Juan Gomez – Partner since 2016 (Peace Love Austin Mural – Austin, TX)
This week in charts
Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations food price index first YoY drop in two years
Bear markets usually mean new market darlings
Japan Weighs Raising Taxes On EVs With "Higher Output Motors"
The country's internal affairs ministry is reportedly weighing whether or not to raise taxes on electric vehicles in order to make up for a shortfall in income from taxes on traditional gas powered cars, Bloomberg reported Thursday morning.
Currently, electric vehicle owners pay a flat fee of 25,000 yen per year to local governments, but the ministry is interested in potentially altering this framework for vehicles that have "higher output motors", the report says.
The ministry will reportedly ask the ruling coalition to "consider the change" for inclusion in the 2023 tax code, Bloomberg reports. Even then, the change could take several years to come into effect.
Recall, we wrote back on November 5 that UK chancellor Jeremy Hunt is expected to put an electric vehicle excise tax in place by 2025-2026.
This month's Autumn Statement will include the measures, according to FT, who said people familiar with the road tax is part of a larger plan to address a fall in motoring tax revenues caused by the shift to EVs, which leave out fuel-related taxes. Fuel duty raises about £35bn, but the Treasury has warned that a growing number of EVs on the road could cause this number to plunge by £2.1bn by 2026-27. Ergo, a new excise duty on EVs could take place by 2025-2026.
This week’s fun finds
Mapping The Most Used Words On Every Country and U.S. State's Wikipedia Page
Can You Get a Full-Body Workout in 20 Minutes?
Maillard Howell, head of fitness at Reebok and co-owner of Dean CrossFit in Brooklyn, said the key to getting an effective workout in a short amount of time is focusing on compound exercises.
A compound exercise is one that uses multiple muscle groups at the same time to perform a movement — like squats, push-ups or deadlifts. Isolation exercises, like bicep curls or calf raises, won’t raise your heart rate as quickly as compound exercises and primarily work one muscle group at a time.
If you’re short on time, “you want big movements that use big muscles,” Mr. Howell said.
[Cardiovascular physiologist Dr. Stephen J. Carter] recommended a three- to five-minute warm-up with the goal of increasing your circulation. “I keep it dynamic. I just want to start moving, and I’m a big fan of raising your body temperature before a workout,” Mr. Howell said.
Once you’ve completed the workout — and caught your breath — Mr. Howell suggested a three- to four-minute cool down. He recommended static floor stretches, like the pigeon pose — with one leg stretched out straight behind you, and the other leg bent in front with the side of your calf resting on the ground. You can rest your calf up on a bench to make it easier, or just go through any stretches that feel good.
I was being a snob. Slow cookers are useful for all sorts of people, but particularly for a specific kind of cook: the person who wants to do things from scratch, but lacks the time, culinary knowledge, or confidence to do so on the hob or in the oven. It is a sympathetic tool, unlikely either to burn your food or leave your meat undercooked. Your timings can be out by hours with little impact on the end result. It’s economical, too — first in its ability to make the most of cheap cuts of meat and tough vegetables, second in its small energy footprint (it costs about the same to run as an energy-saving lightbulb).
The common thread within the slow cooker community is convenience. The slow cooker is inherently domestic: Chefs have no interest in leaving their pots unattended, and the prospect of having to keep a lid clamped on them and leave them untasted and unadjusted is anathema. It’s not a terribly glamorous piece of kit. “They’re not sexy!” Megan Allen, another slow cooker fan tells me, laughing. It’s not aspirational. It might be prosaic, but the slow cooker is a purely functional device: it gets the job done.
