Month: December 2020

Morning Reading – New Years Eve – December 31, 2020

More of my photography: @sjl on Instagram

Today is my Dad’s birthday. He would have been 99 years old today had he lived long enough to see the day. A member of the greatest generation, he would have been very disappointed at 2020.

Bay Area hit with 2 earthquakes Thursday morning

The San Francisco Bay Area was hit with two separate earthquakes early Thursday morning.

Happy New Year, don’t die – The Reformed Broker

I got a text the other day from the biggest smartass I know. Haven’t spoken to him in years. He said, “Happy New Year dont die”…
How does one respond to that? … Happy New Year, don’t die is a pretty fitting way to say goodbye to 2020. This one’s in the books. Another one to hang in the gallery. See you next year.

‘The Other Half of My Soul’: Widows of Covid-19 Bond Over Sudden Loss – The New York Times

“He made it back from two deployments, two separate, dangerous deployments. He came home and this is what killed him.”

Vaccination is going slowly because nobody is in charge – The Washington Post

How did we get from 100 million promised doses to just a few million people vaccinated? It is a lesson in misunderstanding American federalism and a failure of national leadership. The federal government and Operation Warp Speed saw their role as getting vaccines to the states, without considering what supports states would need to get vaccines to the people.

25 Days That Changed the World: How Covid-19 Slipped China’s Grasp – The New York Times

Politics stymied science, in a tension that would define the pandemic. China’s delayed initial response unleashed the virus on the world and foreshadowed battles between scientists and political leaders over transparency, public health and economics that would play out across continents.

Cowards Are Destroying the GOP – The Atlantic

Think about this statement for a moment: The incentives Josh Hawley and many of his fellow Republicans officeholders confront lead them to conclude that they should pretend the lie is true.

Sen. Sasse calls effort to overturn electoral college vote a ‘dangerous ploy’ – The Washington Post

“When we talk in private, I haven’t heard a single Congressional Republican allege that the election results were fraudulent – not one,” he said. “Instead, I hear them talk about their worries about how they will ‘look’ to President Trump’s most ardent supporters.”

8 Themes For The Near Future Of Tech 🔮 | by Scott Belsky

Like all of you, I am eager to move past the challenges of 2020. I’m hopeful that we emerge more productive from the “great refactoring” we all endured, and that we can all reclaim the ~30% of cognitive load that has been consumed by political craziness, gaslighting, and a seemingly never-ending stream of things to worry about.

Do Dogs Really Make Us Happier? – WSJ

But how exactly do dogs make us happier? In a previous study, Dr. Powell’s group had shown that owning a dog promotes the flow of oxytocin, a hormone that decreases our heart rate and fosters feelings of well-being and relaxation. Plus, she adds, dogs “encourage their owners to get out in nature, maintain a sense of routine, and stay in touch with their neighbors.

New Year’s Resolutions That Will Make You Happier – The Atlantic

Take 15 minutes on New Year’s Day and write down five things you are grateful for. Each evening before retiring, study your list for five minutes. Each week, update the list by adding two items. I personally do this, and I can tell you that the list gets easier and easier to build.

Opinion | The Year in Charts – The New York Times

If 2019 was the Year of Trump, then 2020 was the Year of Covid-19 and Trump. Only the most devastating pandemic in a century could have bumped our loudmouthed president into second place.

Opinion | 2020 Taught Us How to Fix This – The New York Times

It turns out that if you tell someone their facts are wrong, you don’t usually win them over; you just entrench false belief.

Opinion | My Joe Biden Story – The New York Times

I’ve known officeholders who could talk endlessly about policy or hand out political gossip as if it were candy. What I hadn’t encountered was a politician like Mr. Biden, willing to let his guard down and reflect on his vulnerabilities. I

Morning Reading – Wednesday, December 30, 2020

A snippet of beauty appropriate for this time of year from the poem New Year Resolve by May Sarton:

The time has come

To stop allowing the clutter

To clutter my mind

Like dirty snow,

Shove it off and find

Clear time, clear water.

The Trümperdämmerung Is a Fitting End to 2020 | The New Yorker

Now that 2020 is finally almost over, I find that I don’t want to remember it at all. (Though you should read Lawrence Wright’s definitive account of this Plague Year in this week’s New Yorker.) Perhaps this is simply because Trump has remained so defiantly and obnoxiously unrepentant, continuing his antics all the way to the end. He does not want to let go, to cede the spotlight, to renounce his outsized claim on our collective consciousness. It is my protest, our protest, to want so desperately to do so.

