• Preprint of the week: Single cell proteomics
• Flowchart of the week: What sort of philosopher do you want to be?
• Taleb-adjacent tweet of the week: Takeaways from Statistical Consequences of Thick Tails
• Book recommendation of the week (also Taleb-adjacent): The Systems Bible
• Spellcheck fail of the week: Serbian PM gets vaccine, mangles hashtag

Take Groundhog Day, punch up the message to make it more on the nose, add a few scenes of awkward sex, finish with an after-credits sequence that chooses charm over consistency. It’s still a good movie, now oh so very millennial.

I didn’t hate it.

Directed by Max Barbakow, 2020.

Remember that climactic scene in Shaun of the dead where they each take a pool stick and beat the zombie pub owner to his second death to the beat of Queens “Don’t stop me now”? You know, this one?¹ Well, Baby Driver is an entire movie made out of that scene — even Queen makes an appearance — only it’s guns instead of sticks and gangsters instead of zombies. Also, Atlanta, Georgia instead of London, England with a baby-faced youth instead of Simon Pegg, so only a third as charming though it’s an Edgar Wright film so still very charming indeed.

Trigger warning: the movie contains Kevin Spacey who first behaves like the rotten bastard we know he is but then goes and (spoiler alert) redeems himself. The movie does kill him off in a rather gruesome manner, if that’s any consolation. Did the writer/director know something we at the time didn’t?

Written and directed by Edgar Wright, 2017.

If there is a theme to this year’s list it is the intentional omission of all things biomedical, which I hope is self-explanatory considering (waves around) all this.

1. Omnibus, wherein two nerds, one professional the other amateur discuss topics of great interest, including bad architecture, bad cinema, a bad sister, and a very bad husband. It is at once entertaining, educational, and en…titilating?

2. Lex Fridman Podcast, wherein the said Lex Fridman, an AI researcher from MIT, discusses history with Dan Carlin, programming with Chris Lattner, cryptocurrency with Vitalik Buterin, Joe Rogan with Joe Rogan, et cetera, et cetera. File under “good for exploring the back catalogue, not so much for regular weekly listending”, like so many others.

3. 20 Macs for 2020, which is a weekly-ish countdown of notable Apple computers, with comments from notable Apple aficionados. Listen and appreciate how enthusiastic some people can be about some things.

4. Dithering, which is a — shock, horror — paid podcast, but one well worth your money and time if you know the two men responsible, Ben Thompson and John Gruber.

5. People I (mostly) admire, wherein an economist of some fame and with a good sense of humor talks to, well, people he (mostly) admires, including Ken Jennings of the first podcast on this list, and what a nice way to end it.

Previous editions: 2020 - 2019 - 2018 - The one where I took a break from podcasts - The very first one

The camerawork alone makes it a timeless classic. It doesn’t hurt that the deliberate, slow pace is perfect for my increasingly middle-aged mind. Yes it runs for 3 hours, but I’ll take three hours of this

over two and a half hours of that well-known super hero franchise any time.

Directed by Stanley Kubrick, 1975.

• Why you shouldn’t store your data in Excel.
• Article of the week: RCT of auto versus alloSCT as first-line consolidation in T-cell lymphoma.
• Interview of the week: Miyamoto in the New Yorker.
• Thread of the week: Lear linear algebra. Wolfram University has a good beginners’ course.
• Photos of the week: so many good ones. Oh who am I kidding? It’s actually this one.

Kelsey Grammer once said that Fraiser — the show, not the character — was so good because the writers and cast never went for the easy laughs, the jokes that came to mind right away. That’s what made it the best sitcom of the 1990s and still eminently watchable¹.

TGBBS goes for the easy jokes all the time but that’s OK because we watch it for the emotions it elicits in its competitors, judges, and us viewers, not for the triple-A-rated comedy. And here it does not go for the easy ones, the emotions that will arise any time competing humans are being judged: ridicule, shame, anger, rivalry, envy… You know, the ol’ staples of American reality TV. There is lots of sadness and frustration when a baker overproofs their sourdough, sure, but there is also friendship, compassion, empathy, and a kind of gentleness even when a steely-eyed judge ribs your rhubarb pie’s soggy bottom.

I am sure this wasn’t easy, particularly in a season in which early on one baker makes another drop their finished goods on the floor right before judging (anger hidden), a good baker leaves after a week of horrible performances in what was supposed to be their specialty (ridicule averted), and an oversized bakerette who tends to spill everything everywhere whilst making visually mediocre — though no doubt tasty — goods serves up a cake-shaped splodge in one of the last showstoppers (no shaming of any kind and there were plenty of kinds to think of in those moments). It was a trying year and the season could not have been easy to make. Yet, I can happily report that the baking tent and the hyper-green lawn it sits on continue being cynicism-free zones, making better people of its participants and viewers alike.

• Chart of the week: Evolution of the alphabet. There was another good chart this week too, and probably more consequential.
• Discussion of the week: Branko Milanović and Russ Roberts mostly on the Nobel prize
• Letter of the week: Lunch is bad for me
• Tech tip of the week: Uninstall Google Chrome and the malware that comes with it (bonus life tip of the week: Write better notes)
• Thread of the week: The future of work(?)

A predictable story, beautifully animated. It has the most straightforward plot of the Celtic triology¹ but also the most complex imagery and a soundtrack that equals the two prior films, making it the perfect Oscar contender. And even the simple A to B to C storyline allows for many different interpretations. Is it about man versus nature, town versus country, old versus young, masculine versus feminine, blue eyes versus green? Probably all of the above.

Side note: Wolfwalkers came out on AppleTV+, pretty much sealing its status as the new HBO. Still, it would be nice to see the animation in a theater next year, if any are left.

• A depressing truth which reminded me that season 2 of the Leftovers is the best season of any show ever made.
• Discussion of the week: Is “Finite and Infinite Games” a masterpiece or dangerously delusional (after reading the replies I favor the latter, and this is a good reason why)
• Software of the week: CellPAINT-2.0, and I had to pick up my jaw off the floor after seeing what it can do (this tweet also made my jaw drop but for all the wrong reasons).
• Article of the week: Shedding of viable SARS-CoV-2 after immunosuppressive therapy for cancer.
• Thread of the week: David Steensma’s best one yet — A brief history of aspirin (bonus thread: Accidental renaissance photos)