Favorites May 6 2021

nilay patel @reckless

I think anyone could look at this and fairly wonder why an operating system vendor is mucking around so deeply inside the business of a popular app

theverge.comInternal emails reveal how badly Apple wanted to keep Netflix using in-app purchasesApple worked hard to try and convince Netflix to keep using in-app purchases for the iOS version of its app, according to emails shared during the Epic Games v. Apple lawsuit.

This came out because of the Epic lawsuit. Everything I've read indicates that Epic is almost certainly going to lose the lawsuit, but their goal is to make Apple look very bad along the way.

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

I'd go for a higher bid but yes. We need to spend a lot of money on global vaccination. https://t.co/J2fCfxslIu

James Surowiecki @JamesSurowiecki

Why not say to Pfizer, "We'll pay $20 a dose for every extra dose you can make this year, whether on your own or via licensing," (and offer Moderna $15) and then just allocate all those doses to developing countries?

It would be a great deal for the US if we could pay 10 times as much for 10 times as many vaccines to distribute worldwide.

Max Roser @MaxCRoser

Of the many mistakes that governments made in the last year I think the biggest one was to not not spend more money on the production of vaccines. It cost thousands of lives, trillions of dollars, and many months of restrictions. I think we are still making that same mistake.

Seriously, with the amount we spent on stimulus, if more of that had gone to faster vaccine production, it feels like we could have done it even faster.

Zach Weinersmith @ZachWeiner

USSR: We will hide our failures at all costs US: As a free nation, we shall be public with all our space endeavors, except the secret stuff. SpaceX: WOO! HOLY SHIT! DID YOU SEE HOW AWESOMELY OUR HARDWARE JUST EXPLODED?!

Starship Serial Number 15 landed successfully the other day, it's wild that they were smacking into the ground or exploding midair just a month or two ago.

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

@NateSilver538 That's why I highlighted the April one -- all three have the same lead author, and he seems to have flipped.

You see, it's funny because NYT is mainstream, this WaPo editorial from last week is even more direct.

Cory Doctorow @doctorow

Indonesia has experienced one of the worst covid outbreaks in Asia, with 1.6m cases and 46,000 deaths. Early on, the country took prevent measures so travelers wouldn't carry infection domestically and abroad, requiring fliers to get an antigen nasal swab before boarding. 1/

Cory Doctorow @doctorow

It turns out that this might have actually led to further spread of the disease, because corrupt employees of the Indonesian pharma giant @KimiaFarmaCare were enriching themselves by REPACKAGING AND REUSING NASAL SWABS. cnn.com/2021/05/06/asi… 2/

cnn.comIndonesia airport scammers reused Covid nasal swab tests, police sayUp to 10,000 airline passengers may have been tested for coronavirus with reused nasal swabs in a scam that netted thousands of dollars for the perpetrators, according to Indonesian police.

So, I'm generally in favor of more testing for more situations, but I admit, I did not think of this... problem.

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

Sometimes people tell me that NIMBYism is helping reduce the geographic inefficiency of the distribution of Democrats, but I seriously doubt that's right.

Liam Dillon @dillonliam

Who's moving out of California? Poor and middle class people with less education. Who's moving into California? Wealthy people with more education (via @PPICNotes) https://t.co/aW1ijnMY7a https://t.co/aW3zkzUqqS

I've actually heard people argue this NIMBY, "go vote somewhere else" position.

mcmillen @mcmillen

I've always considered stock splits kind of silly, since they don't really change the real value of anything... but I guess when your stock hits UINT32_MAX, it might be a good time to consider a split

Steve Weis @sweis

Berkshire Hathaway just hit $429,496.7295 and now Warren Buffet is broke. https://t.co/MPKkfo4QVL

Integer overflow, if you're not familiar. NYSE was unable to represent the BRK.A stock and had to freeze trading of that stock while they fixed it.

yasmin @policyfailure

YIMWT: Yes In My Western Town

#ProHousingMemes

Scotland 2017