Hello and welcome to another edition of Substack Reads.
This week, writers and artists take your mind on a journey, from the chaos manual of Grimes to game theory in investing and the allure of studying with Lofi Girl. New Yorker cartoonist Avi Steinberg will help you process it all at the end. Enjoy!
INVESTING
Playing the outguessing game
Game theory and investing in stocks have many things in common, says economist and investor O-Tone
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The goal of traders is not to pick the best company. It is to pick the company that others think will be the best-performing company in the short run. In fact, it is to pick the company that others think, that others think that others think ... is the best-performing company.
John Maynard Keynes used a “beauty contest” to describe this idea. He noted that:
“(...) the competitors have to pick out the six prettiest faces from a hundred photographs, the prize being awarded to the competitor whose choice most nearly corresponds to the average preferences of the competitors as a whole (...)”
Many strategic issues in business and politics can be approximated by outguessing games. The Nash equilibrium can make pretty good predictions about the behavior of the participants.
But they are only accurate when players are familiar with similar games. Or such games are repeated, so participants develop a skill in predicting other people’s responses.
MUSIC
Do you pray at the altar of chaos?
The musician Grimes joins Substack, and the first drop from MEDIA-EMPIRE is a “chaos manual” of “social media science fiction”
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SPORTS
Shaking off the speedball
Bruce Springsteen’s 1984 song “Glory Days” meant more to award-winning sports writer Joe Posnanski than you can imagine. And it centers on a speedball
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Look, I’m not saying this is the most important thing happening in the world. There seems to be a decent chance that the U.S. will default on its debt in the next few weeks, so that’s, you know, important. There are all sorts of international crises. Elizabeth Holmes wants to be called Liz. I mean, important news abounds.
But I’d say that if reports coming out of Dublin are true, this is certainly one of the top two or three stories in the world.
Bruce Springsteen apparently has updated “Glory Days.”
Regulars here will know two things about me: One, I’m an apologetically bonkers Springsteen fan, even though, as a middle-aged sportswriter (emphasis on the “aged”), this makes me nothing more than a cliché.
And two, I vehemently and entirely out-of-proportion disagree with his lyrical decision to call his friend’s pitch a “speedball.”
HISTORY
How I survived the Titanic
Digital colorist Marina Amaral brings to life a story of survival in the tragedy that has haunted and intrigued the world for over a century
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“Are the people frightened?” I asked quietly. “No,” he replied. (…) I saw five professional gamblers playing with some of the passengers as I went by. Their cards had been jerked off the table when the boat struck, but they were gathering them up and had started their game again before I left the saloon.” This story reassured me. If those people at their cards were not worried, why should I be?”
The mood started changing, however, when the couple started hearing “hundreds of people running along the passageway in front of [the cabin’s] door.”
“We had all better go on deck and see what’s wrong.”
They stood up and left the room (and all their personal belongings) behind. Marjorie and Charlotte were still dressed in their nightgowns.
CLIMATE
Do reflective pavements actually work?
Lyn Stoler and researchers look into how cities can find climate solutions that work. This week, everything you need to know about the cool streets beneath your feet
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Our city streets are an enormous contributor to the urban heat island effect—in fact, roads occupy a whopping 20%-30% of all urban surface land area in most U.S. cities! And unlike sidewalks, we can’t easily cool down large urban streets with misters, trees, and shade structures. This means that traditional asphalt pavements are often directly exposed to the sun, and can reach temperatures as high as 120 to 150 degrees Fahrenheit. This direct sun bakes the streets, which absorb and store that heat like a city-size pizza stone. Then that heat is slowly released back into the city after the sun goes down, contributing to the urban heat island and reducing the relief we could feel from the cooler night air.
So it matters a lot that reflective pavements reflect sunlight off our street surfaces. In theory, this should reduce the amount of heat that’s absorbed and stored by our cities. This is a big deal because extreme heat causes over half a million deaths every year, and that number will only increase as the world gets warmer. This is super-exciting, but when we were first learning about reflective pavements, most of our evidence didn’t yet exist in the real world. We only had studies with simulations and models, or small-scale lab experiments. But there weren’t many solutions that had come out of the PDF reports and into the real world.
MEDIA
The unstoppable rise of Lofi Girl
What did the creators behind the “Study With Me” YouTube phenomenon Lofi Girl get right? Everything, argues media researcher Hugh Garry
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inConnecting with people who share a similar identity is a natural and common human tendency. When we connect with others who share a similar identity, we experience a sense of belonging and acceptance. It allows us to feel understood, validated, and supported.
The magic in Lofi Girl is all about identity, and she really knows her audience. As mentioned earlier, the choice of stationary is enough to give some channels an edge over others. What Lofi Girl does so brilliantly is it takes the limitations of what is a simple animated loop and packs it with imagery and sounds that fans pin their identity to. It makes the connection stronger. The style of the animation is an instant hook for anime fans, and the more keen-eyed amongst them will recognise the influence of Studio Ghibli. Lofi Girl was based on a character from Whisper of the Heart. The inclusion of the cat is a smart move too.
Then there’s the music, which is a big hook for people who might want more than the ASMR vibe of some of the other Study With Me videos. The choice of lofi hip hop or synthwave makes it the perfect study radio station for people with a similar musical preference.
My grandmother and arancini
Memories of his grandmother put Michael Procopio in mind of the Italian rice ball, and a story of a vicious fight with a Vespa-driving robber in Palermo
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This isn’t your typical heartwarming, food-related Granny story. The lady may have been a phenomenal cook, but she wasn’t the type of woman about whom most food writers like to reminisce.
She never thought to teach me how to make her famous meatballs. There were no moments of deep, generational connection over a pot of simmering minestrone. She was more the type to roll her eyes at me as I shrieked at the sight of her beating the shit out of an octopus in the sink.
My grandmother was a tough broad with excellent posture and a mind of her own. She held her nose high when she wasn’t busy sharpening it against the grindstone of hard work; her home and her person were as immaculate as the Holy Conception in which she believed; and she knew the value of a hard-earned dollar, several of which she wisely invested.
CARTOON
Decisions, the fate of the world, and everything in between
New Yorker cartoonist Avi Steinberg explores how anxiety can be honed to become a superpower
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Growing up, I looked around me as people seemed to live without a care in the world. In kindergarten, the principal called my mother (at some point, can we talk about education?) to tell her that I refused to use scissors in class. When my mother asked me why, I told her that the teacher said to cut on the line, and I was worried I would make a mistake.
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Substack Reads is a weekly roundup of writing, ideas, art, and audio from the world of Substack. Posts are recommended by staff and readers, and curated and edited from Substack’s U.K. outpost by Hannah Ray.
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Got a Substack post to recommend? Tell us about it in the comments.
This a good step in supporting new substackers. We need a daily substack reads and support as many writers possible. However, I would say to do more for new writers so they are discoverable than pushing your superstars with blue, pink, orange or purple tick marks.
Great recs, I’m going to shamelessly plug my own for those looking to investigate and connect with your Self, your feelings and your needs
thebreathingspace.substack.com