11:50am UTC
Saturday, April 3rd, 2021
China bails out Iran with $400b deal as part of a Turkish-Iranian-Pakistani alliance, explains house favorite David P. Goldman.
Adamkhan.net
Thursday, April 15th, 2021
If you want to feel like Western society is convulsing, there’s an app for that.
Ross Douthat, The Decadent Society
ASK
Craig Mod reveals the consolations of we the web-literate as he tinkers with his servers. Plus the man walks and writes rather well and is probably tall to boot.
Monday, April 12th, 2021
OK I haven’t actually read this yet but really honestly intend to. Via Robin Rendle on CSS Tricks via Jim Nielsen’s Blog, A Complete Guide To Accessible Front-End Components by Vitaly Friedman in Smashing Magazine.
Sunday, April 11th, 2021
Friday, April 9th, 2021
Israel’s INSS thinktank believes it’s time to more firmly oppose Assad’s Syria. Israel’s mostly hands-off approach towards this horrendous conflict on her borders may well go down in history as the main stain on Netanyahu’s record. Yet if Israel could have tipped the scales of civil war at some point to get rid of Assad, would things have been any better? We know from other interventions, eg Libya, the vacuum and chaos that would most likely have ensued. Very hard.
Insight into the burgeoning Greek-Israeli relationship.
Thursday, April 8th, 2021
Tucker Carlson speaks truth to the Biden Administration’s Executive Order on Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities and the corporations following in its woke wake. His example of airline pilots, as provided by United, is just too easy.
Apple’s new Find My service for 3rd-party products seems very cool. It leverages all the installed Apple devices around the world, kind of like a land-based GPS.
Wix is a tawdry Israeli success story. Wix’s dirty trix (by Matt Mullenweg, to be fair, the creator of WordPress).
Saturday, April 3rd, 2021
China bails out Iran with $400b deal as part of a Turkish-Iranian-Pakistani alliance, explains house favorite David P. Goldman.
Friday, April 2nd, 2021
In 10 parts, John McWhorter’s very necessary The Elect: The Threat to a Progressive American from Anti-Black Antiracists.
It’s hard to do a really good job on anything you don’t think about in the shower.
Paul Graham, The Top Idea in Your Mind
Thursday, April 1st, 2021
In his Telegraph column, the invaluable Ambrose Evans-Pritchard lays it out that the UK has actually handled Covid pretty well:
We can see in hindsight that the UK began the war on Covid much as it has begun almost every major war over recent centuries: half asleep, in utter shambles, with obsolete contingency plans. The first wave had echoes of the Norway campaign in 1940, or the great retreat of the British Expeditionary Force in August 1914. It always seems to take time for Britons to pull themselves together. Ultimately they do. By the end of the First World War, the British armed forces were arguably the best-run logistical machine on the planet.
Monday, March 29th, 2021
Strong medicine, this, and brave of Tablet to publish it. Dubbing deplorables as The Smiths, Angelo M. Codevilla beseeches regular Americans to simply disengage from the new American oligarchy.
And in the same publication, a transcription of an interview with the caustic political philosopher, The Codevilla Tapes.
Thursday, March 11th, 2021
By 2005 or so, it will become clear that the Internet’s effect on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine’s.
Paul Krugman
Monday, March 8th, 2021
Cool — 10 upcoming skyscrapers. Interestingly, most of them seem to be in Toronto. I love the Zaha Hadid one, if that ever gets built.
Saturday, March 6th, 2021
Cal Newport takes on GTD in the run-up to his new book against email as the world’s abysmal task management system.
The piece does start like a Tad Friend-esque hatchet job on Merlin Mann but that’s just a way to appeal to your squalid New Yorker reader.
Tuesday, February 23rd, 2021
Thursday, February 18th, 2021
Andy Bell outlines new CSS functionality in Smashing Magazine.
Monday, February 15th, 2021
Howard Oakley provides this survey of paintings of trains.
Meaningless repetition of another person’s spoken words as a symptom of psychiatric disorder
The politicians are engaged in endless echolalia. The governor here (cum-Secretary of Commerce) actually had the chutzpah to say, “I know you’re all unhappy with the speed of vaccination, but our strategy is working.”
Alan Weiss
Friday, February 5th, 2021
In a sign of the times of economic inequality in America, Cheap RV Living by Bob Wells, a long-time VanDweller, is increasingly relevant.
Wednesday, January 27th, 2021
Like Anna Karenina’s brother, it’s not that the United States media has a bad memory, rather it has acquired an excellent forgettery. Victor Davis Hanson remembers nonetheless.
Tuesday, January 26th, 2021
A survey of American research on minimum wage by David Neumark & Peter Shirley at the National Bureau of Economic Research.
Ra’anana-based Vertical Field signed with Emirates Smart Solutions & Technologies (ESST) to build a pilot of its vertical farms in the United Arab Emirates. Major cool.
Sunday, January 24th, 2021
Upending the conventional wisdom that happiness does not increase beyond an annual household income of $75,000, this study, using random ongoing smartphone check-ins, demonstrates a continued increase in well-being as income rises.
Thursday, January 21st, 2021
Dated but still interesting: The Guardian looks at the rather disappointing design of Japanese newspaper websites.
Tuesday, January 19th, 2021
Nice backgrounder at Stat News on the history of mRNA vaccines.
Saturday, January 9th, 2021
A great grounds-eye view of the upset in Washington DC, “What I Saw at the Capitol Riot” by Declan Leary in The American Conservative.
To my left I hear “We don’t need Gitmo,” and I’m not quite sure what’s meant by it. From the same general area comes “I’ll donate a vaccination—.223 hollow point.” A little less ambiguous. Somebody with a megaphone is in the middle of a speech: “If you stand for nothing, you gotta stand for something.” Close enough. A young woman with a bullhorn of her own lets out a lone motherfucker. An older man looks at me with a smile and asks if she kisses her mother with that mouth. A few seconds later the same voice drones at nobody in particular: Pussy, pussyyyyy, pussy, pusssaaaaaaayyyyyy.
Tuesday, January 5th, 2021
From the CDC, US vaccination numbers. So far the state that’s done best is South Dakota at 3%.
Friday, January 1st, 2021
Cute, if harrowing: the no-longer economically viable Simpsons household, a piece in The Atlantic by Dani Alexis Ryskamp.
2020, the good news, by Doron Peskin at Israel’s Calcalist
Friday, December 25th, 2020
The potential for warm relations between Israel and Morocco may be more than with the Gulf nations, this piece argues, as relations have been significant for some time.
Thursday, December 24th, 2020
The Basecamp fellows have released a new web development paradigm, Hotwire. I don’t quite get it, but with their pedigree and skill as the makers of Ruby on Rails, this could be big.
Tuesday, December 22nd, 2020
This lengthy interview with Secretary-General Sayyid Nasrallah may be useful for insight into Hezbollah’s perspectives. There are some bizarre connections, such as the notion that Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982 because of deep concern regarding Iran’s “liberation of Khorramshahr” in the Iran-Iraq War.
Monday, December 21st, 2020
High Output Management
Andrew S. Grove
In his careful, cogent and memorable take on effective management, Silicon Valley founding father Andy Grove places a surprising emphasis on meetings; he has the temerity to take issue with — or at least, refine — Peter Drucker’s admonition that they’re a waste of time. Grove’s issue: meetings are the very medium of management; his refinement: that there are actually two major types of meeting, routine and ad hoc, and it’s where there’s a profusion of the latter that something’s amiss.
This erstwhile CEO of Intel notes that while most management books are targeted either at the very top or the very bottom — at the CEO or at those who directly manage frontline workers — the majority of managers manage other managers, and it’s for them he mostly writes, the middle managers.
The book has the authority of someone eager to share lessons from his own extensive experience — indeed he seems to have always worked with one eye towards gaining such knowledge, in no small part because being able to convey what one knows ensures that one actually understands it; that is, managers should also write and teach.
Grove defines the aim of management as increasing the productivity of subordinates, which can be achieved in only two ways: by improving their skills and by improving their motivation. Skills are improved by training, which the manager should undertake himself, considering it not busywork but an opportunity to solidify his own understanding and role-model corporate behavior. Motivation meanwhile is improved best via one-on-one performance reviews. These measures for corporate success are bracingly clear and specific — both the reasoning behind them and how to undertake them.
A refugee from Nazi Europe, Grove may be a legend yet the book is suffused with a democratic humility, a great American sense that success can be approached by all as an engineering problem. A book among books.
PS — A high testament: I actually remembered all these points without reopening High Output Management. I don’t think that’s ever happened before.
Wednesday, December 16th, 2020
The architect would surely be pleased that there is once again a Frank Lloyd Wright hotel in Japan — though he’d probably say: Just the one? (Actually it’s not by Wright but Arata Endo, who seems a tasteful and disciplined disciple.)
The first lab-grown chicken meat will be served at a Singapore restaurant this weekend!
Good old Speccie:
For Britain, there are many lessons to be learned from the IDF, a democratic military machine that relies heavily on technology to engage enemies on various fronts and in diverse contexts.
This from “Britain is right to pursue closer military ties to Israel” by Jake Wallis Simons. I had not known that the source of Israel’s tip-off regarding Syria’s North Korean nuclear reactor was a British spy.
Definitely not of general interest, Global state in SSR with Vue and Node.js at sum.cumo.
Israel intercepts a cruise missile in a test of its 3-tier missile defence system.
Tuesday, December 15th, 2020
Ross Douthat in his typical perfect way essays on American childbearing in the really nice magazine Plough.
Monday, December 14th, 2020
Israel to boost its alternative meat industry.. How wonderful is that. If it happens.
Dave Rupert does a nice job (April 2018) listing the pitfalls of card UIs. I’m beginning to think though that for Rupert, a long list of drawbacks is throat-clearing for “I’m going ahead with this.”
Friday, December 11th, 2020
Well all this looks like too much fun: trailers for upcoming Marvel TV shows. It is indeed the best of times, the worst of times.
I’ve been surprised and disappointed by just how many people are hesitant to take up the COVID-19 vaccines now coming online. In this concerned Nautilus article “How to Build Trust in Covid-19 Vaccines”, the authors take on the issue with sober good sense, eg:
Mandatory vaccination policies should be avoided because they could backfire. More acceptable would be tying vaccination status to travel or access to public places.
Thursday, December 10th, 2020
Monday, November 30th, 2020
DRUDGE APP IPHONE, IPAD...
Beloved teacher's double life revealed after he dies in cartel robbery, sheriff says...
ANDROID...
Islamic State Seeks Revival in Christian Countries...
Giant armed robots loom over streets of Donetsk...
With flagship electric car, MERCEDES takes fight to TESLA...
Putin closes access to Black Sea...
Expels diplomats...
Military vehicles with 'invasion stripes' descend on Ukraine...
MYPILLOW CEO's 'free speech' social will BAN posts that take Lord's name in vain...
GAG: Heirs worry over Ridley Scott's depiction...
USA sanctions Russia over massive cyberattack and election interference...
France outlaws sex with children aged under 15...
REVEALED: How Justice Dept came to investigate Matt Gaetz...
'Short, fat, ugly': GUCCI family lashes out at cast in new film...
The Scarcity of Harvard's Conservative Faculty
BLM Co-Founder Cashes In on 'Systemic Racism'
How American Parents Have Been Doing It All Wrong
From George Floyd to Daunte Wright
Big Tech Bans Discussion of 2020 Election Fraud
Leaving Afghanistan & the Lessons of Our Longest War
Progressive Democrats Go For It
Biden Starts to Execute on Policies Trump Abandoned
Will Biden Really Finish Trump's Afghan Withdrawal?
Fight Against PA Governor Powers Reflects Bipartisan Trend
'I Never Thought China Could Ever Be This Dark'
Trump Is Building a Shadow Republican Party
Biden--Once a Fraud, Always a Fraud
Biden's Vision: Rebuild Infrastructure, Boost Key U.S. Industries
The Crisis of American Civilization
Links for the intellectually curious, ranked by readers.
Facebook Allegedly Delayed Acting Against Fake Acct Network That Boosted BJP MP
How to fight back against Google FLoC
There Are No Good Arguments for Intellectual Property (2010)
Opting Your Website Out of Google's FLoC Network
Docker Desktop for Mac (Apple Silicon)
Raycast (YC W20) Is Hiring
German constitutional court strikes down Berlin rent cap
CRTC allows small wireless carriers to use big networks
Book Review: Ravenna
Element Matrix Services Launches Bridging for Microsoft Teams
PEP 563, PEP 649 and the future of pydantic and FastAPI
Mac Chimes of Death
DIY plastic recyclers: open-source machines for shredding plastic [audio]
Ethical anti-design, or designing products that people can't get addicted to
PHP in 2021
First drone strike on US base in Iraq, as Iranian proxies up attacks on US, Israeli targets
US expels 10 Russian diplomats, imposes sanctions over alleged election interference
Yemen Houthis claim attack on Saudi Aramco, Patriots
US cancels Black Sea deployment over Ukraine-Russia tensions
Biden proceeds with Trump’s biggest arms deal to UAE
Natanz blast wrecked more than half of its enrichment plan – DEBKAfile Exclusive
Israel marks Remembrance Day for its fallen soldiers
Biden calls Putin to propose a summit over Ukraine
Iran claims to begin 60pc uranium enrichment
Israel-owned ship attacked near Fujairah emirate – report
Prepared for the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations
Explosion at Iran Plant Gives Biden Time
NASA Names Two Asteroids after Arab Israeli Student Who Discovered Them
Experts: If Emergency Power Supply at Natanz Failed, Centrifuges Slow Down Too Rapidly and Break
Is the U.S. Supporting Palestinian Dictatorship?
Iran Says It Will Enrich Uranium to Level Far Beyond Civilian Needs
Israel Is Showing that There Are Better Ways to Prevent Iran from Producing Nuclear Weapons
Iran Reports Israeli Ship Targeted by Missile off UAE Coast
U.S. Can Never Move Iran to the Back Burner
EU Sanctions Iran Commander, Seven Others over 2019 Protests
Nazi Germany Considered Bombing Jews in Mandatory Palestine
Britain: ICC Has No Jurisdiction to Investigate Israel
Iran's Natanz Nuclear Site Suffered Major Damage, Official Says
Lebanon Expands Maritime Claims at Israel Border
Does Natanz Blackout Mean New Leverage for U.S.?
U.S. Approves F-35 Sales to UAE
The race to curb the spread of COVID vaccine disinformation
Ants shrink their brains for motherhood — but can enlarge them when egg-laying ends
First monkey–human embryos reignite debate over hybrid animals
An unprecedented genomic analysis helped to curb an Ebola outbreak
Animals around the world follow the ‘island rule’ to a curious fate
India’s COVID-vaccine woes — by the numbers
COVID research updates: Common asthma medicine could shave days off COVID illness
‘If I could travel in time’ by Zed 5755
The AMBRA1 E3 ligase adaptor regulates the stability of cyclin D
Daily briefing: Microplastics rain from the sky
Dynamics of large effusive eruptions driven by caldera collapse
Genomic insights into population history and biological adaptation in Oceania
Structural basis of long-range to short-range synaptic transition in NHEJ
AMBRA1 regulates cyclin D to guard S-phase entry and genomic integrity
Egypt continues to push for political solution in Libya
US official fires warning shot at Lebanese reform blockers
Ramadan lanterns trade in Gaza: Source of strength for family of five
Palestinian families face another difficult Ramadan as aid funding dips
15 people hurt as train derails in northern Egypt
Arab League chief ‘deeply concerned’ over Iran’s uranium enrichment move
Yemen facing ‘worst humanitarian crisis in 100 years’ as Ramadan appeal launched
Can tech advances solve arid Middle East’s water scarcity problem?
Greek, Turkish ministers clash at press conference
Yemeni teachers’ union slams Houthi curriculum takeover
A quarterly magazine of urban affairs, published by the Manhattan Institute, edited by Brian C. Anderson.
