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Name Marco von Ballmoos
Member since
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Home page https://earthli.com/users/marco
Description

The (only) developer at earthli.com.

Contents

3736 Articles
113 Comments

5 years Ago

NY Times whistles as it strolls away from the accident it helped cause

Published on in Public Policy & Politics

The article Authorities Arrest Analyst Who Contributed to Steele Dossier by Adam Goldman and Charlie Savage (New York Times) contains the following condemnation of the Steele Dossier.

“An analyst who was a key contributor to Democratic-funded opposition research into possible links between Donald J. Trump and Russia was arrested on Thursday and charged with lying to the F.B.I. about his sources.

“The analyst, Igor Danchenko, was a primary researcher for claims that went into the so-called Steele dossier, a compendium of rumors and unproven... [More]

Why are people not getting vaccinated?

Published on in Science & Nature

People in Switzerland are pretty much done with being vaccinated, according to the video report FOKUS: Impfbereitschaft in der Schweiz am Limit (SRF), Switzerland has managed to fully vaccinate 63% of the population (64% at the time of writing) but pretty much everyone who’s not gotten vaccinated yet is not planning to do so.

“Das Impf-Potential in der Schweiz scheint ausgeschöpft, wie die neuste Sotomo-Studie zeigt. Personen, die jetzt noch eine Impfung ablehnen, haben ihre Meinung gemacht.”

The... [More]

The so-called left in America demands absolute fealty

Published on in Public Policy & Politics

The article Shifts Since Fahrenheit 11/9 by Nick Pemberton (CounterPunch) writes about other writers, lauding one, and slandering a few others, dubbing them the “Trumpenleft”.

“This leads to our third trend, in some ways our hardest pill to swallow, which Paul Street dubs the Trumpenleft. Street sees so clearly the danger of fake populist people like Glenn Greenwald, Saagar Engeti,, Matt Taibi, Dave Chapelle and Joe Rogan who peddle hate as a version of “rebellious” politics that are actually philistine. These people will... [More]”

What is the way forward for power plants?

Published on in Science & Nature

The article Fossil fuels doomed in New York as regulator blocks new gas power plants by Tim De Chant (Ars Technica) writes,

“New York’s climate law requires polluters to account for two sources of emissions: from the plants themselves and from the natural gas supply chain. Once the latter was included—figures which in the past were nearly always ignored when determining a power plant’s pollution—the emissions quickly exceeded the DEC’s thresholds, the decisions say.”

I think that this is a good way of looking at... [More]

DuoLingo’s Gems Screen

Published on in Design

Normally, in a UI, when you click or tap on a thing (e.g. a button), but complete the click or gesture away from that thing, the “tap” or “click” is not signaled. The gesture is ignored because the user did not complete the gesture, aborting the operation. That’s how we’ve been trained; if you press down on something by accident, just move off of it and release and you it won’t count as having been clicked or tapped.

 DuoLingo Gems Purchase ScreenHowever, in the DuoLingo Settings screen—where they’re trying to get you to... [More]

Capsule Movie Reviews Vol.2021.7

Published on in Movies

These are my notes to remember what I watched and kinda what I thought about it. I’ve recently transferred my reviews to IMDb and made the list of around 1600 ratings publicly available. I’ve included the individual ratings with my notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable to each other—I rate the film on how well it suited me for the genre and my mood and. let’s be honest, level of intoxication. YMMV. Also, I make no attempt to avoid spoilers.

Eurovision Song... [More]

Links and Notes for October 29th, 2021

Published on in Notes

Below are links to articles, highlighted passages[1], and occasional annotations[2] for the week ending on the date in the title, enriching the raw data from Instapaper Likes and Twitter. They are intentionally succinct, else they’d be articles and probably end up in the gigantic backlog of unpublished drafts. YMMV.

[1] Emphases are added, unless otherwise noted.
[2] Annotations are only lightly edited.

Table of Contents

So…how’s that whole climate-change thing going?

Published on in Science & Nature

 The article Biden Wakes Up From The Strangest Dream That He Was Attending International Climate Conference (Babylon Bee) is a joke, but…is it really? It feels true, doesn’t it?

I am an optimistic man and, yet, we must be realistic. These people at COP26 are nearly literally all of the same people who’ve done nearly nothing since Kyoto. Remember Kyoto? Nah, no-one does. That was COP3 in 1997. Almost a quarter-century ago. Back then, it was absolutely necessary that something be done. Nothing was done.
... [More]

Links and Notes for October 22nd, 2021

Published on in Notes

Below are links to articles, highlighted passages[1], and occasional annotations[2] for the week ending on the date in the title, enriching the raw data from Instapaper Likes and Twitter. They are intentionally succinct, else they’d be articles and probably end up in the gigantic backlog of unpublished drafts. YMMV.

