Favorites January 28th 2022

zeynep tufekci @zeynep

I think “pigeon chess” should be in everyone’s vocabulary. 😁 It’s also amazing how well it can work, at least for a time, especially within a closed-circuit environment. Sometimes having something described can help people recognize it better. (It is common on Twitter😁😁).

Reminds me of the 'never wrestle with a pig', but I like how the bird doesn't even understand the nature of the game.

Alec Stapp @AlecStapp

Gas stoves are really bad

I wonder if they're able to determine if it's the pipes leaking in the house, or in the infrastructure. Is it a few very leaky houses or all stoves are a bit leaky. So many questions!

Noah Smith 🌐+🧦=🐇 @Noahpinion

Pretty much no one knows what's going on with Covid in China at this point.

Xifan Yang 杨希璠 @yangxifan

1/ The moment of truth has come for Chinas's Zero-Covid policy. I learned by coincidence that Xiong'an, "China's City of the future" near Beijing, was put under Wuhan-style lockdown this Monday. What's stunning: 3 days in, almost nobody in China knows about this. [THREAD 🧵]

It's a long thread, upshot is that they moved to shut down the city without posting too pubicly. Possibly the outbreak is worse than they're admiting, possibly leadership just wants to save face.

Kai Ryssdal @kairyssdal

Glomar Explorer, but 21st century.

CNN @CNN

The United States Navy is trying to retrieve its most advanced fighter jet from the depths of the South China Sea, an extremely complex operation that analysts say will be closely monitored by Beijing. CNN's Ivan Watson reports https://t.co/HwJyifKymX https://t.co/T4P3wgC1IX

The Glomar Explorer was part of a secret project to recover a sunken Soviet Submarine.

The Funny @TheFunny_mp4

Berry 🖤🍓🍰 @bloodberry_tart

good morning everyone

If your first thought was "I wonder how well this works", check out this video where Tom Scott built one.

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

What this also highlights is the main split on COVID policy is now *among* Democrats rather than *between* Democrats and Republicans, which is why the fights on here get particularly nasty (since this platform is mostly liberals and intracoalitional arguments always get nasty.)

Aaron Astor @AstorAaron

Note that 43% of Democrats (and Dem leaners) agree with the "treat Covid as an endemic disease" option over the "emergency" option. Much less than GOPers, yes, but not exactly a small minority of Democrats who no longer want a ZeroCovid-adjacent approach. https://t.co/lL2ExXZkg9

For those not experienced with politics, you want to arrange issues so that it's the *other* party that's split on an issue.

Timothy B. Lee @binarybits

This explainer video on the renewable-energy version of fracking is worth your time.

youtube.comFracking for Clean Energy. Wait, What?... Not the story I was expecting.Subscribe to see the next episode: https://www.youtube.com/cleoabram?sub_confirmation=1 Fracking made it possible to get an...

Another great video, if you haven't guessed, the punchline is that our fracking technical know-how is very applicable to geothermal, which is uh... very clean.

Santa Cruz, March 2021

Remember I mentioned the weird bright line on some of my photos? Unfortunately, now you’re going to notice it.