Opinion | Coronavirus vaccinations are off to a very slow start. That should set off alarms. – The Washington Post

The vaccine rollout is giving me flashbacks to the administration’s testing debacle. Think back to all the times Trump pledged that “everyone who wants a test can get one.” Every time this was fact-checked, it came up false.

It’s not all bad! 20 things that made the world a better place in 2020 | WIRED UK

This is not a year we’ll look back on fondly. It began with Australia on fire and ends with more than 1.5 million dead in a pandemic. But there have been bright points in this annus horribilis. While many of us saved lives by hunkering down at home watching Netflix, a communal act of selflessness that shouldn’t be soon forgotten, progress was made in science, the environment, and even politics – Biden won!

Looking Back On Tech, Startups, And VC In 2020 – Semil Shah Blog

While the statistical odds of the world being put into lockdown because of a global pandemic were incredibly small, perhaps even smaller was the likelihood that a young mayor of a major U.S. city in a state without income taxes would not only woo and recruit technology founders, executives, and investors to his city on Twitter, but that he would engage in a way that triggered an ongoing dialog for weeks on end. Sure, parts of this have turned into a meme, but there is a real shift going on, not just in Miami.

How Texas Can Become the Next Silicon Valley – Bloomberg

Noncompetes lock that pool away; if all your potentially best hires are legally prevented from working for you, you might as well move your company out to the middle of Wyoming or the Philippines, where at least the rent is cheap!

Everybody Spies in Cyberspace. The U.S. Must Plan Accordingly. – The Atlantic

The recently revealed SolarWinds hack unfolded like a scene from a horror movie: Victims frantically barricaded the doors, only to discover that the enemy had been hiding inside the house the whole time.

Resolutions for 2021 after a year working from home | Financial Times

I never used to appreciate the phone. Between calling people for interviews as part of my job, I opted for WhatsApp or email. That was until I became overwhelmed by Zoomageddon.

You can escape this room, but you’ll never escape Google Docs – The Verge

“Escape: A Game” by Anthony Smith is styled as a choose-your-own-adventure game set in a series of interlinked Google Docs. You “wake up” from a mysterious dream in a cabin room filling with smoke, and are tasked with getting out.

When Nashville Bombing Hit a Telecom Hub, the Ripples Reached Far Beyond – The New York Times

“It is crazy to have a networking service center like that facing one of the busiest streets in the United States,” Mr. Gill said, suggesting that it would be better situated in a rural area: “Buy as much land as they can and put it behind as many chain-link fences as they can build and create Fort Knox.”

The 2020 Good Tech Awards – The New York Times

Perimeter, a small start-up in the Bay Area, makes collaborative mapping and data-sharing software for emergency workers. Its founder, Bailey Farren, is the 24-year-old daughter of a retired fire captain and a paramedic

How Disney tried to turn the Queen Mary into a Haunted Mansion at sea

It turns out, when you think something is haunted for long enough, it can actually start showing signs of a haunting.

Morning Reading – Tuesday, December 29, 2020

Pandemic Year Two – The Atlantic

The pandemic will end not with a declaration, but with a long, protracted exhalation. Even if everything goes according to plan, which is a significant if, the horrors of 2020 will leave lasting legacies.

What Was Trumpism? – The Atlantic

“One of the most impressive [and] politically utile things Trump has done from the beginning is get his fans to internalize their support and perceive even a mild rebuke of him [and] his actions as a personal attack on them.”

Is Substack the Media Future We Want? | The New Yorker

Substack is a natural fit for the influencer, the pundit, the personality, and the political contrarian. It’s debatable whether this represents “a better future for news.” But it’s great business for Substack.

A Farm Family’s Business Caved In. Then the Neighbors Showed Up. – The New York Times

You know, I’d like to say, gee, it can’t be any worse than it was this year. But, you know, it sadly, it could always be worse. So we really don’t know what’s going to happen. Like I said, head down, butt up, push forward.

How 2020 Forced Facebook and Twitter to Step In – The Atlantic

Gone is the naive optimism of social-media platforms’ early days, when—in keeping with an overly simplified and arguably self-serving understanding of the First Amendment tradition—executives routinely insisted that more speech was always the answer to troublesome speech. Our tech overlords have been doing some soul-searching.

