Thursday assorted links

by Tyler Cowen October 9, 2025 at 2:14 pm

1. Jonathan Lear obituary (NYT).

2. Parody costume markets in everything.

3. Can Large Language Models develop gambling addiction? They just need to be reminded that the Washington Wizards do not have a single player in the NBA top 130.

4. Why are so many pedestrians killed by cars in the US?

5. French spending on pensions.

6. Important Dean Ball post on rare earths.

7. There is a new The Free Press new books podcast, hosted by Shilo Brooks. In the first two episodes, he discusses Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea with Admiral James Stavridis and Jim Harrison’s Wolf with Steve Rinella.