[1] Emphases are added, unless otherwise noted.
[2] Annotations are only lightly edited.

Table of Contents

To no-one’s surprise at all, Democrats renege on all promises

Published on in Public Policy & Politics

The clown-car, fake-empathy horror-show continues in Washington, as every promise made by the Democrats to the people that elected them to all of their offices are broken. This time, apparently, the Republicans don’t even have to do anything special to torpedo everything—two Democratic senators are torpedoing everything for them. And so it goes.

The article After Paid Leave Plan Gets Chopped, Biden Promises Revamped Spending Proposal by Eric Boehm (Reason) details how the Democrats are axing an expensive part of... [More]

Mexico and Peru’s COVID lethality

Published on in Science & Nature

I was browsing the COVID situation on Corona Zahlen Weltweit yesterday and sorted by %-deaths for the first time. I was quite shocked to see that a sizable country like Mexico had a lethality of 7.6%. Peru is at 9.1%.

 Mexico COVID infection and death rates

The only countries higher than that are the tiny, island nation of Vanuatu (with only 4 infections total), Yemen, Peru, and Sudan. Yemen and Sudan are well-known to be in dire straits six ways from Sunday, with multiple humanitarian crises happening all at once, including war... [More]

Violence is violence

Published on in Quotes

“Liberalism considered it proper for a capitalist to say to a worker, ‘You shall die of hunger,’ but improper for a worker to retort, ‘You shall die first, of a bullet. […] It is ridiculous to make a distinction between these two threats.”

Links and Notes for October 15th, 2021

Published on in Notes

Below are links to articles, highlighted passages[1], and occasional annotations[2] for the week ending on the date in the title, enriching the raw data from Instapaper Likes and Twitter. They are intentionally succinct, else they’d be articles and probably end up in the gigantic backlog of unpublished drafts. YMMV.

[1] Emphases are added, unless otherwise noted.
[2] Annotations are only lightly edited.

Table of Contents

Links and Notes for October 8th, 2021

Published on in Notes

Below are links to articles, highlighted passages[1], and occasional annotations[2] for the week ending on the date in the title, enriching the raw data from Instapaper Likes and Twitter. They are intentionally succinct, else they’d be articles and probably end up in the gigantic backlog of unpublished drafts. YMMV.

[1] Emphases are added, unless otherwise noted.
[2] Annotations are only lightly edited.

Table of Contents

Links and Notes for October 1st, 2021

Published on in Notes

Below are links to articles, highlighted passages[1], and occasional annotations[2] for the week ending on the date in the title, enriching the raw data from Instapaper Likes and Twitter. They are intentionally succinct, else they’d be articles and probably end up in the gigantic backlog of unpublished drafts. YMMV.

[1] Emphases are added, unless otherwise noted.
[2] Annotations are only lightly edited.

Table of Contents

Links and Notes for September 24th, 2021

Published on in Notes

Below are links to articles, highlighted passages[1], and occasional annotations[2] for the week ending on the date in the title, enriching the raw data from Instapaper Likes and Twitter. They are intentionally succinct, else they’d be articles and probably end up in the gigantic backlog of unpublished drafts. YMMV.

[1] Emphases are added, unless otherwise noted.
[2] Annotations are only lightly edited.

Table of Contents

Links and Notes for September 17th, 2021

Published on in Notes

Below are links to articles, highlighted passages[1], and occasional annotations[2] for the week ending on the date in the title, enriching the raw data from Instapaper Likes and Twitter. They are intentionally succinct, else they’d be articles and probably end up in the gigantic backlog of unpublished drafts. YMMV.

[1] Emphases are added, unless otherwise noted.
[2] Annotations are only lightly edited.

Table of Contents

Capsule Movie Reviews Vol.2021.6

Published on in Movies

Libertarian James Bond

Published on in Fun

I think this was actually quite well done and is quite funny. “I was literally a different person then.”

Libertarian James Bond
by Reason (YouTube)

 

Kindle Books Written by AIs Vol.2021.3

Published on in Books

This is the latest roundup of book titles that my Kindle shows me when I’m not reading it. Long ago, I considered paying to turn off this advertising, but it’s proven to be so entertaining that I’m happy I never gave in and did it. This is a view into what people are reading or what Amazon would like people to be reading or … whatever. I simply observe and catalog. I also sometimes have to hide my Kindle in public places so that no-one calls the police for what they think I’m reading.[1]

Bad... [More]

Links and Notes for September 3rd, 2021

Published on in Notes

Below are links to articles, highlighted passages[1], and occasional annotations[2] for the week ending on the date in the title, enriching the raw data from Instapaper Likes and Twitter. They are intentionally succinct, else they’d be articles and probably end up in the gigantic backlog of unpublished drafts. YMMV.

