Weekly Report: September 19, 2022
Observations
- Inflation numbers remained high this month. The market expects the Fed to continue hiking interest rates at a good pace and reacted accordingly. Mortgage rates rose above 6% for the first time since 2008. I think the pain of a sharp recession is still to come as the much of the world has become used to record low interest rates for most of the last decade. Higher rates have a knock on effect that will catalyze a downturn, causing a stronger USD, higher debt servicing burdens, decreasing demand, drying liquidity, and slowing the economy. Unfortunately, the worst is yet to come.
- Adobe agreed to acquire Figma for $20B in cash and stock which, at signing, is the largest private tech acquisition in history. (In 2014, Whatsapp agreed to be sold for $16B, which rose to $22B at closing as Facebook stock rose.) Adobe shareholders and Figma users didn’t love the news, but early Figma shareholders did.
- Andor, the latest Star Wars series, is out on Disney+ next Wednesday and the reviews are apparently excellent.
Articles
- It Starts With Inflation (Ray Dalio)
- The Ethereum Merge Is Done (Coindesk)
- The Elusive Future of San Francisco’s Fog (NY Times)
- The Myopia Generation: Why do so may kids need glasses now? (The Atlantic)
- When the Queen Died, Someone Had to Tell the Bees (NY Times)
- Life After Death on Wikipedia (The Pudding)
- Fear of a Black Hobbit (The Atlantic)
- A surveillance artist shows how Instagram magic is made (Input)
- Flooded with AI-generated images, some art communities ban them completely (Ars Technica)
- Bird Photographer of the Year 2022 Winners (BPOTY)
- How a Garbage-Bin War Schools Humans and Cockatoos (NY Ties)
- Shuffleboard at McMurdo (Idle Words)
- The Last Person Standing in the Floppy Disk Business 💾 (AIGA Eye on Design)
I’m pretty sure there are still boxes and boxes of 3.5” and 5.25” floppies in my parents’ house. - One business class ticket, 6 countries, 5 airlines, long transits, all for 105,000 Aeroplan miles (Frequent Miler)
IAD → CAI → IST → MCT → BKK → SIN → CEB
Movies & TV
- Star Trek: Lower Decks (Season 3)
Started watching this season. The series is a lot of fun. And somehow, they still keep it canon!
Restaurants
- Bluestone Lane Cafe (Los Altos)
Billed as an Australian-style cafe, we go there occasionally for a weekend brunch. The food is a facsimile of a Sydney breakfast, but I’ll take what I can get. (They sell fairy bread there but use sprinkles instead of 100s and 1000s. Heresy!) Bonus: two free Tesla charging stations. 3/5.
Charts & Images
9:00pm 
