Link. Hope fixed by time I get to 4K.
Author Archives: jgordon
Why is modern software a pale shadow of what it could be? Why are so many paths lost to us?
Link. I don’t think Winer has the full answer, but “local minima trap” is part of the answer.
“There is a backstop—the craton, that ancient unbudgeable mass at the center of the continent—and, sooner or later, North America will rebound like a spring.”
Link. “Our operating assumption is that everything west of Interstate 5 will be toast.”
1/3 in my children’s lifetime. Near enough for stock market speculations?
Will everyone get COVID?
Link. They kind of dodge (we don’t know) that question but hint at “yes”. So this is about choosing when.
Self-Censorship in college.
Link. Is it primarily women censoring or is it gender neutral?
“Some 6,283 pedestrians died on U.S streets and roads in 2018, 42% more than a decade ago, while cyclist deaths rose 38%”
Link. “Euro NCAP added cyclist detection as an evaluation criteria in 2018, and program officials say that within a year over 80% of new automobiles were equipped to avoid striking bike riders”
“Inversion is building earth-orbiting capsules to deliver goods anywhere in the world from outer space.”
Link. Seems premature.
“Microsoft has helped, turning out patches in hours to kill off malware it detects in unclassified systems.”
Link. “cyberoperations underway, which have been moved in recent days from an operations center in Kyiv to one outside the country, are some of the most classified elements of the conflict”
Ukraine: Mud, Cold, and War.
Link. “it’s what I spent much of my professional career treating, studying and researching. I too served ashore during the Falklands War forty years ago, and have suffered cold injury of the hands and feet.”
“It’s funny how we always complained that iTunes had become a bloated, mastodontic piece of software”
Link. I knew iTunes’ heirs would be much worse.
EagleFiler 1.9.7: “$40 new with a 20% discount for TidBITS members”
Link. Protect email archives from the vagaries of cloud transitions.
“Douglas Macgregor, whom Trump nominated for ambassador to Germany and then appointed as senior advisor to the Secretary of Defense, telling a Fox News Channel host that Russian forces have been “too gentle” and “I don’t see anything heroic” a
Link.
“Tamerlane is always over the horizon, waiting to strike.”
Link. Old and topical. Keeping civilization intact takes great effort by the 20%.
Sean Carroll to Johns Hopkins as Homewood Professor of Natural Philosophy.
Link. Excellent news. One of the best science communicators – and researchers in quantum physics fundamentals.
Police and the Alternatives: addressing America’s crime surge.
Link. I like this summary.
3,000 really brave Russians arrested in protests.
Link.
What happens when you have an Apple ID without an email address and you change it? (And much more about Apple ID hell.)
Link. Enter the chaotic realm of Apple IDs, entangled identifiers, iCloud, MobileMe and more.
“the faint halos of the galaxies that indeed appear to have started to touch one another. Thus, in a manner of speaking, the collision between our two galaxies has already started.”
Link. Our galaxies will be old when they meet.
The bug-free windshield.
Link. “modern single-crop farms simply lack the diverse plant life necessary to support an insect community.”
The AT&T / Apple eSIM activation fee scam: $30 “discount” and a $30 activation fee
Link. Apple likely gets a kickback.
“NATO had mobilized its rapid response force, a kind of military SWAT team, for the first time in history to deter an enemy.”
Link. Murdoch’s media empire, from Fox to the WSJ, persuaded Putin that Biden was demented and NATO was broken.
Putin: “if they continue doing what they are doing, they risk the future of Ukrainian statehood”
Link. A comically weak threat. Doesn’t even make sense in context of Russian propaganda.
“Chinese companies, determined to regain their market share, began exporting masks below cost, the customers disappeared.”
Link. Supply chain resilience will require tariffs.
“despite the public rhetoric ahead of the invasion that the United States was overstating the threat, Mr. Zelensky privately took the warning more seriously and realized the Russians were intent on capturing or killing him”
Link. Establishing the long term resistance. Article uses “allies” rather like 1942. (iOS autocorrect does not yet recognize “allies”)
“The United States has delivered nearly 70 percent of the $350 million package to Ukraine’s military”
Link. Huge effort.