[1] Emphases are added, unless otherwise noted.
[2] Annotations are only lightly edited.

Table of Contents

Links and Notes for September 10th, 2021

Published on in Notes

Below are links to articles, highlighted passages[1], and occasional annotations[2] for the week ending on the date in the title, enriching the raw data from Instapaper Likes and Twitter. They are intentionally succinct, else they’d be articles and probably end up in the gigantic backlog of unpublished drafts. YMMV.

[1] Emphases are added, unless otherwise noted.
[2] Annotations are only lightly edited.

Table of Contents

The vaccine-reluctant

Published on in Science & Nature

From a comment on the article, Vaccine Success, Media Misery: Is Good News Taboo in the Trump Age? by Matt Taibbi (TK News)

“I find it interesting that for all the takes on who will and who won’t take the vaccine- and why- a simple reason is commonly overlooked: For many people in good health and of a certain age group, the virus poses little to no real threat. Yes, there have been terrible cases reported in surprising victims, but as far as the data goes, they continue to be anomalies.”

This is exactly the kind of... [More]

Capsule Movie Reviews Vol.2021.5

Published on in Movies

These are my notes to remember what I watched and kinda what I thought about it. I’ve recently transferred my reviews to IMDb and made the list of around 1600 ratings publicly available. I’ve included the individual ratings with my notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable to each other—I rate the film on how well it suited me for the genre and my mood and. let’s be honest, level of intoxication. YMMV. Also, I make no attempt to avoid spoilers.

Creed II (2018) — 5/10... [More]

Links and Notes for August 27th, 2021

Published on in Notes

Below are links to articles, highlighted passages[1], and occasional annotations[2] for the week ending on the date in the title, enriching the raw data from Instapaper Likes and Twitter. They are intentionally succinct, else they’d be articles and probably end up in the gigantic backlog of unpublished drafts. YMMV.

[1] Emphases are added, unless otherwise noted.
[2] Annotations are only lightly edited.

Table of Contents

Economy... [More]

Links and Notes for August 20th, 2021

Published on in Notes

Below are links to articles, highlighted passages[1], and occasional annotations[2] for the week ending on the date in the title, enriching the raw data from Instapaper Likes and Twitter. They are intentionally succinct, else they’d be articles and probably end up in the gigantic backlog of unpublished drafts. YMMV.

[1] Emphases are added, unless otherwise noted.
[2] Annotations are only lightly edited.

Table of Contents

Links and Notes for August 13th, 2021

Published on in Notes

Below are links to articles, highlighted passages[1], and occasional annotations[2] for the week ending on the date in the title, enriching the raw data from Instapaper Likes and Twitter. They are intentionally succinct, else they’d be articles and probably end up in the gigantic backlog of unpublished drafts. YMMV.

[1] Emphases are added, unless otherwise noted.
[2] Annotations are only lightly edited.

Table of Contents

Links and Notes for August 6th, 2021

Published on in Notes

Below are links to articles, highlighted passages[1], and occasional annotations[2] for the week ending on the date in the title, enriching the raw data from Instapaper Likes and Twitter. They are intentionally succinct, else they’d be articles and probably end up in the gigantic backlog of unpublished drafts. YMMV.

[1] Emphases are added, unless otherwise noted.
[2] Annotations are only lightly edited.

Table of Contents

Google Maps is murderously optimistic about the navigability of some roads

Published on in Technology & Engineering

The other day, we wanted to hike L’Argentine, a challenging day-hike in the canton of Vaud in Switzerland. It starts and ends in a little “town” called Solalex. I put the “town” in quotes because it’s really just a couple of restaurants, a tiny museum, a couple of tiny shops and a few farmhouses. It’s lovely, but it wasn’t, in retrospect, surprising that the navigation system in the car didn’t know where it was.[1]

We knew a town on the way (Villars sur Ollon), but otherwise weren’t so sure of... [More]

When two is equivalent to one

Published on in Quotes

“The United States is also a one-party state but, with typical American extravagance, they have two of them.”
Julius Nyerere
“There is only one party in the United States, the Property Party…and it has two right wings: Republican and Democrat. Republicans are a bit stupider, more rigid, more doctrinaire in their laissez-faire capitalism than the Democrats, who are cuter, prettier, a bit more corrupt − until recently… and more willing than the Republicans to make small adjustments when the poor, the black,... [More]”
Gore Vidal in the 1970s