Virginia Postrel

L.A. writer @WorksinProgMag @AbundanceInst I History podcast w/ @CharlesCMann:

[Virginia Postrel @vpostrel]

@Noahpinion I think you’re giving him too much credit.

[Virginia Postrel @vpostrel]

I was so happy when @WorksInProgMag reprinted this article I found while doing research on women's household work.

[Atalanta @AtalantaArdenM]

A perverse pleasure in hand-drawing a medieval border around this article from the 1880s about how labor saving devices will take all our jobs. One of my fav articles yet to design, from the most recent issue of @WorksInProgMag (process on the left, final spread on the right)

[Deena Mousa (SF June 22-26) @deenamousa]

I was surprised to learn rats aren’t native to North America — they came in on ships with European traders

Fun visual from my upcoming @WorksInProgMag article on how Alberta eliminated rats, out online this week

[James Wise @Jameswise]

I get the print issue of Works in Progress.

It is genuinely the one thing I always read start to finish. Every essay goes from seemingly banal to banger within the first two paragraphs.

Can’t recommend it enough.

[Virginia Postrel @vpostrel]

Also, for those like me who wondered, South Georgia refers neither to the state nor to the country. It's an island near the Falklands that all Brits know about. Read the article and you'll see what I mean.

[Deena Mousa (SF June 22-26) @deenamousa]

Rats are virtually everywhere humans live. Except for Alberta, Canada. Most residents there have never even seen one. How did they eliminate a pest we take as a fact of life?

By waging war.

[Virginia Postrel @vpostrel]

@bswud I'm shocked that this information comes as news to so many well-educated people. How is that possible?

[Virginia Postrel @vpostrel]

@elsathora Route 66 is 100 years old this year.

[Virginia Postrel @vpostrel]

@aoiwa_88 How do we buy the original glass bowl?

[Virginia Postrel @vpostrel]

@JonGuze @mungowitz I gave up after 3 college semesters, when it became clear that I needed to spend time in a French-speaking place to progress and I couldn't afford it. I can still read it well enough for some purposes and understand people who speak slowly.

[Virginia Postrel @vpostrel]

But it's Huntington Beach, not Venice.

[Virginia Postrel @vpostrel]

Hilarious.

[Barrett Linburg @DallasAptGP]

I can't believe that the historical preservation folks in Venice Beach, CA have allowed the character of this coastal area to change so much

[Virginia Postrel @vpostrel]

@kumbiakommunist Jacarandas are the best! California’s cherry blossoms.

[Virginia Postrel @vpostrel]

@Nowooski But LA voters supported a sales tax increase!

[Virginia Postrel @vpostrel]

@JonGuze @mungowitz I was lucky to get two years of French in high school,

[Virginia Postrel @vpostrel]

@patrickc @Afinetheorem People love Chicago’s mixture of mostly modern architecture.

[Russell Kaplan @russelljkaplan]

In 1958 Ian Donald published what is now the foundational paper on medical ultrasound for obstetrics. He was so widely ridiculed by his colleagues at the time that they nicknamed him Mad Donald [1], and one said ultrasound would be useful only to "a gynecologist who was blind and had lost the use of both hands" [2]. Another noted that he'd invented a £10,000 device to undertake a task that could be accomplished with a £0.02 rubber glove. [3]

Last week, my wife and I welcomed our first child into the world. She had a rare pregnancy complication that until recently would have meant only a 28% intact survival rate for our newborn. But in 2013 US guidance was updated to add regular preventative screening for her condition at the 20-week ultrasound, and with early detection the survival rate is ~99%. (In the UK, preventative screening is still not recommended, for reasons like "it is not known how accurate screening tests are" [4].)

The entire history of radiology is people expressing skepticism about the work done by innovators. I for one am grateful for folks like @DavidSHolz building new classes of devices that can help us see things in new ways, and I'll be rooting for their success. Hand in hand with my wife and our healthy baby boy.

[Abundance Institute @abundanceinst]

Americans once got enough exercise just staying alive.

Then a study found U.S. children were shockingly unfit.

President Eisenhower got involved!

🎧 @vpostrel and @CharlesCMann explain how exercise became a national priority on Everyday Abundance

[Virginia Postrel @vpostrel]

@johnarnold I agree. It was a nothing burger story. It read like they felt obligated to do something with the leak even though the information was boring.

[Virginia Postrel @vpostrel]

@curiouswavefn Great book.

[Virginia Postrel @vpostrel]

@Marian_L_Tupy @RonaldBailey I love Ron but @Abi0lvera did those calculations, as he acknowledges.