David's Favorites - April 16 2021

This is the new Substack version of David’s Favorites, I’m experimenting with adding more commentary to these emails, let me know what you think!

Alex Tabarrok @ATabarrok

"The unvaccinated are the biggest risk for generating new variants. You have heard of the South Africa and Brazilian variants, well the best way to protect your constituents from these and other variants is to vaccinate South Africans and Brazilians."

marginalrevolution.comMy Congressional Testimony - Marginal REVOLUTIONI thought the meeting went well. I made four points. It is not too late to do more. We should invest in nasal and oral vaccines. We should vaccinate the world. We should stretch doses through fractional dosing and delaying the second dose, this will be important to vaccinate the world quickly. One o…

I like the “protecting your constituents” angle.

Julia Galef @juliagalef

I wouldn't pick on Spock so much if he didn't give rationality such a bad name

wired.comTurns Out, Spock Is Kinda Bad at LogicFor her new book, Julia Galef catalogued the Vulcan’s predictions and found events he describes as “impossible” actually happened 83 percent of the time.

I put ‘Scout Mindset' next on my reading list, and not just because I want to see the Calibration curve for Spock’s predictions.

There was a ton of uproar about Biden keeping Trump’s lowered refugee cap today.

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

"A senior administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they didn't want their name associated with this obvious load of bull—"

Matthew Zeitlin @MattZeitlin

the purported explanation for this makes no sense https://t.co/GzeewmfGCu https://t.co/d8o1EbSJfH https://t.co/xpy8t2KJvP

Nate Silver was not impressed.

Daring Fireball @daringfireball

Top Facebook Post About J&J Vaccine Is From a Conspiracy Crackpot

daringfireball.netYou’ll Never Guess the Source of the Top Facebook Post About the J&J Vaccine (Narrator: You’ll Guess It)Link to: https://www.npr.org/2021/04/15/987182241/the-most-popular-j-j-vaccine-story-on-facebook-a-conspiracy-theorist-posted-it

Today in ‘what did you think was gonna happen?’

SpaceX @SpaceX

NASA has selected Starship to land the first astronauts on the lunar surface since the Apollo program! We are humbled to help @NASAArtemis usher in a new era of human space exploration → go.nasa.gov/3tur510

Ok, my time playing KSP did result in me noticing something interesting here, it’s one piece! No command pod / lander module like the original Apollo stuff. Now I’m excited to see how they solve the problem I run into when I build one piece landers in KSP: you need a really really big ladder.

John Scalzi @scalzi

All those second breakfasts add up fast

theverge.comAmazon’s The Lord of the Rings series to cost $465 million for first seasonAmazon’s The Lord of the Rings TV series is reported to cost the retail giant a whopping $465 million to produce ... for its first season.

For comparison, Season 1 of The Mandalorian cost 120 million, so yea, this figure seems high. Maybe they’re planning to re-use the sets in season 2? 😆

Marco Arment @marcoarment

A masterpiece of hilarious yet insightful writing by @caseyjohnston:

vice.comI Got High to See if Weed Would Help Me Work OutWeed, a peaceful and chill substance, might seem opposed to a task that requires energy and initiative. However: It also makes mundane stuff more fun.

Sounds like it helps, but Casey Johnson seems to have way more time to devote to working out than I could ever imagine spending, weed or no weed.

Serra @TattooedMuppet

Me: painstakingly selects names for every town, mountain, river, etc in my books using lots of research into meanings and associations The real world:

I can’t think of an example in a work of fiction where the explanation for something is as stupid as things that actually happen in real life.

Jack Lynch @JackLynch000

Pardis says that this is an accurate depiction of giving a cat medication.