Open Philanthropy (OP) is the largest grantmaker who is moving money to the things I think are most valuable, including (disclosure!) my work at the NAO. There's been a lot of discussion in the effective altruism community about where this leaves smaller donors, and where they might have a comparative advantage. For example:

There are a lot of fun things about halloween, with costumes, neighbors, and sweets, but maybe the part I like best is the trading. Two kids sit down, each with a bucket full of candy. After a while they get back up, each with a better bucket than they started with. This feels like it shouldn't be possible: isn't there some sort of law of conservation of candy?

But of course it is possible: not everyone has the same preferences. We each start with some candy we aren't the ideal person to appreciate. Which also means the more different our preferences are, the greater the benefit of trading.

Cross-posted from my NAO Notebook.

In April we released released a tool to model the efficacy of different approaches to stealth pathogen identification. The tool's interface is pretty rough, which I'm not super happy about, but there just aren't that many people in the world who need to simulate the performance impact these design choices.

A month ago we published estimates of RAi(1%) for influenza in municipal wastewater, and ended that post with:

One of the inputs of my rhythm stage setup has been a breath controller, which let's me gives me a continuous controller. I use it for a few different things, especially when playing music that's farther in the electronic direction:

When I was growing up most families in our neighborhood had the daily paper on their lawn. As getting your news on the internet became a better option for most folks, though, delivery became less efficient: fewer houses on the same route. Prices went up, more people cancelled, and decline continued. I wonder if we might see something similar with the power grid?

Solar panels keep getting cheaper. When we installed panels in 2019 they only made sense because of the combination of net metering and the relatively generous SREC II incentives. By the time we installed our second set of panels a few months ago net metering alone was enough to make it worth it.

A few weeks ago I posted about how I was thinking about a pedalboard. I've now made one!

Before:

After:

It folds up slightly and fits in a standard rolly suitcase: