colindismuke.com · of note

№ 18 · Week of July 27, 2020

Fri, 31 Jul 2020 00:00:00 GMT

A few things of note from around the Internet this week:

Zoom

Professor David Malan transformed Harvard’s CS50 from an introductory computer science course into a cult and lifestyle brand. The course’s success and Malan’s methods provide a glimpse of where higher education and the future of learning might be headed in the time of COVID-19.

“I think giving David freedom to innovate is really in everybody’s best interest. You never know what’s going to come out of it.”

Election

This was obvious from the day he was elected. Masha Gessen reviews Lawrence Douglas’ book Will He Go? Trump and the Looming Election Meltdown in 2020.

Suppose Biden wins. “The best we can expect from President Donald Trump after an electoral defeat is self-pitying, peevish submission,” Douglas writes. If he goes—which will require an overwhelming electoral defeat—Trump is not only sure to play the victim, blaming the Deep State and undocumented immigrants for his loss, but also likely to linger and delay his departure. The ragged end of his Presidency, if it comes, will be full of conflict and resentment. There will be no orderly handover, no constructive transition—a disastrous prospect during a pandemic and a deep recession, and yet another blow to our perceptions of how elections and government operate.

This is the best-case scenario.

Day One

An incredible opening statement from Jeff Bezos to the U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary.

When I’m 80 and reflecting back, I want to have minimized the number of regrets that I have in my life. And most of our regrets are acts of omission—the things we didn’t try, the paths untraveled. Those are the things that haunt us. And I decided that if I didn’t at least give it my best shot, I was going to regret not trying to participate in this thing called the internet that I thought was going to be a big deal.

Liar

I’m thankful for two things:

That Western Australia has done amazing job combatting COVID-19.
Our kids are two young to have serious questions about what’s going on.

Dan Sinker on many parent’s current reality:

My five-year-old understands the reality of our uniquely American failure in a way that the president does not: for him, this year is gone, lost in a way that no child should ever have to know, and yet an impossible number of them now do.

Race

Inside Sarah Gilbert’s race to develop a COVID-19 vaccine at the University of Oxford. Even after a viable vaccine has been created — the logistics of distributing it quickly and efficiently are mind-boggling.

Producing millions, if not billions, of doses of the vaccine may be the biggest challenge in the history of the pharmaceutical industry. AstraZeneca is signing production agreements with companies worldwide, including Oxford Biomedica Plc, a small gene and cell therapy company a 10-minute drive from the Jenner Institute. Oxford Biomedica has agreed to produce several million doses, with potential to scale up into the tens of millions if it works. James Miskin, the company’s chief technical officer, describes a multistep production process that sounds to my layperson’s ears like a cross between making a sourdough starter and boiling down sap to make maple syrup.

Failure

Surrounding yourself with yes men and women might not be the best idea as President of the United States. Inside the Trump administration’s failure to address COVID-19.

Dr. Birx’s belief that the United States would mirror Italy turned out to be disastrously wrong. The Italians had been almost entirely compliant with stay-at-home orders and social distancing, squelching new infections to negligible levels before the country slowly reopened. Americans, by contrast, began backing away by late April from what social distancing efforts they had been making, egged on by Mr. Trump.

The difference was critical. As communities across the United States raced to reopen, the daily number of new cases barely dropped below 20,000 in early May. The virus was still circulating across the country.

Italy’s recovery curve, it turned out, looked nothing like the American one.

Grief

That this essay was written in The New England Journal of Medicine is alarming.

The morning you die, I don’t want to be there — like most mornings now, when I rise against my whole will and crawl dejectedly into scrubs. I don’t want to be a plague doctor or a hero on TV. Now on the news, White men hold guns and signs that say “live free or die” to protest the lockdown. I imagine what they will look like dying on vents in ICUs staffed by doctors lacking sleep and proper training, soaked in moral fatigue. I imagine what their wives will sound like on the phone as they cry and say “Do everything.” I wonder if these wives will thank me or tell me to be safe.

If you liked this post, why not share it? Everyone needs a few more interesting things to read.

