It always sucks when things make it harder for people to communicate, but I’m having a hard time feeling bad about this happening to Facebook.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/24/21193094/facebook-coronavirus-covid-19-messaging-service-reliable-strain-outages

I’ve been watching people stream this. It looks good! It seems like a really deep experience that’s unfortunately still out of reach for a lot of people.

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/03/half-life-alyx-review-the-greatest-vr-adventure-game-yet-and-then-some/

“There really is no middle ground, and it’s very tough to say to people, ‘Hey, keep going to restaurants, go buy new houses, ignore that pile of bodies over in the corner. We want you to keep spending because there’s maybe a politician who thinks GDP growth is all that counts,’” Gates said in an interview with TED Tuesday. “It’s very irresponsible for somebody to suggest that we can have the best of both worlds.”

https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/3/24/21192638/coronavirus-bill-gates-trump-reopen-business

I’ve been hearing about this over the past few days. Loss of smell and/or taste might be a symptom of COVID-19. If you’re experiencing anything like that, it’s a good idea to self isolate until you’re feeling normal again.

Hopefully sometime soon I’ll be able to give the better advice of getting a home testing kit in this case.

https://time.com/5809037/coronavirus-sense-of-smell-taste/

Some resources for helping with COVID-19 relief.

https://www.nytimes.com/article/coronavirus-how-to-help-donations-charities.html

I bought some anti-viral tissues recently just because I saw them while I was shopping and figured it was a decent thing to get. But every time I used one I wondered if they actually helped at all. I finally looked it up and… nah, they don’t really seem that effective.

https://www.verywellhealth.com/are-antiviral-tissues-worth-using-4140253

Some interesting predictions here. Some of them seem far fetched but some make a lot of sense.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/03/19/coronavirus-effect-economy-life-society-analysis-covid-135579

This guy has been completely irresponsible with his public statements for a while now. He really needs to do better.

https://www.businessinsider.com/twitter-misinformation-elon-musk-children-coronavirus-2020-3

Really? 🙄

https://www.cbr.com/coronavirus-gamestop-defies-quarantine-claims-essential-retail/

The US Federal government doesn’t have the ability to impose a national quarantine. Turns out this was just a rumor.

https://www.vox.com/2020/3/16/21181486/stafford-act-text-message-hoax-coronavirus-national-quarantine-trump

I saw someone ask why we’re closing events right now when we know the virus will be around for a long while. This article might help answer that question. (It’s about health care)

https://www.vox.com/2020/3/15/21180342/coronavirus-covid-19-us-social-distancing

All over America, the coronavirus is revealing, or at least reminding us, just how much of contemporary American life is bullshit, with power structures built on punishment and fear as opposed to our best interest. Whenever the government or a corporation benevolently withdraws some punitive threat because of the coronavirus, it’s a signal that there was never any good reason for that threat to exist in the first place.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/03/coronavirus-tsa-liquid-purell-paid-leave-rules.html

I have definitely been thinking about this a lot lately.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/should-you-clean-your-phone-to-combat-coronavirus-definitely-maybe-11584018237

I feel like Apple is in a much worse state than when they did the PowerPC to Intel transition, so I predict this Intel to ARM one will be a long, sloppy mess.

https://mondaynote.com/arm-ed-mac-not-again-or-for-real-this-time-a3548eece86

Okay, my (very) limited understanding of quantum computing is that it could be exponentially more powerful than classical computing, but right now there are some problems like total running time (milliseconds? nanoseconds?) and very noisy data (considering that’s just quantum mechanics work). This project is machine learning (the thing people have been calling AI for a while) ON quantum computers to help with noisy data, and a bridge between quantum data and classical data.

I can’t tell if this is the beginning of the end of the human race OR just the only way we’ll ever get useful data out of quantum computing at all.

https://ai.googleblog.com/2020/03/announcing-tensorflow-quantum-open.html

Spread these memes instead of the virus. Stay safe out there!

https://www.vox.com/2020/3/9/21162031/wash-your-hands-coronavirus-memes

I was really into the first episode. Especially the music/sounds. I’m really liking viewing the Bay Area as a weird, creepy place instead of a tech utopia.

https://www.vulture.com/2020/03/devs-review-alex-garland-hulu-series.html

I played Final Fantasy 7 when it first came out and put a lot of hours into it. I got all the way to the last fight, but then figured I would go back and level up first. But then I thought it would be a good idea to find all the good weapons before the fight. I did side quests for months after that but never actually went back to the boss and beat the game.

I’m gonna actually do it this time.

https://www.polygon.com/2020/3/2/21160767/final-fantasy-7-remake-hands-on-impressions-ps4

NYC Weed Truck Parking

I can’t see how Apple gets through all this without a lot of pain.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/03/report-offers-a-closer-look-at-apples-relationship-with-china-during-a-crisis/