Notes

Jon Ossoff is Doing Something Different

Elaine Godfrey, writing in The Atlantic, has a smart profile/examination of the Jon Ossoff moment.

Some Democrats are predicting—or perhaps manifesting—that if he wins in November, Ossoff will turn immediately toward a bigger project: running for president in 2028. Ossoff has repeatedly denied that he is interested in doing this. If he won, he’d have to give up his hard-fought Senate seat, which, if Georgia elects a Republican governor this year, would be politically perilous for Democrats. Ossoff, who has two daughters under the age of 5, is also very protective of his family life.

But national Democrats don’t care much about these caveats, and many consultants can’t wait to draft him into the 2028 race—although none wanted to engage in such speculation on the record. One referred to him as an “S-tier” presidential candidate. On the prediction-market platform Kalshi, Ossoff’s odds of winning the 2028 nomination are higher than any Democrat’s.

Here’s my prediction: if Georgia elects a Democratic governor, Jon Ossoff runs for president. If not, he waits and positions himself later in the cycle.

If he does run, I think he wins the nomination. Outside of Obama and Buttigieg, he’s the best speaker the Democrats have. He’s photogenic, disciplined on the mic, and he reads this political moment better than almost anyone in the party.

Pete Buttigieg will run too, but I don’t see the presidency in his future. Where I do see him is as chief of staff to the next Democratic president. He’d be the best one we’ve had in a long time.

Gavin Newsom will also throw his hat in the ring, and he’s worth watching. He’s tall, he’s polished, and he ran the largest economy in the country. He may be a tough sell in the primary, but I wouldn’t count him out.

I may be in the minority here, but I don’t think Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez runs this cycle. Her smarter move is the Senate. And frankly, I don’t think Democrats are going to nominate a woman this time.

Speaking of which: Kamala Harris should already be president. Biden should have stepped down after guiding the country through COVID. He didn’t. I doubt she’d take it, but she’d make a fantastic attorney general. Or maybe a Supreme Court nomination is in her future.

Motivator

I work out with my wife every morning. We do a circuit at the YMCA or walk two miles before 6am Monday through Friday. Sundays are reserved for a 5K walk we do at a nearby park.

It is my favorite part of the day.

We talk about our days, what we’ve got going on, hopes, dreams, ideas, and more. It’s guaranteed time that’s just for us.

I wouldn’t do any of it without her.

I know this because I had plenty of time without her in my life, and I failed to do any of it.

Don’t get me wrong. I do not usually want to get up and workout. However, doing so constantly reminds me that every day, even if I’m busy or tired, I can do something small to take care of myself. And it’s something for just the two of us.

It’s easy to start, and it’s easy to quit. My wife is the constant.

Does Your College Football Roster Cost $8M or $50M?

The Athletic conducted a comprehensive study of how much money teams spend on college football rosters. It is a lot. They spoke with as many people as possible across the programs to establish basic number ranges.

I wasn’t surprised by Illinois’s number ($19- $23M). I was surprised by how low it is compared to others in the conference. Illinois is below the conference average, with only Minnesota, Iowa, and Purdue spending less.

Unsurprisingly, the best teams are, on average, the ones paying players the most.

Back in the days before name, image and likeness money and the transfer portal, the best predictor of a team’s success was usually its high school recruiting class ranking. Today, it’s the roster budget. A program spending $40 million is expected to beat ones spending half that.

This is clear in the data. The chart below shows the average NIL budgets grouped by Austin Mock’s most recent forecast for whether a school will make the College Football Playoff. The teams with the best shot at a Playoff berth are, by and large, the ones with the biggest budgets

If you want college football to go back to the way it was before, that ship has sailed. Today’s college football is the haves and the have-nots.

Finding donors and the money to acquire the talent needed to succeed is all that matters. Amazing facilities are a given. World-class nutrition and staff are a given. Championship-caliber coaches are a given. The fourth leg on that stool is a $50 million roster budget year after year.

Sweatshirt and Shorts Weather

It is now mid-September. The summer is nearly over. Overall, it’s been an enjoyable summer, but I’m ready for autumn!

The transition from summer to fall is my favorite time of year. I always look forward to the cooler temps, the changing of the leaves, and the crisp fall air. School starts. Football is back. Halloween and Thanksgiving are on the horizon, too.

Fall weather is more inviting. I can sit outside comfortably in a sweatshirt and shorts without it being too hot or too cold.

It’s still too hot, but I know everything will change in just a few weeks.

I can’t wait.

By Hand

Warren Ellis –

Handwriting fixes ideas in the memory better. Thinking on paper is more fluid: you get to think around the notion more flexibly. Making things by hand is better for your brain than talking to a robot, and developing ideas works better on a page than on a keyboard.

(And protecting your brain is likely to be a real creative and commercial asset in a few years.)

Rough Draft & Modern Day Typographer

Elle Cordova is a fantastic Instagram/YouTube creator. She makes videos that are both smart and funny. In the past week, she released two new videos that are well worth your time.

First was this short pitting a Rough Draft against a Final Draft. Stay for the twist ending.

