kenny

Here's my monthly media recap. Notes are recorded in my phone and then made into simple HTML with Claude. No frills, low quality commentary, but I like to document what I read/listen to. Here it is:

• 6/1/2026
  • Walking to the World Cup, and Other Distractions (Chris Arnade): Chris Arnade proves that you can indeed walk from Manhattan to MetLife Stadium, but that it will take you about 4 hours (and this won't be allowed during the upcoming FIFA World Cup). Link
  • Money Stuff: The Bitcoin Lost-and-Found (Matt Levine): Can you claim someone else's inactive bitcoin wallet under lost property law? And if you can, what good does it do to legally own the bitcoin if you have no way to access or transfer it? We may find out thanks to a case in NY. Link
• 6/2/2026
  • The Hidden Plumbing of Commodity Finance (Odd Lots podcast): On the financing behind commodities. I found the discussion on why some commodities have futures and others don't interesting (generally, commodities with higher fungibility and volatility are likelier to have futures). Link
• 6/3/2026
  • Shameful Secret Heart (Money Stuff podcast): On SpaceX's strange governance structure, advance's for minor league baseball players, and other financial topics. Link
  • People are too big to fit inside our heads (Henrik Karlsson): On learning dialogue and addressing the unspoken from Dostoevsky and Bakhtin. Link
• 6/4/2026
  • Toby Wilkinson on Ptolemaic Egypt and the First Great Commercial Civilization (Conversations with Tyler podcast): It's interesting to note that both Egypt and China saw themselves as a chosen people in a chosen land, had natural barriers to protect their empires, and didn't seem to have much desire to expand beyond certain bounds. Link
• 6/5/2026
  • Links for May (Sam Enright): One of the best monthly link threads. Link
  • Find a Way (Cate Hall): On dealing with your inner Melvin (desire to do the "normal" thing). "Often, when we play the Melvin game, we're attempting to satisfy both our aspirational self, which desires a meaningful, complex existence, and our timid self, which wants us to be left alone in our cozy little blame-free corner." Link
  • The Tax Gimmick that Built New York (Kevin Hawickhorst): When the various boroughs merged in the 1890s, Brooklyn strangely chose to not collect taxes for a year (because it ran a balanced budget while Manhattan had not). Link
• 6/7/2026
  • A simple trick to fix the data center debate (Andy Masley): "A lot of the data center debate is guided by status quo bias, where people are much more likely to oppose any change or new externalities regardless of the upsides. To override this, a simple trick I use when I'm talking to people about data centers is to imagine a situation where not building the data center violates the status quo. I usually don't use the word data center for this at all, and instead just frame it around lost tax revenue. I just ask 'Would we spend this much in tax revenue to avoid the externalities of the data center?' This brings the effects of losing out on the tax revenue into the spotlight. If I could just have everyone in the debate communicate this way, I think the whole thing would be clarified." Link
• 6/8/2026
  • Champagne and Caviar (Money Stuff podcast): One New York bar offered free drinks if the Knicks won and hedged by making a Kalshi bet on the Knicks. Short seller Andrew Left has been convicted for tweeting about stocks he was short and then selling them shortly after. This isn't wrong in and of itself, but he also sent texts that convinced the jury that he had intent to manipulate the market. Link
• 6/9/2026
  • Money Stuff: No SpaceX in the S&P (Matt Levine): Breaking with NASDAQ, the S&P 500 has opted to keep its existing addition rules, preventing an accelerated entry for SpaceX, OpenAI, and others. Link
• 6/10/2026
  • Money Stuff: You Can Just Not Buy SpaceX (Matt Levine): On the pod shop model, Meta's trade school, and continued discussion of SpaceX's inclusion/exclusion in certain index funds (and whether passive investors should really care). Link
• 6/11/2026
  • The silent revolutionaries (Scott Sumner): If you're going to bash the baby boomers at least bash them for what they're actually responsible for; most boomers were still children in 1965 and many figures associated with that era (Ehrlich, MLK, the Beatles) were actually from the silent generation (and generational cutoffs are somewhat arbitrary anyway). Link
  • Money Stuff: You Can't Bet on Little League (Matt Levine): The CFTC has released the text of its proposed rules for prediction markets. Markets involving injuries, pre-collegiate sports, and discrete events (like a single pitch) are all out. Link
• 6/12/2026
  • Katja Hoyer on Weimar, the GDR, and the German Character (Conversations with Tyler podcast): Recommended. Not a single mention of AI from Tyler, which is both rare and refreshing. Link
• 6/14/2026
  • Notes on Egypt (Nick Corvino for ChinaTalk): Nick Corvino explores the monumental but empty New Capital in Egypt. Link
• 6/15/2026
  • Strongly Worded Letters (Money Stuff podcast): SpaceX's exclusion from the S&P 500 could be a blessing for active hedge fund managers, giving them a chance to beat the index. Link
• 6/16/2026
  • Money Stuff: The Stock Market Will Get More Stock (Matt Levine): If steadily rising stock prices were fueled by de-equitisation (stock buybacks and private acquisitions), this trend could be threatened by re-equitisation (stock issuance by large companies, often to fund AI buildout). Link
• 6/17/2026
  • Better immigration can help fix the debt (Matt Yglesias): Matt Yglesias with proposals to improve AND expand the immigration system. Link
• 6/18/2026
  • Blaming China for Datacenter NIMBYism Is Cope (ChinaTalk): Jordan Schneider on the legitimate concerns around data centers and the solution to local opposition (direct payments/benefits for residents, not just property tax revenue). It's worth noting that data center equipment is not taxed in some states. Link
  • Childhood days, lemonade, romance (Henry Oliver): Henry Oliver continues exploring America, visiting St. John's College and sites in Maryland. He's optimistic, much more so than Americans. Link
• 6/19/2026
  • Jeremy Grantham on How to Tell if a Bubble is About to Burst (Odd Lots podcast): Basically just the rambling of an old gentleman, but I enjoyed it for being exactly that. Link
• 6/20/2026
  • Converting Coal Plants to Natural Gas (Brian Potter of Construction Physics): Brian explains what drove coal to gas conversion (regulations and the shale gas boom), how coal plants are converted, and the outlook for future conversions (we're probably past the peak, as many have already shut down or converted and these plants aren't as efficient as newer options). Link
• 6/22/2026
  • Pizza wheels are bad, Japanese toilets are great (Noah Smith): The title says it all. I agree on the pizza wheels, less so on the Japanese toilets (I hate warmed seats in cars). Link
• 6/24/2026
  • Money Stuff: Short Squeeze as a Service (Matt Levine): On the recent Avis short squeeze, SpaceX's ESG rating (the G is not good), and how private equity funds try to smooth their returns (which potentially only hit once they sell their stake in a company). Link
• 6/25/2026
  • The Iran War Is Ending. Everybody Lost. (Derek Thompson): After years of criticizing Obama's JCPOA, Trump is working on a similar agreement with Iran. And this time there was a war that cost $130 billion and showed Iran that it can extort the world through its control of the Straight of Hormuz. Link
• 6/29/2026
  • One Big Blob of Elon (Money Stuff podcast): I didn't know Elon had a company called "Macrohard." Link
• 6/30/2026
  • Money Stuff: People Are Worried About Stock Market Leverage (Matt Levine): What could possibly go wrong using buying leveraged ETF options on margin? Link