By Lambert Strether of Corrente.
Patient readers, this has been quite a week for me, and Mercury isn’t even in retrograde. First, my time-slip on Monday. Then, my taxi driver raised the power window up while my fingers were still on the glass (no damage, fortunately). The counterpoint to all this was Twitter fighting every inch of the way not to give me a new count. Thursday I had to buy a new charger for my phone. Then today I had a domestic debacle — happily resolved! — with the result that this Water Cooler is thin. All during a fundraiser (for which the Tip Jar is here). My apologies. I will first walk the numbers, assuming PayPal lets me in, and then add some orts and scraps. Pressing onward… –lambert UPDATE Finished!
While you wait, here are some comments from kind readers:
JA: “Thanks for insight and laughs.”
MC: “Thanks for all the hard work, interesting ideas, and plants!” You’re welcome, but readers bring the plants!
SV: “A day late but hopefully not a dollar short.”
JBB: “I’ll try to donate more next time.” Perhaps a reader who got lucky can pick up the slack?
Patient and generous readers, 🌡️ We are at 371 donors. 371 donors / goal of 375 = 98.93%. Thank you! Thank you! I would say we hit the mark, though nothing prevents the hard-core procrastinator from clicking the Tip Jar now. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Bird Song of the Day
Eastern Bluebird, Spotsylvania, Virginia, United States. “Female scold chatter with newly fledged young.”
Politics
“So many of the social reactions that strike us as psychological are in fact a rational management of symbolic capital.” –Pierre Bourdieu, Classification Struggles
Biden Administration
“Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is calling once again for the impeachment of Clarence Thomas — and suggesting she’ll introduce articles herself if no one else will” [Politico]. “Despite the latest round of outrage about Thomas, it’s unlikely Ocasio-Cortez, who’s also embracing a leadership role on the House Oversight Committee, will be able to push other Democrats further given the lack of appetite in the party to impeach. Democratic leaders have been harshly critical of Thomas and have continued to push for more stringent court ethics.” • So “push for” is like “fighting for”? But not so much?
2024
“Democrats are gaming out how to run against an indicted Trump” [NBC]. “When news broke earlier this month that Donald Trump would be indicted in New York, leaders of a pro-Joe Biden group met privately to decide what to do. Should they fire off tweets broadcasting what had happened, or maybe send an email blast opining on Trump’s fate? [shocker]. ‘Why get your hands dirty if you don’t have to?’ a person familiar with the group’s thinking said, speaking on condition of anonymity to talk freely. ‘When you get into the ring with him [Trump] in this capacity, you’re no better than he is.’ Wait, what? How are you “fighting for” when you don’t even get in the ring? More: “Lacking any precedent, an ecosystem of Democratic strategists, Biden loyalists and outside groups is gaming out how to wring advantage from Trump’s mushrooming legal woes. They’ve reached no consensus and, for now, are feeling their way through a fraught moment that presents both opportunity and peril for all sides, interviews with more than a dozen political operatives suggest.” • So no planning was done before the indictment?
Wow, it sure is a coincidence that AI’s first assault on a political figure is Trump:
A slew of AI-generated images appeared to show Donald Trump’s mug shot on Tuesday — even though he never took one during his booking and arraignment. @AliSwenson fact checks the fake images here ⬇️. https://t.co/J2cd0XCLFy pic.twitter.com/X10Av28fyg
— The Associated Press (@AP) April 7, 2023
“A once reluctant Harris embraces her biracial identity in Africa” [Los Angeles Times]. • I sense a shift in the conventional wisdom. First, Harris was Indian. Next, Harris was Black. Now, she’s Black-Indian. My head is spinning! As for the mandatory initialism, I guess BI is out. Perhaps IB, surprisingly open for appropriation (“International Baccalaureate,” like no, although “Inspired By” is what the kids on social media are meaning. Not, oddly, “Irritable Bowel.” And when IB+?)