№ 17 · Week of July 20, 2020

Fri, 24 Jul 2020 00:00:00 GMT

A few things of note from around the Internet this week:

Reparations

Nikole Hannah-Jones on giving black Americans what they’re owed. Frederick Douglass’ observation in the third paragraph is particularly damning.

It devastates black people that all the other black deaths before George Floyd did not get us here. It devastates black people to recall all the excuses that have come before. That big black boy, Michael Brown, must have charged the weapon-carrying officer. Eric Garner should have stopped struggling. Breonna Taylor’s boyfriend had a weapon in her home and shouldn’t have shot at the people who, without a knock or an announcement, burst through her door. We’re not sure what Ahmaud Arbery was doing in that predominantly white neighborhood. Rayshard Brooks, who in the midst of nationwide protests against police violence was shot in the back twice by a police officer, just shouldn’t have resisted.
It should devastate us all that in 2020 it took a cellphone video broadcast across the globe of a black man dying from the oldest and most terrifying tool in the white-supremacist arsenal to make a vast majority of white Americans decide that, well, this might be enough.
In 1881, Frederick Douglass, surveying the utter privation in which the federal government left the formerly enslaved, wrote: “When the Hebrews were emancipated, they were told to take spoil from the Egyptians. When the serfs of Russia were emancipated, they were given three acres of ground upon which they could live and make a living. But not so when our slaves were emancipated. They were sent away empty-handed, without money, without friends and without a foot of land on which they could live and make a living. Old and young, sick and well, were turned loose to the naked sky, naked to their enemies.”

Reverse

Robinson Meyer and Alexis C. Madrigal on the current state of things in the United States.

🤦🏼‍♂️

Eventually, Governor Greg Abbott of Texas and Governor Doug Ducey of Arizona went even further, blocking cities and counties from implementing any pandemic-related restriction more stringent than that required by the state. This meant that when a video emerged of packed nightclubs in Phoenix, full of people who were not wearing masks, the mayor was unable to close or sanction the clubs—or even require them to force patrons to wear masks. Both governors finally reversed those policies last week. (“To state the obvious, COVID-19 is now spreading at an unacceptable rate in Texas, and it must be corralled,” Abbot said at a press conference on Monday. This had not been obvious to the governor less than a week earlier, when he told Texans that the state’s record-breaking number of new infections was “no reason today to be alarmed.”)

Pats!

A typical Patriots fan.

Sean Murphy seethed as he watched from his weed dealer’s couch. It was February 2008. Skinny, with deep-set brown eyes, Murphy was a typical Patriots fan. He pronounced “cars” as “cahs,” got his coffee at Dunkin’ Donuts, and had a mullet and a horseshoe mustache, at least when his girlfriend didn’t make him clean up. He moved furniture for a living in Lynn, Mass., a down-and-out suburb on the North Shore, and on Sundays, when he could get tickets, he made the 40-mile drive south to Foxborough to root for the Pats.
But there was another side to Murph, as his friends called him. On Saturday nights he put on an all-black ninja suit and went out looking for things to steal. He was a cat burglar—the best in a town where burglary was still regarded as an art form.

Doorstep

Rashad West, a humble hero in the tragedy of George Floyd.

Today, it appears that West’s purpose wasn’t solely cooking up Asian cuisine and modeling a successful Black-owned business; it was assisting in the defanging of police departments whose practices so frequently devalue Black lives. The move made him the savior that Emmett Till, George Stinney Jr., Sandra Bland, and so many other African Americans did not have before their unjust and untimely deaths. “The only reason I put that video out was to preserve the truth,” says West. His voice lowers as if he’s thinking out loud. “I know how that can get twisted.” You can hear in his voice how much he hated being lied to about George Floyd’s death.

Freud

Alex Danco on Sigmund Freud and refusing to wear a mask.

The minute that wearing masks became about protecting other people, it was game over for America. Masks became a symbol of the superego; and as far as symbolism goes, it’s laid on pretty thick. (It’s literally something that you put on your face into order to stop yourself from spraying germs onto other people, and therefore suppress your own guilt of being part of a pandemic!) The minute masks became about suppressing yourself to protect others, the narrative became: The Elites want you to feel guilty about not wearing a mask, just like they want you to feel guilty about driving a car, or eating a burger, or anything else you love. Don’t let them!

Unfortunately, there is a right answer. Wear the stupid mask.

Plunder

There are so many incredible, genuine entrepreneurs and small business owners. Then there are the corrupt, worse-than-you-can-imagine plutocrats that Trump’s helping exploit the pandemic.

Mountaire’s official creed says, “Good stewards of all the assets that God has entrusted to us.” Cameron increasingly began using his share of the company’s assets to influence American policy and politics by funding socially conservative and business-friendly candidates and advocacy groups. Low-level poultry workers have been described as cogs in a perpetual-motion machine, but big-donor politics can also be a kind of perpetual-motion machine—one that recycles profits to perpetuate profits.

If you liked this post, why not share it? Everyone needs a few more interesting things to read.

№ 16 · Week of June 1, 2020

Fri, 05 Jun 2020 00:00:00 GMT

Black Lives Matter

░ ░ CH A M E L E O N ░ ░ @Chameleon876

“Daddy changed the world.”

~Gianna Floyd ✊🏾

#JusticeForGeorgeFloyd

ment @mentnelson

The whole country needs to stop right now and listen to Killer Mike. He’s verbalizing what a lot of us don’t know how to express

Tyrone V. Ross Jr. @TR401

Samuel Sinyangwe @samswey

For those who are interested in research-based solutions to stop police violence, here’s what you need to know - based on the facts and data. A thread. (1/x)

Richard Grant @richardgrant88

This is probably the most impactful picture I have ever taken.

#JusticeForGeorgeFloyd #LongBeach #LongBeachProtest #BlackLivesMatter

Brett McGurk @brett_mcgurk

Here’s how this scene was viewed live in Australia. One of America’s closest and most dependable allies. Rendered speechless. Just watch.

David Chen @davechensky

Things spiraled out of control today in Seattle when police tussled w/ protestors over an umbrella.

I have synced up/edited together a FB live stream and an overhead shot from Reddit so you can see exactly how it went down.

Warning: it is upsetting.

LIL DIAMOND @EVK95

Niggas surprised about the govt planting bricks at protests wait till I tell y’all about the crack epidemic

Oski Isaiah @MoneyOsk

Y’all can understand a white kid shooting up a school cuz he was bullied after 4 months of school but don’t understand why an oppressed group is compelled to burn shit down after 400yrs

Mayor of Simp City @jusalotofpain

This video of Grand Rapids PD firing a tear gas canister at an unarmed man (right after they maced him) point blank to the face needs to VIRAL. what in the actual fuck are these pigs doing

adaliah 🇹🇬 @adxlls

in an attempt to disperse crowds, #DavidMcAtee, a louisville bbq chef known for serving cops free meals, was shot and killed by the police last night. he was unarmed. not only were the officers’ bodycams off, but they also left his body on the street for 12 hours. say his name.

Ajit Singh @ajitxsingh

"Can I ask you what's going to happen at 8, sir?"

"What's going to happen is we're going to start beating the fuck out of you."

free @sanweeoh

HE DIDNT STUTTER

Melany Centeno @_NotISaidTheCat

THIS! Literally just brought me to tears. This is so beautiful. Our Polynesian Brothers and Sisters doing their traditional Haka for Black Lives Matter in New Zealand. The world is coming together and it is so beautiful. #blacklivesmatter #georgefloyd #breonnataylor #ahmadarbery

Jake Morphonios 🔴 www.blackstoneintel.com @morphonios

This man isn't a protester. He was just a guy sitting at a traffic light when cops shot his car with a tear gas round. He got out to yell at them because his pregnant wife is in the vehicle. So they opened fire on them.

Josh Fox BlackLivesMatter @joshfoxfilm

People stuck in traffic are witnessing NYPD beat up folks on their way home.

