They have been extremely inconsistent. Mask no before saying mask yes. No surprise if people stop trusting their word.

Again, this is a faulty argument. While nobody prevent people from smoking, smoking itself is prohibited in closed places. Same for cars: You don't give rights to drive without training and measures to make sure they are safe. Why? Because it affects others. You are very welcome to get your self exposed to the virus if you wish, but your freedom stops when it endanger someone else. (as for other viruses: It's a false equivalence. If the virus is mild and not-dangerous we don't worry about it, because the measures to contain it vastly undermine the cost of the spreading of the virus (think the cold). But this is no cold.)

Fact is, that is a false argument. Lockdowns are not some sadistic attempt to ruin people life, but a containment measure. Just like safety belts (also containment measures) one can decide that they no longer want to abide to them, but that doesn't make the virus, or the danger go away. This arrogant attitude of deciding that enough is enough not through science and data, but to feelings will lead to more deaths, as this data shows. Besides, we do not know who the superspreaders are, who is really at risk, etc. To be clear: lockdowns are one of the possible measures, but not the only one. Testing, tracing, masks, all can robustly help in containment. But removing the lockdown with nothing to supplement it, is neither smart, effective, both from a public health and economic point of view. As they say: use at your own risk, you have been warned.

This is totally consistent with my experience with the Pixel 2 XL. Despite the sub-par screen, it has been performing great on all front and in particular the battery is keeping up fantastically well (in fact it got better with time and OS updates). It was audacious in its own way (the panda design, the use of the Visual Core chip) at the time when even Apple seemed behind in the "smarts". And I got it refurbished 2 years ago. There has been no reason for me to upgrade, as the 3 and 4 didn't actually deliver anything I wanted, and they changed inconsistenly in what they meant to be, without actually changing where it matters. I don't care about project Soli that amazes people for the first 5 seconds before being forgotten. I care about battery life. This is why as far as I am concerned the top-of-the-line Pixels are dead to me. If I am getting one that would be the cheaper "a" version. Frankly given the products being sold in the past couple of years, I am looking forward to a change in leadership.

I know this is hugely controversial. However: GIven the deep penetration of Google+Apple in phones, a modification to their Maps apps would do the trick. They arguably have the best tech in place for this (as they used the same algorithms to track restaurant busy times), it just needs to be connected to the database for COVID19. Again, I know it's controversial, but look at the current approach (government doing it by themselves): Good luck enforcing and establishing a market penetration sufficiently high to be useful. Good luck making an app that doesn't suck, scales properly and uses the right combination of algorithms. It's not that I don't trust the government, but I know how the government in many countries works (certainly Italy, where I am from). I would personally sacrifice privacy but know that the app is reliable, than have some homegrown app that is in used by 5% the population that when it works doesn't guarantee I am safe from the 95% that don't care about using it.

As I am forced to use it through my work, I never really got why Zoom is so hyped. Despite being around for a while, only recently it has been the preferred go to solutions for online meeting. There is nothing inherently better than other platforms (other than the "just works", which obviously comes at the cost of security or privacy), and yet: despite having a poor track record, being a company with no reputation whatsoever in secure practices, ethically robust software development, companies embracing it with no deep thinking. This includes my employer, who jumped on it on two feet to soon have to put up security measures to contain potential risks (like a teenager jumping with two feet into a new social app). My question is: there are lots of other solutions that have been vetted more, and yet... When possible I prefer to use Meet, not because it's better (although the automated caption makes is fantastic), but because I "trust" Google more than I trust Zoom. And that should tell you something about the reputation of Zoom.

As I am forced to use it through my work, I never really got why Zoom is so hyped. Despite being around for a while, only recently it has been the preferred go to solutions for online meeting. There is nothing inherently better than other platforms, and yet: despite having a poor track record, being a company with no reputation whatsoever in secure practices, ethically robust software development, companies embracing it with no deep thinking. This includes my employer, who jumped on it on two feet to soon have to put up security measures to contain potential risks. My question is: there are lots of other solutions that have been vetted more, and yet... When possible I prefer to use Meet, not because it's better (although the automated caption makes is fantastic), but because I "trust" Google more than I trust Zoom. And that should tell you something about the reputation of Zoom.

Name one successful software company, software development platform, OS, language, anything really, born out of Germany in the past 30 years. As far I know, I can't remember any. Software in Germany has always been considered as an afterthought, you monetize on hardly manufactured goods, not services nor software. The idea that now VW can jumpstart its own platform in a matter of a few years seamlessly and with the German "perfection" they attribute to their hardware (cars), is simply preposterous, arrogant, and frankly dubious, considering that most of that development will be done by German engineers.

Unlikely. He's not aligning himself to any of the favorites or providing a substantial contribution to balance the weaknesses of the front runners, which is often what the VP usually is chosen for.

Looking at the past, yes, he's wrong. For the future, may be not. Fact is, though, that "the real problem is with Yang’s solutions to the problem. It’s not just unrealistic. It’s lazy By tackling problems that may be still in the making or historically wrong, he's ignoring the real ones.

I won't discuss the (de)merits of the research. But saying that the MIT Media Lab is basically "funded" by Epstein, is just as malicious as the research itself. The Media Lab funding sources are vast, and Epstein contribution was literally a drop in the bucket (less that I would normally get for any reasonable grant myself). It almost sounds like the research was bad because of Epstein, when it's just bad. In other words, Epstein and the Media Lab are not the same thing. Very wrong behavior took place, but the Media Lab is much more than that. Let's blame the research as bad for what it is, for once.

The promise is all wrong. Physics is not just great because it actually explains things, but, when well taught, it's an excellent tool for teaching students how to inquire the world, how to be curious, how not to take all for granted. This is, not coincidentally, what the proposed computer science stuff is going to give. Yes, I know, computer science can be creative just the same, but the level of excitement from Microsoft and the likes makes me think this is a way to teach how to use tools, not your brain. Hey, there are are bad physics teacher out there that teach it by memorization. But that's not Physics education fault. I guess the only thing to say is: don't complain if you are raising the next generation of antivaxers, or climate denialists. They will be very proficient in PowerPoint.

Most of our communication related to work could be handled just as well (or better) on email, but it now happens on slack. All non related communication (gossips, etc) that were mostly verbal before are now part of what happens on slack as well. Nice way to add unrelated, social junk in the workplace. I literally uninstalled and open it online once in a while, as I can afford not to be 24/7 on it. Yet, this way it happens to be a poor replacement for email.

A possible example is in federally sponsored bioresearch. If money from the Feds are used, the data needs to be made public. Why not software? The fact that some is bad could be an opportunity to fund it to make it better. I don't really buy the idea that only FOSS software can be bad, while all paid one is worth. The former can be held accountable for its quality but not the latter...

Seriously? Have you even seen the CVD throughput? Besides, looking at the system level, you will have to process massive amount of metal catalysts into sheets from solution. Again, as stated above, even if technically doable, the capex costs are largely prohibitive. There are much cheaper solutions/processes.