“These Airlines Charge Families Extra To Sit Together” [Forbes]. “‘Parents traveling with young kids should be able to sit together without an airline forcing them to pay junk fees,’ said Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg in a statement. ‘We have been pressing airlines to guarantee family seating without tacking on extra charges, and now we’re seeing some airlines start to make this common-sense change. All airlines should do this promptly, even as we move forward to develop a rule establishing this as a requirement across the board.’” • Attaboy, Pete! Paste ’em one for me!
“Opinion: If Gavin Newsom really wanted to go after Big Oil, here’s what he would do” [Los Angeles Times]. “[A]fter the fossil fuel industry used the state’s referendum process to stall a critical law banning new or reworked oil and gas wells within 3,200 feet of homes, schools, parks and healthcare facilities, the governor decried the move. He said in a statement that he was proud to have signed the setback measure, Senate Bill 1137, “to stop new oil drilling in our neighborhoods and protect California families.’ Since Newsom’s statement, however, his administration’s oil agency, the California Geologic Energy Management Division, or CalGEM, has approved hundreds of permits to rework existing oil and gas wells and continue dangerous operations within setback zones. CalGEM has approved a total of 897 permits since the beginning of the year, 62% of which are within the zones that would be protected by SB 1137.”
Republican Funhouse
Democrats en Déshabillé
Patient readers, it seems that people are actually reading the back-dated post! But I have not updated it, and there are many updates. So I will have to do that. –lambert
I have moved my standing remarks on the Democrat Party (“the Democrat Party is a rotting corpse that can’t bury itself”) to a separate, back-dated post, to which I will periodically add material, summarizing the addition here in a “live” Water Cooler. (Hopefully, some Bourdieu.) It turns out that defining the Democrat Party is, in fact, a hard problem. I do think the paragraph that follows is on point all the way back to 2016, if not before:
The Democrat Party is the political expression of the class power of PMC, their base (lucidly explained by Thomas Frank in Listen, Liberal!). ; if the Democrat Party did not exist, the PMC would have to invent it. . (“PMC” modulo “class expatriates,” of course.) Second, all the working parts of the Party reinforce each other. Leave aside characterizing the relationships between elements of the Party (ka-ching, but not entirely) those elements comprise a network — a Flex Net? An iron octagon? — of funders, vendors, apparatchiks, electeds, NGOs, and miscellaneous mercenaries, with assets in the press and the intelligence community.
Note, of course, that the class power of the PMC both expresses and is limited by other classes; oligarchs and American gentry (see ‘industrial model’ of Ferguson, Jorgensen, and Jie) and the working class spring to mind. Suck up, kick down.
* * *
Realignment and Legitimacy
“What is Bohemian Grove? The secretive camp linked to Clarence Thomas.” [WaPo]. “Bohemian Grove has all the hallmarks of an eyebrow-raiser: The men’s-only retreat in Sonoma County has a massive owl statue, a reported history of public urination, mysterious ceremonies and a top-secret guest list that has included presidents, wealthy businessmen, international power players and other newsmakers. That list also includes Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who has reportedly attended the retreat with billionaire friend and Republican donor Harlan Crow…. Today, there are roughly 2,600 active members and a ‘sizeable waiting list for admission,’ according to the club’s website.” • There are not very many of the Shing.
#COVID19
“I am in earnest — I will not equivocate — I will not excuse — I will not retreat a single inch — AND I WILL BE HEARD.” –William Lloyd Garrison
Resources, United States (National): Transmission (CDC); Wastewater (CDC, Biobot; includes many counties); Variants (CDC; Walgreens); “Iowa COVID-19 Tracker” (in IA, but national data).
