Favorites July 20 2021

Nathan Shipley @CitizenPlain

Figured out you can loop a custom webcam into Snap's desktop app to apply their Pixar filter to a video file in real-time. Their #toonify model is still just really nice. 🙌

Hold on guys, I'm re-encoding all my movies with this.

Alex Tabarrok @ATabarrok

Good @mattyglesias post on all the modest things we could do to increase vaccination rates but aren’t. “LA County is reacting to Delta by trying to re-impose a county-wide mask mandate but hasn’t mandated vaccination for its own sheriff’s department.”

slowboring.comLet’s get more people vaccinatedIt all starts with actually approving the vaccine....

Weekly free article, there's a lot more we can be doing on this. Vaccines make a huge difference

David Ho @_david_ho_

Amazingly, this is the first occurrence of the word “pyrocumulonimbus” in The NY Times.

Henry Fountain @henryfountain

A few weeks ago I was writing about drought. Last week it was heat waves. Today, extreme wildfire behavior. Never a dull moment around here. https://t.co/GtFmXvfX2m

Well, that's a new word for me too, the illustration helps.

Dustin Moskovitz @moskov

Did we seriously forget the pandemic preparedness lesson already?

Sam🔔 @sam_a_bell

would be bad ... $30 billion is < 1% of the total bill ... can't even meet the vaccine goals with $5 billion https://t.co/prRwFoHNvW https://t.co/7TMczAps7s

We're throwing money all over the place, and we can't spend a bit on the thing that would make the most difference next time?

The New York Times @nytimes

The death toll from the coronavirus pandemic in India so far is likely to exceed three million — nearly 10 times the official figure — making it one of the worst human tragedies in the nation’s history, according to a comprehensive new study.

nyti.msIndia’s true pandemic death toll is likely to be well over 3 million, a new study finds.A comprehensive effort to estimate excess deaths in the country during the pandemic produced figures 10 times the government’s official coronavirus toll.

Just an absolutely flabbergasting human toll.

Kim-Mai Cutler @kimmaicutler

"As drought grips most of California, water thievery across the state has increased to record levels. Bandits in water trucks are backing up to rivers and lakes and pumping free water they sell on a burgeoning black market."

calmatters.orgThieves are stealing California’s scarce water. Where’s it going? Illegal marijuana farmsAs drought grips most of California, water theft has increased to record levels. Illicit marijuana growers are a main culprit.

Look, I don't like a water black market, but it at least means we've finally priced the legit cost high enough to cause a change in behavior.

Kim-Mai Cutler @kimmaicutler

"Nearly 11 years ago, the [Marin Municipal Water District], chose not to build a desalination plant that could have supplied as much as 60% of its current yearly potable water demand — though at a high price."

marinij.comMarin’s abandoned desalination plan looms over drought crisisThe Marin Municipal Water District is considering building a temporary desalination plant to prevent it from running out of water next year. But it had a chance to build one in the past decade.

Ok, the other day I was saying that it's good they're buying a contract for desalination. But obviously it would have been better if they'd done it 10 years ago.

Skanda Amarnath ( Neoliberal Sellout ) @IrvingSwisher

I am so impressed with AOC's ability to mainstream some pretty complex ideas that even more niche business/econ discourse gloss over (e.g. the economic stakes of getting the causal mechanisms behind inflation and monetary policy right). Amazing

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Mainstreaming the concept of sector specific Inflation and its causes, that's some good stuff.

Kyle Griffin @kylegriffin1

Breaking: Thomas Barrack, who served as chairman of the 2017 inaugural fund for then-President Trump, has been arrested on federal charges, several law enforcement officials told NBC News.

cnb.cxTom Barrack charged with illegally lobbying then-President Trump on behalf of UAEThomas Barrack, who served as chairman of the 2017 inaugural fund for then-President Donald Trump, has been arrested and detained on federal charges.

The charges relate to actions between 2016 and 2018, so...

Mountain View, June 2021