Featured Links - October 4, 2021

Links to things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about.

A grey morning on the bay

• The Arecibo Observatory Was Like Family. I Couldn't Save It. "I grew up in awe of the iconic telescope. It raised me, and I helped control its fate. Could I have done more to protect it before its sudden collapse?"
• How to add a proof of vaccination shortcut to you Android home screen. "With a tap, you can pull up a digital copy of your proof of vaccination."
• GPT-3 can summarize books as well as a human can. If it can do that, I think it might put a lot of technical writing jobs at risk.
• Royal Observatory Greenwich Astronomy Photographer of the Year winners. There are some stunning photographs here.
• Efficacy of COVID-19 Vaccination on the Symptoms of Patients With Long COVID: A Target Trial Emulation Using Data From the ComPaRe e-Cohort in France. "COVID-19 vaccination lowers the severity and life impact of long COVID at 120 days among patients with persistent symptoms."
• A 19th-century artist's astronomical drawings are stunningly accurate. Compare them to NASA images today. "Today, sophisticated observatories and space telescopes snap images of the same celestial phenomena that Trouvelot captured more than 150 years ago. Here's how the 19th-century drawings compare to contemporary photos."
• Why We Need to Upgrade Our Face Masks—and Where to Get Them. "High-quality respirators such as N95s and K95s are now widely available and provide the best protection against COVID, according to experts. Why aren’t more people wearing them?"