Saturday Assorted Links: Music, China, Sewers, Sci-Fi Optimism and More
Key Takeaways
- •A New York Times report examines why people keep sneaking into New York City's roughly 7,000-mile sewer system, much of it built in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
- •An opinion piece argues that clinical trials remain the slowest and most expensive stage of drug development.
- •U.S. cyberinsurance prices have swung sharply since 2020, rising during the earlier hard market before softening as insurers grew more comfortable with their risk models.
- •Yiyang Zhuge has postponed her recording session with CWT, delaying an upcoming episode.
- •Fermat's Last Theorem, conjectured in 1637, remained unproven for over 350 years until Andrew Wiles's proof in the 1990s.
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Joaquin Rodrigo's Toccata. Rodrigo, by the way, was blind — as he was for most of his life, including when he composed his best-known work, the Concierto de Aranjuez.
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"People Keep Sneaking Into New York City Sewers. No One Knows Why." (NYT) Urban exploration of infrastructure has a long history, but New York's sewer system — roughly 7,000 miles of it, much of it dating to the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries — remains a persistent draw.
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Yiyang Zhuge has postponed her recording session with CWT, in case you will be wondering why the episode does not show up soon.
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Who was the most consequential emperor in Chinese history? The question of which ruler most shaped China speaks to a broader debate about how much of modern Chinese governance and culture traces back to the imperial system's long institutional legacy.
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Are science fiction films becoming more optimistic? A shift in tone would mark a change from the dystopian turn that dominated the genre in recent decades.
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Ruxandra on clinical trials as the main obstacle (NYT). Clinical trials have long been cited as the slowest and most expensive stage of drug development, a recurring theme in discussions of why medical innovation lags laboratory science.
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The trend in U.S. cyberinsurance prices since 2020. Cyberinsurance pricing has swung sharply over that period, with hard market increases earlier in the decade followed by softening as insurers grew more comfortable with risk models.
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Fermat's Last Theorem, the number of links cannot keep up with the world. The theorem, conjectured in 1637, stood unproven for over 350 years until Andrew Wiles's proof in the 1990s.
