Wow! Definitely the year to visit Canada. Assuming they’re still letting us in. (h/t Kottke)
Grid batteries are growing even faster than solar did at the same stage. The world installed 112 GW of grid batteries in 2025, a record total and ten times more than in 2021. China built more than half the total, the United States added 16%, and installations surged in Australia, the UK and sub-Saharan Africa. A decade ago, the world added 56 MW of solar for every 1 MW of storage. Last year, that ratio narrowed to six-to-one. Canary Media (h/t Fix the News)
Yeah, yeah, it’s three hours long and I haven’t made it all the way through the whole thing myself yet. But it’s great to knit by. Save it to your Watch Later playlist.
Quote: “The point of this post is to present four examples of people who have been thinking about the process of civic reconstruction. These are disparate examples, and I’m aware that they may not seem logically connected. But for me they’re coming into focus and each deserves attention, as the end of Trump’s era begins to come into view.” Fallows writes about J.B. Pritzker, Jeff Flake, Jacob Weissberg, and “Tillis, Cassidy, Massie, and more recruits for the YOLO Caucus of 2026.” Read it here.
My very own pterodactyls. They return every spring. Videos here and here.
Quote for the day
So let me walk through how this actually works, because it matters that it’s legal and mostly cheap. The University of Maine at Presque Isle runs a competency-based program called YourPace. Tuition is $1,800 per eight-week session, unlimited classes. If you can prove you’ve learned the material, typically by passing tests or turning in papers, you finish the course. No class meetings. No group discussions. No weekly pacing. Of the roughly three hundred students who earned bachelor’s degrees from YourPace in fall 2024, most finished in under a year. More than a quarter finished the entire degree in a single eight-week session. —Kyle Saunders
Outro…
Chatter Lagniappe Sunday David Attenborough degree speedruns James Fallows kyle saunders Parks Canada Pterodactyls solar batteries