Let’s Talk About Free Speech
How Not to Sell Shampoo
Midtown’s Miracle on Ice
All or Nothing at All
Here We Go Again
Will Russia invade Ukraine? ‘Low to medium’ risk in next few weeks, US general says
Chicago releases shocking video of police shooting 13-year-old boy Adam Toledo dead
China’s digital currency won’t topple US dollar ‘so easily’, senior Bank of Japan official says
No royal military uniforms at Prince Philip’s funeral, queen rules, to avoid embarrassment for Prince Harry
US House committee approves plan to rein in the likes of Facebook and Amazon
China to be in focus at summit between Joe Biden, Japan’s Yoshihide Suga
Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro promises Joe Biden to end deforestation, seeks financial help
After Russia sanctions, Joe Biden says ‘time to de-escalate’
Sexual violence being used as weapon of war in Ethiopia’s Tigray, says UN
This Chinese-Canadian scientist helped cure Ebola. Now she’s at the centre of a viral security drama
Brain candy for Happy Mutants
I am confused by and excited about Epic Games 'CORE' trailer
Oopsie! Canadian lawmaker caught stark naked in online House of Commons meeting
I think the Joker's henchman put his car up for sale
By the pricking of my thumbs, Solanum lycopersicum this way comes
The Secret Jewish Space Laser Corps has awesome swag
Watch angry Jim Jordan blast Dr. Fauci as if he's responsible for Covid. The doctor never loses his cool
Watch this bittersweet video of the Philadelphia Inquirer printing press's final run
Absolutely massive smalltooth sawfish washed up in Florda
Watch Newsmax host Greg Kelly, formerly of Fox News, ogle and talk lecherously on live TV about his co-worker in a bathing suit (2014)
Look at this beautiful website for a Japanese family office launched by Nintendo founding family
What if you get too high on weed? Let this lady talk you down
Fantastic! and amazing! hand-drawn superhero logos from vintage comics
Anchor-out transition plan results in fire, dead dog, conflicting stories
Bully Karen screams at kids for having fun at a public park
Green energy vs. green jobs
Thursday assorted links
My Congressional Testimony
My podcast with the excellent Nicholas Colin
“RCTs for me but not for thee”?
From the comments, on FDA credibility
Wednesday assorted links
The Covid culture that is Australia
Hearing: “Vaccinations and the Economic Recovery”
“Free-floating credibility” is underrated
Vaccine fact of the day
Tuesday assorted links
You may not agree with this, still it is a sign of how much progress green energy has made
Where is (non-state capacity) libertarianism evolving?
Ideology and performance in public organizations
Where the design community meets.
Who are some of the most valuable freelance / agency people to follow?
8 Best Inkscape Alternatives (Free & Paid)
Inside Nintendo's secretive creative process
Our first artist, Bessa is Minty #rare digital art NFT. Support her with vote, or even Foundation Bid.
Offshore Software Development Company India - Imenso Software
16 Best Ruby Frameworks For Web Development
ABC Feedback: Giving better feedback on creative work
How To Design E-Commerce Forms That Convert 10x Better Than Average
Learn Design Systems in Figma Plugin
30 Awesome places to find design inspiration
Rapid Prototyping - A Blazing Fast Way To Design Your Mobile App
How Many Plants: Houseplant Guides and Care
Best Product Design Courses and Classes (Free and Paid) in 2021
Best CSS Frameworks To Look Forward In 2021
ANDROID EARLY ACCESS: Outrun - weekly step contest
Rumors and news on everything Apple since 1997
Apple's Lisa Jackson joins Time 2030: 'Equity should be the bedrock of environmental progress'
Whale documentary 'Fathom' surfaces on Apple TV+ on June 25
Scam children's app on App Store flips to bogus online casino for users in Turkey
Top 5 Apple deals on Amazon this week
San Francisco Bay Area Clipper Card now supports Apple Pay with Express Transit
Mobile gaming company AppLovin raises $1.8B in IPO
Docker Desktop now available for Apple Silicon
New M1 Mac mini deals deliver prices as low as $645 (up to $110 off)
US House approves report accusing Big Tech of monopolistic behavior
Apple Fitness+ gains pregnancy workouts, older adults training, and Jane Fonda
Blogger successfully hacks Jaguar I-Pace electric car into HomeKit
Smartmi P1 becomes newest air purifier with HomeKit support
Opinions on corporate and brand identity work.
Announced: Brand New will Shift to Subscription Model
Spotted: New Logo for Blue Islands
Linked: Louis Vuitton Architecture
Noted: New Name and Logo for St. Louis City SC
Reviewed: Friday Likes 339: From Studio MPLS, Wade and Leta, and Unifikat Design Studio
Spotted: New Logo and Identity for Vitkus Clinic by Tandemo
Spotted: New Logo and Identity for Netgen by IDnaGroup
Noted: New Logo and Identity for Correos de México by Carl Forsell
Spotted: New Logo for Playtika
Spotted: New Logo and Identity for The 19th by Page 33 Studio
Linked: Objects may be Closer than they Ap-pear
Reviewed: New Logo and Identity for Lot61 by Smörgåsbord
Biting the hand that feeds IT
experiments in refactored perception
Here’s why we don’t understand heavier-than-air flight
Kinds of Potential
Elderblog Sutra: 12