Favorite Rejects 2022-01-24

Ramez Naam @ramez

Cautiously good news about Long Covid and the brain. It seems more and more that covid seldom directly infects the brain, and that brain fog and other neurological symptoms should be reversible. We don't know that for sure, but this finding is encouraging.

newscientist.comCovid-19 brain fog: What we know about lingering neurological effectsGrowing evidence suggests neurological symptoms of long covid, such as brain fog, are caused by an immune reaction – and should be reversible

Noah Smith 🌐+🧦=🐇 @Noahpinion

This is why unrest is a macro variable that modulates all the micro variables in politics and culture; when the music plays, everyone has to get up and dance.

Noah Smith 🌐+🧦=🐇 @Noahpinion

This does not mean there is no good side and no bad side in a Time of Unrest; instead it means that when we look back at the period from a time of reasoned calm, even the side we eventually recognize as "good" will seem fairly wacko.

Tom Gara @tomgara

Full credit to Bill Maher, taking the vaccine but steadfastly refusing a booster is such a pitch-perfect parody of his I'm liberal but the libs have gone too far thing

outkick.comBill Maher: ‘I Will Never Get A Booster Shot’Bill Maher isn’t holding anything back when it comes to COVID — the Real Time with Bill Maher host said he isn’t afraid to talk about the reality of the

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

IMO the Canadian setup with a mostly-fake senate and a Supreme Court that is fairly low-key and can be overruled by parliament seems pretty great.

David Schleicher @ProfSchleich

It was me -- here's the full argument papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf…

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

@zackbeauchamp People disagree about this, but I think it was @ProfSchleich who convinced me the key difference is that our primaries are so wide open — AOC can waltz in and beat not just an incumbent, but a key caucus leader, so there's no need to launch an NDP.

depths of wikipedia @depthsofwiki

we've all been there

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Some of the most efficiently-run restaurants in the world are at casinos because it's the one place where wasting your time costs *them* money.

Noah Smith 🌐+🧦=🐇 @Noahpinion

I want to start a secret society of people who just want to be free to build stuff. Thinking of calling it the "Free Masons".

Ezra Klein @ezraklein

Great piece by @tressiemcphd on why crypto has appeal way beyond tech bros. It's also what makes me nervous about a bunch of these frothy currencies/assets collapsing. A lot of the people likely to lose money here will really hurt.

nytimes.comOpinion | The Strange Allure of the BlockchainWhy the appeal of cryptocurrencies and NFTs crosses borders of class and race.

Noah Smith 🌐+🧦=🐇 @Noahpinion

Starting to wonder why Luke Skywalker was so desperate to get off Tatooine when everything interesting or important in the galaxy happens there.

non functional tubule @meatspacemaxima

Making Tatooine space burning man, between the Tusken raiders doing Lizard DMT and there being cyborg hipsters, might be the most substantial new world building Star Wars has done since the prequels concluded.

vaheder 🍞 @vaheder

A neglected California city reinvents itself with electric cars — and plots a road map for the nation

getpocket.comA neglected California city reinvents itself with electric cars — and plots a road map for the nationThis Central Valley outpost is one of the most fertile places on Earth, attracting thousands of seasonal laborers to harvest lettuce and reaping windfalls for big agribusiness. But for most of Rey León’s life, the city of Huron has been a transportation desert.