Andrew @jaffe@mastodon.social

Britain Opts for Mix-and-Match Vaccinations, Confounding Experts

WTF?! https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/01/health/coronavirus-vaccines-britain.html?referringSource=articleShare

Gove: reopening England’s schools will involve ‘trade-offs’.

As a country we have decided… that we prioritise children returning to school. But… we have also had…Christmas mixing.

So we haven’t really prioritised schools, have we? https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/28/coronavirus-michael-gove-reopening-englands-schools-will-involve-trade-offs?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Latkes, cooked in Vegetable oil, not schmaltz, but served with applesauce (pink, of course, in honour of my grandmother)

We organised our wedding in two hours to beat tier 4

Call me a curmudgeon, but this shouldn’t be presented as a couple heroically working to save their wedding at the last minute, but rather as selfishly endangering people when they already have the information to know better. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-55385153

I’ve eaten pork and shellfish my whole without feeling any guilt, but this feels really transgressive.

RIP Arecibo Telescope, Puerto Rico, USA. The passing of a literal giant of astronomy. https://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=301674

Peace & love, everyone. We’re crying with relief and joy.

I assume the CNN US Election Coverage/Octonauts demographic overlap is pretty small, but in our house, when we hear “Key Race Alert” we think “Creature Report” (and hope for a dance break).

“Breaking News: No winner has been called in Presidential election” -CNN

Trying not to cry, scream, or drink at 7:30am in front if the kids.

More bourbon, or a few hours of sleep?

The country had been brutal for a very long time, from the beginning actually. And now the rhetoric began to mirror reality.

—well-known humorist and actor Wallace Shawn.

Warning: not funny. https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2020/10/27/election-developments-since-my-birth/

I voted. In San Francisco, from London, via fax (because that’s somehow more secure?) Well, via a web-to-fax service. Surely there’s a better way?

Whatever it takes.

(Surprisingly?) nervous about running my first online @ImperialPhysics undergraduate tutorial in 8 minutes… https://twitter.com/ImperialPhysics

New book (first in ~15 years) from statistics/design master Edward Tufte — Seeing With Fresh Eyes: Meaning, Space, Data, Truth! (Astronomers: includes an example from Kepler exoplanet/exomoon analyses.) https://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/seeing-with-fresh-eyes

The 2020 Physics Nobel goes to Roger Penrose “for the discovery that black hole formation is a robust prediction of… relativity”, and Reinhard Genzel & Andrea Ghez “for the discovery of a supermassive compact object at the centre of our galaxy.” https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2020/summary/

Tech friends: I’m getting very slow Time Machine backups (can be several days) from my MacBookPro (10.15.7) to Synology NAS (SMB, 1000M wired) w/Netgear Orbi router. Seems due to many small files. Problem occurs w/Mac either WiFi or wired (‘tho somewhat better wired). Any ideas?

McConnell, Graham, & the Republicans are all rank hypocrites, and I’m deathly afraid of a conservative court too, but I’m a little disappointed that the rest of us are now on board with their 2016 ‘no confirmation near an election’ nonsense.

Received my absentee ballot for Nov 3… I am not the most strategically useful voter — I still vote in San Francisco. But can any of my SF friends recommend a good source of information and endorsements?

Life on Venus?

Earth-shaking news if this really is a signature of life… https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/14/science/venus-life-clouds.html?smid=tw-share