David's Favorites for April 19 2021

Welcome everyone! I’ve moved David’s Favorites over to Substack as a bit of an experiment. In fact, the last few days of emails are available in this format on the web if you’re interested. I’m experimenting with adding commentary or extra context in italics.

John Scalzi @scalzi

Hannah Arendt has entered the chat

Rachel C. Abrams @RachelAbramsNY

Staffers at One America News said they felt responsible for spreading misinformation that led to the Capitol riot. But they had bills to pay, they said, and no other job options. "We're not Nazis," one producer told me. "Just, like, everyday people." https://t.co/nSXdQKBcPj

Coined “The Banality of Evil” in 1963.

Joanna Schwartz @JCSchwartzProf

Baltimore Cops Carried Toy Guns to Plant on People They Shot, Trial Reveals - VICE

vice.comBaltimore Cops Carried Toy Guns to Plant on People They Shot, Trial RevealsOne officer involved in the city’s massive corruption scandal said officers kept the replicas “in case we accidentally hit somebody or got into a shootout, so we could plant them.”

Yikes, this storyline seems like it would have been too dark for The Wire

Sopan Deb @SopanDeb

This is one of my favorite stories I've done on basketball. Remember the amateur that trash talked @Scalabrine? It turns out this happens all the time to non-star basketball players. People are delusional about professional athletes, it turns out. nyti.ms/3dsk3nO

They mention WNBA, my guess is that it's mostly guys who foolishly challenge WNBA players.

NASA JPL @NASAJPL

Witness the historic moment in full. The Mastcam-Z cameras on @NASAPersevere show us the takeoff, hovering and landing of the #MarsHelicopter.

Christopher Moore @TheAuthorGuy

Note from an experienced drone pilot: Be really careful of the chandelier over the dining room table, because that rascal can knock a drone right out of the air and break the shade on the chandelier as well. On Mars, I mean.

SFGATE @SFGate

NASA's Mars helicopter takes flight, 1st for another planet https://t.co/YfTW4k1EkE

Ian Kluft @ikluft

"Aviation Firsts" by @xkcd comic - Mars still has a lot of catching up to do but at least it's in the race now xkcd.com/2452/ #NASA #Ingenuity #MarsHelicopter #Mars #aviation #avgeek

I’m obviously very excited about the drone on Mars, but I must admit, I may be even more excited about the plan for a drone on Titan, where the thicker atmosphere allows the quadcopter drone to carry a radioisotope thermoelectric generator and weigh over 1000 pounds.

Nicholas Kristof @NickKristof

Human Rights Watch has been careful to use legally precise descriptions of China's repression of Muslims in Xinjiang. So it's important that @hrw is now declaring that China's behavior meets the legal test of crimes against humanity.

Minky Worden @MinkysHighjinks

“For the first time @HRW is offering legal analysis that the Chinese government has committed—and continues to commit—crimes against humanity against its Turkic Muslim people” —@SophieHRW at press conference releasing this new @HRW report on #Xinjiang: https://t.co/Kp1vTujszp https://t.co/VWxsdG3Ehc

Things in Xinjiang continue to be bad.

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

Hoping that when the semiconductor supply chain issues get worked out, Bill Gates can develop some next generation microchips that don’t cause this much muscle soreness.

The staff at CVS recommended moving your arm around a lot right after the injection because it supposedly results in less soreness. No one else I’ve spoken to was told any such thing.

But in retrospect, the 15 minute observation section full of people flailing their arms around was pretty funny.

t o a s t - a c a b @DauntingToaster

How I play DnD

Our modern pop culture landscape is so fractured that the most popular Disney+ premier so far was only viewed by like 3% of people in the US. But hopefully this meme still makes sense without having seen the show… and without having played Dungeons and Dragons.

If not, all I can offer you is this cool picture I took at the UC Santa Cruz Arboretum a few weeks ago: