Briefs
Friday, January 1st, 2021
2020, the good news, by Doron Peskin at Israel’s Calcalist
Thursday, August 20th, 2020
The iPhone matters more than anything … it is the foundation of modern life.
Ben Johnson, “Apple, Epic, and the App Store”
Adamkhan.net
Wednesday, February 24th, 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.
Thursday, December 17th, 2020
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.
Israel to boost its alternative meat industry.. How wonderful is that. If it happens.
Monday, December 14th, 2020
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
Tuesday, December 1st, 2020
Monday, November 30th, 2020
The URL city-journal.org/white-fragility suggests that this piece by Coleman Hughes is the house stance on the insanity; good.
What a perfect, impassioned argument by Scottish, sorry, British broadcaster Neil Oliver in praise of keeping Britain. For him it is, correctly, not a confused affair of the dismal science but a clear celebration of the happy heart.
Saturday, November 28th, 2020
The Lean Startup
Eric Ries
So much of Eric Ries’s The Lean Startup seems such conventional wisdom now that evaluating its merits is hard.
Entrepreneurship is about management. A startup is an institution designed primarily for learning; learning is accomplished by experimentation with the product and observing customers interact with these experiments; what is learned may then temper the vision for the product. Repeatedly iterated, this is the way through the eye of the startup needle, Reis argues, replete with numerous vivid examples, such as the Village Laundry Service in India learning what its customers mistrust and what they’re willing to pay more for.
The book refers back to and sits well alongside Geoffrey Moore’s Crossing the Chasm and Steve Blank’s The Four Steps to the Epiphany, both of which I picked up next.
Friday, November 27th, 2020
Weekly became daily quickly.
ASK
Thursday, November 26th, 2020
It falls to Andrew Cunningham to take up the magisterial task of the Ars Technica review of macOS Big Sur.
3D model of Fallingwater by sighty for sale, including a portion of Bear Run, which interestingly gets cuts off even before the bridge that obviously crosses it, making this a model not of the house but of a model of it.
Boy, there are other models too. Here’s an interactive Fallingwater by archimore. It has the interior, even the raised rocks around the fireplace! (Though missing the grand swinging water heater.) The non-Wright dining-table chairs that Mrs Kaufman brought. The portrait of Edgar on the wall! Yet no walkway up to the Guesthouse, and no Guesthouse.
And another Fallingwater by Myles Zhang which does have the Gueshouse and ramp, even the steps into the swimming pool. And a very long stretch of Bear Run. It does have the round red water holer, but no furniture.
Would be good to merge these magnificent efforts to make a more detailed, canonical model.
Monday, November 23rd, 2020
Sunday, November 22nd, 2020
A close-to-the-ground view of the current pandemic response in Southern California. Mentions of food insecurity, and there’s color in the comments.
Saturday, November 21st, 2020
Mohammad Ali watches Rocky II with Roger Ebert in 1979.
George Carlin on Time in 1978. Embarrassingly I’d only ever seen him older. In interviews he says he set out to be Danny Kaye; I think that’s noticeable here.
Thursday, November 19th, 2020
Hard on drugs, easy on Iran, nice.
“Indie developers need protection from monopolistic and anti-competitive practices from larger players in the market through strong government regulation, not a discount on their first $1m in sales.” “Apple’s 15% Deflection Tactic” by John Luxford.
Wednesday, November 18th, 2020
The 2020 US election is apparently not yet over. “It is indeed a very foul mess,” states Sidney Powell, a former federal prosecutor now Trump legal team member, whom people speak of respectfully in the comments. “It is farther and wider and deeper than we ever thought but we are going to go after it and I am going to expose every one of them.” [Update 2020 Nov 23: So much for that! “Trump Legal Team Distances Itself From Sidney Powell After Unproven Claims” in The Daily Wire.]
How browsers work by Tali Garsiel.
Monday, November 16th, 2020
“How to Get Your First Customers So Your Company Doesn’t Die” by Matt Munson, a startup founder coach and investor. Some nice nuggets here, such as hiring salespeople in pairs so that you can compare them and be sure any issues are with individuals rather than the system.
Petrol Purists Resist...
ANDROID...
Mystery Orbs Over Vegas...
DRUDGE APP IPHONE, IPAD...
Zombie Apocalypse Prediction? CDC Has Preparedness Guide...
Trans inmate sues prison: Forced to bunk with rapist, got raped.
Historic drought deepens in West...
Wisconsin hunters kill 216 wolves in 60 hours, sparking uproar...
SQUARE to buy majority of TIDAL, put Jay-Z on board...
NEWS CORP CEO Predicts Fourth Estate To Get Second Wind From Digital Deals...
