“Congressional Republicans to Defund the Antitrust Division?” – Matt Stoller (Big)

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“So how do political opponents take on a popular agenda? Well, instead of taking it on directly, you do it by being super-boring. Just cut the budget of the entity you don’t like. And indeed, since the turn against antitrust in the 1980s, Congress has been cutting the funding of the Antitrust Division, such that it has 230 fewer employees today than it did in 1979, despite a much larger economy. Few pro-consolidation politicians said “I like monopolies,” instead they just defunded the cops”

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/congressional-republicans-to-defund

‘ “Wherever you get your podcasts” is a radical statement’ – Anil Dash

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“But for creators, and for the world, that inefficiency was often wonderful. The inefficiency of old media formats resulted in less surveillance of the purchasing and behavioral habits of individuals, and larger surpluses that sustained a healthier, more vibrant media ecosystem that could even afford to invest in important stories or content despite the fact that they might not have a large audience”

https://anildash.com/2024/02/06/wherever-you-get-podcasts/

“Kevin Durant and the Wake of a Failed Superteam” – Howard Beck (The Ringer)

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“There were maybe 150 people in the building that night, counting me. And it was weird as hell. As I wrote then, for Sports Illustrated: “The greatest player ever to pull on a Nets jersey made his Brooklyn debut Tuesday night, and the excitement was … not palpable.”

It turns out, that profoundly strange introduction served as an omen of sorts. Things never did get much better, or more normal, or more palpable, during Durant’s time in Brooklyn. The era could best be summed up with a shrug emoji and a two-word slogan: Shit happens”

https://www.theringer.com/nba/2024/2/2/24058808/kevin-durant-brooklyn-nets-phoenix-suns

“The video game magazines of our youth are disappearing” – Simon Parkin (Pushing Buttons, The Guardian)

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“This venue –and every publication is a venue with its own dress code and decor, its favoured clientele and font-choice aesthetic –felt more like the Garrick than a youth club: deep-chaired, wood-panelled, its resident critics ruthless and assured, unafraid to skewer whatever video game everyone else was busily fawning over. Edge’s writers became my tutors; they helped me develop a sense of taste, to recognise brilliance, and to mourn the distance between intention and attainment”

https://www.theguardian.com/games/2024/jan/31/pushing-buttons-video-game-magazines

“The Vision Pro” – Daring Fireball

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“This first-generation Vision Pro hardware is severely restricted by the current limits of technology. Apple has pushed those limits in numerous ways, but the limits are glaring. This Vision Pro is a stake in the ground, defining the new state of the art in immersive headset technology. But that stake in the ground will recede in the rear view mirror as the years march on. Just like the Mac’s 9-inch monochrome 512×342 pixel display. Just like the iPhone’s EDGE cellular modem.

But the conceptual design of VisionOS lays the foundation for an entirely new direction of interaction design. Just like how the basic concepts of the original Mac interface were exactly right, and remain true to this day. Just like how the original iPhone defined the way every phone in the world now works”

https://daringfireball.net/2024/01/the_vision_pro

“The Fertilizer Oligopoly Stinks” – Boondoggle

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“studies show that fertilizer prices move alongside food prices, rather than reflecting any underlying change in the inputs required to manufacture it, meaning fertilizer manufacturers aren’t constrained by any real market discipline. They’re just opportunistically gouging farmers. And some of that increased cost is inevitably going to wind up in the prices of the food you purchase at the grocery store too”

https://boondoggle.substack.com/p/the-fertilizer-oligopoly-stinks

“Video-Game Companies Make Workers Relocate, Then Fire Them” – Jason Schreier (GameOn, Bloomberg)

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“Blizzard canceled its survival game Odyssey after six years in development largely due to its struggling technology. One factor behind those struggles may have been the company’s inability to retain or attract senior engineers, in part, because of a lack of remote-work flexibility.

But the hardest impact of this policy is that both companies asked people to move to southern California — where the rents are expensive and the cost of living is high — only to then take away their jobs.

Let’s say, for argument’s sake, that productivity does take a hit when people work from home. Maybe it’s especially hard for some disciplines, as managers have argued, and maybe it’s difficult to engage in creative collaboration on Zoom and Trello. Doesn’t matter. CEOs should recognize that no productivity boost is worth the short- and long-term repercussions of forcing people to move and then laying them off”

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2024-01-26/video-game-companies-make-workers-relocate-then-fire-them