Israel has long been known for its use of technology to track the movements of Palestinian militants. Now, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants to use similar technology to stop the movement of the coronavirus. From a report: Netanyahu's Cabinet on Sunday authorized the Shin Bet security agency to use its phone-snooping tactics on coronavirus patients, an official confirmed, despite concerns from civil-liberties advocates that the practice would raise serious privacy issues. The official spoke on condition of anonymity pending an official announcement. Netanyahu announced his plan in a televised address late Saturday, telling the nation that the drastic steps would protect the public's health, though it would also "entail a certain degree of violation of privacy." Israel has identified more than 200 cases of the coronavirus. Based on interviews with these patients about their movements, health officials have put out public advisories ordering tens of thousands of people who may have come into contact with them into protective home quarantine. The new plan would use mobile-phone tracking technology to give a far more precise history of an infected person's movements before they were diagnosed and identify people who might have been exposed.

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I started a list of notables who have the virus.

Idris Elba has Coronavirus.

Willy English shares a report from CNBC: The president of France on Monday said he was ordering people in the country to stay at home for up to 15 days because of the coronavirus outbreak. President Emmanuel Macron said people should leave their homes only for essential duties, beginning midday Tuesday. Macron said he was taking the drastic step of limiting people's movements in France to reduce the risk of contamination from the virus. He said any violation of the edict would be punished. Macron also announced he was calling off the second round of municipal elections in light of his order. Macron's announcement came as Canada's leader, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, announced that he was closing the country's borders to foreigners, with the exception of U.S. citizens.

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I took a three-hour round-trip drive today. Had a lot of time to think and figured some stuff out.

1. There should be a clear and simple FAQ page that tells us how to increase the odds that we don't get the virus, but at the same time preserves as much of our quality of life as possible. I will start to write this, and check out what I write with doctors and medical researchers to be sure I get it right.
2. Listen to today's Daily podcast. I did. They say something I've been sure of for a while, there is no point trying to stimulate the economy. The economy is going down. A lot of companies are going to fail, or emerge very damaged. It's possible whole industries will disappear. (BTW: Given the climate crisis this isn't altogether bad.)
3. At the same time, other countries are getting back online after successfully controlling the virus. Those countries -- China, Singapore, South Korea and possibly Vietnam, will be very careful to disconnect while the rest of the world tries to get the virus under control. Their economies will have an enormous, possibly insurmountable advantage. It's hard to reboot a down economy. And the longer it's down the harder it gets.
4. The last two points combined could mean that if the US takes a long time to eradicate the virus, not only will a lot of people suffer and die, when we emerge from the pandemic we will find we have a wrecked economy, and no way to quickly recover. We may be ceding our status as a rich country. I know that's hard to grasp, but there's more at stake here than health, it's our way of life. Americans generally don't understand why we have an elevated standard of living, why the rest of the world tolerates our lunacy, as it escalates. They may love us now, but they'll forget that love when we are a less than first world country.
5. New Orleans. Look at how hard it was for that city to get back on its feet, even though it's part of a country that wasn't much affected by Katrina. This time it isn't just one city, it's the entire western world.
6. Part of the trip was on the New York State Thruway. Happy to report there were lots of trucks on the highway. Presumably they're supplying the stores that have been depleted by hoarding.
7. I stopped at three drug stores on the trip. I have three items I need to get: hand sanitizer, a thermometer and acetaminophen. I was only able to get the acetominaphen (aka paracetamol, Tylenol). If you don't have it on hand, you should -- they say ibuprofen is not good to treat the symptoms of the virus, it actually seems to help the virus.
8. The failure of our government to test in the US is going to cost us trillions of dollars and many thousands of lives. It's the most expensive mistake in American history. All the more galling that it was obviously done to cover up for the most stupid of reasons.
9. If the Republicans won't get Trump to resign, we really have to consider other means to make it happen. I am out of ideas myself, but I'm thinking about it. You should too. We've waited too long, and every day we wait means we're going to have to dig out of a deeper hole, and we're going to lose a lot of people.
10. Every store I was in on this trip I had this thought: The virus is here with me. I don't know if that's true, but I believe it is. Thank god you can't get infected by breathing (true, I hope). I washed my hands many times today. :soap:
11. Math is running the world now. Covid19 has always been a possibility. And of course our leader is the least math-savvy person you'll ever come across.

Microsoft has provided detailed tech specs for its forthcoming Xbox Series X gaming console, reader Dave Knott shares. Full system specs are as follows: CPU: 8x Cores @ 3.8 GHz (3.6 GHz w/ SMT) Custom Zen 2 CPU GPU: 12 TFLOPS, 52 CUs @ 1.825 GHz Custom RDNA 2 GPU Die Size: 360.45 mm2 Process: 7nm Enhanced Memory: 16 GB GDDR6 w/ 320b bus Memory Bandwidth: 10GB @ 560 GB/s, 6GB @ 336 GB/s Internal Storage: 1 TB Custom NVME SSD I/O Throughput: 2.4 GB/s (Raw), 4.8 GB/s (Compressed, with custom hardware decompression block) Expandable Storage: 1 TB Expansion Card (matches internal storage exactly) External Storage: USB 3.2 External HDD Support Optical Drive: 4K UHD Blu-Ray Drive Performance Target: 4K @ 60 FPS, Up to 120 FPS. Digital Foundry visited Microsoft and provides a deep dive article detailing their hands-on experience with the new hardware including the following information.

