Favorites September 23rd 2021

Dr Grace Peng 彭 @gspeng

@VamonosLA @mateosfo Lawns are so so bad. Then there’s the water. ww2.arb.ca.gov/resources/fact…

I bring up air pollution a lot and uh: one hour of lawn mower use is equivalent to 300 miles if driving pollutants??? These numbers are *wild*. And this is before we get to thinking about the water use. It’s almost like apartments aren’t the largest source of harm to a city.

Kim-Mai Cutler @kimmaicutler

The person who controls how much smoke Californians will breathe for decades forward. nytimes.com/2021/09/19/cli…

I mean, Manchin is from West Virginia, what did you expect. The Democrats need to win more Senate seats so that he’s not the median Senator anymore.

Noah Smith 🐇 @Noahpinion

Pictures of apartment blocks in China -- the "tower in the park"

This is a follow up to his pictures of China’s roads from yesterday. The combination of the two has resulted in ‘High Density Sprawl’. The key is that high density alone does not make for good outcomes, you need a mix of uses as well.

Noah Smith 🐇 @Noahpinion

By the time we meet the crabs, we'll be crabs too

Joshua J. Slone @JoshuaJSlone

Sci-fi often gets away with humanoid aliens under the assumption of parallel evolution. But if evolution elsewhere is anything like Earth, won't we mostly be meeting crabs?

🦀 🦀 Carcinisation 🦀 🦀

Kevin M. Kruse @KevinMKruse

Aaron Parnas @AaronParnas

BREAKING: Lead Florida GOP Senator, Manny Diaz calls for a review of all vaccine mandates, including polio, mumps, and rubella. Just when you thought the state of affairs in Florida could not get any worse.

The Simpsons already made every joke you can imagine.

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Hope this is true but seems like a difficult modeling problem, not least because there are all these different categories of immunity to deal with (vax, possibly with different degrees of waning depending on the vaccine; natural; hybrid; vax w/ booster).

npr.orgIs The Worst Over? Models Predict A Steady Decline In COVID Cases Through MarchThough infections are still sky-high, the U.S. may be turning a corner, according to a consortium of researchers who forecast the pandemic. And we may well be spared a winter surge.

When Silver says folks are underestimating the difficulty of predicting something...

Christina Warren @film_girl

I'm going to be unpopular and call this sort of movement by the EU draconian and frankly, bullshit. I understand why well-meaning people think it is a good idea, but I think this is terrible.

Tom Warren @tomwarren

BREAKING: the EU is planning to force Apple and other smartphone makers to use USB-C ports. "USB-C will be the common port," says the European Commission in its proposals. There will be a transition period of 2 years once proposals are adopted. Details: https://t.co/DUf2XMM1ul https://t.co/fNWx4a7kse

Christina Warren @film_girl

And honestly, we wouldn't even have USB-C if the EU had deemed micro or mini USB to be sufficient.

There are ways in which I think Apple should be pushed to change behavior, but this isn't one of them.

Istanbul, 2019