“So, Barack Obama has taken up fighting disinformation. NYT notes how his administration didn’t regulate tech. When I started writing about it, a decade ago, the pushback I got from the Obama universe was intense, and is hinted at the below profile of me.”

So starts a Twitter thread from Zeynep Tufekci on groupthink of an administration. Maybe he should have jumped straight to narrating Netflix docu-series.

“Whatever its flaws, the NBA is one of the more functional institutions in American society.”

Yes! And Jokić is the MVP.

“We live in Applicatia, a world where people must spend their days improving their resumes in the hope of improving their lives…”

This is from Experimental History, my new favorite newsletter.

“This is the question that haunts me: How much genius are we losing to the compulsive need to scroll just a little bit more?”

Cal Newport has a point.

Inside the Virus-Hunting Nonprofit at the Center of the Lab-Leak Controversy This gun isn’t smoking, it’s on fire 📰

Putin’s useful German idiots 📰

This is not limited to Putin. Germany has a rich history of enabling petty autocrats world wide, including the Balkans.

Invasion of the Fact-Checkers 📰

An uneducated populace with little capacity for critical thought does need a Ministry of Truth to tell them what to think. But that’s just Orwell’s 1984. Couldn’t possibly happen in the here and now.

“We are still talking about the original Wuhan strain coronavirus vaccine. Sad!” Attempted Trumpism aside, VP makes a good point. The short time it took from sequencing to mRNA vaccines made headlines. FDA then made provisions for quick review of sequence changes. What happened? 📰

Good morning 📰

A brief experiment with Drummer reminded me how fun it was to write short, untitled, tweet-like posts throughout the day without having to be exposed to social networks. Drummer itself was too high-maintenance for the 2020s me, but Micro.blog is a (paid) service whose focus is — and the name does give it away — short, untitled, tweet-like posts with a light layer of social networking.

Which is to say, my old domain is now resurrected as a micro blog with a snazy Edward Tufte-inspired design. The RSS you get there should include updates from this blog, so subscribe to either but not both.