Brief book report: BUILDING SIM CITY: How to Put the World in a Machine, by Chaim Gingold, is an exhilarating read.

It is one of the best origin stories ever told and the best account I've seen of how innovation actually occurs in computerdom. 🧵 Of course I checked the few moments where I intersected with the events in the story. They are tone-perfect, detail-perfect, and context-perfect. More so than I've ever seen before.

I trust this book. It tells revelatory truth.

The working tugboat Mirene, where @Ryanphelan6 and I have lived for 40 years, is properly celebrated in Dwell magazine this month.

Here's a free, short version of their piece, including video of us cruising San Francisco Bay:
yahoo.com/lifestyle/did-… The full length article is here. (The paywall can be dodged with a free, short subscription.)
dwell.com/article/stewar…

🧵 I've expanded the "Two Assault Rifles" section of my MAINTENANCE book. I learned that several of the most famous photographs of the Vietnam War were caused by jammed M16 rifles. Such as this one: The photographer was 22-year-old Catherine Leroy, embedded with the Marines attacking Hill 881 in the infamous Hill Fights of April, 1967. The Corpsman in anguish was Vernon Wike, who ran to help his friend "Rock" Roldan, shot while he was trying to clear his jammed M16 rifle.

1/ Bravo to @pmarca for spelling out his thoughts on techno-optimism. It is clarifying and self-consistent...

...but I think incomplete in an important way. What is
missing I covered in my history of precision in manufacturing, here: books.worksinprogress.co/book/maintenan…

https://twitter.com/pmarca/status/1713930459779129358

2/ Marc lauds the Market as the sole source of innovation: "We believe the market economy is a discovery machine, a form of intelligence – an exploratory, evolutionary, adaptive system."

Yes, but. Sometimes innovation is driven by top-down command and control. For instance...

If America is taking sides these days, even threatening civil war, which side is "the military" on?

I don't know the answer. I'll try to frame what I know about the question.

Thread... Militaries are always conservative politically. It's a little odd since they are thoroughly socialist in their structure--everything is paid for (food, housing, medical, education) and you do what the government tells you to do.

One of our Long Bets--about massive "bioerror"--stars in a New York Times op-ed about the possible origin of the Covid virus in the Wuhan lab.
nytimes.com/2021/05/29/opi… The Long Bet--between @sapinker Steven Pinker and Martin Rees--is here:
longbets.org/9/

@Givesgoodemail @friendofdurutti Actually I like obligatory national service, as in Switzerland and Israel.

It mixes the entire young population and points them in the same direction for a while. They have experiences and learn skills that will ground them for life. They also learn how to do time... @Givesgoodemail @friendofdurutti Doing time is a term from prison. It applies in the military (where I learned it), in sickness, in constant taking care of someone ill, in the many situations where you have NO CONTROL over what you are obliged to do.

Managing that is a learned, invaluable skill.

BREAKING: There is now a SECOND cloning for wildlife conservation. This time it's for America's most endangered mammal, the Black-footed Ferret.

Welcome Elizabeth Ann, cloned from cells of the genetically rich Emma, who died 32 years ago.
drive.google.com/file/d/105Iqtm… This breakthrough was a collaboration of Revive & Restore, US Fish & Wildlife, the San Diego Frozen Zoo, and ViaGen Pets & Equine.

This was a CROSS-species cloning. The birth mother was a *domestic* ferret. More info here:
reviverestore.org/projects/black…

Brian Eno has been exploring for a year the currently viral radio.garden . This longish thread is his curation of the "global jukebox"-- as @kevin2kelly described it in an email to Eno. How Eno responded is below... Brian Eno:

HA!

I think I wrote to you about this app nearly a year ago! And if I didn’t I certainly meant to. It’s been an absolute saviour to me out in the countryside here, and I’ve discovered new worlds of music through it.

This is huge. The first cloning for conservation.

It's a male Przewalski's horse ("shuh-VAL-ski") from 40 years ago, now revived to help enrich the genomes of the whole wild population.

Thanks to San Diego Zoo, ViaGen, and Revive & Restore

https://twitter.com/BenJNovak1/status/1302378852853985283

Here's the cloned (twinned, "revived") foal, named Kurt:

Short thread:

Are face shields better than masks?

Are they more effective against Covid-19?

Are they easier and more sociable to wear? (Here's how they look in comparison on me.) If you know of extensive research on the medical effectiveness of face shields vs. masks, please link it here.

What I could find easily suggests that face shields are really good, probably better than most masks. One such report:
self.com/story/face-shi…

Errand done. (I'm in excellent health currently.)

Here's my Medical Directive for the Covid-19 situation. Now signed and notarized.

(Sources and full text will follow in this thread, for anyone interested.) The note is addressed to my designated Medical Advocates, Alexander Rose and Ryan Phelan @Ryanphelan6--my hospice-trained wife who has 25 years in the healthcare biz.

My note is near-identical to the one she wrote, after she gave it much thought and research.

1/ How well do Corvid patients fare on ventilators?

Not well, according to gradually accumulating data. The death rate is high compared to other ailments.

It’s a prolonged torturous process, and the patient can’t be visited, except digitally.
physiciansweekly.com/mortality-rate… 2/ So, some patients may choose (and must be able to insist) that they NOT be vented.

They may prefer to stick with oxygen via cannula, some appropriate drugs, and a family member or care partner on hand.

If they die, it is gentler exit, on terms they chose.

Query/suggestion thread...

What will be the reliable public indicator that a person has tested IMMUNE and can join the “coronacorp” of people who can safely help others and go back to work.

And kind of entity will certify them? In his Wired interview @larrybrilliant said the immune indicator could be a concert bracelet. (He’s long been a friend of the Grateful Dead.)

He didn’t say who would do the certifying.

What do you suggest or predict?

Here’s something the old folks are quietly asking:

Is it worth going to the ICU?

What’s the post-ICU experience?

Compromised? Traumatized? Dead? Totally recovered and joyous?

When things get intense, people are going to self-triage.They need good information to decide with What’s the age breakdown?

40-somethings? Mostly joyous?

80-somethings? Mostly regretful?

How good or bad is it to die at home with this disease?

How does palliative care work with this disease?

A thread on testing for Corvid immunity.

Reportedly about 50% of people who get infected show no symptoms at all.

That makes them dangerously unaware spreaders—(for how many days is still a research question.)

BUT THEN (14 days?) they become immune.

So... ...If they are immune and can prove it with a test, they can resume function in the world without threat of harm to others or themselves.

Ideally the test would show: 1) they had the virus; 2) they now are no longer infectious; 3) they now are immune to further infection.

...

@mattwridley It wasn’t a report, Matt, it was one scenario among several looking at how “abrupt” climate change could play out under worst circumstances, and it wasn’t secret. The client was the Pentagon. We did the work at Global Business Network. I was involved in some of the interviews. @mattwridley This was during the Bush administration, which was in full denial of any climate change. The Pentagon encouraged making the scenario public to help broaden the administration’s mind on the subject. Which it did.