Thomas Goetz
@thgoetz.bsky.social
sometime journalist someplace
Reposted by Thomas Goetz
With the news on ultraprocessed foods this week, it's worth going back to this excellent explainer, from @alicecallahan.bsky.social, on how we got to where we are today: www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
How America Got Hooked on Ultraprocessed Foods (Gift Article)
They promised convenience and cheap nutrition. But they became one of the greatest health threats of our time.
www.nytimes.com
November 21, 2025 at 4:52 PM
With the news on ultraprocessed foods this week, it's worth going back to this excellent explainer, from @alicecallahan.bsky.social, on how we got to where we are today: www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
I am super duper excited to read this. Charles Mann is so good at this stuff.
Shameless plug:
For a year, I've been working on a series about the vast systems that underlie life in most of the world. Built up over generations, these systems are the cathedrals of our time--but all too few of us know anything about them, and they're all at risk of failing. Here's the latest:
For a year, I've been working on a series about the vast systems that underlie life in most of the world. Built up over generations, these systems are the cathedrals of our time--but all too few of us know anything about them, and they're all at risk of failing. Here's the latest:
Two Hundred Years to Flatten the Curve
How generations of meddlesome public health campaigns changed everyday life — and made life twice as long as it used to be
www.thenewatlantis.com
November 12, 2025 at 7:35 PM
I am super duper excited to read this. Charles Mann is so good at this stuff.
Reposted by Thomas Goetz
Shameless plug:
For a year, I've been working on a series about the vast systems that underlie life in most of the world. Built up over generations, these systems are the cathedrals of our time--but all too few of us know anything about them, and they're all at risk of failing. Here's the latest:
For a year, I've been working on a series about the vast systems that underlie life in most of the world. Built up over generations, these systems are the cathedrals of our time--but all too few of us know anything about them, and they're all at risk of failing. Here's the latest:
Two Hundred Years to Flatten the Curve
How generations of meddlesome public health campaigns changed everyday life — and made life twice as long as it used to be
www.thenewatlantis.com
November 12, 2025 at 2:58 PM
Shameless plug:
For a year, I've been working on a series about the vast systems that underlie life in most of the world. Built up over generations, these systems are the cathedrals of our time--but all too few of us know anything about them, and they're all at risk of failing. Here's the latest:
For a year, I've been working on a series about the vast systems that underlie life in most of the world. Built up over generations, these systems are the cathedrals of our time--but all too few of us know anything about them, and they're all at risk of failing. Here's the latest:
If you need me today, I'm doing the fucking news.
October 7, 2025 at 6:00 PM
If you need me today, I'm doing the fucking news.
“Good luck to all” is just …
Looks like the meeting with Zelenskyy was a good one. Trump now backs Ukraine’s 1991 borders instead of offering up Crimea to Putin.
September 23, 2025 at 8:50 PM
“Good luck to all” is just …
Reposted by Thomas Goetz
As they say, I will just leave this… here. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Ejaculation Frequency and Risk of Prostate Cancer: Updated Results with an Additional Decade of Follow-up
Evidence suggests that ejaculation frequency may be inversely related to the risk of prostate cancer (PCa), a disease for which few modifiable risk fa…
www.sciencedirect.com
June 26, 2025 at 1:18 AM
As they say, I will just leave this… here. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
apropos of nothing, here's the wine list at Mar A Lago lagomar.com/wp-content/u...
lagomar.com
March 13, 2025 at 11:21 PM
apropos of nothing, here's the wine list at Mar A Lago lagomar.com/wp-content/u...
*Now* i get it - when people say "do your own research" - they mean once the NIH, CDC, NSF, and other government-funded science all shuts down.
March 5, 2025 at 10:04 PM
*Now* i get it - when people say "do your own research" - they mean once the NIH, CDC, NSF, and other government-funded science all shuts down.
This is true. My team at iodine did for $1.1m what a previous team had failed to do for $150m for fda. Instead of praise we got rousted.
You should know that a big part of 18F's work was to make sure multi-million to multi-*hundreds*-of-millions dollar contracts at fed *and* state level didn't go to shitty enterprise IT consultancies that *repeatedly* delivered tech that didn't work, was late, or didn't even do what it needed to
March 3, 2025 at 6:42 AM
This is true. My team at iodine did for $1.1m what a previous team had failed to do for $150m for fda. Instead of praise we got rousted.
Reposted by Thomas Goetz
The Great American Enshitification begins
The Bay Area weather radar (KMUX) has been out of service for more than 24 hours now. An expensive broken part needs to be replaced and specially ordered, but that may not be possible due to ongoing freeze on government credit card spending, I’ve been told.
March 3, 2025 at 2:44 AM
The Great American Enshitification begins
if anybody is backing up gov websites, please add ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc to the list - a clearinghouse of what works in education policy, hosted by dept. of education. essential documentation of how to teach!
WWC | Find What Works!
As an initiative of the U.S. Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences (IES), the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) was created in 2002 to be a central and trusted source of scientific ev...
ies.ed.gov
February 11, 2025 at 9:09 PM
if anybody is backing up gov websites, please add ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc to the list - a clearinghouse of what works in education policy, hosted by dept. of education. essential documentation of how to teach!
A really good assessment of how Bryan Johnson is chasing the wrong metrics, by Gregory Katz gregorykatz.substack.com/p/bryan-john...
Bryan Johnson is the living embodiment of Goodhart's law
Bryan Johnson is an entrepreneur who is trying to use technology to avoid dying.
gregorykatz.substack.com
January 31, 2025 at 11:07 PM
A really good assessment of how Bryan Johnson is chasing the wrong metrics, by Gregory Katz gregorykatz.substack.com/p/bryan-john...