Not lab leak, wet market.
Link. I had leaned to lab leak but now I’m wet.
“Central Bank increased its reserves from $368 billion seven years ago to $630 billion today. With this war chest, Russia would be well prepared to withstand the inevitable sanctions that would come with the invasion of Ukraine.”
Link. Context.
“Where lions have acquired a taste for the experience, and conditions exist allowing them to climb, they have taken to tree climbing with the leopard-like zeal of converts.”
Link. Like humans they lost tree climbing powers of their ancestors.
COVID anosmia is collateral damage.
Link. No direct nerve infection.
“they’re not only running out of gas, but they are running out of food.”
Link.
Alexander Vindman: “what is amazing, what is shocking is the flawed assumptions of the Russian government. The Russian military is not incompetent….”
Link. “Marco Rubio frankly doesn’t know what he’s talking about. It’s kind of frustrating to watch him spout off. What we would call as, you know, like secret squirrel.”
“Russian authorities have started to crack down and refuse to let people leave.”
Link. Leave Russia that is.
Sen Tim Kaine post-COVID syndrome: “I can do everything I could do before. I don’t lose sleep over it. It’s not painful, it’s not debilitating. It’s just weird”
Link. Very weird. I’d worry about a demyelination syndrome. Hope he gets more answers.
iCloud+ Custom E-mail Domains
Link. Heartburn.
“Western intelligence report said senior Chinese officials told senior Russian officials in early February not to invade Ukraine before the end of the Winter Olympics in Beijing”
Link. “American and European officials have said they find it hard to believe it is mere coincidence that Mr. Putin’s invasion did not start until right after the Olympics.”
Trump admin Army study (Esper): “The study referred to evidence of “interference in political processes” in relation to both the Trump and Brexit elections”
Link. Expected escalation. I doubt Trump saw the report.
Biden: “… had harsh words for private equity companies that are gaining more control of the health care sector”
Link. Ahhh. So good to have a competent president.
“Taiwan announced it sent more than 27 tons of medical supplies to Ukraine, claiming its own membership in the “democratic camp”
Link. “78% of voters polled by CBS said they approved of Biden’s speech.”
Biden is what I voted for. Competency, democracy.
The end of the USSR and the seeds of Russia-Ukraine war. December 2021.
Link. Context.
“Planck-scale phenomena should contribute terms to the Higgs mass that are huge — roughly a hundred million billion times larger than the actual Higgs mass.”
Link. Then the universe would be empty.
The Mount St. Helens Trespasser • Damn Interesting
Link. Great story.
“The thing that will bring down the Russian economy in the long term is the exact same thing that will fight climate change in the long term — shift from fossil fuels to renewables and electric vehicle”
Link. Inspiring Putin exit.
Jane Brody’s alleged last Personal Health column.
Link. Retired — she says. Retrospective on health advice since she started at NYT … in 1965.
“The two largest placebo-controlled trials of [psychedelic] microdosing were published last year, and they both suggest that the benefits people experience are from the placebo effect”
Link.
Fiona Hill on Putin: “Russian World means re-gathering all the Russian-speakers in different places that belonged at some point to the Russian tsardom.”
Link. Must read.
COVID: “one in every 168 American Indian or Alaska Native children, one in every 310 Black children, one in every 412 Hispanic children, and one in every 612 Asian children had lost a caregiver, compared with one in 753 white children.”
Link. The native numbers are insane. Would like deeper dive there.
Pfizer Shot Is Far Less Effective for infection prevention in 5- to 11-Year-Olds Than in Older Kids.
Link. Dose is likely too low. Protects against severe illness.
30% US “Asian” experience COVID discrimination.
Link. Presumably Han appearing Asian. Does not break down abusers by ethnicity or race.
SK Omicron “surge”: “112 deaths in a 24-hour period”
Link. That’s much smaller than US numbers even when adjust for population. Should fall quickly. Amazing vaccine rate.
Big tech is betting that offices are still the future.
Link. Most don’t build robust relationships remotely. Without those bonds small fissures grow.