Favorites April 17th 2022

Lakshya Jain @lxeagle17

How many Supreme Court justices can Americans name? @PollsAndVotes did a poll recently that was really revealing -- I put the breakdown by party and educational attainment into graphical form. Education sharply correlates w/ knowledge of justices. And Independents are clueless.

I was able to name all 9, but I did see from this tweet that the total is 9, and I am unsure if I would have remembered that otherwise (might have stopped at 7). However! The poll wasn't "fill in the blank", they had it even easier, they were just asked for each justice what their opinion was, including options "haven't heard of" and "haven't heard enough".

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Some tangible indications of the return to "normal" pre-pandemic social behavior in the US: Restaurant reservations = 100% of pre-pandemic levels MLB attendance = 100% of pre-pandemic levels Air travel = 90% of pre-pandemic levels

In California there's way more outdoor dining than before, but overall it's useful to get this reality check, Americans are getting pretty close to returning to 'normal'.

AndreasStenoLarsen @AndreasSteno

I don't think global travel patterns will ever recover again.. Just let the visitors data from Japan sink in 🙀🙀

On the other hand, international travel may have a ways to go still.

Noah Smith 🐇🇺🇦 @Noahpinion

Seems like if anything is going to be the counter to drones, it's going to be lasers.

thedrive.comIsrael Has Shot Down Drones With An Airborne High-Power LaserIsrael’s airborne laser program aims to add to its multi-layered air defense system that is increasingly tasked with countering low-end drone attacks.

Lasers and railguns I think.

sam @sam_d_1995

hot take: everyone assumed that remote work would hurt cities… but since so many jobs in the US are based in suburban office parks, remote work could actually make it a lot easier for many people to live in urban areas

Convert urban office space into more housing!

John Konrad V @johnkonrad

This is the Russian Flagship #Moskva before she sank. It's impossible to fully assess the situation aboard based on one picture but marine salvage masters must make assumptions based on little information. As a ship captain and ship fire author here's what appears to be likely🧵

This is the first photo I've seen of the Moskva before it sank, and you can click through to read a longer thread by an expert in ship firefighting. The upshot is that the captain probably abandoned ship too early, but it's hard to say for certain because there's a salvage tug behind it which makes things more complicated.

From Reddit

This was posted in a thread discussing how some Russian soldiers confused Polish writing with Ukrainian.