T. Greg "Credulous Propagandist" Doucette @greg_doucette

Different angle on 1️⃣1️⃣1️⃣ out of Indianapolis

From this view you can see the cop grope the woman he's restraining, that's why she breaks away

Then of course a half dozen cops beat her for not wanting to be groped

Lawlessness

WBFO @WBFO

Just about an hour ago, police officers shove man in Niagara Square to the ground (WARNING: Graphic). Video from: @MikeDesmondWBFO

A few other things from around the Internet this week:

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

This pretty closely mirrors our experience staying at The Westin Perth during our quarantine.

Packaged meals from a third-party catering company were dropped at the door three times a day. Breakfast was often yogurt and cereal, and lunch, a sandwich and a salad; dinner could be spaghetti or chicken curry. While both the cost of the room and the meals themselves were covered by the Australian government, Ailsa and her husband could pay out of pocket for wine, beer, and groceries, which could be delivered.
Security guards were stationed on every floor to make sure no one left their rooms for any reason. Government workers stood in for hotel employees, answering phones and fielding guest questions. A nurse called guests each morning to inquire after their health, and to ask whether they were experiencing any symptoms of the coronavirus.

Repeat

Kieran Healy on the enormity of the data available about COVID-19.

Every day begins in the same way. I get up. I make my coffee. I look at the data. Everything about this is absurd. To begin with, there’s the absurdity that everyone with a job like mine faces each day. Locked down at home with the kids, trying to get things done, unable to properly teach, write, or think. The household is like a little spacecraft, drifting in the void. Occasionally you venture outside to get supplies, or to check the shields. I find the days are speeding up now, because even though things drag from moment to moment, each twenty-four hour period is essentially identical. It reminds me of when my children were newborns. It’s a daily slog that, in retrospect, fuses into a gray blob almost impossible to recall in any sort of differentiated way.

Future

Om Malik with a little optimism about the future.

My bet is always-on broadband. Virtual worlds, digital entertainment, gaming …. None of it would be possible without broadband. Today, we have about 100-250 Mbps in most modern homes. In some places, you can get a gigabit per second. Now imagine what we could do if, in ten years, we all have 10 gigabits per second in our homes, and we have in-home networks that are fast and fat. What could apps do then? What would it mean for our AI-enhanced devices? In 2001, we imagined a 100 Mbps future — and we got Google, a nearly trillion-dollar company. We got Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook. Fast forward 20 years from now, what do you think is possible? What do you want to be possible?

The Foster Portfolio

Elegant adaptation of a Kurt Vonnegut short story in which an investment banker learns that his working-class client is hiding a million dollar fortune for perplexing reasons. The ending is perfect.

All I Need

If you liked this post, why not share it? Everyone needs a few more interesting things to read.

№ 15 · Week of May 18, 2020

Fri, 22 May 2020 00:00:00 GMT

A few things of note from around the Internet this week:

Travel

Laurel Chor is a photographer and journalist. She documented her airport transit from Paris to Hong Kong via London in this thread.

Laurel Chor @laurelchor

I’ve landed in Hong Kong after flying from Paris CDG, via London Heathrow. I now have to wait ~8 hours before I get my #COVID19 test results and thus have ample time to tweet about my experience.

Coincidentally, as she was flying to Hong Kong, my family was flying from Houston, Texas to Perth, Australia. Our experience had some similarities but on a much shorter time scale. From the time we stepped off the plane till we arrived in our quarantine hotel room: 3 hours.

Reopening

A clear-headed essay from Erin Bromage on the risks of reopening to quickly.

So now let’s get to the crux of it. Where are the personal dangers from reopening?
When you think of outbreak clusters, what are the big ones that come to mind? Most people would say cruise ships. But you would be wrong. Ship outbreaks don’t even land in the top 50 outbreaks to date.
Ignoring the terrible outbreaks in nursing homes, we find that the biggest outbreaks are in prisons, religious ceremonies, and workplaces, such as meat packing facilities and call centers. Any environment that is enclosed, with poor air circulation and high density of people, spells trouble.
Some of the biggest super-spreading events are:
Meat packing: In meat processing plants, densely packed workers must communicate to one another amidst the deafening drum of industrial machinery and a cold-room virus-preserving environment. There are now outbreaks in 115 facilities across 23 states, 5000+ workers infected, with 20 dead.
Weddings, funerals, birthdays: 10% of early spreading events
Business networking: Face-to-face business networking like the Biogen Conference in Boston in March.

