Favorites May 25th 2022

Shoreline Park, Mountain View, April 2022

southpaw @nycsouthpaw

According to officials: - the shooter went in a classroom and locked the door - police on scene left him in there - when border patrol showed up they couldn’t break down the door - after 40-60m they got a member of the school staff to unlock it with a key apnews.com/article/uvalde…

This continues to be the big story. Other interesting tidbits: lockdown drills in schools probably do more harm than good. Media coverage of school shootings do lead to legislation, but the majority of it allows more guns, not fewer, unlike in other countries. Finally polling for the kind of gun ban that would actually make a difference is bad and getting worse, although there is some nuance.

Robert Maguire @RobertMaguire_

I know there's a lot going on today, but man, wasn't it wild when we all learned that the former president of the United States was apparently open to the idea of his vice president being publicly executed for carrying out his constitutional responsibilities?

Yup, that really happened. But Pence will probably respond to the story by apologizing to Trump

Timothy B. Lee @binarybits

This is a more important result than who wins in November because it shows republicans can stand up for the rule of law without ending the careers. (And yes it’s sad that the bar is that low) https://t.co/cNfr5gnNji

Split Ticket @SplitTicket_

Race call: Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) will win renomination with over 50% of the vote, obviating the need for a runoff. This is a blow to former President Trump who focused his efforts on unseating the Secretary.

Nice to have a bit of positive electoral news, even if it's 'positive' in that it's not absolutely horrible.

Noah Smith 🐇🇺🇦 @Noahpinion

Amazing trolling.

thirdoffset.substack.comCould Siberia be a Greater Prize than the South China Sea for China?Ukraine war - Unintended 3rd order consequences

I *think* this is a joke, and to be honest, I'm not really sure whether it would be more or less dangerous than invading Taiwan.

Timothy B. Lee @binarybits

Walmart is expanding its drone delivery service to 34 stores in six states with the potential to reach 4 million households. That's up from about 3 stores right now.

corporate.walmart.comWe’re Bringing the Convenience of Drone Delivery to 4 Million U.S. Households in Partnership with DroneUpWe continue to expand our delivery operations to help customers get the items they need when they need them, and it’s been an exciting journey. From Express delivery, where customers can have items delivered to their doorsteps in as little as two hours, to InHome, where they can get those orders…

That's some serious expansion, wild that it's Walmart getting out ahead. If you're not familiar, Walmart's drone system is the one with a spotter tower to watch the drones from the Walmart parking lot.

Eric Topol @EricTopol

Just about every week there is a new, broad neutralizing antibody (bnAb) discovery, like this one, that is variant-proof and would take down all #SARSCoV2, that vaccines could be made to induce, that we're not advancing science.org/doi/10.1126/sc… @ScienceTM

1) This is really cool. 2) Why aren't we advancing these vaccines? Is the FDA worried that having a variant proof vaccine might confuse people as well?

'Weird Alex' Pareene @pareene

a lot of fire departments waste city funds on excessive equipment and get sued for racism all the time but they do at least run into the burning buildings

Threads

• Thread on Russian tank losses. TL;DR: maybe 30% of all their usable tanks lost so far. Another thread indicates they're losing the new expensive tanks first. Here's more background on why the majority Russia's stockpile of tanks appear to be inoperable.

• More details on Russia's recent gains against Ukraine (despite their supply of tanks getting dangerously thin)

• Cute short thread about innovation all around us, starting from an old XKCD comic.