Lambert here: Readers, thanks for the collective effort. We are now up to 50/50 states (100%). This is really great! (It occurs to me that there are uses to which this data might be put, beyond helping people with “personal risk assessments” appropriate to their state. For example, thinking pessimistically, we might maintain the list and see which states go dark and when. We might also tabulate the properties of each site and look for differences and commonalities, for example the use of GIS (an exercise in Federalism). I do not that CA remains a little sketchy; it feels a little odd that there’s no statewide site, but I’ve never been able to find one. Also, my working assumption was that each state would have one site. That’s turned out not to be true; see e.g. ID. Trivially, it means I need to punctuate this list properly. Less trivially, there may be more local sites that should be added. NY city in NY state springs to mind, but I’m sure there are others. FL also springs to mind as a special case, because DeSantis will most probably be a Presidental candidate, and IIRC there was some foofra about their state dashboard. Thanks again!
Resources, United States (Local): AK (dashboard); AL (dashboard); AR (dashboard); AZ (dashboard); CA (dashboard; Marin); CO (dashboard; wastewater); CT (dashboard); DE (dashboard); FL (wastewater); GA (wastewater); HI (dashboard); IA (wastewater reports); ID (dashboard, Boise; dashboard, wastewater, Central Idaho; wastewater, Coeur d’Alene; dashboard, Spokane County); IL (wastewater); IN (dashboard); KS (dashboard; wastewater, Lawrence); KY (dashboard, Louisville); LA (dashboard); MA (wastewater); MD (dashboard); ME (dashboard); MI (wastewater; wastewater); MN (dashboard); MO (wastewater); MS (dashboard); MT (dashboard); NC (dashboard); ND (dashboard; wastewater); NE (dashboard); NH (wastewater); NJ (dashboard); NM (dashboard); NV (dashboard; wastewater, Southern NV); NY (dashboard); OH (dashboard); OK (dashboard); OR (dashboard); PA (dashboard); RI (dashboard); SC (dashboard); SD (dashboard); TN (dashboard); TX (dashboard); UT (wastewater); VA (dashboard); VT (dashboard); WA (dashboard; dashboard); WI (wastewater); WV (wastewater); WY (wastewater).
Resources, Canada (National): Wastewater (Government of Canada).
Resources, Canada (Provincial): ON (wastewater); QC (les eaux usées); BC, Vancouver (wastewater).
Hat tips to helpful readers: Art_DogCT, B24S, CanCyn, ChiGal, Chuck L, Festoonic, FM, FreeMarketApologist (4), Gumbo, hop2it, JB, JEHR, JF, JL Joe, John, JM (9), JW, KatieBird, LL, Michael King, KF, LaRuse, mrsyk, MT, otisyves, Petal (5), RK (2), RL, RM, Rod, square coats (11), tennesseewaltzer, Utah, Bob White (3). (Readers, if you leave your link in comments, I credit you by your handle. If you send it to me via email, I use your initials (in the absence of a handle. I am not putting your handle next to your contribution because I hope and expect the list will be long, and I want it to be easy for readers to scan.)
• More like this, please! Total: 1 6 11 18 20 22 26 27 28 38 39 43 47 50/50 (94% of US states).
Look for the Helpers
“Introducing: The Covid Underground” [Covid Underground]. The deck: “Welcome to The Covid Underground, a newsletter for the Covid-free movement and all of those who continue to avoid infection.” More: “True health is the ability to change. About 10-30% of the U.S. population has changed their lives in the light of the freeing revelations of 2020, and we keep changing. We are dynamically, creatively faithful to what was— briefly— plain to all: normal is a dangerous illusion.” • Worth a read.
“Covid Meetups” [COVID MEETUPS (JM)]. “A free service to find individuals, families and local businesses/services who take COVID precautions in your area.” • I played around with it some. It seems to be Facebook-driven, sadly, but you can use the Directory without logging in. I get rational hits from the U.S., but not from London, UK, FWIW.
Finding like-minded people on (sorry) Facebook:
Thought I’d add this here in case anyone is interested. Places to find people who “Still Covid” in your area & online: https://t.co/T4ND4XbrpF & https://t.co/sP5wq4fAw5 You can also search on FB “Still Coviding ____” & see if there’s a specific group on your area.
