A Developer’s Second Brain on Plaintext | by Junji Zhi | Gusto Engineering | Apr, 2022 | Medium:

As a developer, I have to juggle the information among different levels of products, systems, processes, and people. Each obligation, even if it seems small, requires my brain to retain some information, in order to make quality decisions about what’s next. When I switch contexts, my brain is not willing to let go of all the information. It seems that my subconsciousness figures out that I would need it later, and if I let go, I may lose it forever, so it decides to hang on to it.

Elon Musk saved $143 million by delaying disclosing Twitter stake, lawsuit claim : NPR:

Musk, according to the suit, "made materially false and misleading statements and omissions by failing to disclose to investors that he had acquired a 5% ownership stake in Twitter as required."

Wannabe-bond-villian manipulates stock at expense of others? Say it ain’t so.

New York officers who shoved protester to be reinstated - BBC News:

Arbitration - Where justice goes to die.

I’m pretty certain, intentional or not, if I nearly kill someone like that I’m going to at least lose a job, if not see a felony conviction.

Q-Nuts: “Don’t Say Gay” | Boing Boing:

Hundreds of flights canceled due to Covid illness immediately after airlines cancelled mask policy | Boing Boing:

For instance, Swiss-based EasyJet lifted mask requirements on March 27 and, lo and behold, cancelled 202 of its 3,517 flights between March 28–April 3 due to Covid illness, according to CBS. During the same time in 2019, the number of cancellations was zero. As in 0.

in which i receive an unexpected gift – WIL WHEATON dot NET:

In the pre-mask times, I would have seen his smile. Today, I saw hie eyes crinkle up. “I. Love. Wesley Crusher.” He declared.

“Thank you!” I waved my phone over the thing to pay. Living in the future can be cool from time to time. “I love him too!” The thing made a noise indicating that payment had been accepted.

“I mean, he is my very favorite,” he said. I could tell this was important to him.

“That means so much to me,” I said. “Thank you. He’s my favorite, too.” I leaned in like he’d leaned in toward me. “Don’t tell Picard,” I stage whispered.

Free COVID tests and treatments no longer free for uninsured, as funding runs out | MPR News:

This is why we should have universal health care… Free, fast, easy testing is part of how we get to the after-times.

Daring Fireball: The New Yorker: ‘Legal Scholars Are Shocked by Ginni Thomas’s “Stop the Steal” Texts’:

Several of the country’s most respected legal scholars say that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas must immediately recuse himself from any cases relating to the 2020 election and its aftermath, now that it has been revealed that his wife, Virginia (Ginni) Thomas, colluded extensively with a top White House adviser about overturning Joe Biden’s victory over then President Donald Trump.

Linking to the DF summary rather than the original article because of the paywall… That excerpt is damning enough.

Texas' Attorney General has decided that Pride Week is ‘illegal’ and threatened a school | Boing Boing:

Arizona legislators approve ban on filming police | Boing Boing:

The Laboratorium (2d ser.) (I Do Not Think That NFT Means What You Think It…):

I thought it would be useful to clean up and collect my thoughts in one place. I am a law professor who thinks a lot about digital property and about decentralized systems, and I think the idea that NFTs are about to revolutionize property law misunderstands how property law actually works.

Once again, America is in denial about signs of a fresh Covid wave | Eric Topol | The Guardian:

When it comes to Covid, the United States specializes in denialism. Deny the human-to-human transmission of the virus when China’s first cases were publicized in late 2019. Deny that the virus is airborne. Deny the need for boosters across all adult age groups. There are many more examples, but now one stands out – learning from other countries.

How concerning is it that Covid infections are rising in the UK? Read more In early 2020, with the major outbreak in the Lombardy region of Italy that rapidly and profoundly outstripped hospital resources and medical staffing, Americans expressed confidence that it won’t happen here. That it couldn’t happen here. And then it did.

Fast forward two years of the pandemic: the United Kingdom and Europe have provided five unmistakable warnings to America that a new surge was occurring. Within weeks, each time, the United States experienced a new wave, some not as severe (such as with the Alpha variant), some worse (Delta and Omicron variants). From this Covid track record over two years, it is palpable: what happens in the UK and Europe doesn’t stay in the UK and Europe.

For some kids, long COVID-19 is harder than having the virus | MPR News:

with some estimates suggesting that around 20 percent of the population will have lingering symptoms after they're over the worst of the virus

Spectacular image of a distant star captured by new Webb telescope during alignment milestone | Boing Boing:

"While the purpose of this image was to focus on the bright star at the center for alignment evaluation, Webb's optics and NIRCam are so sensitive that the galaxies and stars seen in the background show up," NASA reports. "At this stage of Webb's mirror alignment, known as "fine phasing," each of the primary mirror segments have been adjusted to produce one unified image of the same star using only the NIRCam instrument. This image of the star, which is called 2MASS J17554042+6551277, uses a red filter to optimize visual contrast."

Daring Fireball: Twitter’s Confusing New, but Hopefully Now Abandoned, ‘Home/Latest’ Timeline:

The new feature defaulted to only showing you the “Home” timeline, but gave you an option to put a tab controller atop your feed with two options: “Home” and “Latest Tweets”. You could either tap or swipe to switch between them. But by default, the Home/Latest Tweets header wasn’t shown, and you only saw the algorithmic Home feed, with no indication that there was an option to switch. You had to go into the cryptically-iconned “✨” menu (the “sparkle menu”?), and tap “Pin your Latest timeline”, which was described thus: “The latest Tweets from people you follow will be one swipe away from Home.”

