Favorites May 24 2021

May 25, 2021

Lukashenka hijacked an EU-owned, EU-registered plane full of EU citizens travelling between EU capitals in order to seize an EU-recognized political refugee. If we don't make this tin-horned dictator regret it, what hope is there of restraining bigger scoundrels?

I mentioned it yesterday, but again, we don't want to normalize letting countries take down commercial planes. Oh by the way: now he's hospitalized, with the fastest onset of heart disease I’ve ever heard of.

Michael @MichaelGfrd

@mattyglesias There's some empirical evidence to support what we know to be true anecdotally!

ggwash.orgHow housing density can help keep cities coolerWe all know Mid-Atlantic summers can be oppressively hot and humid. To me, sultry days in Richmond feel like I’m walking around inside someone else’s mouth! The bad news (for me and anyone else who experiences heat as a sweaty human) is that the number of days per year with a heat index—or a “feels-…

This is old, but it's an interesting follow-up to the people protesting tall buildings hiding in the shade of tall buildings yesterday.

Mike Masnick @mmasnick

Today, Florida's governor signed a blatantly corrupt, unconstitutional censorial law that will waste a ton of taxpayer money in court only to lose, just to prove he's a big enough culture warrior.

Ron DeSantis @GovRonDeSantis

Today, Floridians are being guaranteed protection against the Silicon Valley power grab on speech, thought, and content. We the people are standing up to tech totalitarianism with the signing of Florida’s Big Tech Bill. https://t.co/cDewFJiEPk

This law is pretty obviously not going to stand up to scrutiny, but the special carve out is truly amazing.

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

An important function of America’s strong system of judicial review is to let politicians do crowd pleasing position-taking while also quietly assuring other audiences that it’s meaningless. https://t.co/3PIoOwByHh

Brendan Bordelon @BrendanBordelon

DeSantis likely knows this (I know his staff have been warned by experts). But since he gets a boost in his likely presidential run regardless of whether the law is legal or not, he probably doesn't care.

So yea, they know that this is not going to stand up, but they know their constituents like it when they waste taxpayer dollars to have it struck down in court.

Megan McArdle @asymmetricinfo

One can imagine a lot of cofounders here, but air pollution is bad news and we're not doing enough to reduce it.

Sam Dumitriu @Sam_Dumitriu

New study: Kids born in low emissions zones are prescribed fewer medications. https://t.co/qpbne5v7lq

Good reason to watch particulate counts, and now that we have all these masks, you can wear one when you need to.

Steve Troughton-Smith @stroughtonsmith

This is kinda bonkers. Ask any Mac dev and they’ll give you plenty of reasons why they’re not on the Mac App Store. Tim thinks the MAS’ problem is a lack of games. Not sandboxing. Not payment model. Not upgrade model. Not App Store restrictions defining out categories of apps

Benedict Evans @benedictevans

Apple execs on why the Mac apps store wasn’t really working. https://t.co/ppLNxXoonZ

Half the paid apps I run on my Mac are not allowed under the Mac App Store's rules. (Apps that operate system-wide are essentially disallowed if I understand correctly).