— Adriel Rose (@adriel_rose) March 1, 2023
Maskstravaganza
“Several Vermont hospitals loosen masking restrictions for patients and staff” [VT Digger]. “Patients and employees at University of Vermont Health Network’s three Vermont hospitals will no longer be required to wear masks in public spaces beginning April 12, the organization announced Thursday. The change will affect the University of Vermont Medical Center in Burlington, Central Vermont Medical Center in Berlin and Porter Medical Center in Middlebury. Dartmouth Health also announced a rollback of its masking requirements for patients, visitors and staff at all of its affiliated offices effective April 10. That includes Mt. Ascutney Hospital in Windsor and the network’s flagship hospital, Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, New Hampshire. Southwestern Vermont Medical Center in Bennington, which is joining Dartmouth Health, is also doing away with mask requirements as of April 10, except for people with cold or flu-like symptoms.” BRAIN GENIUS: “[UVM Health Network President Dr. Stephen Leffler] said that .” • Either lawsuits, or occupations.
Good public relations copy in Gallant’s tweet, and I mean that as a compliment:
“Living with it” should not mean pretending it’s not there.
The virus is out there living it’s best life whether we believe in it or not.
Mask up, friends. It’s the loving thing to do. 💗😷💗 https://t.co/4CTOenpTla
— Nikkie Gallant (@nikkie_music) March 30, 2023
More good public relations copy:
In the early days of COVID, I spent time making sure my son understood why it is so important to wear a mask.
We mask to protect ourselves.
We mask for our loved ones who are vulnerable.
We mask for each other.
We mask because we care.#CovidIsNotOver pic.twitter.com/OCJJDjMRjj
— L M M (@newfymainlander) April 6, 2023
Good nurses gone bad:
😓😷🤒 all they needed was Bonnie Henry ok 🤢🆘
They work with the elderly 😭#CovidIsNotOver #bcpoli#COVIDisAirborne #MaskUp pic.twitter.com/AzfzskDbWL— cynthia w Nelson (@cindian1) April 7, 2023
I can’t verify the quote. However:
NURSE: We had lots of smiles all around!
NARRATOR: And that nurse’s smiling face was the last thing your grandmother saw.
Scientific Communication
The road to a pandemic is paved with good intentions:
What nimrod got surgical masks into all the Clip-Art books (or whatever graphic artists use these days), instead of N95s?
#MaskShowsLove #MaskUp #MasksSaveLives #ProtectTheVulnerable #ShowYouCare #NoExplanationNeeded #MyMaskMyLife #MyMaskYourLife don’t ask stupid questions, stare like I’m am alien. No explanation required. #CareForOthers wear a mask. #MaskUp #CovidIsntOver pic.twitter.com/vfau2tPGD2
— SunsetWarrior (@Namasteprecious) April 3, 2023
Earloops cannot provide a tight seal!
Here is another example:
Hurting, excluding and killing vulnerable people is a decision. It’s democide.@AlboMP @Mark_Butler_MP @JEChalmers @billshortenmp @AnnastaciaMP #EqualRights #CleanAir #CovidIsNotOver #DisabledRights #Eugenics pic.twitter.com/T1pqtc27LY
— Hemlock 🕷 (@hausofhemlock) April 1, 2023
Why does airborne transmission always get erased?
My husband came home from work early today looking like death & sporting a 39degree or 102degree temperature. Took a rat test & it immediately showed two bright lines. In 22 years of marriage I have never seen him so broken & sick. Be vigilant NZ, covid is not over! #MaskUp pic.twitter.com/KGQkCpApIC
— KIWIChar (@char_kiwi) April 6, 2023
The poster is about #1 fomites (no cases), and #2, #3, #4 droplet dogma (#CovidIsAirborne, and floats in the air like smoke; the three-foot distance is useless). #5 is correct, although CDC helpfully reduced the recommended time at home such that infected people went back to work.