Erin is Australian and flew there in early March, read about it here.

Weak

Peter Welch of Still Drinking with a few strong words.

It is not virus or the lockdown that has crushed my spirit. It isn’t even facing my worst fear every day, all day. Years ago, I wrote “We cannot dismiss everyone who supports Trump as stupid or evil.” Maybe it was true then, but I regret my words. We may now dismiss them. Personally, since the White House thinks we’re in a “war” against coronavirus, I would like to see a large portion this murder cult hanged for war crimes. I would go to that execution. I would cheer. I would shout for more.
Because I no longer believe I live in a country with greedy assholes, or ignorant people trying to get by the same way I do. I no longer believe that it is my task to better myself and find harmony with people I cannot understand. I believe I live in a country full of dangerously stupid monsters.
This is the only way I can make sense of the world anymore. I’m tired of trying to explain the simplest concepts to people who refuse to understand things like gravity, vaccination, carbon, and that hurting others is bad. If they’re monsters, I can stop trying. Doesn’t understand basic compassion? We don’t expect that from monsters. Tells doctors treating patients to go back China? I would definitely expect that from a monster. Holds up a sign reading “sacrifice the weak” for reasons I can barely fathom. But nobody knows what motivates monsters, and there’s no reason to ask.

Spray

This is from a month ago but the three paragraphs below were arresting. Nicholas Kristof brings the medical crisis to life in a very real way.

For health workers, intubation is nerve-racking because it causes the virus to spray out from the lungs into the air. In this case, the procedure was performed in a room on the edge of the hot zone with negative air pressure, so that the virus would remain in the room. A plastic box was placed over the patient’s head, and the nurse-anesthetist put her arms through holes in the box to perform the intubation.
The patient was put to sleep and paralyzed, and a device was inserted into her mouth to lift the epiglottis and make way for a tube that was passed through her vocal cords about 10 inches down to her lungs. The outside end was then connected to a ventilator, which pumped oxygen in.
Because it would be ghastly to wake up unable to speak with a tube down one’s throat, patients are sedated so that they do not rip out the tube; doctors say that for some reason, Covid-19 patients seem to require more sedation than other patients. To be safe, their hands are also tied down.

Response

Entrepreneur Matt Blumberg wrote a play-by-play of his time leading Colorado’s COVID-19 Innovation Response Team. Very interesting perspective as the crisis unfolded at the state level.

Imagination

Robin Sloan on the strangeness and beauty of using an AI language model as a writer.

He’s also making a video game and chronicling the process each week here.

Bread

Not a single person in the whole production line 🤖.

Risk

Morgan Housel wrote a very personal piece called “The Three Sides of Risk”. Take a little time to read it.

Tail-end events are all that matter.
Once you experience it, you’ll never think otherwise.

If you liked this post, why not share it? Everyone needs a few more interesting things to read.

№ 14 · Week of May 11, 2020

Fri, 15 May 2020 00:00:00 GMT

A few things of note from around the Internet this week:

Home Screens

Is life where anything can be delivered, work and school can be done from home, and entertainment delivered through the Internet really what we want?

When the formal quarantine came, it seemed like domestic cozy was fully coming into its own. Much of the necessary infrastructure was already in place. The world that tech companies had built and persistently tried to persuade us we wanted was waiting for us, ready to fully take over. It was consumer-facing disaster capitalism in action. […]
Pure economic exchanges can relocate to screen interactions with a minimal loss of fidelity, but encounters meant to be less instrumental are proving harder to sustain without the texture of physical space. Most of the apps we use for interaction simply unbundle an informational component from the scene of social contact. […]
“With people told to work from home and stay away from others, the pandemic has deepened reliance on services from the technology industry’s biggest companies while accelerating trends that were already benefiting them.” […]
Pandemics, beyond their direct consequences for those who get sick, heighten fear, paranoia, isolation, xenophobia, economic vulnerability, and depression. If some tech companies complement such a world well, we should ask why.

Wealth

Just keep scrolling…this is incredible.