2026-07-17 19:04:48
Since the U.S. federal government is of little help in providing information about the diarrhea outbreak spreading through contaminated food, epidemiologist Katelyn Jetelina ran through the known facts.
This outbreak, the largest in U.S. history, has topped 3,000 cases, and it’s not slowing down. That number comes from adding up state-level case counts, which are running well ahead of the counts on CDC’s website. For context, the U.S. typically sees around 3,000-4,000 cyclosporiasis cases in an entire year—so this single outbreak has already matched a normal year’s total, and it’s still climbing.
Note that the real number is almost certainly higher: most people with a few days of watery diarrhea ride it out at home rather than see a doctor, and those who do see a doctor may or may not get tested for cyclosporiasis (it’s an expensive test!).
With so many people spending more time on the toilet, this seems bad for efficiency. If only there were some system in place to track this sort of thing.
Tags: cyclosporiasis, diarrhea, Katelyn Jetelina
2026-07-17 18:57:53
Upon discovery of a generated biography on Amazon about her, NYT journalist Kashmir Hill followed the path to more slop.
Two business school professors, curious about A.I. books and whether anyone actually likes them, gathered data about 10 million books published on Amazon over the last five years. They found that the number of e-books published per month had tripled since the release of ChatGPT, to more than 300,000 at the end of last year, from around 100,000 in 2022. (Amazon said that its internal metrics did not show that level of growth, but would not share its figures.)
Because romance sells, the professors thought it would be the genre most susceptible to A.I. intervention, but instead it was nonfiction — a term that should probably be used loosely in this context. While A.I.-assisted books received lower customer ratings than human-made ones, they deemed A.I.’s entry into the market a positive development, because the books were selling, if modestly. As economists, they told me, they’re less concerned with literary quality or customer satisfaction than revenue growth and market expansion.
Tags: biography, Kashmir Hill, New York Times
2026-07-17 15:25:20
For A Rabbit’s Foot, Andy Hazel interviewed Star Wars creator George Lucas, mostly about the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art. But towards the end, there is a question of generative AI in movies, because of course:
“Artificial intelligence means it’s much easier for us to make movies,” he says. “It’s very much like sitting here saying, ‘Well, I believe the horse and the buggy is really where it’s at. These cars, they break down, they need gas, there’s all kinds of problems with them and pretty soon they’ll be making them into tanks, and then they’ll be killing people. It’s terrible.’ There’s nothing you can do about it,” he says, raising his hands. “That’s progress, it’s the future.”
I wonder if his opinion would change if he were still making movies.
Tags: George Lucas, movies, Rabbit's Foot
2026-07-17 02:18:28
The Washington Post used satellite imagery, photos, and videos from when the blue paint was applied to the Reflecting Pool to figure out what caused the tears in the lining.
Of the identified locations with tears, every failure occurred where a layer of paint overlapped another. So the installers with the no-bid contracts probably did a terrible job.
We are in strange times.
Tags: error, reflecting pool, Washington Post
2026-07-16 21:06:13
This is issue No. 397 of the Process, where we focus on the details of visualizing data and how the steps flow together. I’m Nathan Yau. This week, I provide an update on my own process from start to finish, in 2026.
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2026-07-16 17:39:27
If you’re into visualizing networks, cosmos.gl looks like a fun library to play with. At a glance, it seems quick and responsive, and even my old computer can run the demos without the fan whirling.
