Links

Interesting stuff that crossed my radar lately:

• Kara Swisher’s Predictions for 2021 are fun.
• “The boat is still alive, which means it fruits — grows mushrooms — each time they take it out for a paddle.” Nebraska college student grows a mushroom canoe.
• Zeynep Tufekci has been good on the pandemic from the beginning. She’s in The Atlantic this week with an explanation of what the new mutation of the coronavirus means. Key insight: change in transmissibility has exponential effect, while change in lethality has linear effect. The story is more cheerful than the title: The Mutated Virus Is a Ticking Time Bomb.
• President Trump’s attempts to overturn the election in court have failed. His tweets, and his supporters, are hinting at violence when Congress counts the electoral votes on Jan 6. In response, some Republicans in Congress have begun to distance themselves from the President. I was pleased by Senator Sasse’s (R/NE) clear statement against false claims of electoral fraud, and Senator Romney’s (R/UT) on coronavirus vaccine logistics.
• SolarWinds breach update: Microsoft’s resellers were also a vector. More than 250 networks compromised. Attacks staged from servers in the US, exploiting prohibition on NSA monitoring domestically. Software may have been developed in Eastern Europe. US government was the primary target: Treasury, State, Commerce, Energy departments and the Pentagon all infiltrated.