Favorites September 20th 2022

Mountain View, August 2021

Sunset over Mountain View in style of Van Gogh - StableDiffusion

Eric Topol @EricTopol

"We discovered a simple peptide that inhibits infection by all major variants of #SARSCoV2 with nanomolar efficacies." pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pn… @PNASNews @emkailu @StanfordMed @HHMINEWS

I've gotta admit, I couldn't even make it through the abstract, but it seems like this could be the beginning of a new antiviral against covid.

David Roberts @drvolts

In some cases, shading crops with solar PV can reduce water use and increase yield. Agrivoltaics FTW.

arstechnica.comCrops under solar panels can be a win-winIn dry places, photovoltaic shade can even reduce water use.

This looks so unbelievably solarpunk! Unfortunately it doesn't work with staple crops that make up most of our land use.

Megafire Action @MegafireAction

We have the opportunity to end the megafire crisis in the next 10 years, but it will not happen without a bold approach. We’re the first org focused solely on enacting policies to solve this crisis.

I'm very much in favor of this initiative, but I'm particularly impressed by how they avoid saying the scary part, good branding.

Timothy B. Lee @binarybits

I made 14 charts that explain America's inflation problem. fullstackeconomics.com/p/14-charts-th…

Those durable goods expenditures, yowza.

ResponsibleDispatchHat @Popehat

So far Judge Dearie is asking the sensible questions Judge Cannon should have asked but, for whatever reason, didn’t.

Josh Gerstein @joshgerstein

Judge is asking what his role would be re marked classified docs. 'How am I going to verify the classification?....What business is it of the court?' Dearie says, assuming Trump side doesn't put forward evidence of declassificiaton.

The special master that Trump's team selected seems to be making a lot of sense, although I suppose Cannon could end up overruling him? He's definitely putting her rulings in sharp relief.

But With Raptors @ButWithRaptors

The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (2003): but with a Velociraptor

You know VFX has come a long way when someone can make this on a lark.

ResponsibleDispatchHat @Popehat

Also why is it considered "acceptable" to give children Benadryl before a flight but not give it to clients before court

He notes that you should always test benadryl on your kids/clients before the day, because it can have unexpected effects.

Threads

• Thread with details on the brochures given by Florida officials to asylum applicants in Texas to trick them into flying to Massachusetts. TL;DR, Florida officials confirmed the brochure was genuine, and gave excuses that don't get around the fact that none of the promises were accurate. By the way, if you're wondering why the Florida governor did this in Texas, he says it's because he couldn't find enough migrants for his stunt in Florida.

• Despite China and Turkey strongly signaling disapproval of Russia's war in Ukraine, Russia is rumored to be getting closer to declaring full mobilization. In light of all that this (long) thread covers what will happen if they do this. TL;DR: Their pre-war military was probably not able to absorb and deploy massive numbers of conscripts, but now that they've sent all their best officers to die in Ukraine, they definitely can't actually do anything with tons of conscripts, they'll end up sitting around in Moscow waiting to be sent to their deaths, reminiscent of 1917. Pretty much everyone agrees that mobilization isn't gonna work.