Jessica Pressler:

Looking around at the newly minted billionaires behind the enjoyable but wholly unnecessary Facebook and WhatsApp, Uber and Nest, the brightest minds of a generation, the high test-scorers and mathematically inclined, have taken the knowledge acquired at our most august institutions and applied themselves to solving increasingly minor First World problems. The marketplace of ideas has become one long late-night infomercial.

Ankit Agrawal, via Tyler Cowen:

China has completed, on average, at least one large dam per day since 1949.

Jamil Anderlini, via Alex Tabarrok:

In just two years, from 2011 to 2012, China produced more cement than the US did in the entire 20th century, according to historical data from the US Geological Survey and China's National Bureau of Statistics.