Armed far-right groups are behind anti-lockdown protests in Michigan and elsewhere. They love Trump and Trump is cheering them on. Martyrdom and dumber - David Pell at Nextdraft.

ME: I have 300+ podcast episodes in my queue. I will never listen to them all!

ALSO ME: This looks like an interesting podcast. I’ll subscribe now!

Comic-Con Cancels 2020 Event, Sets 2021 Return - Erik Pederson on Deadline.com.

Disappointing but not surprising, and the right decision.

John Horton Conway, a ‘Magical Genius’ in Math, Dies at 82.

Siobhan Roberts writes The New York Times’s obit for mathematician and “Magical Genius” John Conway, most famous for inventing the computer Game of Life. Cause of death: COVID-19

Martin Gardner, the longtime mathematical games columnist for Scientific American, said that when the game went viral on the internet, “with addicts programming it at home and at work — one quarter of the world’s computers were playing it.”

Conway’s colleague, Princeton mathematician Simon Kochen, said there are two kinds of geniuses in mathematics and physics, ordinary geniuses. Ordinary geniuses just seem to be people who work hard.

“But then there are the magical geniuses,” he added. “Richard Feynman was a magical genius. And the same always struck me about John — he was a magical mathematician. He was a magical genius rather than an ordinary genius.”

Also:

Math, Dr. Conway believed, should be fun. “He often thought that the math we were teaching was too serious,” said Mira Bernstein, a mathematician and a former executive director of Canada/USA Mathcamp, an international summer program for high-school students. “And he didn’t mean that we should be teaching them silly math — to him, fun was deep. But he wanted to make sure that the playfulness was always, always there.”

People like Conway seem to be to be the truly blessed people in the world. They work hard at what they do, they excel at it, and the work is pure joy to them. We’re all advised to do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life – it will all be play to you – but very few people can achieve that.

I became fascinated by Conway’s game around 1983-84 or so, and wrote a program in the computer language Basic to play it on an early IBM PC. Each turn took a half-hour!

China Police Censor Tales of Post-Coronavirus Renewal.

New York Times journalist Paul Mozur finds signs of a nation opening up on the streets of the big Chinese city of Hefei, population 8 million.

He also finds xenophobia, and police censorship that’s both laughably clumsy, and effective.

Mozur was expelled from China, along with other Western journalists, shortly after.

Some people say we need to open the economy soon and if a few thousand people – or hundred thousand people – die because of it, well, that’s a small price to pay.

People who espouse this view should be asked whether they themselves are taking greater risk to help others. Are they volunteering at a food bank, blood bank, or working front lines in essential retail service?

If not, they should be invited to shut the fuck up.

In any war, there are always chickenhawks – people who, from a place of safety, advocate ruthless sacrifice BY OTHER PEOPLE. I’ve noticed over the decades that these people are never themselves combat veterans. Somehow when it was their turn to stand in front of unfriendly strangers with guns, these brave warriors had other things to do.

Donald Trump, aka “Captain Bonespurs,” is of course the chickenhawk-in-chief.

Dr. Tony Fauci: From One Pandemic to Another - Epidemic.

AIDS activists in the 1980s were surprised to find a champion in a civil service doctor, Anthony Fauci.

And for people who lived through that crisis, the coronavirus pandemic gives them a terrible sense of déjà vu.

Judy Garland and the long history of ‘Me Too’ in Hollywood - Retropod: Judy Garland suffered outrageous sexual harassment as a teen-aged movie star.

Kicked Out of China - The New York Times Daily podcast.

As the pandemic spread, China expelled Western journalists, including New York Times reporter Paul Mozur, as well as reporters for the Wall Street Journal and Washington Post. Mozur talks about the experience, and heightening tensions between China and the West.

Foreigners in China are facing increase xenophobia as the Communist Party spreads rumors that foreigners brought coronavirus in China. Some rumors say it was a deliberate act of biowar by the US Army.

