Millennials are becoming less conservative as they age. And this is breaking one of the “oldest rules in politics”, right? The one that says that people are liberal when they are young, and they become more conservative when they grow older. What was true for older generations is not true anymore, and this might mean that conservative parties will need to work harder to get as many votes as they did before — ft.com (non-paywalled)

The original Super Mario Bros. was designed on graph paper. Shigeru Miyamoto drew everything by hand and handed it off to programmers for them to build the course — kottke.org

Is it really worth it to go to Mars? In a thorough essay, Maciej Cegłowski says: no. Going is costly, but staying and thriving there is almost absurdly expensive. There are other problems such as how well humans could live there for a long period of time and some nicely hard engineering problems. To me the most compelling argument is that Mars is seen as a miracle solution to Earth’s problems. It must remain “an aerospace project rather than the fulfillment of God’s plan” — idlewords.com

The future of public transit is not guaranteed. The “Work From Home” phenomenon might have lowered the number of public transit journeys for good. There are 35% less trips in the US transit system than in 2019. Public transit is very costly. Has no one predicted that the Internet would upend trains and subways? — twitter.com

The inventors of the MSG seasoning are making it — with semiconductors. Ajinomoto is a Japanese company that makes the very popular seasoning MSG. The one that enhances flavor with its umami-giving powers. Apparently, its properties can help insulate computer chips. And sales of chips grew dramatically during the pandemic. I have a simple rule: I try to avoid foods that were invented by humans, such as MSGs and margarine. I trust cows better than scientists — qz.com

A Turkish farmer gave VR goggles to his cows and they produced more milk. The cows are presented with green pastures, which are certainly more enjoyable than the confined spaces they really live in. Production grew within 10 days, 27 liter vs. 22 before. These goggles were first developed with veterinarians in Russia. Is more milk worth putting cows in their own Matrix? — interestingengineering.com

Accurate weather forecasts of more than two weeks are impossible. At least not with our current computing prowess. This is because weather is a chaotic, complex system and that one tiny change can have huge consequences. Indeed, it is a climate scientist that coined the term “butterfly effect” to describe this phenomenon — science.org