Brad Weed
@bradweed
I write about the interaction of people and place and advocate for improvements at interplace.io.
And this is where all the consumer spending is coming from. h/t @adamtooze.bsky.social
Because we just can’t fill our streets fast enough with cars…🙄 China’s new 10,800‑car carriers just set a Shanghai export record. 7,738 Teslas in one ship (≈36 km of cars, 9.5 football fields). Europe, here they come. 🚢⚡🚗 H/T @adamtooze.bsky.social via www.scmp.com/economy/chin...
While I’m at, might I point out that given all the hand wringing by both 🫏 and 🐘 over democratic socialism lately, note the government bailout of the US auto industry in the early 2000s. If ‘the market’ really were the ultimate decider, the US auto industry would probably would have liquidated.
Europe’s car industry is facing China shock 2.0 — but @adamtooze.bsky.social (via @somoamsterdam.bsky.social) points out that this is not just a story about China. It is also a story about Europe’s own industrial choices, especially greedflation, financialization, and a high-price strategy.
Rise fast, fall hard From canals, to cabooses, to .com, to Cab Calloway and the Cotton Club Quick queries are on a quest! www.bis.org/publ/arpdf/a...
Self flagellation 🤦♂️ “Nine of the ten states with the highest share of exports to Canada and Mexico as a share of the state's total exports…” h/t @dailychartbook.bsky.social www.piie.com/research/pii...
This synthetic biologist, @kateadamala.bsky.social, “coaxed a cellular soup of nonliving biomolecules enclosed in a membrane to act somewhat like a living thing, even growing and dividing into daughter cells.” 🙌 www.quantamagazine.org/for-the-firs...
“There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices, more shocking and bloody, than are the people of these United States, at this very hour.”
I started working on Office in 1992. It did not feel like this shift was occurring at the time.
You just can't be both "save the trees" and "where's the beef?" From @hannahritchie.bsky.social and her cool new tool. (I ❤️ sankey's) hannahritchie.github.io/deforestatio...
💨 😍 💨 Vela (with DHL) is building trimarans that are 220 ft. long and able to carry 415 metric tons. They have ~5x more cargo space than an airplane and are 5x shorter than a container ship. Made of aluminum, they can reach ~14 knots or 16 MPH.
US, Australia, and Japan where fuel is cheap, policies are weak, and charging patchy. US+Australia choices/dependencies can include long commutes or road-trips. For Japan, hybrids work fine. Plus, culture matters. Gas/hybrid cars feel like the most 'normal' choice. h/t @hannahritchie.bsky.social
“Human disturbance can impose novel selective pressures [] on trait distributions, predator or prey [may] ‘lose’ in the arms race. [Also] can [lead] the predator or prey to ‘win’. [The] arms race should drive ecoevolutionary feedbacks, as both members [] gain a selective advantage from ‘winning’.”
“60% of China’s workforce — about 500m people — do not even have a high-school education. Many of them live in smaller and poorer cities.” www.economist.com/china/2026/0... h/t @adamtooze.bsky.social
"The world does not enjoy long periods of serene, fossil-fuelled growth, followed by the odd month of price turmoil. The reality is that it experiences an oil price shock every four years, ushering in a period of economic stress that lasts on average more than a year."
AY YI YI...AI Look at this surge in US demand for AI hardware and related tech (chips, networking, computing gear) compared to everything else.
This paper does a great job of illustrating car dependency in select European cities. Paris stands out! But zoom out a bit to the metro region and there’s work to do. Still, the core is evidence of what can be! arxiv.org/pdf/2604.01019
“Zohran Mamdani, No Kings, and the Minneapolis protests "have a bit of the same spirit: sensitive to popular taste in their prevailing iconography but uncompromising in their values and ambitions." Look to the memes: a little demented, a little funny, and entirely militant.”
Nearly a tenth of the world’s roughly 1,000 VLCCs (Very Large Crude Carriers) are now en route to the U.S. via @dailychartbook.bsky.social
All the talk of 'unprecedented' Presidential action and calls for 'rational' military actors to step in, let's recall Cambodia. The Menu campaign labelled targets as Breakfast, Lunch, Supper, Dinner, Dessert, and Snack by American commanders. Started by a 🫏, Johnson, and accelerated by an 🐘, Nixon.
"In 2026, China’s combined wind+solar power generation will exceed US household+industrial power consumption. In transport, [] China’s (EV) fleet is now consuming the equivalent of 1.76m barrels of crude oil/day, [] reducing China’s future needs for imported oil." h/t @dailychartbook.bsky.social