Osama Bin Laden's Animal Crossing Village
And other links I enjoyed this week
📎 Links:
European Union to Ban Gas-Powered Cars by 2035 - Melissa Eddy, NYTimes:
Proponents say the legislation will create certainty for the auto industry by encouraging governments to invest funds needed to develop infrastructure for battery-powered vehicles, including expanding the charging network.
DC cop often fed information to Proud Boys leader - Michael Kunzelman, AP
A federal prosecutor showed jurors a string of messages that Metropolitan Police Lt. Shane Lamond and Tarrio privately exchanged in the run-up to a mob’s attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Lamond, an intelligence officer for the city’s police department, was responsible for monitoring groups like the Proud Boys when they came to Washington for protests.
Osama Bin Laden's Animal Crossing save - Reddit’s r/lostmedia:
We know that Osama Bin Laden played Wild World on an Emulator. That being said the FBI hasn't released his town. Is their a chance they still have it? And if so would it be possible to like FOIA request it and get the save running to explore?
149,817 People Agree With Me, 58,782 Disagree, Veratasium, Youtube:
Probability puzzle: Sleeping Beauty volunteers to be the subject of an experiment. And before it starts she's informed of the procedure. On Sunday night she will be put to sleep. And then a fair coin will be flipped. If that coin comes up heads, she'll be awakened on Monday and then put back to sleep. If the coin comes up Tails she will also be awakened on Monday and put back to sleep. But then she will be awakened on Tuesday as well and then put back to sleep. Now each time she gets put back to sleep, she will forget that she was ever awakened. In the brief period anytime she's awake, she will be told no information. But she'll be asked one question: What do you believe is the probability that the coin came up heads?
📘 Books:
Sea of Tranquility, by Emily St. John Mandel (⏳)
I Am Lucy Barton, by Elizabeth Strout (👍)
These Truths, by Jill Lepore (👍)
🧠 Thinking about: News coverage
One of the things I was surprised about when I started my career was how normal most of my colleagues were and how much a mission-driven vocation like journalism was driven by the same realities that the rest of life is. Sometimes national news coverage is worse because someone is tired from a bad night's sleep, sometimes stories get less coverage because they're just more work to do and someone decides, for good reasons or bad ones, that it isn't worth the effort.
I was asked by a friend early in the week why the train derailment in Ohio wasn't getting more attention ("Why isn't the news covering this?"). At first, I smarted: how did you hear about it if the news isn't covering it? ("Social media"). And, of course, the news *is* covering it — but his real question — and its a good one — was why isn't it being treated with the same priority as other stories given how dire it seems.
And the answer is probably complicated: it's not a place national newsrooms have staff in driving distance of so it takes longer to dispatch reporters, it's not a story that will have a lot of iterative developments so it can be hard to continue to write new articles about it, and it's concerns subjects that the folks who usually get published above-the-fold don't have a lot of ready-to-go expertise on (transportation regulation and hazardous material rules). It's not lost on me that it, for a long time, was the same issue that kept climate out of the headlines.
I haven't been involved in any coverage choices around this story in particular, but the question has led me back to a well-trod personal rabbit hole: news is made of people who are making decisions based on practical and personal realities like any other place of employment. And realizing that from the inside has made me think about how its true everywhere: doctors and builders and air-traffic controllers. And everyone is out there, we all hope, just trying their best.