The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign That Saved the 2020 Election. There was a conspiracy unfolding behind the scenes, one that both curtailed the protests and coordinated the resistance from CEOs. Both surprises were the result of an informal alliance between left-wing activists and business titans. The pact was formalized in a terse, little-noticed joint statement of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and AFL-CIO published on Election Day. Both sides would come to see it as a sort of implicit bargain–inspired by the summer’s massive, sometimes destructive racial-justice protests–in which the forces of labor came together with the forces of capital to keep the peace and oppose Donald Trump’s assault on democracy. (more)

Zvi Mowshowitz: Covid-19 2/4: Safe and Effective Vaccines Aplenty. The vaccine data is in. It’s pretty great. We now have six known safe and effective Covid-19 vaccines. The problem is that due to our unwillingness to properly fund the process of scaling up, we are stalling out at about 1.3 million doses per day for a population of 330+ million people each of whom needs two doses. (more)

The United States Chamber of Commerce (USCC) is a business-oriented American lobbying group. Politically, the Chamber usually supports Republican political candidates, though it has occasionally supported conservative Democrats.[2][3] The Chamber is the largest lobbying group in the U.S., spending more money than any other lobbying organization on a yearly basis. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Chamber_of_Commerce (more)

Urban Design Framing: hoping to combine the best aspects of city and village (more)

The rise of the ambient video game (more)

(from 2003) Given that there are a limited number of musical tones, it seems to me there's a limited number of songs that could be written. Could you auto-generate songs and then demand licenses for every new ditty that came out? How about if you simpify the idea to reduce the number of combinations? Just go for a accomplishing a "similar sounding hook", which might be enough to cause trouble. (more)

Family Farm operator - beyond Grass-Fed (more)

Venkatesh Rao: Weirding Diary: 11. We’re barely seven weeks into 2020, and it’s already the weirdest year in my living memory. (more)

there are [n] kinds of people... (more)

Diagram of a customer persona's trip through a product/services experience lifecycle

pseudo-PublicSpace of the Suburb (more)

belief in the existence of One True God (more)

Julian Shapiro: What you should be working on. I spent an hour listing out everything I cared about — from human connection, to self-education, to wealth. In the process, I surprised myself: There is a better way to achieve these goals than pursuing a startup. (more)

Marc Andreessen's "Top 10 sci-fi novelists of the '00s -- so far": Charlie Stross, Richard Morgan, Alastair Reynolds, Ken MacLeod, Peter Hamilton, John Scalzi, Neal Asher, Chris Moriarty, Peter Watts, David Marusek, with bonus Vernor Vinge.

Marc Andreessen on 4 types of Luck (is type4 Magick?) and its importance to the Entrepreneur. Luck is something that every successful entrepreneur will tell you plays a huge role in the difference between success and failure. Many of those successful entrepreneurs will only admit this under duress, though, because if luck does indeed play such a huge role, then that seriously dents the image of the successful entrepreneur as an omniscient business genius. (more)

author: Lolita, Pale Fire, Bend Sinister, Laughter In The Dark, Speak Memory, others... (more)

Prioritized list of Public Policy issues desiring attention by the public from journalists, esp regarding Campaign Coverage. Championed by Jay Rosen: see 2010-08-15-RosenTheCitizensAgendaInCampaignCoverage. (more)

LessWrong writer. https://thezvi.wordpress.com/ https://twitter.com/TheZvi

Coronavirus FAQ: Do Airplane Passengers Not Know There's A Pandemic Going On? In the United States, there is no federal law that requires masking in public spaces. But states do. And U.S. airports follow state public health guidelines in most spaces. (more)

Ezra Klein Opinion: The New COVID-19 Virus Strains Make the Next 6 Weeks Crucial. The B.1.1.7 variant of coronavirus, first seen in Britain, and now spreading throughout Europe, appears to be 30 to 70 percent more contagious, and it may be more lethal, too (more)