown. I will add that the models, when supplemented with a lab in the loop, are *extraordinarily* powerful in scientific discovery: we’ve only scratched the surface. We…
Anyone who thinks AGI is impossible: wrong. Anyone who thinks AGI is imminent: just as wrong. It’s not that complicated.
Asked New York City pal who is fairly conservative (esp. by NYC standards) why he was voting for Mamdani & he sent me this video. "The 'socialist' stuff is just noise," he said. "Mayors can't nationalize banks. But he actually seems like he wants to improve the damn bus system."
The 14th Street Busway has been a smashing success: faster commutes, fewer crashes, calmer streets. So why is Eric Adams blocking a similar plan for 34th Street?