Surprise Ending for Publishers: In 2020, Business Was Good – The New York Times

With so many people stuck at home and activities from concerts to movies off limits, people have been reading a lot — or at least buying a lot of books. Print sales by units are up almost 8 percent so far this year, according to NPD BookScan.

These Tech Companies Are Paying Workers the Same Rates Across U.S. – WSJ

“We’re not making this change to save money,” said Dan Spaulding, chief people officer of Zillow. “We’re making this change to retain our employees.”

Startup cynicism and Substack, or Clubhouse, or Miami, or … | TechCrunch

All three are bets of optimism: Substack believes it can rebuild journalism. Clubhouse believes it can reinvent radio with the right interactivity and build a unique social platform. And Miami is a bet that you can take a top global city without a massive startup ecosystem and agglomerate the talent necessary to compete with San Francisco, New York and Boston.

Morning Reading – Monday, December 28, 2020 – Day 362

What I’m reading: The Patch by John McPhee. A collection of some of his previously unpublished short writing. As usual, a delight to read!

The Plague Year | The New Yorker (Lawrence Wright)

Infections often rose in counties where Trump held a rally. The surge in infections and deaths mocked his assertions that we were “rounding the turn.” The disease stalked him; it encircled him. On October 25th, Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, declared, “We are not going to control the pandemic.” The Administration had given up. Covid couldn’t kill Donald Trump, but it could defeat him.

Lawrence Wright on How the Pandemic Response Went So Wrong | The New Yorker

The New Yorker staff writer Lawrence Wright—who has reported on Al Qaeda and the Church of Scientology—has followed the story of the pandemic unfolding in the United States since the first lockdowns in March. Wright walks David Remnick through key moments of decision-making in the Trump White House: from the reaction to the earliest reports of a virus to botched mask mandates and testing rollouts, up through the emergency-use authorization of the vaccine.

Trump signs stimulus bill into law and averts shutdown – The Washington Post

White House officials didn’t explain why the president decided to suddenly back down and sign into law a bill he had held up for nearly a week and had referred to as a “disgrace” just days earlier.

I read Boom Town by Sam Anderson over the holidays – a great book! Below is one of the best reviews of Boom Town that I came across…

Book review of Boom Town: The Fantastical Saga of Oklahoma City, its Chaotic Founding, its Apocalyptic Weather, its Purloined Basketball Team, and the Dream of Becoming a World-Class Metropolis by Sam Anderson – The Washington Post

What Anderson is tracing is the creation of a narrative, the story the city tells about itself. “I have come to believe, after my time there,” he observes, “that Oklahoma City is one of the great weirdo cities in the world.” The people to whom he introduces us in “Boom Town” bear this out.

2020 Was a Breakout Year for Crispr | WIRED

Last but certainly not least, in October, the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna for Crispr genome editing. It was both a stunning choice (as a DNA-altering tool, Crispr has only been around for 8 years) and a completely expected one. Crispr has completely revolutionized biological research since its arrival in 2012

Covid-19 made digital the default. Will it stay? – The Washington Post

“2020 reinforced the fact we nerds have known: Network is just omnipresent,” says Om Malik, a venture capitalist at True Ventures. “We aren’t going online. We live online.”

Tracing the first steps of a fantastic voyage – SF Gate (Chris McGinnis)

During my senior year in high school I read a book by James Michener called “The Drifters,” about a group of American kids who ran off to Spain, bought an old VW camper van and rambled around that country, which added fuel to the fire growing in me to get out of town.

Cancel New Year’s Eve Forever | The New Yorker

Can’t we ring in 2021? We have vaccines. We have a new President, who is merely the devil we know and not the actual devil. “Conversations with Friends” will première on Hulu in the spring, and we are very likely to see thin, sexy Irish people smoking and cheating on one another. That’s all true. But 2021 is going to be bad

The Best Champagne to Buy in 2020 – Eater

Suffice it to say that Champagne is not for everyone this year; such is the weight of the world we inhabit.

Imagine – Gotham Gal

When this pandemic is over we need to take a deep look at a future where anger and selfishness over power begins to wane.

