everyone is a PM now, whether you like it or not

Our first SeattleJS meetup of 2026 is coming up next Wednesday! New year, new content format: We're going to be hosting a moderated panel discussion on using AI in developer workflows. Curious about how other people are using LLM-based tools? Bring your questions for our panelists! RSVP:

"US Has the Most Progressive Tax System in the Developed World" www.cato.org/blog/united-...

In the EI blog today, Lucas Davis explains why the trump admin's proposal to abandon tradability across firms will make auto fuel economy standards less effective and more expensive. Doesn't look conservative or populist to me, just dumb. energyathaas.wordpress.com/2026/01/05/t...

Here it is, my new piece on the Trump administration's shifting and fluid rationales for its Venezuelan action.

1/4 Caixin: "China’s push to rein in excessive competition in its auto market reached a climax in 2025, as policymakers moved to stamp out a relentless price war that has inflicted severe pain on carmakers, suppliers and dealerships." www.caixinglobal.com/2026-01-02/y...

If more people need homes than there are homes, renters have to bid against each other, driving prices up like an auction as landlords collect. If there's more homes than people, landlords have to fight each other for renters or be left with nothing. It's musical chairs, and we're adding chairs.

7/7 Resolving China's deflation problem, in other words, requires a transformation of the economy, which in turn requires a slowing of growth that Beijing will not yet accept. That is why I expect all the talk about resolving deflation to continue to be just talk.

6/7 In that case monetary and credit expansion is likely to be disinflationary, not inflationary. So how can China fight deflation? The only way involves redirecting income away from production subsidies towards household consumption, so that demand rises relative to supply.

Welp, I am officially an AI bro now… I made a whole new Ruby gem with ChatGPT in like an hour including testing… What have I become 🫣🫣 chatgpt.com/share/695878...

plus, a significant amount of my time to keep reposting this until thit s**t ends

Genomic study reveals how people moved pigs across the Pacific 🐖⛵️🌏 phys.org/news/2025-12...

ICYMI: Here are two very nice programmes that appeared on BBC Radio 4 over the holidays in which I've contributed. First, a report from the summer on the big quantum mechanics meeting on Helgoland. www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

Some basic tips about Claude code: yyahn.com/wiki/Claude%...

best one of the year Wordle 1,656 2/6* 🟩⬛⬛🟩⬛ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Time for my big year end blogpost about the Atmosphere. From the personal computing perspective, the cloud has been a disaster — but we shouldn't run away from it. We can solve a lot of problems by connecting our clouds, turning it into atmospheric computing.

...but Americas account for 7% of new install costs & 35% of global maintenance costs. That's about the same as Europe, the Middle East + Africa combined even though they have many more elevators. Do the math & the average elevator in the Americas costs ~2.3x more to install, ~3.8x more to operate.

I've spent a couple of days working on this one, and it didn't end up quite where I expected it to. But I think this is the clearest way I can describe where my head's at, why I approach LLMs in the way that I do, and why, while it's describing-not-prescribing, it's a little light prescribing too.

I am just a small-town IPE professor, so what do I know? But our ongoing obsession with beating 🇨🇳 in every manufacturing sector, regardless of whether we actually have a comparative advantage in it, vexes me. As does trying to Make America The 1950s Again in terms of manufacturing employment.

Again, I remain mostly vexed as to why, rather than viewing this as a geopolitical crisis worthy of a new Cold War, we don't also take advantage of this 🇨🇳 overproduction by exchanging other goods/services with them to raise our own standard of living & fight climate change. bsky.app/profile/mcop...

Does Europe have a cost-of-living crisis? The data says, broadly, no. But Europe does have an availability crisis. My latest for The @economist.com. economist.com/finance-and-...

aftermath.site/best-split-k... @papapishu.bsky.social speaking my language with this morning's bonus @aftermath.site blog about split keyboards

If you were thinking of pre-ordering our book How To Win A Trade War, then today is a VERY good day to do it (in the US), because Barnes & Noble Premium & Rewards Members get 25% off pre-orders Dec 30-Jan 1 only www.barnesandnoble.com/w/how-to-win...

What Makes Goose Different From Other AI Coding Agents 👀 dev.to/nickytonline...

