*COVID-19 could nudge minds and societies towards authoritarianism.* High levels of diseases that are contagious between humans tend to make societies more authoritarian.

New humorous article : the berry torture.

The underwater cables that bring electric power from offshore wind farms generate magnetic fields that trap one species of crabs. Engineers will look for ways to protect the crabs.

There is no reason to assume that other species of marine life are immune to this effect.

Relatives of Philippinos killed in President Do-Dirty's war on drugs are suing for damages.

The shortages due to "supply-chain problems" are due to "just-in-time" processing. The article mentions other shortages of goods that have the same cause.

In addition, we have seen a similar problem due to reducing the number of hospital beds to the level that tends to be needed in a normal year. That too is an example of optimizing the efficiency in the usual case by reducing the slack needed to handle unusual cases.

I suspect that the delay in shutting off the Huntington Beach oil leak was due to optimizing for the usual case — the "no leak today" case. Why pay for the extra equipment and staff just to save a few hours, in some case, in detecting a leak and shutting it off?