Morning Reading – Thursday, December 24, 2020

These breakthroughs will make 2021 better than 2020 | Bill Gates

When I think back on the pace of scientific advances in 2020, I am stunned. Humans have never made more progress on any disease in a year than the world did on COVID-19 this year. Under normal circumstances, creating a vaccine can take 10 years. This time, multiple vaccines were created in less than one year.

Who Made the Vaccine Possible? Not WHO – WSJ

There would be no Covid-19 vaccine today had there been no venture capitalists prepared to invest before a product or profit was visible, no corporate leadership willing to double down with the companies’ own money in the spring to fund a crash effort to produce a vaccine by year-end, and no researchers pursuing a dream about mRNA as an unprecedented route for vaccines.

Trump vs. a GOP Senate – WSJ

President Trump is leaving office as he entered, with a whirlwind of action that gets more attention than it accomplishes. He may also take down his party’s chances of winning the Senate runoffs on Jan. 5. Does he care?

For a Defeated President, Pardons as an Expression of Grievance – The New York Times

Critics accused Mr. Trump of using his power to obstruct justice by rewarding allies who impeded the investigation against him. “The pardons from this President are what you would expect to get if you gave the pardon power to a mob boss,” Andrew Weissmann, a top lieutenant to Mr. Mueller, wrote on Twitter.

The Problem With Pardons Was Clear From the Start – The Atlantic

George Mason, however, deserves his reputation for the precision of his predictions. Many have proved uncanny, and, at least in one case, his anticipation of the future is almost eerie. Remarkably, Mason predicted Donald Trump’s pardon of Paul Manafort and Roger Stone more than 230 years ago.

Donald Trump’s pardoning spree tests boundaries of authority | Financial Times

“Anyone who cares about the constitution and the state of our democracy has cause to be concerned.”

With Paul Manafort’s Pardon, Kleptocracy Won – The Atlantic

The president clearly intended to obstruct justice. By implicitly promising a pardon, he thwarted Manafort’s cooperation with Mueller, and wrecked the probe. Manafort might well have advanced Mueller’s investigation to an even more damning conclusion. Instead, the stymied investigation ended prematurely.

The Year the Fed Changed Forever – The New York Times

“We crossed a lot of red lines that had not been crossed before,” Mr. Powell said at an event in May.

Why 2020 felt like a time warp, according to science – Vox

But time itself has felt different this year, our relationship with it altered significantly by the pandemic. Whatever comfort we once derived from considering the past is gone. Now it’s a stark reminder of all that we had, all that we took for granted, and what we must still reckon with — that our future is not likely to look like what we’re used to.

The Forgotten Radicalism of Jesus Christ – The New York Times

The lesson from Jesus’ life and ministry is that understanding people’s stories and struggles requires much more time and effort than condemning them, but it is vastly more rewarding. And the lesson of Christmas and the incarnation, at least for those of us of the Christian faith, is that all of us were once outcasts, broken yet loved, and worth reaching out to and redeeming.

Recipe recommendation: My slow roasted Tri-tip makes a delicious holiday meal! Enjoy!

Morning Reading – Wednesday, December 23, 2020

Eight days remain before we close the door on the year 2020.

The Department Store That Does Holiday Cheer Like No Other – The New York Times

On the night before Christmas, my father would leave a cigar and a drink on the mantel for Santa. (This was Greenwich Village.) In the morning, while I pillaged the presents, I never failed to notice that the cigar had been smoked down to the butt. And the brandy in the glass was all gone.

Fauci’s Christmas Eve: Turning 80 and fighting the pandemic – The Washington Post

“There is no option to get tired. There is no option to sit down and say ‘I’m sorry, I’ve had enough,’ ” he said. When fatigued, he recalled, he would tell himself: “I’m gonna dig deep and just suck it up.”

How to Abuse a Presidential Pardon – The Atlantic

As we await Trump’s Christmas pardons, with the expectation that many will be self-serving and injurious to the pursuit of justice, the intertwined tales of Taft and Nixon help explain why, after two centuries, we are still so vulnerable to bad pardons, a power that the Framers left unchecked.

How Biden’s design team helped defeat Donald Trump

Unlike Trump’s branding, which used a sledgehammer of aggressive, repetitive, messaging, the Biden design team reached key demographics with the precision of a scalpel.