Reposted by Thomas Goetz
What I've read so far, the "evidence" is that they can't figure out how else DeepSeek could've done it, which, hrm.
Also, *if* someone stole OpenAI's data, call the police, using copyrighted material without paying its creators is a crime, good point.
techcrunch.com/2025/01/28/d...
Also, *if* someone stole OpenAI's data, call the police, using copyrighted material without paying its creators is a crime, good point.
techcrunch.com/2025/01/28/d...
David Sacks claims there's 'substantial evidence' that DeepSeek used OpenAI's models to train its own | TechCrunch
David Sacks said there's evidence that DeepSeek 'distilled' knowledge from OpenAI's models, a process that Sacks equated to theft.
techcrunch.com
January 29, 2025 at 12:25 AM
What I've read so far, the "evidence" is that they can't figure out how else DeepSeek could've done it, which, hrm.
Also, *if* someone stole OpenAI's data, call the police, using copyrighted material without paying its creators is a crime, good point.
techcrunch.com/2025/01/28/d...
Also, *if* someone stole OpenAI's data, call the police, using copyrighted material without paying its creators is a crime, good point.
techcrunch.com/2025/01/28/d...
Reposted by Thomas Goetz
The Columbia River, which drains about 244 billion cubic meters of fresh water into the Pacific Ocean from tributaries in Canada, Washington, Idaho and Oregon, does not connect to Southern California through any man-made channels or natural bodies of water other than the Pacific Ocean.
President Trump claims he diverted water from PNW to California. Did he?
President Donald Trump said Monday that he ordered the U.S. military to divert water from the Pacific Northwest to Southern California as part of his presidential action of “Putting People over Fis…
www.koin.com
January 29, 2025 at 2:06 AM
The Columbia River, which drains about 244 billion cubic meters of fresh water into the Pacific Ocean from tributaries in Canada, Washington, Idaho and Oregon, does not connect to Southern California through any man-made channels or natural bodies of water other than the Pacific Ocean.
Reposted by Thomas Goetz
An ongoing tuberculosis outbreak in Kansas has become the largest in recorded history in the United States.
Kansas tuberculosis outbreak is now America's largest in recorded history
Kansas public health officials say the state's ongoing tuberculosis outbreak is the largest since the CDC started reporting TB cases in the 1950s.
www.cjonline.com
January 26, 2025 at 5:56 PM
An ongoing tuberculosis outbreak in Kansas has become the largest in recorded history in the United States.
Crazy: in the 1960s, the average American adult smoked more than 4,000 cigarettes a year. That’s half-a-pack a day *on average* for ALL adults.
January 27, 2025 at 5:13 AM
Crazy: in the 1960s, the average American adult smoked more than 4,000 cigarettes a year. That’s half-a-pack a day *on average* for ALL adults.
I think MJ had it exactly backwards cuz Prince had better songs
I just learned that Michael Jackson allegedly would get up and set down tracks whenever the thought came to him because he was afraid if he didn't do it asap the muse/God/etc would give it to Prince instead and if this concept is true I have some work to do.
January 26, 2025 at 2:49 AM
I think MJ had it exactly backwards cuz Prince had better songs
Highly recommend “The State of Fire: Why California Burns” - a beautiful, thoughtful and prescient 2024 book by Obi Kaufmann. Amazing charts and watercolors and insights throughout
January 24, 2025 at 4:48 AM
Highly recommend “The State of Fire: Why California Burns” - a beautiful, thoughtful and prescient 2024 book by Obi Kaufmann. Amazing charts and watercolors and insights throughout
Story I would love to read: profile of whoever thought of taking steer penises and turning them into dog chew toys. I hope she is very rich now.
January 9, 2025 at 5:29 PM
Story I would love to read: profile of whoever thought of taking steer penises and turning them into dog chew toys. I hope she is very rich now.
Reposted by Thomas Goetz
Ride in Peace, Jimmy Carter
#RIPJimmyCarter
#RIPJimmyCarter
December 29, 2024 at 10:03 PM
Ride in Peace, Jimmy Carter
#RIPJimmyCarter
#RIPJimmyCarter
such a great example of how transportation decisions (auto trends in particular) affect human health (in a bad way)
The case for automatic noise enforcement:
"In W Europe the number of years of full-quality life lost due to noise is 587k for annoyance, 22k for hearing disturbance, 903k for sleep disturbance, 61k for cardiovascular disease and 45k for cognitive impairment in children."
streets.mn/2024/12/03/s...
"In W Europe the number of years of full-quality life lost due to noise is 587k for annoyance, 22k for hearing disturbance, 903k for sleep disturbance, 61k for cardiovascular disease and 45k for cognitive impairment in children."
streets.mn/2024/12/03/s...
Street Illegal: A Hot Take on Hot Cars
Explore how automated noise enforcement could help the Twin Cities combat the problem of excessive vehicle noise in urban areas.
streets.mn
December 6, 2024 at 12:04 AM
such a great example of how transportation decisions (auto trends in particular) affect human health (in a bad way)
for a thing I'm doing, looking for a couple people taking Lipitor/atorvastatin, willing to talk w me about their LDL/HDL numbers, and their Rx, etc. It'll be fun! tgoetz@me.com
December 5, 2024 at 11:13 PM
for a thing I'm doing, looking for a couple people taking Lipitor/atorvastatin, willing to talk w me about their LDL/HDL numbers, and their Rx, etc. It'll be fun! tgoetz@me.com