2025-04-22
I’ve been hearing whispers in the parents-of-young-children circles about Chattanooga since we moved back to the Atlanta area 3 years ago.
We would discuss family friendly travel destinations and Chattanooga would come up, but I never really got it. What’s in Chattanooga?
They’d say things like “they’ve got the Chattanooga Choo Choo” or “there’s a great aquarium”. My children like a train and some fish as much as anyone’s, but I struggled to see what would make this worth the 2 hour drive.
This spring break, we finally went for it, and now I get it. It’s a beautiful, accessible city with a ton of options for things to do with children under 5. Not many of those things are unique to Chattanooga per se, but I’m not sure how much that matters at this stage.
The city itself
I have to say, I was surprised and more than a little bit charmed. The city itself is like a combination of Pittsburgh and Raleigh. The downtown urban core clearly came of age in the ~1880s to ~1920s and was formerly industrial. There’s a ridge above the city and a river that runs through it. It’s small. You could walk across it in an hour or two, even with a stroller.
The city is clearly prioritizing tourism. There’s a free electric bus that connects the city and makes it easy to get around (and for children the age mine are, it is an activity in an of itself). It’s clean and well marked. The aquarium and children’s museum are new and have a lot of local support. There’s a hint of Disney World about it, but it’s fun (to be fair, the North Shore neighborhood seemed a lot more vibrant, like people actually live there).
Things to do
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The Chattanooga Choo Choo, a classic steam engine in the old train station that kids can climb up on and play in. Things I learned: Chattanooga’s claim to fame is that it connected the Northern and Southern railway systems in the 1880s.
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There’s a great aquarium, at least as good as Atlanta or Monterrey Bay.
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Great parks — Coolidge Park was my favorite. It’s got fountains and a carousel. It used to be that you could walk from the Riverfront (where the aquarium is) to the North Shore (where Coolidge Park is) but that’s currently closed for renovations.
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Rock City is just outside of town. This is probably the most unique Chattanooga thing that we saw. It’s tough to describe, but worth it. Plenty to see and do — and an incredible view of the valley.
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Children’s museum. Is it just me, or have these gotten way better since I was a kid? Basically everywhere I travel with my kids has one (Pittsburgh, Hendersonville, apparently Chattanooga). Do they actually exist year round or are they pop ups that get set up when I book a trip?
Musings
Walking through the beautiful old train station made me a little bit sad. It’s a gorgeous building that clearly isn’t being maintained. It’s an elegant building with a sense of place, but the big central corridor is just empty. It reminded me of Buenos Aires: all those beautiful buildings slowly falling into disrepair.
This sadness seeped into the rest of the trip. Chattanooga is clearly doing great. There’s a lot of investment in downtown. It’s safe and clean. Many of the restaurants and stores are obviously new. My family will definitely go back.
And yet, I couldn’t help but noticing a lot of empty storefronts. Not enough to detract from the experience and all well maintained. But one in four, in some places as many one in two are empty.
Observing this in the background of Liberation Day and all the discourse that followed had me wondering: how prosperous can a city be if it is only a tourist destination, rather than a place that people live and create?
2025-04-18
New around here
If you want to get my posts via email, now you can: jdilla.xyz/subscribe.
Things I learned
The air dinosaurs breathed had more oxygen in it than the air we breathe. Jurassic Park couldn’t have happened because the dinosaurs would asphyxiate. Via Lyman Stone.
The combined number of hidden Christians in China and India is estimated to be 120 million, large enough to be the fifth largest religion in the world. Via Diarmaid MacCulloch.
Worth your time
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“A person’s success in life is determined by having a high minimum, not a high maximum.” — Donald Knuth via Mark Larson.
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From Stay Sassy:
I noticed that many parents of young children, despite having significantly more on their plates, seemed to get burnt out less. I even noticed this in myself, and didn’t have a real way to explain it – my first kid’s birth coincided with the busiest working period of my life (do not recommend), but I found that I had a more positive attitude towards work, for no reason that I could really explain. When I read this post, it all clicked – when you have young children Mission Doubt entirely disappears because you need to feed them.
I have also noticed that having a baby in the house is good for my creativity and relationship to my work. While I have less time for work, what I get out of that time is much, much higher quality.
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What’s behind the SynBio Bust? by Sarah Constantin
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Risk of Ruin Goods by Uri Bram
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Molson Hart on how tariffs and manufacturing in the USA: part 1 and part 2
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How restricting car traffic changed air pollution in Paris
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The myth of the infrastructure phase. Applications and the infrastructure to power them are built in tandem.
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There’s no speed limit.
Musings
“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.” — Richard Feynman
2025-03-21
Worth your time
The making of Richard Scarry. Cars and Trucks and Things That Go has been the book of the year in my house, so I loved this behind the scenes look at how the book and its author came to be. Even better that much of it was written in my beloved Switzerland.
Let their be more biographies of failure by Henry Oliver
So what are the lessons we can learn? It doesn’t always help to be right. Ideas aren’t easy to implement without the right combination of technology, attitudes, and luck. The work is what’s important, not the result. Maybe the cranks who fill their houses with cart loads of ephemera aren’t so crazy. Don’t make political trouble. Get a PR department. Have a partner who can do these things if you can’t. Be in the right place at the right time. Don’t get cynical, or as Churchill said, don’t let the bastards grind you down. Keep working. Philosophical and ethical beliefs matter a lot to what work you do and how you do it. Don’t be so pragmatic you end up being a conformist. Conventional schooling isn’t always the best approach for your children. Worry less about imaginative young people becoming lawyers. Being bored might give them the opportunity they need to have their big idea.
A great critique of Seeing like a State from Slate Star Codex. I’m like 1/3 of the way through the book and fully buying Scott’s arguments. Now I feel like someone has revealed the magicians trick.
A way to think about which jobs are most likely to be automated by AI: time horizons, legibility, humanity, and trust.
The model is the product. I’m not sure this is correct but the hypothesis is clear and it made me think. I’m not sure I’m ready to bet against generalist scaling, but this was a compelling case that specialized models effectively are the application layer for AI.
Things I learned
Cars have pop up ads now.
The importance of serendipitous meetings: Silicon Valley companies will cross reference each other’s patents more when their employees frequent the same coffee shops. I’m reminded here of Austin’s 3 types of luck and the fact that serendipity can be encouraged.
Musings
All innovation (particularly social innovation) should be presented as a return to tradition.
2025-03-14
Some changes around here
Individual posts now have related posts at the bottom of them, leveraging the infrastructure I built for Search. I’m excited to see what serendipity this sparks. Let me know what you think!
Things I learned
Life expectancy for dogs has been growing faster than life expectancy for humans, via my fascinating friend Uri.
Worth your time
Henrik Karlsson on Constraints. “Have you walked face-first into the wall to see if it is a chalk line?” We are all trapped in our preconceptions of what our ideal life needs to be like.
The skill of troubleshooting by Autodidacts via The Browser. A great deep dive into how to be a better troubleshooter and also a fantastic example of a meta skill that we probably all have under developed, reminiscent of Oliver Trimboli’s work on Listening. A favorite quote from the post: “Treating a system like the enemy makes it one.”
Will Boom build a Supersonic Airplane by Brian Potter.
Startup Strategy for Commodity Products by Austin Vernon.
Taylor Swift’s security mindset
Taylor Swift's security practices around her songs before they're released are literally airgap. Ed Sheeran is one of her closest friends in the world. She didn't override anything for him. Because security is a systemic risk and he is a target.
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— SwiftOnSecurity (@swiftonsecurity.com) March 9, 2025 at 2:34 PM