How Claude Shannon’s Information Theory Invented the Future | Quanta Magazine

When I started graduate school, my adviser told me that the best work would prune the tree of knowledge, rather than grow it. I didn’t know what to make of this message then; I always thought my job as a researcher was to add my own twigs. But over my career, as I had the opportunity to apply this philosophy in my own work, I began to understand.

Morning Reading – Tuesday, December 22, 2020

Shigeru Miyamoto Wants to Create a Kinder World | The New Yorker

The interesting thing about interactive media is that it allows the players to engage with a problem, conjure a solution, try out that solution, and then experience the results. Then they can go back to the thinking stage and start to plan out their next move. This process of trial and error builds the interactive world in their minds. This is the true canvas on which we design—not the screen. That’s something I always keep in mind when designing games.

US credit card applications tumble | Financial Times

Demand for consumer credit in the US has fallen dramatically during the Covid-19 crisis, with credit card applications falling to multiyear lows, according to a Federal Reserve survey released on Monday.

USPS struggles to deliver mail by Christmas – The Washington Post

“No parcels are moving at all,” said one postal worker in Michigan, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment publicly. “As bad as you think it is, it’s worse.”

Trump assembles a ragtag crew of conspiracy-minded allies in flailing bid to reverse election loss – The Washington Post

President Trump has turned to a ragtag group of conspiracy theorists, media-hungry lawyers and other political misfits in a desperate attempt to hold on to power after his election loss.

So long, 2020. We won’t miss you. – The Washington Post

I believe I speak for humankind, with few exceptions, when I say we will all be overjoyed to see the back of this awful year.

JPMorgan M&A Co-Chief Anu Aiyengar Rakes in Billions for the Bank – Bloomberg

As JPMorgan Chase & Co. searches for its first major acquisition in more than a decade, Anu Aiyengar will have a hand in shaping the giant bank’s future.

Mark Zuckerberg Has Another Answer to Bitcoin. It’s Called Diem – Bloomberg

Given Zuckerberg’s tendency to issue half-hearted apologies before going back to breaking things, it’s not surprising that he’s gearing up for a second attempt to launch Libra next year.

Investors pour $1bn into buying up small merchants on Amazon | Financial Times

Instead of trying to build new consumer-goods brands from scratch, the new ventures each plan to buy up dozens of small merchants that have already proven successful on Amazon.

Westerners Grow Wary of China Travel Over Threat of Detention – Bloomberg

Interviews with a dozen executives, diplomats, consultants and academics show many of them believe there is an increased risk in traveling to China and — since the passage of a security law in June — the financial hub of Hong Kong.

Morning Reading – Monday, December 20, 2020

Trump Is Losing His Mind – The Atlantic

Given Trump’s psychological profile, it was inevitable that when he felt the walls of reality close in on him—in 2020, it was the pandemic, the cratering economy, and his election defeat—he would detach himself even further from reality.

Trump’s Bad Exit – WSJ

Mr. Trump doesn’t want to admit he lost, and he can duck the inauguration if he likes. But his sore loser routine is beginning to grate even on millions who voted for him.

The Cyber Threat Is Real and Growing – WSJ

Using a network-management company’s supply chain of updates to penetrate targeted networks is exceptionally smart. This tactic will spawn imitators, and not only among governments.

He Wanted to Count Every Vote in Philadelphia. His Party Had Other Ideas. – The New York Times

“Democracies have embedded within themselves what it takes to undo themselves. America will obviously never be defeated by an external force that would end the republic. It’s only possible to end it from within.”

How Russia Wins the Climate Crisis – The New York Times

Russia hopes to seize on the warming temperatures and longer growing seasons brought by climate change to refashion itself as one of the planet’s largest producers of food.

How I Blew My Bitcoin on Sushi – The New York Times

It’s a great time to be a longtime owner of the currency, and a painful time to be a person who once spent 10.354 Bitcoin (including tip) on a dinner for strangers. Yes, that person is me.

The Greatest Restaurant City in America Is Hurting More Than You Know – The New York Times

It’s as if pages of a cherished scrapbook are being ripped out and thrown away, one after another after another. We’re losing the past along with the present and the future. We’re losing the very refuges we might have gone to for solace.

A Christmas Star? Jupiter and Saturn Alignment Sparks Comparisons – WSJ

Jupiter and Saturn will appear to nearly touch in the night sky on the winter solstice this Monday, in a rare alignment that has happened only twice since the Middle Ages.