Noisy newsletter

The world is being quietly rearranged by people who write very long documents.

3,271 documents ingested · 71 surfaced

April 17
SAM.gov Private Astronaut Missions 5 and 6 Flight Opportunities Source Selection Statement NASA will buy seats on private space missions, not just build its own
April 16
BIS A public-private partnership? Central bank funding and credit supply Central banks can stimulate the economy with money no one takes
NBER The Empathy Channel in Fertility People have babies when they see babies, not when they get a tax break
April 15
arXiv Unifying Ontology Construction and Semantic Alignment for Deterministic Enterprise Reasoning at Scale AI can now build its own internal map of a company's data, then reason from it
Federal Register Differential Pay for Prescribed Wildland Fire Activities Firefighters finally get hazard pay for the fires they start on purpose.
World Bank Sustainable Energy for Schools and Health Centers : Public–Private Partnerships for People’s Prosperity Schools and clinics in poor countries can now buy electricity as a service instead of owning broken solar panels
April 14
Federal Register Hazardous and Solid Waste Management System: Disposal of Coal Combustion Residuals From Electric Utilities; Legacy/CCRMU Amendments The EPA Just Made Toxic Waste Invisible
NBER Profit Regulation and Strategic Transfer Pricing by Vertically Integrated Firms: Evidence from Health Care Insurers used their own pharmacies to bypass Medicare profit caps
April 13
Federal Register Prohibition on the Use of Reputation Risk by Regulators Public Outrage is No Longer a "Risk" for Banks
NDRC 关于加快招标投标领域人工智能推广应用的实施意见 China is using AI to strip local officials of their power to rig contracts
NDRC 关于完善发电侧容量电价机制的通知 China stops paying power plants to exist and starts paying them to perform
Federal Register Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism Programs Banks must now prove their anti-money laundering programs actually stop money laundering
April 12
Federal Register Whistleblower Incentives and Protections Treasury turns bank compliance officers into paid informants.
NDRC 关于完善发电侧容量电价机制的通知(发改价格〔2026〕114号) The death of guaranteed coal income
April 11
Federal Register Permitted Payment Stablecoin Issuer Anti-Money Laundering/Countering the Financing of Terrorism Program and Sanctions Compliance Program Requirements Stablecoin issuers spent years moving money without knowing who sent it
Federal Register NRC Reviews of Reactor Designs Previously Authorized by U.S. Department of Energy or Department of War The Pentagon is now a nuclear regulatory shortcut
Federal Register Collection of Checks and Other Items by Federal Reserve Banks and Funds Transfers Through the Fedwire Funds Service and the FedNow Service; Regulation J Cross-border payments can now use the US domestic network for the first time.
Federal Register Spectrum Abundance for Weird Space Stuff FCC frees spectrum for spacecraft that was empty all along
Federal Register Review of the Commission's Rules Governing the 896-901/935-940 MHz Band Spectrum that couldn't do broadband gets three new ways to try
April 10
NDRC 关于促进电网高质量发展的指导意见 China orders its power grid rebuilt around distributed solar and wind — not centralized coal plants
NDRC 关于促进光热发电规模化发展的若干意见(发改能源〔2025〕1645号) China is keeping the turbines. It's just swapping the fuel for mirrors.
SAM.gov Late-stage development, FDA marketing authorization, procurement, and stockpile of antibiotics for the treatment of drug-resistant secondary bacterial infections and/or the treatment or PEP of infections caused by biothreat pathogens. The Pentagon effectively nationalizes the antibiotic pipeline
SAM.gov VIRGINIA Class Submarines Lead Yard Support and Development Studies and Design efforts Navy pays $2.5 billion to keep submarine factory ready, not to buy submarines
Federal Register National Environmental Policy Act USDA quietly grants itself the power to decide which projects need environmental review
April 8
Federal Register Revised Mailing Standards for Firearms Justice Department ends 108-year postal firearms ban
NBS 2026年1—2月份全国房地产市场基本情况 Homebuyers officially resign as China's primary creditors
NBER Early-Life Sugar Restrictions Reduce Genetic Disparities in Adult Adiposity Genetic obesity risk loses its "fixed sentence" status
