Best of Twitter - Week of December 21, 2020
![Twitter avatar for @MelancholyYuga](https://substackcdn.com/image/twitter_name/w_96/MelancholyYuga.jpg)
Seems like one pretty common life trajectory is that you eventually hit some speed bump (chronic illness in self or child, relative incapable of living unassisted, &c.) that requires you to take on an additional full-time job as a DIY guerilla bureaucrat.
^ thread
![Twitter avatar for @togelius](https://substackcdn.com/image/twitter_name/w_96/togelius.jpg)
As a student, I would sometimes look at the careers of researchers in my field and be surprised at how they abandoned promising research lines and started working on something less interesting. Now I understand they often simply did the research they could get funded.
![Twitter avatar for @togelius](https://substackcdn.com/image/twitter_name/w_96/togelius.jpg)
Because we don’t know how good the research is going to be, money is distributed based on how good the proposal is. Writing proposals is a very different skill from doing research. A key component is finding a topic that fits the tastes of the funder and is easy to write about.
^ thread
![Twitter avatar for @NatBullard](https://substackcdn.com/image/twitter_name/w_96/NatBullard.jpg)
The evolution of lithium-ion battery pack prices:
2010: $1,191/kWh
2011: $924
2012: $726
2013: $668
2014: $592
2015: $384
2016: $295
2017: $221
2018: $181
2019: $157
2020: $137
(all real 2020$)
Annually from @BloombergNEF; analysis by @JamesTFrith about.bnef.com/blog/battery-p…
![Image](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_600,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fpbs.substack.com%2Fmedia%2FEpXY5hnXcAEqdfF.png)
![Twitter avatar for @elonmusk](https://substackcdn.com/image/twitter_name/w_96/elonmusk.jpg)
@wintonARK During the darkest days of the Model 3 program, I reached out to Tim Cook to discuss the possibility of Apple acquiring Tesla (for 1/10 of our current value). He refused to take the meeting.
^ imo very important bit of history - even Musk sometimes decides to give up but is accidentally forced to keep on going… lots of cases like this
![Twitter avatar for @KevinSimler](https://substackcdn.com/image/twitter_name/w_96/KevinSimler.jpg)
This is incredible. A guy took a fertilized chicken egg out of its shell, incubated it in a clear plastic cup, and filmed the whole thing.
It never occurred to me that this was possible.
Day 3: 🤯
youtu.be/uE0uKvUbcfw?t=…
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_600,h_314,c_fill,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff06bf8f7-607a-4d0d-891d-f70958fcd328_1280x720.jpeg)
![Twitter avatar for @NathanTankus](https://substackcdn.com/image/twitter_name/w_96/NathanTankus.jpg)
This bit is also delicious and grist for the national accounting debate mills cc/ @JWMason1 @MJerven @ingridharvold @jacob_assa
![Image](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_600,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fpbs.substack.com%2Fmedia%2FD5gFK_BXkAAcWuH.png)
^ might be my single favorite bit of economic history