Sequelae
“Defense Department mistakenly detains Delta pilot in Boston hotel after team goes to wrong room in training exercise” [NBC]. “A guest at a Boston hotel was mistakenly detained during a federal training exercise Tuesday after participants went to the wrong room, the FBI said. The incident unfolded about 10 p.m. during a Defense Department training exercise, the FBI said. The agency did not name the person who was accidentally detained. The detained guest was a Delta pilot, a law enforcement source said.” • Brain fog!
Elite Malfeasance
Looks like “leveling off to a high plateau” across the board. (I still think “Something Awful” is coming, however. I mean, besides what we already know about.) Stay safe out there!
Case Data
BioBot wastewater data from April 6:
Lambert here: The decline did not bottom out; my pessism was happily unwarranted. However, note that if we look at “the area under the curve,” more people have died after Biden declared that “Covid is over” than before. And this will continue.
For now, I’m going to use this national wastewater data as the best proxy for case data (ignoring the clinical case data portion of this chart, which in my view “goes bad” after March 2022, for reasons as yet unexplained). At least we can spot trends, and compare current levels to equivalent past levels.
Covid Emergency Room Visits
NOT UPDATED From CDC NCIRD Surveillance, from April 1:
NOTE “Charts and data provided by CDC, updates Wednesday by 8am. For the past year, using a rolling 52-week period.” So not the entire pandemic, FFS (the implicit message here being that Covid is “just like the flu,” which is why the seasonal “rolling 52-week period” is appropriate for bothMR SUBLIMINAL I hate these people so much. Anyhow, I added a grey “Fauci line” just to show that Covid wasn’t “over” when they started saying it was, and it’s not over now. Notice also that this chart shows, at least for its time period, that Covid is not seasonal, even though CDC is trying to get us to believe that it is, presumably so they can piggyback on the existing institutional apparatus for injections.
Positivity
From the Walgreen’s test positivity tracker, published April 7:
-0.7%. At the low point of the last valley, but the first increases in awhile.
Deaths
Death rate (Our World in Data):
Total: 1,156,850 – 1,156,300 = 550 (550 * 365 = 200,750 deaths per year, today’s YouGenicist™ number for “living with” Covid (quite a bit higher than the minimizers would like, though they can talk themselves into anything. If the YouGenicist™ metric keeps chugging along like this, I may just have to decide this is what the powers-that-be consider “mission accomplished” for this particular tranche of death and disease).
Excess Deaths
NOT UPDATED Excess deaths (The Economist), published March 28:
Lambert here: Based on a machine-learning model. Looks like a data issue, to me. I”m not sure how often this updates, and if it doesn’t, I’ll remove it. (The CDC has an excess estimate too, but since it ran forever with a massive typo in the Legend, I figured nobody was really looking at it, so I got rid it.
Stats Watch
Employment Situation: “United States Unemployment Rate” [Trading Economics]. “The unemployment rate in the United States edged down to 3.5 percent in March 2023, against expectations that it would hold at 3.6 percent.” • Jay Powell applies more torque to his rubber thumbscrew. Nothing happens, so he redoubles his efforts.
Employment Situation: “United States Labor Force Participation Rate” [Trading Economics]. “The labor force participation rate in the United States edged up to 62.6 percent in March 2023, up from 62.5 in the previous month.”
Banking: “JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon says looser rules did not cause recent bank failures” [MarketWatch]. • Oh, hell no.