TROUBLES: SINCLAIR to lay off hundreds, citing 'profound impact' of pandemic...
STOCKS RED ON YEAR...
POWELL WARNS...
Inflation Expectations Hit Decade High...
U.S. DEBT PASSES $28 TRILLION FOR FIRST TIME...
I Would Not, Could Not, Read Those Books to Kids!
Biden's Midterm Morning in America
Why DeSantis Is Rising as Dems' Star Governors Stumble
The Covid Bubble
New Report on Khashoggi Murder Is a Dud, Official Warns
Rodney King Beating: 30 Years Later, Our Fight Isn't Over
Who Killed Chicago?
Kobe Bryant, Jerry West & the Workout That Changed History
To Defend Conservative Media, GOP Must Defend Constitution
Why Senators Should Vote Down Biden's Spending Bill
Democrats' Woke Excess Is Driving Minority Voters Away
Republicans, Please Save Your Party
A Better Way to Support States During Downturns
Why Andrew Cuomo Is Falling on All Fronts
The Senate Must Pass the Equality Act
Links for the intellectually curious, ranked by readers.
Whatnot (YC W20) Is Hiring Engineers, Marketers and Partnerships People
Show HN: LinkWall – Your Landing Page Linked to Social Activity
Launch HN: Lendflow (YC W21) – Infrastructure for embedded lending services
Git's list of banned C functions
Multimodal Neurons in Artificial Neural Networks
Turntable.fm is back from the dead – and now there are two
Planning the Rust 2021 Edition
100Mbps uploads and downloads should be US broadband standard, senators say
CNAME tracking's a disaster. uBlock Origin blocks it in FF. Chrome users are SOL
The lessons of Fukushima – Nuclear power must be well regulated, not ditched
Reverse-engineering Rosetta 2 Part 1: Analyzing AoT files and the runtime
Tintern 'secret' medieval tunnel system found by accident
“User engagement” is code for “addiction”
Show HN: Practical Python Projects book release
Understanding deep learning requires rethinking generalization
Spike in child coronavirus infection
Number of seriously ill covid cases falls below 700
Austria & Denmark set up “vaccine alliance” with Israel
Israeli Arabs set upon an Israel commando and snatch his weapon
Biden sets up joint US-Israel, US-Gulf teams for Iranian nuclear talks
Kindergartens shut by covid infection double in a week to 471
Israel opens international airport for free exit and 3,000 arrivals per day
US joins EU in sanctioning Russians over Navalny poisoning
Three “New York” covid variants located in Israel
Israelis who recovered from coronavirus get vaccinated
Prepared for the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations
Iranians Don't Hate Israel
Netanyahu: ICC Decision to Investigate Israel Is Undiluted Anti-Semitism
Vaccinating the Bedouin in Israel
The United States Opposes the ICC Investigation into the Palestinian Situation
UK Silence over ICC Is Problematic
Blinken: Biden Administration Embraces IHRA Definition of Anti-Semitism
Biden's Iran Problem
UN: Iran Committed Human Rights Violations in Downing of Ukraine Airliner
Africa Is a Jihadist Playground for the Resurgent Islamic State and al-Qaeda
Iran Used Commercial Satellite Images to Monitor U.S. Forces in Iraq before Rocket Attack
Israeli Defense System Shot Down Russian Missile Armenia Fired at Azerbaijan
Palestinian Leaders Divert Vaccine Doses to Favored Few
ICC Prosecutor Announces Formal Investigation into Israeli "War Crimes"
German Police Raid Islamic Extremists in Berlin
U.S. Law on Congressional Review Could Complicate Return to Iran Deal
Russia: scientists petition to end political persecution
How long should a conversation last? The people involved haven’t a clue
US health agency will invest $1 billion to investigate 'long COVID'
Sequence data: expand comprehensive access
An antibody joins forces with the pancreas to delay diabetes
COVID research updates: A new viral variant hits a COVID-ravaged city
Microbial makers help humans to build tough stuff
A bird’s migration decoded
MAP3K2-regulated intestinal stromal cells define a distinct stem cell niche
Mitochondria are mixed during cell division
Structural insights into the inhibition of glycine reuptake
Actin cables and comet tails organize mitochondrial networks in mitosis
Practice on a pulsefish
Self-powered soft robot in the Mariana Trench
Syria sees COVID-19 spike but grim state of economy limits lockdown options
Pope Francis’ visit to give hope and comfort to Iraqis of all faiths
US, at UN, accuses Russia of blocking ‘accountability’ on Syria chemical weapons
Nine Turkish soldiers killed in helicopter crash
Sudan to start vaccine rollout next week after getting COVAX doses
Iran accepts ‘technical meetings’ with IAEA from early April
US blasts ICC decision to probe Israel over war crimes
UAE reports 2,742 new coronavirus cases, 17 deaths
UN to investigate war crimes in Ethiopia
Pope in video message to Iraqis on eve of visit
A quarterly magazine of urban affairs, published by the Manhattan Institute, edited by Brian C. Anderson.