This is an old trick for the Chinese Communist Party. Whenever they fear the legitimacy of their rule threatened, they stir up hostility toward foreigners, particularly the West, particularly the US. And of course Republicans in the US are now borrowing the same playbook.

The Chinese government wants to tell a story to the world that they have gotten the coronavirus under control, through their variety of enlightened autocracy, while democracies are flailing. They are expelling western journalists, who might tell the truth and undermine that story.

Mozur also discusses his grief at leaving China - probably never to return - which has been his home for 13 years.

All praise, no pay - Today, Explained: Essential workers in the food, transportation, and retail industries are being called American heroes. They want to be paid that way.

We had drama. Julie commented at bedtime that she hadn’t seen Vivvie, our slate-gray cat, for about 24 hours. So we spent some time looking around the house for her. I went down in the courtyard, though Vivvie never, ever shows any interest in leaving the house. She’s a timid cat and runs away at any sign of busyness. No sign of Vivvie. I kept my eyes peeled around the yard when I was putting Minnie to bed. No sign of Vivvie. I looked in the spare room and closets. Nothing.

Vivvie did not come to bed with Julie during the night either.

This morning, we looked around some more. Still no sign of Vivvie. Julie was distraught. I was concerned and also puzzled. Sammy is an escape cat. If Sammy was missing that amount of time I’d be sure she’d gotten out. But Vivvie stays put.

Then Julie had an idea: My recliner in the living room. I’d been sitting in it yesterday. What if Vivvie climbed up in there when it was open, then couldn’t get out when I shut it and got up?

And we went to the living room and opened it up and Vivvie SHOT OUT AT TOP SPEED.

We are often in the living room with the dog and Vivvie is wary about the dog so when she got stuck in there she didn’t complain the whole time we were in the room. Or I don’t know maybe she liked it. Cats are weird. 📓

Easter Wishes, 1908 Via

Trump meets “The Honeymooners.” - video

Ralph Kramden for President!

What AOC Gets that Bernie Didn’t - Michael Grunwald at Politico

Progressive pot-stirrer Sean McElwee has some thoughts about what went wrong for Sanders supporters, and how they can get what they want (eventually).

McElwee defies conventional wisdom for progressives by saying progressives need to embrace conventional wisdom — polling, focus groups, and changing the message to suit the district.

He popularized the slogan “Abolish ICE” — even had it as part of his twitter handle — but advises Democratic candidates to be extremely cautious using it themselves, because it’s just not a slogan that will win many elections.

Talking about which policies could work politically in Trump districts is not a fun conversation to have, but we need to have those conversations.

This article comes at a good time for me; I’ve been disgusted by national Democratic Party politics, discouraged and pessimistic about the future of the US. But now I’m reminded politics is incremental. Getting Trump out of office and keeping Congress would be a big win and it seems very achievable. Winning the Senate and a few state houses would be even better. That would only be the beginning — if Democrats fail to deliver real improvements in people’s lives, they’d be out of power by 2024. But victory in 2020 would be a great start.

Why Aren’t We All on the Same Time Zone? - Patrick J Kiger on How Stuff Works

Time zones are confusing to people who routinely communicate or travel across them, and some people are proposing to put the whole world on one time zone - UTC, which is five hours ahead of Eastern time in the US.

This does not mean that New York businesses would open five hours earlier. A business that opens at 9 am today would open at the same time under the new system, it’s just that the clock would say 2 pm. Everybody would get used to it quickly, say proponents of the change.

I think this is a bad idea, simply because I don’t think there are enough people doing business across time zones to make it worthwhile to change the system for everybody.

However, I have thought for years, that there should be a custom of using universal time for those of us who DO have business crossing time zones. I’ve been routinely doing business across time zones for many years, and even now I still occasionally miscalculate, or propose a meeting time to someone without specifying which time zone I mean.

One of my favorite features of the iPhone is the ability to get notifications for replies to individual email messages and threads.

Police department reminds residents to wear pants while checking mailbox

“You know who you are. This is your final warning.”

“It’ll all be over by Christmas”: Charles Stross predicts a two-year coronavirus economic and political shitshow.