Webb Space Telescope Mirrors Deploy Successfully
Congratulations to NASA, the ESA, and the CSA today as the Webb Space Telescope hit a major milestone – the 5 solar shields had previously unfolded and positioned, and today the 18 hexagonal segments comprising the primary mirror completed a successful deployment and locked into place. One more burn before it gets to L2!
More data suggesting Omicron may well cause less severe disease
From Paul Sax’s HIV and ID Observations blog:
“What I’m about to write does not in any way to diminish how awful the pandemic is right now for just about everyone. But looking at the evidence and clinical experience on severity, I’m going to poke the beast and conclude that Omicron does appear milder.”
His post and corroborating data here.
Fingers crossed it really is the case, and that Omicron can outcompete any new more virulent variants that might appear.
RIP to a great naturalist and human being
R.I.P., E.O.Wilson. Thank you for your many contributions.
Randall Munroe strikes again
Randall Munroe strikes again at XKCD.com:
On NFTs
Matt Levine, giving you one way to think about NFTs in the Me elsewhere/NFT Stuff section of his December 20 column:
‘Meanwhile there is another strand of thinking that is like “human life takes place increasingly online, and whereas people used to get meaning out of being seen promenading in the plaza in fancy clothes, now they get meaning out of being seen promenading on Twitter with fancy Bored Ape avatars, and we are finding ways to create artificial scarcity and gradations of status there and sell those gradations for a lot of money.” And here, I mean, I see the point of “human life takes place increasingly online,” but I do not really see the point “so I have spent $20,000 on a pixelated JPEG of an ape to use as my Twitter avatar because people will think that’s cool.” It’s possible that I am just not cool, though! In 10 years maybe everyone will spend thousands of dollars on their avatars and only crusty weird nerds will be like, “No, I will just wear a burlap sack to promenade in the plaza, it keeps the wind out, that’s all I need.”’
I love his sense of humor. He goes on to say:
“…these relatively sophisticated ways of thinking about NFTs reflect of course a tiny minority of NFT projects. Most are just “let me scam some crypto bros who have too much money.” I would not buy those.”
And now for some much needed humor…
Matt Levine’s Money Stuff is a wonderful reminder of the madness inherent in our modern world. He’s brilliantly dissected the TMTG SPAC PIPE and in today’s post has an incredibly funny take on Big’s Peloton-related fate in HBO Max’s “And Just Like That…”. A totally fictional streaming video episode manages to cause a billion dollar shift in PTON’s real-world market value, forcing the company to issue a statement with a cardiologist’s post mortem re. the real (?fictional) cause of death. What a crazy world we live in.
For more, see Birds Aren’t Real in the Times…
Miles to go, but some progress is being made…
Might as well add some positivity to the discussion; the often curmudgeonly John McWhorter argues that there are some signs of progress around us in his NYT Believe It or Not, I Like Some Things in Our Progressive Era opinion column.
Happy Thanksgiving
Glad to breathe a sigh of relief after the Arbery decision lets us move more gracefully to a holiday that should rightfully be imbued with gratitude. Wishing everyone a very happy Thanksgiving!
The State of Fusion
Rivka Galchen writes well about the current state of research into functional, energy-positive fusion reactors in her article in The New Yorker, Can Nuclear Fusion Put the Brakes on Climate Change? It’s a worthwhile read.