Priorities

Sunday. This morning’s album is Sleepwalker by the Kinks.

Covid giveth and Covid taketh away. It happened for Netflix and it happened with chicken wings.

Firearm deaths for people aged 19 and under rose 29% between 2019 and 2020. Shrug. Disney and math textbooks? Outrage.

One day there’s a housing crisis in Massachusetts. The next day it’s all about community character and the threat of poorly designed and incongruous housing projects.

The Belarusian Rail War against the Nazi’s was the inspiration for the more recent successful train war against Russia.

And Apple is removing apps that haven’t been updated in some time. Better get in one last game of Snood.

Assumed knowledge

Friday. Today’s word is simulacrum.

Universal Hub highlights a million dollar listing for a house in Hyde Park. The interior shots are… interesting.

Today’s Globe beef: a story about scientists pushing for more focus on the role of T cells in the fight against Covid. Interesting. But what are T cells? Strangely you won’t find out from reading the article. I found the answer in the comments, of all places.

The Twitter board told Elon Musk to come back when he was serious about financing. He’s back.

British lawmakers may be getting ahead of themselves with a new law that would allow the operators of self-driving cars to watch TV while behind the wheel. Unfortunately, there are no self-driving cars (yet).

And Ron DeSantis says math should be about getting the right answer, not about how you feel. For Florida residents, the math for the Disney dispute will add up to an extra billion dollars in taxes. I wonder how they’ll feel about that.

Not as I do

Today is Tuesday, April 19. It’s National Garlic Day.

No masks on planes? It’s probably time, but I wouldn’t judge anyone who wanted to still wear one.

Commonwealth Magazine did an after-action on it’s story about the Globe and Philip Morris. The original story by Herman Coleman looked at the Globe running sponsored content paid for by Philip Morris and the objections by scientists quoted in those stories that they didn’t know about the tobacco company connection. Initially, the Globe was contacted by Herman but simply refused to comment. Then, after publication of Herman’s story, the paper collected their response to refute the allegations. Imagine if every subject of a Globe story did that? And now, in its wrap up, Commonwealth again contacted the Globe to get their take. Their response? You guessed it. No comment.

81 year-old Ringo Starr is hitting the road again this summer. And it’s not a light tour.

Thomas Friedman finds that the anti-fragile West seems to be doing better in the face of modern challenges than the less resilient, authoritarian societies in Russia and China.

And if you like the taste of salt but want to cut down, these electric chopsticks are for you.

Good news bias

Saturday morning music: Something/Anything by Todd Rundgren.

St. Brendan’s was once a powerful center of Irish Catholic life in Dorchester. Today it’s hanging on by a thread. Lauren O’Brien makes an appeal to the Cardinal to keep it open.

Inflation. War. Oil anxiety. God forbid we should concentrate on some positive economic news.

Walgreen’s is moving towards having robots mix prescriptions. In Japan, robots will bring your food. Elon Musk’s says his most important project this year is the development of a humanoid robot. It’s happening

One good thing to come out of the pandemic is better access to government through live streaming and remote access meetings. Let’s keep that going.

And anyone can be a great photographer. All it takes is a smart phone and lots of bad photos.

A cat and mouse game

Tuesday. Pushing through the week.

You can’t get there from here. Adam Gaffin provides directions on the T.

It’s always been a little fuzzy to me how the coronavirus can persist and adapt in the face of antibodies and widespread vaccination. This article was helpful. Apparently the virus mutates in two dimensions, transmissibility and immunity evasion. The former can reach an equilibrium but the latter goes on and on, as it does with the flu. So we should get used to the idea of ongoing, updated inoculations.

A seven hour gap? Seems weird. A mere eighteen and a half minute gap brought down a president once, a long time ago.

The power of the Internet in the Ukraine war has been pretty apparent. The fact that it’s still up and running in that country is both a surprise and a testament to telecom workers in the war zone.

