Month: December 2020

Morning Reading – Tuesday, December 08, 2020

In COVID-19 milestone for West, Britain starts mass vaccination | Reuters

A 90-year-old grandmother became the world’s first person to receive a fully-tested COVID-19 shot on Tuesday, as Britain began mass-vaccinating its people…

December 7, 2020 Health Officer Statement – San Mateo County Health

Just because one has the legal authority to do something, doesn’t mean one has to use it, or that using it is the best course of action. What I believed back in May, and what I believe now, is the power and authority to control this pandemic lies primarily in your hands, not mine. 

C.D.C. Call for Data on Vaccine Recipients Raises Alarm Over Privacy – The New York Times

The Trump administration is requiring states to submit personal information of people vaccinated against Covid-19 — including names, birth dates, ethnicities and addresses — raising alarms among state officials who fear that a federal vaccine registry could be misused.

On the Front Lines of Moderna’s COVID-19 Vaccine Program

Moderna’s technology was unique because its “platform,” as Smith calls it, could swap out genetic sequences so that it could be used to vaccinate against all manner of ailments, like a miracle gadget you might buy on QVC.

Is Trump Trying to Stage a Coup? – The Atlantic

The incoherence and incompetence of the attempt do not change its nature, however, nor do those traits allow us to dismiss it or ignore it until it finally fails on account of that incompetence.

Why we returned to reading | Financial Times

Against the backdrop of a deadly virus that saw many of us banished to our homes, the pandemic has been a boon to books.

Big Push Into Helium Could Have the World on Russia’s String – The New York Times

A huge production facility in Siberia is nearing completion, one that some analysts say could disrupt the global market for the lighter-than-air gas, which plays an increasingly critical role in industries like medical technology, space exploration and national security.

Chuck Yeager, Legendary Test Pilot, Face of “The Right Stuff”, Dies at 97. – The Aviationist

On October 12, 1944 Yeager became the central character in one of the most remarkable pages in the history of aerial combat. He shot down five German airplanes in one day, including two without firing a shot.

Morning Reading – Monday, December 07, 2020

It’s National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day. Today is the 79th anniversary of the attack. This country lost 2,403 people at Pearl Harbor. We will lose more people to COVID today

How Moderna’s Vaccine Works – The New York Times

The SARS-CoV-2 virus is studded with proteins that it uses to enter human cells. These so-called spike proteins make a tempting target for potential vaccines and treatments.

How Iowa Mishandled the Coronavirus Pandemic – The Atlantic

The story of the coronavirus in this state is one of government inaction in the name of freedom and personal responsibility. Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds has followed President Donald Trump’s lead in downplaying the virus’s seriousness. She never imposed a full stay-at-home order for the state and allowed bars and restaurants to open much earlier than in other places.

As Balthazar Reopens, Keith McNally Writes Its Personal History | Vanity Fair

My stroke paralyzed my right side. The pandemic paralyzed Balthazar. Donald Trump paralyzed the will of half the American people. Each of these dreadful incidents convinced me not to succumb to adversity, but to remember Dylan Thomas’s lines, “…Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” Rage, rage.

AI lab DeepMind cracked the protein folding problem, changing biology with AlphaFold – Vox

AlphaFold has implications for everything from Alzheimer’s disease to future pandemics. It can help us understand diseases, since many (like Alzheimer’s) are caused by misfolded proteins.

Yamiche Alcindor Wants America to See Its Flaws | Glamour

To be a good journalist, according to Alcindor, is to level with the audience: “Here are the issues. This is how to understand what’s going on in the world.”

Apple Preps Next Mac Chips With Aim to Outclass Highest-End PCs – Bloomberg

For its next generation chip targeting MacBook Pro and iMac models, Apple is working on designs with as many as 16 power cores and four efficiency cores, the people said.

A Race Car Crash From Hell—and the Science That Saved Its Driver | WIRED

The spin proved too much. The car tore in half, clean open, rupturing the full gas tank and spraying gasoline everywhere.

The Man Who Walked Across Japan for Pizza Toast – Gastro Obscura

Made of inch and a half thick slices of white bread topped with tomato sauce or ketchup, processed cheese, and whatever toppings the chef has on hand, this gooey, crunchy comfort food is what American writer, photographer, and designer Craig Mod calls “a hug produced in a toaster oven.”

In memoriam: Professor Emeritus, ALOHAnet co-founder Norman Abramson | University of Hawaiʻi

Debuted in 1971, ALOHAnet was the first system to transmit data between computers using radio waves. The novel approaches developed led to the development of Ethernet and wireless communication technologies used to this day.