Tech: “As streamers cut costs, TV shows — and residuals — vanish” [Associated Press]. “[‘Gordita Chronicles’ will be removed from HBO Max’s vast streaming library — one of dozens of shows that HBO last year effectively wiped from existence for U.S. viewers. Among others: ‘Westworld,’ ‘The Time Traveler’s Wife,’ ‘Minx,’ ‘Mrs. Fletcher’ and numerous animated and reality series…. As streamers face mounting pressure to save money, several have followed HBO’s lead. Erasing original shows from their libraries can help streamers get tax write-downs and, to a smaller extent, save on residual payments. But it brings criticism that they are sidelining already marginalized voices and shortchanging creatives out of already slimmer residual paychecks. These issues have increased tension between executives and writers amid union contract negotiations that started late last month and could lead to a significant work stoppage this spring. Streaming companies offer this defense: They never promised that shows would live forever. In a hyper-competitive, changing market, they say, each streamer is trying to balance ample offerings with sheer survival.” • Well, so much for our heritage. OTOH, people are probably working right now on an AI that will recreate erased movies from plot synopses and reviews on IMDB alone, using CGI. So there’s a bright side! Why keep anything at all?
Tech: “In A.I. Race, Microsoft and Google Choose Speed Over Caution” [New York Times]. “In March, two Google employees, whose jobs are to review the company’s artificial intelligence products, tried to stop Google from launching an A.I. chatbot. They believed it generated inaccurate and dangerous statements. Ten months earlier, similar concerns were raised at Microsoft by ethicists and other employees. They wrote in several documents that the A.I. technology behind a planned chatbot could flood Facebook groups with disinformation, degrade critical thinking and erode the factual foundation of modern society. The companies released their chatbots anyway. Microsoft was first, with a splashy event in February to reveal an A.I. chatbot woven into its Bing search engine. Google followed about six weeks later with its own chatbot, Bard. The aggressive moves by the normally risk-averse companies were driven by a race to control what could be the tech industry’s next big thing — generative A.I., the powerful new technology that fuels those chatbots. That competition took on a frantic tone in November when OpenAI, a San Francisco start-up working with Microsoft, released ChatGPT, a chatbot that has captured the public imagination and now has an estimated 100 million monthly users.” • The OpenAI team released a Bullshit Generator that made up its own citations (and who knows what else?) How did an engineering and quality assurance debacle like that happen? Weren’t citations a pretty easy use case to develop a test suite for? Or is the tech bro view of citations “Who needs ’em?”
Mr. Market: “The Seven Virtues of Great Investors” [Jason Sweig]. Since I don’t play the ponies, this article isn’t much use to me (though you’ll like it, if it’s the sort of thing you like). But what a great quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson: “Temperament is the iron wire on which the beads are strung.”
Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 57 Greed (previous close: 56 Greed) [CNN]. One week ago: 60 (Greed). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Apr 6 at 8:59 PM ET.
Sports Desk
“Magnus Carlsen’s Reign Over Chess Ends With a Slip of the Mouse” [Wall Street Journal]. “Carlsen seemingly intended to take the pawn as he moved the queen across the row toward it. But then he dropped the queen too early on a different square where Nakamura’s king could simply take it. Carlsen realized the gravity of his mistake instantly. He shoved his chair back away from his computer, spun around in disgust and appeared to slam something. Nakamura clapped his hands and pumped his fists. The commentators were in utter shock. ‘What’s happened there?’ British grandmaster David Howell shouted on the stream. ‘Magnus has mouse-slipped!’ ‘Unbelievable!” the American grandmaster Robert Hess added. But it was actually quite believable. Carlsen had done it before. At the Oslo Esports Cup last year, Carlsen gifted opponent Quang Liem Le of Vietnam his queen in similar fashion. ‘It’s going to take a miracle for Liem to win this game,’ Howell said then, moments before the miracle arrived. And then: ‘Magnus has mouse-slipped!’ It was the first time in Howell’s life that he had uttered such a strange and unlikely sentence. He couldn’t have guessed that he would utter the same words a second time in less than a year.” • I love that there’s a word, “mouse-slipped.” But why use a mouse at all? What’s wrong with old-fashioned chess pieces?
Annals of Religion
“Filipinos nailed to crosses on Good Friday despite objection by Catholic Church” [Los Angeles Times]. “The real-life crucifixions in the farming village of San Pedro Cutud in Pampanga province north of Manila resumed after a three-year pause due to the pandemic. About a dozen villagers registered but only eight men participated, including 62-year-old sign painter Ruben Enaje, who was nailed to a wooden cross for the 34th time. In a news conference shortly after his brief crucifixion, Enaje said he prayed for the eradication of the COVID-19 virus and the end of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has contributed to gas and food prices soaring worldwide. ‘It’s just these two countries involved in that war, Russia and Ukraine, but all of us are being affected,’ said Enaje, who appeared to be well and showed his two bandaged hands to journalists.”
The Conservatory
Since this week turned into Grateful Dead week at Naked Capitalism, here are two versions of “Peggy-O,” a tragedy of love, war, and money. Rockin’ the oldies:
One pictures the mercenary company trotting, marching, strutting. “Tin soldiers” in the drumming.
And another version:
Garcia, a magnificent wreck. Weir slashing. Lesh and the drummers holding it all together. (The comments are totally weird. They have nothing to do with the song!)
Zeitgeist Watch
“Maine mom files lawsuit against school staffers who counseled daughter on transition: ‘This was no accident’” [FOX]. “In December, Lavigne found a chest binder, an undergarment used to flatten breasts, in her daughter’s belongings. She started to investigate where it came from and found out that a school social worker had been seeing her [13-year-old] daughter since October during which time she secretly gave her the undergarment to wear without her parents knowing. In addition, school personnel had already been referring to the student using a different name and pronouns, which is known as ‘socially transitioning.’” • This is not, of course, major surgery; perhaps the courts will draw a distinction on those grounds. I also wonder how to distinguish a 13-year-old getting an abortion from a 13-year-old getting — sheesh, I need another word for that vilely tendentious phrase, “gender-affirming care.” Bodily autonomy applies in both cases, or does it?
Class Warfare
“What Happened When Uber’s CEO Started Driving for Uber” [Wall Street Journal]. “Using the alias ‘Dave K’ and a gray Tesla Model Y that he purchased secondhand, the chief executive made dozens of trips as a ride-share driver in the following months ferrying people around the hills of San Francisco. While taking a customer to the airport one evening, he had to ignore frantic phone calls from his chief legal officer who was trying to alert him that a hacker had breached Uber’s network. Another trip took him across the Bay Bridge to Oakland—and he swore never to do it again after getting stuck in rush-hour traffic back to the city. It was the latest experiment in the CEO’s yearslong journey to reinvent driving on Uber. Along the way, he struggled to sign up as a driver, saw firsthand something called tip baiting and was punished by the app for rejecting trips. Surprisingly hard to take was the rudeness of some Uber riders. Mr. Khosrowshahi’s moonlighting was part of a campaign by him and his lieutenants to better understand and improve Uber’s experience for drivers, whose scarcity had become a critical challenge for the company after the U.S. reopened from Covid-19 lockdowns. It marked a sharp turn for a company that wasn’t typically seen as being driver-friendly.” • Whoa, labor market!
News of the Wired
“Detailed Illustrations of Japanese Maintenance Trains” [Kottke.org]. “My pal Craig Mod recently spotted a ‘rare and majestic’ inspection Shinkansen called Doctor Yellow. ‘The inspection vehicle is popular among train enthusiasts as a sighting of the train is said to bring good luck since it is so rarely glimpsed.’” • Not this yellow vehicle, however:
More here.
Contact information for plants: Readers, feel free to contact me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, to (a) find out how to send me a check if you are allergic to PayPal and (b) to find out how to send me images of plants. Vegetables are fine! Fungi and coral are deemed to be honorary plants! If you want your handle to appear as a credit, please place it at the start of your mail in parentheses: (thus). Otherwise, I will anonymize by using your initials. See the previous Water Cooler (with plant) here. From MT:
Spring is coming!
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