Second was a Gilbert and Sullivan riff, “Modern Day Typographer.”

So funny.

9/11 As It Happened

Each year on 9/11, many may feel the need to get into the time machine that YouTube and other online sources give us and return to that morning.

I do not need to do that.

On September 11, 2001, I was working for The News-Gazette in Champaign, Illinois, and I first heard reports on the radio, then watched the second plane hit live on television.

Some people immediately started working on the story. Most were transfixed by the events in New York City.

Then, a bit before lunchtime, we got a call at the front desk from an unknown caller who said, “Your building is not safe,” in a Middle Eastern accent. No one followed protocol. They rushed us out of the building and into the parking lots several feet away. We watched more brave firemen and bomb squad members enter our building and do a complete search from top to bottom.

And we waited for the building to explode.

It didn’t. It was likely a prank. We all ended up just going home, and for days we just watched the news.

There were a lot of shell-shocked people and a small surge of patriotism over the days and weeks afterward.

I can remember the day and the people who lost their lives without reliving or revisiting that morning. If you feel the need, I highly recommend watching this breakdown on YouTube.

Resetting Your Brain

Jeroen Sangers -

Your brain does not multitask, it switches, and every switch leaves a residue of attention behind that eats into your cognitive capacity. That is where uninterrupted blocks earn their keep: inside such a block you work on one thing, with no notifications and nothing on the side.

A block like that has a shelf life. After a stretch of sustained attention your sharpness drains away on its own, and a workday without breaks, an open-plan office and a chat that never falls silent hold you in that state of low attention and constant stress. Pushing on feels productive at that moment, while the quality of your thinking has already dropped.

So blocks and breaks do not contradict each other, they work on two timescales: no switching within the block, a reset between blocks. In practice that means stepping away briefly every 60 to 90 minutes without new input, plus a clear stopping time at the end of the day, because it is in those quiet moments that your brain consolidates and creativity comes back. What wrecks your attention is the task switch, not the break.

Star Trek Day

It’s the 60th anniversary of Star Trek. That’s a pretty amazing statistic.

In honor of the anniversary, I thought I’d share my favorite episodes of every series I’ve seen (sorry Starfleet Academy and Prodigy). I’m also not counting the Short Treks or any fan productions.

Star Trek - “Mirror, Mirror” I’m a huge sucker for alternate universe stories. This was one of the first I’d ever seen, and it stuck with me. “The Trouble with Tribbles” is a close second.

Star Trek The Animated Series - “Yesteryear” It’s between this one and “The Counter-Clock Incident,” and I like this one a touch more. Young Spock and I-Chaya are heartbreaking.

Star Trek The Next Generation - “The Best of the Both Worlds Parts I & II/Family” This is when Star Trek The Next Generation finally figured itself out. These three episodes should always be watched as a trilogy. In fact, I’d argue that “Family” should have been named “The Best of the Both Worlds Part III.”

Star Trek Deep Space Nine - “Take Me Out to the Holosuite” “Far Beyond the Stars” is by far the better episode, but it isn’t my favorite. Benjamin Sisko enjoys baseball, and I love that he has one on his desk. The whole game against the Vulcans is great.

Star Trek Voyager - “Bride of Chaotica!” “Year of Hell” or “Endgame” are probably better episodes, but I like the silliness of this one.

Star Trek Enterprise - “In a Mirror, Darkly Parts I & II” The last season of Enterprise was quite good, and ultimately they found their footing right when the series was canceled. As you might guess from the title, it’s a Mirror Universe story, and this one is particularly cool.

Star Trek Discovery - “Brother” I’m not a big fan of Discovery. I tend to think of it as a Star Trek show set in an alternate universe. This one introduces Anson Mount as Captain Pike, who was so good here that they built a whole new series around him.

Star Trek Strange New Worlds - “A Quality of Mercy” While “Subspace Rhapsody” and “Those Old Scientists” are standouts, they are also gimmick episodes like “Bride of Chaotica!” This time-travel/alternate-universe story was the perfect end to the first season.

Star Trek Lower Decks - “wej Duj” Lower Decks is really quite fun overall. This episode uses a clever approach, having “lower decks” characters on Klingon and Vulcan ships interact with the Cerritos.

Star Trek Picard - “The Last Generation” Really, all of season 3 of Picard is one big love letter to The Next Generation. This one just wraps it all up.

Spending Time

Everybody I know is busy right now. Everybody’s carrying something, whether they say so or not. Work that won’t slow down. A parent who needs more than they used to because of life. Nobody has extra time just lying around.

So when someone gives you theirs, on purpose, more than once, pay attention. It means something.

I used to think the big stuff mattered most, like the planned trips or the well-chosen gift. Those still count. However, I’ve started noticing a quieter pattern instead. The people who check in without being asked. The ones who remember something you mentioned weeks ago and bring it up again, unprompted.

That’s the real signal. Quiet and repeated. The choice to make room for you when they didn’t have to.

Time doesn’t come back once you spend it. People know that, even if they never say it out loud. So they don’t hand it over carelessly.

When someone keeps choosing to spend their time on you, it’s one of the clearest signs they care.