And now you, too, can slap the shit out of Chris Rock. (Note: no actors were harmed in the development of this simulation.)

On the precipice

It’s 2/22/2022. A Tuesday. Get it?

Is the pandemic over? It can’t be because the State House is still on restriction. But we’re making slow, steady progress.

Russia has made its first moves. Where things go from here is anyone’s guess.

Amazon has decimated retail across the board, with one exception: grocery. Even with its Amazon Fresh delivery service and acquisition of Whole Foods, the company is uncharacteristically struggling in this space.

Speaking of multi-million dollar flops, Hyperloop is downsizing.

And people are stealing bees. It’s a thing.

Old man yells at cloud

Monday. A quiet President’s Day.

Covid protests, snowstorms, tent cities… so far Wu has survived the gauntlet. But the next big test will prove her mettle: Will her jokes make the grade at the revived, in-person St. Patrick’s Day breakfast?

What’s wrong with the Internet? I’ll tell you what’s wrong with the Internet. Poor quality, risible algorithmic stories like this one, allegedly about Boston, which rise to the top of Google results. Before you know it we’re awash in this type of crap.

I’ve been highlighting strategic dysfunction among Democrats recently so it’s nice to see that Republicans are having some of the same problems.

The state budget is in great shape. Baker is putting some of the ‘extra’ money to good use. Makes sense.

And Daniel Kolitz informs us of all the bad things that are going to happen. Happy Monday.

Smooth descent

Today is Saturday. The word of the day is nonchalant.

For Gretchen Whitmer, success is the best revenge.

There were less than 2000 new cases reported yesterday, down from a precipice of almost 30,000 a little over a month ago. Boston is lifting its vaccine mandate. Good news all around.

Space junk is starting to become a real problem.

Mike Allen reports on more calls for Democrats to shift towards the center to forestall a potential Republican sweep. If it’s not too late.

And although it was 60 degrees this week, we’re in high winter. Matt Dinan reflects on the season and Jessica Wapner searches for strategies to stay warm, or even hibernate through to spring.

Cue the tanks

Wednesday. The word of the day is slapdash.

London, like Boston, needs a new police commissioner. Let’s see who gets theirs first.

Today was supposed to be the day that Russia invades Ukraine. But it probably wouldn’t be a great tactical move to invade on the day that it was announced that you would invade. But then again, maybe that’s what they want you to think. In any case, things are still tense.

Sean Murphy writes about how he cut the cord. Sort of. Actually, not really much at all. He replaced his router but still pays Comcast for TV service and aspires to someday replace his set-top boxes with a Roku? He walked out to the edge but at the last minute returned back to the safety and comfort of cable. Apparently this is scary for people.

I’ve seen the stats but it’s still bewildering to me as to why Covid would lead to such a dramatic increase in traffic accidents. The correlation is clear but I’m still scratching my head over causation.

And it starts at Jamba with smoothies. Next thing you know robots will be making cappuccinos at Starbucks. Maybe then, at least, they’ll be consistent.

Painted into a corner

Today is Tuesday. Susan B. Anthony Day.

Helen Branswell writes about why the Covid vaccines were a “freaking miracle.” Donald Trump even gets some credit.

I think Joan Vennochi is being a little unfair to Michelle Wu for her stance on unions and vaccination mandates. I believe Wu came into office with a lack of understanding of how heavily unionized the city is and how little management prerogative she would have in these situations. I don’t think she’s backing down as much as adjusting to reality. I assume her legal and finance teams are explaining the costs of ripping up contracts and violating established labor practices. It might be bad optics/politics to pull back, but it’s sound management.

The economy is reviving, especially small business. But it’s a different economy and small businesses in city centers are not doing as well.

One guy found a bug in an Ethereum layer 2 function that would have allowed him to generate an infinite amount of Ether. But he did the right thing and reported it, receiving a $2 million dollar bug bounty.

And why do we round off sharp corners? Well, because.