First, I had no idea what the hell the “✨” button did before this. I didn’t even know it was a button. What a bizarre icon for the options to control the essential nature of how you view Twitter. Not to be too cynical, but it feels like this icon choice was driven by a desire to hide this option while maintaining plausible deniability that the option had been hidden. “It’s not hidden or buried in settings — it’s right there in the sparkle!” The whole thing felt like using a Twitter app in a bad dream where you can’t figure out how anything works.

I don’t even install Twitter’s own app on my devices, it’s a sin against UX and sanity on the best of days… But if I had to use their interface and this was permanant, I’d have dropped it like I did Facebook. As is, if they ever stop supporting 3rd party APIs I’m probably out.

DSHR’s Blog: Elon Musk, Threat or Menace Part 2:

Musk doesn't care about the truth of his statements, or the impact of his companies' policies, because his wealth insulates him from consequences. If regulators or victims come after him he can tie them up in courts until their resources are exhausted or his fan-bois can make them irrelevant. Since Autonowashing I've been collecting illustrations of this attitude, and the time has come to lay out a sample of them below the fold. There are a lot of examples, so I've organized them as follows: His irresponsible behavior affecting the Stock Market. Tesla's irresponsible behavior around its autonomy technology SpaceX's irresposible behavior around its Starlink satellites, development of its Boca Chica base, and the idea of a Mars colony. The Boring Company's irresponsible marketing of tunnels that simple math shows cannot deliver their claimed benefits.

The Oblongs: a hidden gem in adult animation | Boing Boing:

The race to capitalize on the popularity of The Simpsons became a gold rush in the early 90s. In many ways, that gold rush still exists today. Rick and Morty might be a different show from a structural standpoint, but the greasy fingerprints of Homer Simpson can be found on almost every scene of Adult Swim's monster hit. The only difference in contemporary adult animation is that today's creators benefit from hindsight and can gracefully avoid the pitfalls of other Simpsons clones. In addition, audiences don't view adult animation as a fad anymore. Modern adult animation is a bonafide genre that can tackle any concept beyond the traditional dysfunctional/wacky family.

A toxicologist explains how eyedrops can be used to slowly kill someone, and other curious facts about poisons | Boing Boing:

Anne Chappelle is a board certified toxicologist with two decades of experience studying the chemicals that can kill people. In this video, Dr. Chappelle explains how eyedrops have been used to kill someone, why it's not true that pencils can give you lead poisoning, and other curious facts about poisons.

The 10 tactics of fascism | Boing Boing:

Hey Kids, do you know how to spot fascism? Here's a handy reference. Be alert and look for these 10 signs that your beloved country may be on the brink of right-wing authoritarianism.

10 Tactics of Facism

When asked about war in Ukraine, Trump launches into a bizarre anti-windmill rant | Boing Boing:

Even when he appears on an ass-kissing podcast and gets asked about the war in Ukraine, he launches into another anti-windmill rant instead of answering the question.

Lord Dampnut is stuck on this - His boss in Moscow doesn’t want people calling his invasion a war, but he can’t call it a special operation with Putin’s reasoning of defeating “nazis” in Ukraine without alienating his most stable base of US nazis.

Write plain text files | Derek Sivers:

I write almost everything important in my life: thoughts, plans, notes, diaries, correspondence, code, articles, and entire books.

They are my extended memory — my noted self — my organized thoughts. I refer to them often. I search them, update them, and learn from them. I convert them into HTML to make websites, or LaTeX to make books.

My written words are my most precious asset. They are also a history of my life. That’s why I only use plain text files. They are the most reliable, flexible, and long-lasting option. Here’s why.

Tencent is the world’s biggest video game company - Polygon:

When it comes to the games part of that, Tencent’s dominance is prodigious yet stealthy. By revenue, it’s the world’s largest video game publisher, with approximately $6.7 billion in game revenue in the fourth quarter of 2020. Online games make up a major portion of its profits at 32%, and many of those products target mobile players in the domestic Chinese market. These include Peacekeeper Elite, which is the Chinese version of PUBG Mobile, and the wildly popular Honor of Kings, which is the dominant MOBA game in China. Then there is Riot Games’ League of Legends, a game that is now Tencent’s flagship PC game in China, and whose studio was also completely bought out by Tencent, with the firm finalizing its purchase of Riot Games in 2015. The company’s streak of game industry investments has continued at a rapid pace; research firm Niko Partners estimated that, on average, for most of the first half of 2021, Tencent closed one games deal every 2.5 days.

Ethereal Ice Stars Gracefully Crystallize on Film to a Mesmerizing Instrumental Soundtrack:

SARS-CoV-2 is associated with changes in brain structure in UK Biobank | Nature:

We identified significant longitudinal effects when comparing the two groups, including: (i) greater reduction in grey matter thickness and tissue-contrast in the orbitofrontal cortex and parahippocampal gyrus, (ii) greater changes in markers of tissue damage in regions functionally-connected to the primary olfactory cortex, and (iii) greater reduction in global brain size. The infected participants also showed on average larger cognitive decline between the two timepoints. Importantly, these imaging and cognitive longitudinal effects were still seen after excluding the 15 cases who had been hospitalised.

The Beautifully Vivid Hues of a Colorful Cuttlefish:

The Shedd Aquarium in Chicago shared wonderful footage of two vividly-hued colorful cuttlefish engaging with one another underwater. The pair of cephalopods also exhibited their incredible ability to change color depending on their mood.