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Comcast's Universal Pictures said it is making its movies available to watch at home while they are still in theaters, a massive change from Hollywood's long-established business model that could upend the industry if other studios follow suit. From a report: The decision comes amid widespread closures of movie theaters as the global coronavirus pandemic spreads. Authorities in New York City and Los Angeles on Sunday ordered all movie theaters to close; exhibitors had previously said they would limit attendance in theaters to 50% of their capacity. China, the world's second-largest market, has kept tens of thousands of theaters closed since late January. Major studios typically release new movies exclusively in theaters during a "window" of 75 days in a bid to maintain ticket sales, on the theory that fans are more likely to watch a new movie at home if that is an option. Keeping that strategy in place has long been a priority for theaters, and major studios generally have been reluctant to do away with such windows altogether, even as the lengths of those periods have steadily shortened over the years. Universal said that by Friday recently released films like "The Invisible Man," "The Hunt" and "Emma" will be available for digital rental for $19.99 in the U.S., or the equivalent value in overseas markets. Paying the rental fee will allow customers 48 hours to watch the movie. In an even bolder move, Universal also said "Trolls World Tour" will open simultaneously in theaters and at home on April 10. Universal released "The Hunt" in theaters over the weekend while "The Invisible Man" and "Emma" both came out late last month. Costing just $7 million to make, "The Invisible Man" has already had a successful run in theaters, grossing $122.4 million globally in three weekends.

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When the coronavirus pandemic started worsening in the U.K. last week, Jennie Lan knew where she would feel safest: China. From a report: The graduate student at University College London was worried Brits weren't taking precautions, such as wearing face masks. "People here didn't attach a great significance to the coronavirus," Ms. Lan said. On Tuesday, she will fly to China to stay with her parents, who live in a district with no reported infections. "The local government controlled it well," she said. Weeks ago, people fled China to dodge the new coronavirus. Now it has flipped. People are headed to China because they believe it is the safest place in the world. Apple has reopened all stores in its Chinese market, but said Friday it would close those everywhere else for two weeks. A Chinese soccer-league team from Wuhan, where the virus was discovered, planned to leave its temporary base in Spain because of worsening conditions there to return to China. Jack Ma, billionaire founder of Chinese online-retail giant Alibaba, recently pledged to donate 1 million masks and 500,000 virus test kits -- to the U.S. Previously focused on people within the country as potential virus carriers, China's National Health Commission said Monday that preventing imported cases is now a priority. Beijing's municipal government said Sunday that people coming into the city from abroad must quarantine at designated hotels and sites for 14 days, its latest step to protect the capital.

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Windows 10 is now running on over 1 billion monthly active devices, just six months after passing the 900 million device milestone. From a report: Microsoft has been consistently adding 100 million active Windows 10 devices every six months over the past two years. Windows 10 also passed 50% desktop market share in August. The milestone is notable because Microsoft originally aimed to hit 1 billion devices running Windows 10 "in two to three years." A year in, the company backpedaled on that goal after it became clear that Windows 10 Mobile was a failure. (Android has over 2.5 billion monthly active devices.) Windows 10 was released four years and eight months ago in July 2015. It thus took the company more than double its ambitious estimate and 20 months longer than its conservative estimate to pass 1 billion Windows 10 devices.

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Canada is closing its borders to non-citizens because of the coronavirus pandemic, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Monday. From a report: "We can still slow the spread of this virus," Trudeau said at a press conference. "It is time to take every precaution to keep people safe." Canada will make some exceptions to the closure of its borders, including for U.S. citizens. "We will be denying entry to Canada to people who are not Canadian citizens or permanent residents," Trudeau said. "This measure will carve out some designated exceptions, including for air crews, diplomats, immediate family members of Canadian citizens and, at this time, U.S. citizens."

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Nat Friedman: npm is a critical part of the JavaScript world. The work of the npm team over the last 10 years, and the contributions of hundreds of thousands of open source developers and maintainers, have made npm home to over 1.3 million packages with 75 billion downloads a month. Together, they've helped JavaScript become the largest developer ecosystem in the world. We at GitHub are honored to be part of the next chapter of npm's story and to help npm continue to scale to meet the needs of the fast-growing JavaScript community.

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Photographer Andrew Newey has documented the lives of the Changpa nomads and the threat to Cashmere wool.

A group of 45 healthy, young volunteers in Seattle will be given the experimental jab.

Stereotypes and myths about race are not just used by racists. Here's how to debunk five myths.

As the coronavirus pandemic continues to hit the US, people nationwide are being encouraged to stay inside their homes and states and cities are beginning to close restaurants, bars, and other businesses. Utah Sen. Mitt Romney has a plan he thinks can help: Give every adult in the US $1,000. From a report: "Every American adult should immediately receive $1,000 to help ensure families and workers can meet their short-term obligations and increase spending in the economy," a press release from Romney said Monday. "Congress took similar action during the 2001 and 2008 recessions. While expansions of paid leave, unemployment insurance, and SNAP benefits [the program formally known as food stamps] are crucial, the check will help fill the gaps for Americans that may not quickly navigate different government options." The proposal to give every adult $1,000 is one of several put forth by Romney to try and address the pandemic, and was central to businessman Andrew Yang's Democratic presidential campaign. Yang, who qualified for several debates before exiting the race last month, ran a campaign almost entirely focused on a universal basic income proposal that would give every American adult $1,000 per month. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, another Democrat running for president, has also called for all Americans to receive $1,000 per month for the remainder of the coronavirus crisis.

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