2021

As one example, during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, American destroyers attacked three Soviet submarines near Cuba and forced them to surface. No American, not even President Kennedy or his military advisors, knew that each of those submarines carried a nuclear torpedo. According to an officer on one of those submarines, its captain gave orders to arm the nuclear torpedo, but was talked down. The captain’s order makes more sense when one remembers that the last he had heard before submerging was that World War III seemed imminent; he was under attack; and surfacing would be a humiliating defeat....

it’s meta + elites the whole way down. ny review of books ny review of books “worthy” reviewer elite author who writes for the atlantic, etc., still, the reviewer here does a solid job of being grounded and taking a critical look at the book and the author’s perspective. based on this review, i don’t think i’ll be buying the book. honestly, i found the reviwer’s take here to be a pretty solid damnation of the perspective of a lot of liberals....

zeynep tufekci thread on blocking the noise on twitter to actually see the interesting feedback and responses. – 20240813: pointer to tweet removed meta location: Minneapolis weather: 1.4°F and Cloudy

an excellent 99% invisible episode about the minneapolis skyways. these are truly a mixed bag. but today, it was -19F when i woke up. at midday, it’s -10F. we definitely need to do something about the unwelcoming nature of the skyways. i’m not ready to give up on them yet. – https://overcast.fm/+DCoaTMQ meta location: Minneapolis weather: -9.4°F and Clear

misc. reading … The researchers set out to better understand recent studies showing that self-described liberals are likelier than people who call themselves conservative to shield themselves from contact with their ideological out-group, including by blocking them on social media and cutting out would-be friends because of their views. … For example, data from the 2018 Cooperative Congressional Election Study corroborated the asymmetry between the groups, showing that liberals are more likely than conservatives to report both blocking and being blocked over political differences....