Tariffs as a % of GDP are at the highest level in more than 100 years amidst Trump's trade war—even though tariff rates are still lower than in the 1930s, they have a much higher impact because trade volumes are much larger than in the past

Oh: "Bankruptcies hit 15-year high in 2025 as tariffs roiled corporate America" share.google/6lABVmKe3or8... "in a shift from previous years, the rise in filings is most apparent among industrials" 😲

I finally digested Christmas supper, so @opensource.block.xyz's Advent of AI day 17 write up is done and live! dev.to/nickytonline... #mcp #adventofai #agenticai #mcpui

Finally, after much delay from the BBC, Marnie Chesterton's "What Is Quantum?" is being broadcast at 9.30 am on Radio 4 on Tues 30th Dec. Recorded on Helgoland in the summer, with input from the leading figures in quantum mechanics (and me). www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

"Biden’s charging program, which envisioned a network of 500,000 charging stations by 2030, allowed red tape and union giveaways to slow progress. By this year, just 384 chargers had been built with the help of government grants." share.google/0VAU7kvA646Y...

Previously on @thatjeffsmith... Videos! Overview of our MCP Server, and a Demo!

Only a few hours left for the 40% discount on Epic MCP! www.epicai.pro/workshops/ep...

Expedition 33 lost its Game of the Year and Debut Game awards from the Indie Game Awards. I’ve argued fighting using Gen AI in games is a losing battle because this is now the norm. If they built an award winning game using Gen AI one could ask why we should want worse Gen AI-free games instead?

"Rent Control Creates Ghost Apartments" marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevo...

"How Antitrust Enforcers Helped Kill an American Innovator" www.aei.org/technology-a... "This is not an isolated mistake. It is part of a broader shift in antitrust enforcement away from consumer welfare and toward ideological hostility to scale, vertical integration, and successful American firms"

"More Republican socialism: Trump’s state capitalism experiment continues" reason.com/2025/12/19/m...

Time shall unfold what plighted cunning hides, Who covers faults, at last with shame derides.

COVID vaccines protect children from severe illness per CDC. ⬇️76% reduced risk of ER visits in kids 9 mo. to 4 years ⬇️56% reduced risk of ER visits in kids 5 - 17 years #medsky #pedsky 🛟😷🧪

"That doesn't beg the question! It RAISES the question!" - me like every third day ...but I’ve already lost this battle, haven’t I? 😢

"Higher intake of high-fat cheese and high-fat cream was associated with a lower risk of all-cause dementia." Results of a 25-year prospective study of ~27,000 participants. The purported benefit was not linked to APOE4 carriers or low-fat cheese intake www.neurology.org/doi/full/10....

"Smaller raises and rebounding inflation are fueling America’s cost-of-living problems." www.cnn.com/2025/12/16/e...

Before this year, the US govt hadn't taken a direct stake in a healthy commercial firm since at least the 1950s. Now, it's taken 14, with more coming. My new Capitolism @thedispatchmedia.bsky.social laments 2025's worst policy development: "The Year America Went (Kinda) Socialist" t.co/GYs7bvDhO5

"Since Trump’s inauguration and the initial tariffs declared in February, job openings have averaged 410,000. In other words, there are approximately 130,000 fewer job openings in manufacturing since the tariffs were imposed than before" 😲 www.econlib.org/econlog/no-m...

It's not so much about credentials, it's about decades of experience. I am not about to tell the HVAC repair person who shows up to fix my furnace that they are wrong because I have not spend a decade fixing them. When it comes to science the problem is amplified 1000 times.

My @theatlantic.com piece on the emerging new "Physics of Life". Complexity science, information theory, network theory... a whole new trans-disciplinary way of asking an ancient question. www.theatlantic.com/science/2025...

Come hang out with Tony McCulley and me tomorrow where we'll talk doing the platform engineering stuff for adding AI and MCP to your internal developer platforms. www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6vQ...

"America, with its robust constitutional protections for speech of all varieties, stands apart. And it should continue to do so, even when its own symbols are under attack." Matt Cavedon on why flag burning should remain lawful in the U.S.

This is huge, right? They just Trump-proofed the Fed.

Damp, by Sam Francis, 1969 (rotated, detail), 📸 by @itsryantweets

The next candidate has to be someone who can both overcome the structural deficiencies of the party - probably through personal wealth - and is politically not beholden to the people responsbile for those deficiencies.

Here's a study of water vs. diet soda for diabetics. The water arm actually had *increased* HBA1c compared to the diet soda arm. I'll just keep saying it. Diet soda is fine. diabetesjournals.org/care/article...