Ian C. Stephens

I like to read books and listen to podcasts and that gives me the mistaken impression that I know things.

[Ian C. Stephens @IanCSt]

@CyrilH44 So that you can have a crease down the middle. Everyone wants a crease down the middle.

[Ian C. Stephens @IanCSt]

@JJ_McCullough No one has accounted for the Quebec wild card in Donald Trump’s plan to annex Canada.

[Ian C. Stephens @IanCSt]

@chris_kratovil I worry less about whether people will appear —those who would be tempted to ignore a summons probably already will—and more about the effect this will have on those chosen. The last thing we want is for someone to hesitate at being the odd one out of 12 angry men.

[Ian C. Stephens @IanCSt]

@SCP_Hughes I wonder how much if that is about it being easier to distinguish between buildings with more details, which usually means traditional buildings. Distinction, ironically, feels more new. But I think that many people still admire contemporary buildings that don’t feel the same.

[Ian C. Stephens @IanCSt]

Ah yes. Only 2% of cellphone sales are of foldables now, but obviously Apple will sell eight times more than that. Everyone wants a $2,400 phone that doesn’t fit in one hand and will have a crease down the middle in three months.

[Ian C. Stephens @IanCSt]

When did hotels stop offering free breakfast? AND when did free breakfast start being *less likely* at more expensive the hotels? I’m sorry, I think that if I spend more money at your business I should get more with that, and breakfast definitely shouldn’t cost $35!

[Ian C. Stephens @IanCSt]

In five years giving directions is going to be like: “Go south the America Expressway and exit at America Street, follow that until you get to America Plaza and you’ll be there just after you get into America Town.”

[Ian C. Stephens @IanCSt]

.@AnnieLowrey's idea of a "time tax" takes me back to when I was laid off for Covid and went on unemployment: ready by the phone at 8:00 sharp for a line open from 8–12; calling, calling, calling, hoping to get through once; wondering why I had to do that.
https://t.co/MKpQnjBCYa

[Ian C. Stephens @IanCSt]

@WhiteHouse What are we doing guys?

[Ian C. Stephens @IanCSt]

In a familiar turn, China is building more nuclear reactors than anyone else in the world. And more ports, more cars, more robots, more solar panels, etc. That is the result of a concerted, far-sighted policy, and we don't win by fighting, but by learning.
https://t.co/40Be4K76Rj

[Ian C. Stephens @IanCSt]

An arbitrator ordered the @washingtonpost to reinstate @KarenAttiah. Arbitration is, in my view, the most underrated benefit of unions. That’s the only way that you can be protected from quick decisions and bias in job decisions.
https://t.co/Zda9YmfYCb

[Ian C. Stephens @IanCSt]

@MarcGoldwein Something that I would be interested to see from this is how much is actually “overpaid” (or will be. Looking at that chart, it looks like the B+I and T+I lines don’t cross until your early-late 80’s, which is a little over the average life expectancy.

[Ian C. Stephens @IanCSt]

@ElofsonJess When you sit perfectly still for 20 hours and none of the people around you, including the aide sitting right next to you, says a word about it

[Ian C. Stephens @IanCSt]

@WilliamBaude @danepps Immediately assumes someone is looking for problems 😂

[Ian C. Stephens @IanCSt]

I don't know what the right way to regulate litigation funders is. They probably do more good than bad in all. But fraud is no surprise. That minority of PI lawyers who send their clients for unnecessary medical procedures is an open secret.
https://t.co/5OVXWti2sj

[Ian C. Stephens @IanCSt]

@AndyMasley @hamandcheese You mention “degrowth,” and I also saw Matt Yglessies make a similar argument. I think that misses the point. For the vast majority of people, I think that opposition to data centers is less about AI development and more about the effects they expect to see in their communities.

[Ian C. Stephens @IanCSt]

I just left Grandscape, a shopping complex in Texas, and it's striking how much it feels like a dense, walkable city inside. It feels like we avoid building cities with that feeling that people can live in, but our most popular places are all simulacra of walkable cities.

[Ian C. Stephens @IanCSt]

I just learned that Moderna and Merck are working on a cancer vaccine that involves cutting part of your tumor out to make an mRNA vaccine. I’m sure that everyone will be super cool and chill about that.

[Ian C. Stephens @IanCSt]

You see this all throughout history. Hitler wanted to build a dome so big that it would rain on the inside. Stalin nuked Soviet agriculture listening to a hack geneticist. Mao wiped out the birds that ate locusts.
More contemporaneously, you might call it “the Cybertruck effect.”

[Ian C. Stephens @IanCSt]

Neom was so obviously doomed from the jump that I want to say it was never really meant to be built. But that can’t be true; they spent $50B on it! It seems more likely the common result of dictatorship: no one will tell the boss when he has a bad idea.
https://t.co/Sa7sz1zder