Morning Reading – Saturday-Sunday, Dec. 5-6, 2020

The U.S. Has Passed the Hospital Breaking Point – The Atlantic

The pandemic nightmare scenario—the buckling of hospital and health-care systems nationwide—has arrived. Several lines of evidence are now sending us the same message: Hospitals are becoming overwhelmed, causing them to restrict whom they admit and leading more Americans to needlessly die.

Lockdowns are depressing and economically devastating. But California might not have a choice – Los Angeles Times

Experts said the coronavirus is now spreading so quickly across the state and hospitalizations are soaring so fast that the time for incremental measures has passed, and the most effective way to bend the curve is to keep people home as much as possible.

New Mexico shut down nearly everything to keep hospitals from being overwhelmed by covid. It wasn’t enough. – The Washington Post

With a vaccine on the horizon, Keller said his biggest concern was fatigue — for a general population that long ago grew sick of covid restrictions, but especially for medical workers whose most harrowing stretch may still lie ahead.

The Fisherman’s Secret: A modern-day treasure hunt

Along the murky seafloor, fish and rocks come in rounded shapes and soft colors, muted grays and greens. His eyes were attuned to this drab underwater landscape, which is why he had been puzzled by brief flashes of light on the video screen, shiny surfaces glimmering by. Then he saw it: a rectangular object, sharp-edged and pale, almost white, with a tinge of yellow.

Cinemas Join the Internet Makeover of American Cities – Bloomberg

Rather than blockbuster movies being released in 4,500 theaters across the U.S., there may be only a fraction of that to cater to the smaller number of consumers still interested in the big-screen experience when streaming options are readily available.

How John Adams Got Over Political Defeat – WSJ

The republic’s first one-term president also found losing painful because no one knew exactly what an ex-president was supposed to do. The Constitution offered no instructions on how to fail. … Adams and Jefferson died, with startling fidelity to the cause and to each other, on the same day: July 4, 1826, the 50th anniversary of the Declaration on which they had labored together.

I Started Trading Hot Stocks on Robinhood. Then I Couldn’t Stop. – WSJ

The lesson? You can’t invest without trading, but you can trade without investing. Even the most patient and meticulous buy-and-hold investor has to buy in the first place.

Just Walking Around the Block – Scott Loftesness

From an old post (2006) of mine: “…rather than simply defaulting to trolling and then reading and reading and reading until I actually have taken in too many facts without giving my brain time to think about them, maybe I need to take a walk.”

Morning Reading – Friday, December 04, 2020

Barack and Michelle: Scenes From a Marriage – The New York Times

She’s a get-to-the-point woman, in gait and gab. He’s a politician. She has no use for the type. He gets tangled up in fancy talk. She cuts through the fluff. He smoked. She loathes the smell of cigarettes.

Software Ate the World, and Soon It Will Write Itself – WSJ

Established companies are being eaten alive by new competitors employing automated strategies to write software faster, shipping updates every day to deliver new capabilities to customers.

‘Field of Broken Dreams’: London’s Growing Taxi Graveyards – The New York Times

The city estimates that 3,500 taxis have left the streets since June. They are stashed in parking lots, warehouses, garages and fields all around the capital.

Investors Seek Growth Now in Paying Later – WSJ

What distinguishes today’s BNPL is being fully digital, accessible almost instantly, even for small purchases, and very often at zero interest.

Who’ll Be 2020’s Margaret Chase Smith? – WSJ

If your McCarthy is saying a whole national election was rigged, an entire system corrupted, you’d recognize such baseless charges damage democracy itself. You wouldn’t let election officials be smeared. You’d stand against a growing hysteria in the base.

Trump’s Lesson for the Media – The New York Times

Journalists should never again allow someone to create an alternative reality in order to seize the presidency.

The pandemic’s lessons are clear and simple. We must act now. – The Washington Post

The greatest mistake would be not to learn the lessons of this catastrophe. Mr. Trump has not. We still can.

Chinese Scientists Claim Breakthrough in Quantum Computing Race – Bloomberg

The breakthrough represents a quantum computational advantage, also known as quantum supremacy, in which no traditional computer can perform the same task in a reasonable amount of time and is unlikely to be overturned by algorithmic or hardware improvements

What puzzles and poker teach us about misinformation | Financial Times

Often people see false claims and share them impulsively, not because they cannot figure out that the claims are false, but because they didn’t stop long enough to try.

A piano in the home – Austin Kleon

I feel like everybody, even if you don’t play the piano, you should have a piano.

Morning News – Thursday, December 3, 2020

America Hits a Record 100,000 Hospitalizations in One Day – The Atlantic

Today’s new case and death numbers tell the same story, even keeping in mind that they reflect inevitable delays in reporting: A harsh winter is only just beginning.

The U.S. Needs a COVID-19 Commission – The Atlantic

One could argue that the danger of a new virus wasn’t fully appreciated in advance. In the future, we will have no such excuse.

Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer on battling Trump and surviving a kidnap plot – Financial Times

The governor has a mantra that she has relied on during the pandemic: what is the next right thing to do?

Visa Partners With Ethereum Digital-Dollar Startup That Raised $271 Million

“This will be the first corporate card that will allow businesses to be able to spend a balance of USDC,” says Visa head of crypto Cuy Sheffield.

Visa Is Doing What Big American Companies Do to ‘Protect This Business’ – Opinion – The New York Times

The intervention is necessary to protect the interests of merchants and consumers, and the health of the broader economy.

Airline Cards Lose Luster as Coronavirus Persists – WSJ

As more airline credit cards come up for renewal, more people are rethinking whether the hefty annual fees are worth it. Some are sticking their cards in a drawer, or downgrading to lower-frills versions.

With new taxes and bad policies, San Francisco may cause even more residents to flee – The Washington Post

Unless city leaders and voters change their priorities, though, they may soon find that a lot of their neighbors have left their hearts in San Francisco — along with a forwarding address.

The Road from Fujifilm to Leica and Back – FUJILOVE MAGAZINE

After owning the X100V for only a couple of months, I am very happy with how it feels to use. I love the ability to carry the camera easily and be ready to capture life as it comes.

Striking the balance between luck and skill – PBS NewsHour

As in life, there is no such thing as complete certainty, because, like life, poker is a game of incomplete information, of unknowns, of constantly changing, endlessly moving parts.

Cool Tools: I’ve recently upgraded to an iPhone 12 Pro Max and have updated my Cool Tools page reflecting that upgrade.

Morning News – Wednesday, December 02, 2020

The U.K. approves a vaccine, becoming the first nation in the West to do so – The New York Times

The government said on Wednesday that 800,000 doses would be available by next week for health workers to begin administering.

Operation Warp Speed chief predicts coronavirus vaccines for all Americans by June – The Washington Post

“Hopefully, by the middle of the year, I hope most Americans will have been immunized,” Slaoui, head of the Trump administration’s vaccine initiative, said … “If enough people are immunized, we should have this pandemic under control in the second half of 2021.”

My 2021 Outlook Year in Preview – The Big Picture

Here is my outlook for 2021: We will all be even more sick to death of lockdown, more bored silly working from home, and damned tired of re-living the same Groundhog day over and over again.

Exercise 11 Minutes a Day for a Longer Life – The New York Times

The study, which relied on objective data from tens of thousands of people about how they spent their days, found that those who were the most sedentary faced a high risk of dying young, but if people got up and moved, they slashed that threat substantially, even if they did not move much.

What if You Could Outsource Your To-Do List? – The New Yorker

He worried that if he didn’t keep up he’d be left behind, because some people were running so quickly and with such focus that, if you didn’t do the same, you risked betraying your future.

Project Zero: An iOS zero-click radio proximity exploit odyssey

The takeaway from this project should not be: no one will spend six months of their life just to hack my phone, I’m fine. Instead, it should be: one person, working alone in their bedroom, was able to build a capability which would allow them to seriously compromise iPhone users they’d come into close contact with. Scary stuff!

Salesforce Signs Definitive Agreement to Acquire Slack – Business Wire

“This is a match made in heaven. Together, Salesforce and Slack will shape the future of enterprise software and transform the way everyone works in the all-digital, work-from-anywhere world. I’m thrilled to welcome Slack to the Salesforce Ohana once the transaction closes.”

Working from paradise: my escape to the south of France – Financial Times

If only I could, I decided, I would always winter here, like the redstarts and the goldfinches in the garden, like the arrowhead of white storks which flew over once under a blue moon, their wingbeats carrying through the silent night.

Morning Reading – Tuesday, December 01, 2020

There Aren’t Serious-Enough Consequences for Those Trying to Break American Democracy – The Atlantic

Trump and his team are doing lasting damage to American democracy as the president struggles to come to grips with the reality of his loss. And yet, these lawyers and officials will likely face no real consequences for their actions—and if they do, those repercussions will not be enough to address the scale of the problem.

How Biden Can Break the Senate Stonewall – WSJ

A more promising approach would be to find issues on which individual senators would benefit politically from breaking with their leadership and supporting President Biden’s plan.

The Covid Pandemic Could Cut Business Travel by 36%—Permanently – WSJ

Some airline executives note that technology has always stimulated more business travel, not less. The easier it is to make connections in the business world, the more reason there is to go meet with people. Others say that this time it’s different.

How to take a coffee nap | A Life of Productivity

Caffeine naps work for several reasons, some of which are obvious, some of which are not. You get the calm restfulness that a nap provides (without sleeping long enough to feel groggy), and you also benefit from the energy jolt from the cup of coffee.