I've spent most of September in the US + Montreal. It was non-stop, but also pleasant, exciting, and well suited to my non-existent attention span: running around and talking to people, talking research more than actually doing any research. I keep acquiring projects and doing a very bad job with the existing ones. As always, I find it too hard to say no when so many exciting things are happening.

• Andrew took me on a Jamaican beef patty expedition in NYC.
• I went to AI for Research Integrity conference and met a few fantastic people.
• Spent some days at Institute for Progress and at the lab at UChicago. Both were so nice.
• I gave a couple of talks while in the US. One was on innovative trials and market shaping, basically rehashing the blogpost for colleagues at Market Shaping Accelerator. I am starting to think about econ theory implications. Or rather, trying to trick actual economists into thinking about it.
• Another one was on a new paper with van Zwet and Gelman on why we could be optimistic about empirical research. The paper is here and the talk is here.
• But the biggest news if of course that Michael Kremer is now Chief Economist at the World Bank. Things are about to get more busy. Watch this space, I guess.

I am thinking a lot about evidence synthesis and how AI will impact it, but I'll have to write about it some other time.

Core and periphery

As the core got filled in with work---after a pretty tough year in my personal life, a deeper sense of purpose is slowly asserting itself---the periphery emptied out completely. This is the most I've worked in 5+ years, but also the least I've read. Not a single item worth highlighting. Kadare was a bust, as expected. Now reading a Donald S. Lopez book about Western perceptions of Buddhism. (Did you know that Ewoks speak sped-up Tibetan?) But here's to hoping that with autumn we are into that cozy reading time.

Hosted two nice house warming parties. Blue Monday is a great karaoke track (I'll spare you), especially if you're wearing a seal on your head. I rewatched most of Peep Show when unwinding at the end of the day, perhaps an appropriate coda to last month's Britishness love letter.

During my few weeks in the US this time I had a sense of unreality of it all, the contrast between Hastings and the big world was more palpable, perhaps exacerbated by the all-singing, all-dancing nature of this trip.

On the other hand, there's the US and then there's the US. A young, very pale man waiting in departures lobby for a long-haul to Brisbane told me that it was his first time flying. "I am 21 years old and this is the first time that my parents let me go on vacation. They keep telling me that I am the only person who can take good care of the goats." He also left his passport at the airline desk, but they brought it to him. ("I never get stressed, but I do sometimes get very nervous.") Bless. I really hope he's having a goat-free blast. The first time I ever flew, I was 20. No goats at home, though.

I got back home and predictably slumped a bit. My health has been a bit up and down again. I find it amusing to write a sentence like that. Is this really the age I've reached?

Lede of the month.

Sheep of the month: