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# When an Insanity Defense Worked, What's In The Water At Waterloo?, Improv and the Death of Comedy
- URL: https://adjacent.media/weekend/2026-09-19-weekend/
- Published: 2026-09-19T11:07:11.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-19T11:07:11.000Z
- Description: This week: the mystery-solving thrill of an insanity defense that actually worked, the University of Waterloo’s strange pipeline into Silicon Valley, an economist’s case that government bureaucracy is a hidden tax, and why TV comedy may have died somewhere around “The Bear.
- Author: Jonathan Greene
- Tags: #weekend

This week: the mystery-solving thrill of an insanity defense that actually worked, the University of Waterloo's strange pipeline into Silicon Valley, an economist's case that government bureaucracy is a hidden tax, and why TV comedy may have died somewhere around "The Bear."

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#### When an Insanity Defense Worked

Ian Parker follows the case of Michael Barisone, a top dressage trainer who shot one of his students — and the improbable path his defense took through the legal system's rarest verdict. A story about horses, class, and mental illness that never settles into an easy read of any of them.

*The New Yorker · 20 min*

#### [What's In The Water At Waterloo?](https://open.substack.com/pub/ashleevance/p/university-of-waterloo-engineers-silicon-valley-cracked)

Ashlee Vance examines why a mid-sized Canadian engineering school has become one of the most reliable feeder pipelines into Silicon Valley's most demanding companies. A study of culture — how a program built around co-op placements and unglamorous grind produces the kind of "cracked" engineer everyone claims to want and few actually train.

*Core Memory · 15 min*

#### [Improv and the Death of Comedy](https://www.imightbewrong.org/p/improv-and-the-death-of-comedy?ref=adjacent.media)

A conversation with comedy writer Jay Martel that treats a real question seriously: why has TV comedy gone quiet, and did something break around the rise of prestige dramedies like "The Bear"? The piece delivers a sharp, insider's autopsy of a genre rather than a nostalgia piece.

*I Might Be Wrong · 18 min*

#### [My excellent Conversation with Annie Lowrey](https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/09/my-excellent-conversation-with-annie-lowrey.html?utm%5Fsource=rss&utm%5Fmedium=rss&utm%5Fcampaign=my-excellent-conversation-with-annie-lowrey)

Tyler Cowen talks with Annie Lowrey about her book "The Time Tax" — the idea that the hours Americans lose to bureaucratic friction (renewing a license, appealing a denied claim) function as an invisible, regressive tax. The conversation ranges wider than the book, into inequality, paperwork, and why some countries just make life easier.

*Marginal Revolution · 25 min (audio/transcript)*

> “The most interesting part of this story is how the highlanders were so isolated for so long.” — *Marginal Revolution, on Papua New Guinea*

#### [Why Papua New Guinea is so interesting](https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/09/why-papua-new-guinea-is-so-interesting.html?utm%5Fsource=rss&utm%5Fmedium=rss&utm%5Fcampaign=why-papua-new-guinea-is-so-interesting)

A short, dense essay on the country with arguably the most linguistic diversity on Earth — over 800 languages — and what centuries of geographic isolation did to its social structure. A genuine detour into a place most reading lists never reach.

*Marginal Revolution · 10 min*

#### [Jacob Weisberg on the Contagion of Cowardice](https://writing.yaschamounk.com/p/jacob-weisberg?ref=adjacent.media)

Weisberg, who chairs the Committee to Protect Journalists, talks with Yascha Mounk about institutional timidity — how fear spreads through newsrooms, universities, and law firms once the first ones flinch. Courage reframed as a collective-action problem rather than an individual virtue.

*Persuasion · 22 min*