How will coronavirus end? [Today, Explained]
Youtube: Charlie bit me.
Some days you’re Charlie. Other days you’re Charlie’s brother.
A brief history of YouTube’s codependent relationship with content creators, after Google disclosed, for the first time, how much revenue YouTube generates.
Nat Eliason: How to take notes on what you’re reading.
I never did highlights or took book notes in school. I just did the reading (or didn’t – I was a slacker student), crammed everything into my brain and hoped it stuck there.
Likewise, I tried to highlight text, but I didn’t really see the point. I ended up highlighting more than half the book … or nothing.
Eliason proposes a simple rule: Only highlight passages that give you an idea. Then make a note of that idea. What does the passage make you think of? If the passage simply conveys information or opinion, and doesn’t spark further thought, just read it and move on.
And here’s a tool for note-taking, for those of us who read electronically: Readwise archives your ebook and article highlights from Kindle, Instapaper and iBooks.
Candidates don’t matter much. What matters is getting your voters to come out and vote against the other party.
Yep.
An Unsettling New Theory: There Is No Swing Voter [David Freedlander/Politico]
Not a lot: What $250,000 buys in NYC right now [Curbed NY]
I can think of a couple of theories why the Republicans might want to do this. But it’s weird:
GOP-affiliated group intervenes in Democratic primary for US Senate seat in North Carolina [CNN]
The first significant ad buy for state Sen. Erica Smith, a Democratic candidate for US Senate in North Carolina, appears to be backed by Republicans.
Faith and Power, a new political action committee with ties to Republicans, formally launched on January 29 and spent more than $1.9 million to influence the Democratic primary, according to filings with the Federal Election Commission and the Kantar Media’s Campaign Media Analysis Group. The television and radio ads aims to boost Smith over Cal Cunningham, who has been endorsed by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and has raised significantly more money. “Who’s the Democrat for US Senate endorsed by progressives and unions? Erica Smith,” says the ad’s narrator. “Who’s got the courage to vote for ‘Medicare for All’? Erica Smith. The number one supporter of the Green New Deal? Erica Smith again.”
Via @iamjaco. Thanks!
Dave Winer says we need a candidate who a Republican who believes in the rule of law will vote for. Respectfully to Dave, but this is dead wrong. No Republican will vote for a Democrat in 2020. Trump has 90+% approval rating in his party.
The winning candidate in 2020 will be the one who gets their own party most excited. We don’t need a candidate who will appeal to Republicans. We need a candidate who gets out Democratic votes, and win even though Trump has his thumb on the scale, in the form of Republican election chicanery.
Like a wise man said: Given a choice between a fake Republican and the real article, the voters will choose the real thing every time.
RIP Issur Danielovitch, aka Kirk Douglas, 103 [nbcnews.com]
Why IBM Choosing Arvind Krishna Over Jim Whitehurst Was a Smooth Move [Christine Hall/ITPro Today]
I’m working on updating my resume today. I’ve decided to use the Pet Resume template in Google Docs.
In other news: Google Docs has a Pet Resume template.
Why does a pet need a resume? What are their skills? Minnie is a dynamic leader in eating poops from the ground.
Werner Herzog: ‘Piracy Has Been The Most Successful Form of Distribution Worldwide’ [Jenning’s Brown/Gizmodo]
He also shares thoughts on Twitter: “I have never seen a single tweet that I found interesting at all.”
And Pokémon Go: “When two persons in search of a pokémon clash at the corner of Sunset in San Vicente is there violence? Is there murder? … Physically, do they fight?… Do they bite each other’s hands? Do they punch each other?”
Podfasting: I Tried Listening to Podcasts at 3x and Broke My Brain [Steve Rousseau/OneZero]
Most of us are familiar with binge watching and speed reading, but there’s a relatively new mode of conspicuous consumption that’s emerged in recent years: podfasting. First profiled in 2017, podfasters love listening to podcasts so much that they’re speeding them up — 1.25x, 1.5x, and even 2x speed — in order to fit more into their day.
I listen to about 15 hours of podcast weekly, and normally do it at 2x-2.5x speed when listening through AirPods, which is what I do most of the time.
In case you’re not familiar with how this works: Podcasting software like Overcast, the app I use, adjust the tone of voices when you speed up the play, so it doesn’t sound like Alvin and the Chipmunks. In the case of Overcast in particular, the software also normalizes speaking volume and chops out little bits of silence.
In my experience, different apps use different algorithms to speed up play. I’ve tried Overcast and Castro, and they are both terrific, but I prefer Overcast’s audio quality, and better ability to “podfast.”
Brave, Google, Microsoft, Mozilla gather together to talk web privacy… and why we all shouldn’t get too much of it [Thomas Claburn/The Register]
You know the President is able to shut down all US comms, yeah? An FCC commish wants to stop him from doing that [Kevin McCarthy/The Register]
Does Donald Trump have the legal authority to demand that mobile phone networks be shut down? Yes. That Twitter and Facebook stopped sending updates? Yes. That the internet itself be suspended? Yes. Does he has the same authority to push his own messages? Yes, it is literally written into US law…
Which leads to the question: would Trump do it? And the answer: yes, of course, he would at least try to float the idea if he thought it would benefit him. The President has yet to accept a single instance, theoretical or otherwise, of where his authority is limited. He has literally argued that he is not capable of committing a crime while President.
If the polls swing against Donald Trump, if he feels his presidency is under threat, does anyone seriously imagine that he wouldn’t do anything and everything within his power to retain his position?
Ex-principal in Holocaust furor defends his right not to say the genocide is a fact [The Palm Beach Post]
Former Spanish River High Principal William Latson defended his refusal to call the Holocaust a historical fact, saying opinions on whether the genocide occurred are a “personal ideology” and that it was his job to be tolerant of people who didn’t believe.
While acknowledging the Holocaust was a real event, the ousted principal said Monday that some parents at his school did not agree, and that state law required him to show “tolerance” in dealing with them.
That tolerance, he said, was a main reason for his decision to tell a school parent in April 2018 that as an educator he had “the role to be politically neutral” and that he “can’t say the Holocaust is a factual, historical event.”
The school is, of course, in Florida. Slogan: “The WTF? State.”
I think I need to read “Atomic Habits." All four of these tips excerpted from the book seem like great advice.
Column: San Diego author Laura Preble turns a germaphobe into a heroine you’ll want to hug [San Diego Union-Tribune]
It’s the usual love story. Girl meets boy, girl loses boy, girl drives a borrowed Cadillac Eldorado from Southern California to Colorado to break up boy’s wedding. And by the way, the boy is the girl’s therapist, which is perfectly fine because she loves him and she is sure that he loves her. Pretty sure, anyway.
OK, so Laura Preble’s new novel, “Anna Icognito,” is not your usual love story. Which is perfectly fine, because Anna is not your usual heroine.
Anna is a germaphobe who rarely leaves the house for fear of what horrors she might touch, inhale or inadvertently ingest.
Seems like a good book. Reminds me of the Bill Murray/Richard Dreyfus movie “What About Bob,” which I loved.
But hugging a germaphobe seems like a bad idea because germs.