Link. In 2006 McNeil thought a catastrophic avian influenza pandemic was very likely. He was wrong then. Now he cautions against both complacency and panic. The last paragraph is morbidly amusing.
Daily Archives: March 14, 2023
Everything is just fine.
Link. “I retired in August of 2022 so I think I’ll focus on mountain bike trail maintenance and, like Superintelligence’s Carol Peters, on the needs of friends and family.”
Pepfar – the CDC implemented program that has saved millions of lives.
Link. “President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.” Started under GWB. Cheap at 7.5 billion. Sometimes we do good things.
“In Gmail and Google Docs, you can simply type in a topic you’d like to write about, and a draft will be instantly generated for you.”
Link. I regret not buying that cabin in the remote wilderness.
“Why did SolarWinds have such bad security? The answer is because it was more profitable … exacerbated by the private-equity funding model”
Link. We need liability and lawyers.
Malware that survives firmware updates.
Link. “malware checks for available firmware upgrades every 10 seconds. When an update becomes available, the malware copies the archived file for backup…”
“When trying to assess the importance of an experience, she said, “our brain just looks back and says, Well, how many memories did we make?”
Link. Why a first-tine journey seems much longer than subsequent trips.
“the production of giant-donkey bloodlines occurred at a time when mules — the sterile offspring of male donkeys, or jacks, and horse mares — were vital to the Roman economy and its military”
Link. History meets genomics.