Favorites August 5 2021

Ran a bit long today, sorry about that. More time, shorter letter, that whole thing.

Charlie Stross @cstross

Myths and Misconceptions about Thorium nuclear fuel: whatisnuclear.com/thorium-myths.… TLDR: there are pros and cons wrt. Uranium as fuel, but proliferation and waste safety ain't among them.

whatisnuclear.comThorium mythsAs much as we love Thorium, there are way too many myths and misconceptions about it going on. We set them straight here.

Useful info about thorium-based nuclear power.

Chronicle Food @SFChronicleFood

“The premise was, let’s do something so over-the-top and bougie,” he said. “We called it the #1 douchebag fried rice.”

trib.alS.F. restaurant’s $72 fried rice was a runaway hit. It was also the chef’s nightmareThe popular crab fried rice started as a joke but quickly turned into an existential...

Spoiler: they discontinued it because it's too much of a pain to make. Plus the ingredients were actually so expensive that it was barely profitable.

Andrew Kelly @askellyphd

@kimmaicutler California has a digital vaccine card that looks exactly like New York's. Here's the FAQ: myvaccinerecord.cdph.ca.gov/faq Perhaps, what's needed is a better campaign to increase awareness and improve access. But the technical infrastructure is here.

With this site they'll give you a QR code that can be scanned to look up your vaccination status from the state. You save it to your camera roll if you want to show it to someone to prove you’re vaccinated.

Andrew Prokop @awprokop

One thing that has surprised me a bit is that Trump's tweet-esque emailed statements seem so much less effective at driving the conversation than his tweets were. Those emailed statements still make it onto Twitter, but it's not the same. (Or maybe it's bc he's out of office.)

Deplatforming works, maybe you didn't even know that he emails out tweet-like statements.

German Lopez @germanrlopez

This is something that's very obvious to me, as someone who lived in Venezuela: When you defund (or underfund) the police, what ends up happening is only rich people have cops because they hire a private army.

Mike Berg @MikeKBerg

Cori Bush: I’m going to make sure I have private security but defunding the police needs to happen. https://t.co/6jbv4HLlGs

This is a question that defund activists need to answer. There are good opportunities for police reform, but can be nuance. For example:

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

This would be short-term harmful in most cities, but inducing the most temperamentally insubordinate officers to self-purge would have a lot of long-term benefits.

Ben Dennis 8News @broadcastben_

@8NEWS A police union official tells me some police officers have threatened to quit if terms of the vaccine mandate are *get vaccinated or be fired.* @8NEWS

Self selecting to get rid of the anti social cops.

Alex Tabarrok @ATabarrok

What is the Most Important Legislation of the Last Two Decades?

marginalrevolution.comThe Most Important Act of the Last Two Decades? - Marginal REVOLUTIONA good case can be made that Project Bioshield is the most important piece of legislation passed in the last twenty years. Passed under President Bush in 2004, Project Bioshield’s primary goal was to create advance market commitments to purchase countermeasures for chemical, biological, radiological…

It's real obscure, which… probably what you expected?

Tom Gara @tomgara

This particular FDA anecdote, my God

As he says in a follow-up, the issue isn't that the FDA is incompetent, it's that their mandate isn't well structured.

Paul Bronks @slender_sherbet

"you probably can't even tell but there was an incident with the shower curtain" 📸: Reddit user lilwhiterabbit86

This had to be multiple attempts right? The cat couldn’t have done that in one go…

Stephanie M. Lee @stephaniemlee

the pandemic is over, so we don't need access to public spaces anymore. makes sense!

Heather Knight @hknightsf

BREAKING: San Francisco's Great Highway will be reopened to cars Monday through Friday starting August 16. Supervisor Gordon Mar confirms he and Mayor London Breed are announcing this plan shortly. @sfchronicle story coming soon.

I actually visited the great highway a few months ago, it's really nice without cars.

Youyang Gu @youyanggu

People were worried cases would spike further when the UK lifted almost all remaining restrictions in July. The opposite happened. We must acknowledge that restrictions aren't all that effective in Western countries. (Except Australia, who just entered their 6th lockdown)

Super confusing, it could be that folks decided to take extra precautions suddenly, or it could be that lockdown behavior changes are too minor.

Laramie, Wyoming, 2019