August 9, 2020
Renaming genes, old-school news junkies, van Gogh
Hi friends!
I hope you all had a great week. This one seemed to fly by for me.
The Weekend Reccs
A gene by any other name would encode as accurately: This is one of my favorite things I’ve read in a long time.
(So, part of why this issue is late coming out is because in this space here I had written a sprawling, multi-thousand word rant on information and, basically, how inefficient it is that we have multiple copies of books. I’m going to (1) spare your inbox and (2) take the time to clean that up and see if there’s anything actually interesting to say in there — will link next week if I put it online somewhere.)
COVID + Polls: Now that we’re a few months into the pandemic, it was interesting to re-stumble upon this page. The last time I had checked it was in April. Of particular interest are the polls on handling of the virus.
Politicos of 1710: “There’s nothing new under the sun, only the history you have yet to learn” — Twitter-obsessed news junkies can trace their kin all the way back to the early 1700s.
Another one: The politics of masks are nothing new, either.
van Gogh: A mystery around his last painting. A reimagining of his character. A museum struggling under the weight of COVID. A recent art heist. There were four Sunflower paintings. (s/o Aren Rendell for these)
Books: Don Jr. is self-publishing his newest book. As the article notes, it is a weird thing to do. Weirder though is the quote NYT included in the article: “This is a political pamphlet, not a book…”
I’m not any great judge of what is or is not a book, and don’t ever intend to be in the business of defending any member of the Trump family, but this just seems like a fraught delineation. Bad books are books, they just are, well, bad. It seems that this sort of a quote serves only to bolster Don Jr.’s choice to self-publish, and gives him something to fire off about regarding oppressing elitism or whatever drivel he currently peddles in.
Twister! As a young kid in Florida I always wondered why hurricanes always brought with them tornadoes but tornadoes didn’t seem to need to bring with them hurricanes. I never cared to look it up as a kid. Here’s a quick explanation on why tornadoes form where hurricanes go.
Quick Links: New York is less wealthy than before. A neat way of learning SQL. Don’t microwave tea. Asimov’s Robbie (story) is coming closer to real life. Tinted solar panels on greenhouses gets us closer to diversifying use of solar spectra.
Lagniappe
Read at least 3 books at once. I love reading, but I can never go straight through a single book. For some reason there’s a pervasive belief that you are supposed to start a book and then finish it before starting another one. If you suffer from such a belief, I am here to tell you it is not true. You can read however many books you want to at once. You will not get confused or lost. You will not be smote by the book gods. My interest in individual books waxes and wanes each day. I just read the book I’m excited about today. Excitement is an important and rare thing. Nurture it when you have it.
Graph(s) of the week
[WSJ] Kinda crazy graph about home prices. There’s some speculation around this trend, but it seems it’s a function of (1) really cheap lending, (2) lots of people wanting to move due to fears about COVID or new opportunities with WFH, and (3) few sellers wanting to sell their home in the middle of a global pandemic without having a good reason to do so.
Sorry for the delay this weekend! Stay well.
Your friend,
Harrison