Favorites December 6th 2021

Reza Zadeh @Reza_Zadeh

Gears can exponentially amplify torque, to the point of twist-breaking *solid steel* using a dinky little lego motor. More surprising: the plastic construction in this rig didn't break before the steel twisted. By BEC.

This is an excerpt of a relatively old video, but it’s still amazing to watch.

Ian Pitchford @IanPitchford

“The Biden administration should be pursuing a pan-sarbecovirus vaccine with as much vigor and determination as the Trump administration pursued Operation Warp Speed…more people need to be making noise about this” by @Noahpinion

noahpinion.substack.comThe Omicron situation, Week 2An update on the escape variant

This was a good high-level summary of where things stand. One clear element is that it's very clear that an Omicron wave in the us is inevitable.

Conor Sen @conorsen

Total cost of ownership comparison for EV/ICE commercial vans and higher-end consumer vehicles:

It's wild that the breakeven is 3 to 5 years on EVs now, I sorta want to see a graph of how fast that's come down. What he did have was a graph of projected EV sales.

Lilliana Mason @LilyMasonPhD

There should be alarm bells ringing all over the country about this. It's the end of presidential elections.

b-boy bouiebaisse @jbouie

the “independent state legislature” theory that state legislatures have plenary power to control elections up to and including throwing out the results is well on its way to GOP orthodoxy https://t.co/veTfjVFiGm

Hey, hey, Senate elections too.

Frank Luntz @FrankLuntz

“Why are we using a word (“Latinx”) that is preferred by only 2%, but offends as many as 40% of those voters we want to win?”

politi.coDemocrats fall flat with ‘Latinx’ language“Why are we using a word that is preferred by only 2 percent, but offends as many as 40 percent of those voters we want to win?” said one pollster.

Yowza, I had not seen the precise stat on that before.

Matthew C. Klein @M_C_Klein

Depending on how it plays out, this could have sizable implications for housing affordability (up), the value of the dollar (down), and the quality of global governance (up):

ft.comSubscribe to read | Financial TimesNews, analysis and comment from the Financial Times, the worldʼs leading global business publication

This seems like it could be interesting. I wonder if we'll ever get precise numbers for what percent of the real estate market is money laundering.

Olivier Knox @OKnox

White House's @PressSec confirms the Biden administration "will not send any diplomatic or official representation" to the Olympics in China, but US athletes will have "full support" as US officials cheer from home.

Not sure how effective this will be, China has threatened to similarly boycott the next US games, so there's that.

David M. Perry @Lollardfish

A clip of @PressSec being sarcastic in response to (I think) @MaraLiasson asking about making rapid tests free. "Should we just send them out to every American?" Psaki. "Maybe," responds the journalist. c-span.org/video/?c498989…

Tim Lee: "The correct answer was 'yes'" I'm not sure it's a lack of math so much as a lack of awareness of what other countries are doing.

Timothy B. Lee @binarybits

A lot of the time it's important that government not waste taxpayer money. But when the cost/benefit ratio is as lopsided as it is here, it's insane to worry about over-spending. There should be stacks of free covid tests next to the napkins in every fast-food restaurant.

This seems like a good goal, although to really copy what Europe has been doing on rapid tests, we need to approve more tests. Maybe start with the ones made by US companies even?

Ezra Klein @ezraklein

“To this day we still do not have a regulatory framework for products that have as a base use one of public health. Vaccines elicit ideas of public health but ultimately are evaluated and regulated as medicine.” - ⁦@michaelmina_lab⁩

cold-takes.comCandidate for “highest-stakes question of the next several months” (rare hot take)Will the FDA (A) treat Omicron-specific booster vaccines like flu shots, or will it (B) impose more requirements and slow them down? So far, it looks like the default is (B), and it also looks like Omicron has a significant chance of making the coming months at least as painful as the debut of COV…

The most depressing response to this was: "Maybe next pandemic"

March 2021, Santa Cruz