In Europe, a Vaccine Blame Game
A Necessary Intervention
Is Texas’s Affordable Housing Endangered?
How “Openness” Defines Human Progress
How the Woke Stole Childhood
Putting Meng Wanzhou on trial would be ‘triumph for rule of law’, Canadian government lawyer says
Nearby ‘super-Earth’ could give scientists a boost in search for alien life
China slams Lithuania’s plan to set up a representative trade office in Taiwan
Coronavirus: WHO team to scrap interim report on China mission to investigate Covid-19 origins, according to US media
CGTN set to return to European screens, but French regulator warns about future conduct
Anti-China sentiment in US continues to rise, Pew survey finds
Coronavirus: Italy blocks export of AstraZeneca vaccine to Australia
Chinese trio arrested over fake coronavirus vaccines in South Africa, leading police to China network
Former US transport secretary Elaine Chao accused of misusing office but Justice Department declined to investigate
Myanmar protests: will Singapore’s ‘truth telling’ make a difference as death toll rises?
Brain candy for Happy Mutants
This Vankyo mini projector displays images up to 200 inches across
Wax Holly Golightly and Don Draper visit NYC steakhouse
David Bowie grills MTV about their failure to play videos by Black artists in this 1983 interview
Cuttlefish passes cognitive tests designed for human children
Deception in the rainforest
Poor guy stuck in a chairlift for hours really needs to pee
Watch: Incredibly clever cat opens a sliding glass door
The science of not knowing when to shut up
Display supplier leak suggests a possible "Nintendo Switch Pro" is coming soon
Luxury condominium boasts "open concept bathroom" with no walls or doors
QAnon Shaman's mom has a pretty fantastical view of her son's actions
Season cast iron on the BBQ
ScholarshipOwl streamlines the scholarship process – and scores more money for students
Jailed QAnon Shaman says he did good: proud he stopped muffin theft in Capitol break room
Are prediction markets going to make it this time around?
Thursday assorted links
Canada: An Official Strong Recommendation for First Doses First
My job as managing editor of the Austrian Economics Newsletter
Sins of omission vs sins of commission
Wednesday assorted links
Why Didn’t Congress Fund Operation Warp Speed!?
More from Sure
Ola Malm on the future and industrial organization of chess
Causes of the sex drought
Tuesday assorted links
Canada Moves to First Doses First
The English Data Support First Doses First
The Gregory Clark working paper
Be Like Mommy and Daddy: Markets in Everything
Where the design community meets.
Screen Recorder - Scre.io • Record videos from the camera or capture from the screen.
How strategy workshops can boost your design proposals
Humans – Various illustrations
12 Best Google Forms Alternatives (Free & Paid)
Hi-Res Public Domain Art, Posters and Illustrations
Vectornator 4.0 is coming soon!
Remote Design Workshops with Therese Fessenden of NN/g
The role of Content Designer
Show DN: I made a universal pen to write into any of your apps
No Budget? No Excuse! How to do user research with no budget.
SystemFlow - Designer-First, utility Framework for Webflow and Figma
Detail Guide for How to Hire Remote Developers
Stop Misusing Icon Cues on Menus
Free Icon Set from Plant public page
A $500m lesson in UI design, Figma component madness, problems with design thinking, how to build user trust, new motion design tools and cursed AIs.
Rumors and news on everything Apple since 1997
Apple researching how to integrate a display into fabric, like the HomePod covering
Bipartisan senator group calls on FCC to dramatically boost broadband definition
Apple TV+ show 'Ted Lasso' gains Sarah Niles for recurring role
Plex adds Apple TV app support for on-demand content
EU winding down Apple Music antitrust investigation, charges expected
Nikon releases free NX Studio photo management & editing app for Mac users
Apple clarifies that Siri isn't setting a default music service in iOS 14.5
Researchers reverse-engineer Find My, detail potential privacy & security issues
LinkedIn will stop using IDFA ahead of iOS App Tracking Transparency launch
Apple brings back 'AirTags' anti-stalking feature in latest iOS 14.5 beta
Apple releases third developer beta of watchOS 7.4
Billie Eilish film 'global smash' hit for Apple TV+
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 what electricity is
Storytelling — Harmon vs. McKee
MJD 59,256