April 7
NBER Thinking versus Doing: Cognitive Capacity, Decision Making and Medical Diagnosis Same patient, same doctor, 28% more likely admitted when the doctor is overwhelmed
NBER Climate Change, Deforestation, and the Expansion of the Global Agricultural Frontier Heat shocks kill crops, farmers clear forests instead of adapting — and it's getting worse
NBER In the Fed’s Mind US central bank sees inflation differently based on its cause
arXiv Ruka-v2: Tendon Driven Open-Source Dexterous Hand with Wrist and Abduction for Robot Learning $1300 open source robot hands
arXiv "Oops! ChatGPT is Temporarily Unavailable!": A Diary Study on Knowledge Workers' Experiences of LLM Withdrawal Workers given four days without AI discover they forgot how to work
April 6
arXiv Automatic Textbook Formalization AI formalized a graduate math textbook in one week for less than it costs to hire one expert
EUR-Lex Council Decision (EU) 2026/571 of 16 March 2026 on the position to be taken on behalf of the European Union in the Preparatory Commission and at the first Conference of the Parties to the Agreement under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea on the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction Half the ocean had no rules for 40 years. Now comes the part where rules become real.
EIA US Coal Generation: 217.9 TWh (Jan 2026) — -12.9% YoY Coal hits 13% annual decline while government pays $615,000 a day to keep one plant running
EUR-Lex Political and Security Committee Decision (CFSP) 2026/514 of 3 March 2026 on the appointment of the EU Force Commander for the European Union maritime security operation to safeguard freedom of navigation in relation to the Red Sea crisis (EUNAVFOR ASPIDES) (EUNAVFOR ASPIDES/2/2026) Europe stops asking the US Navy to babysit its trade routes, appoints its own commander
EIA US Solar Generation: 57.3 TWh (Jan 2026) — +15.2% YoY Solar grew 15% in a year. The government ordered the old gas plants to stay open anyway.
Federal Register GENIUS Act Broad-Based Principles for Determining Whether a State-Level Regulatory Regime Is Substantially Similar to the Federal Regulatory Framework Treasury decides which state crypto regulators are real, making fifty separate fights into one test
April 5
Federal Register Risk-Informed, Technology-Inclusive Regulatory Framework for Advanced Reactors New reactor designs no longer have to pretend they're from the 1960s
EUR-Lex Council Decision (EU) 2026/714 of 17 March 2026 on the position to be taken on behalf of the European Union at the 237th session of the Council of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) as regards the adoption of the amendment to Annex 13 to the Convention on International Civil Aviation Aviation accident probes can no longer be quietly buried. It took thirteen years to write that down.
Federal Register Medicare Program; Contract Year 2027 and Certain Contract Year 2026 Policy and Technical Changes to the Medicare Advantage Program, Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit Program, and Medicare Cost Plan Program Medicare gave insurers an $18.6 billion raise by deleting the tests they were failing
Federal Register Work Participation Rate Calculation Changes: Recalibration of the Caseload Reduction Credit and Prohibition of Small Checks in Work Participation Rate Calculation States lose 18-year-old welfare credits. Some were counting $1 monthly checks as job placements.
EUR-Lex Council Decision (CFSP) 2026/588 of 16 March 2026 amending Decision (CFSP) 2019/797 concerning restrictive measures against cyber-attacks threatening the Union or its Member States EU stops asking all 27 countries nicely before punishing cyber attackers
Patterns
FROZEN RULES MOVING 7 items · Federal Register Decades-Frozen Rules Defrosting Together
WHO WINS, WHO LOSES 7 items · Federal Register Crypto Legitimized, Informal Money Squeezed
NOW BEING MEASURED 5 items · arXiv Measurement Unlocking Enforcement
more patterns →
Steady signals
Capacity
Battery Storage 43.2 GW ↑ 56.1%
Solar 76.6 GW ↑ 2.3%
Wind 159.9 GW ↑ 3.4%
Generation
Natural Gas 463.4 TWh ↓ 4.1%
Nuclear 222.3 TWh ↑ 2.1%
Solar 57.2 TWh ↑ 15.2%
Wind 135.8 TWh ↑ 1.8%
Coal 217.9 TWh ↓ 12.9%
Some changes happen too gradually to make headlines.