2022-02-26
Readings
“What are the biggest molecules?” is one of those questions schoolkids ask that has surprising depth:
I’m not sure how much simulation of this sort can demonstreate this, but it’s interesting to read that if axions exist, they’re not a solution (or at least not as substantial of one as theorised) for the composition of dark matter. https://phys.org/news/2022-02-simulations-refine-axion-mass-refocusing.html
Cool to find large beads of glass on Luna; overall I’m happy with how much more we understand its origin than we did when I was growing up, and the continued interestingness of exploration there. https://phys.org/news/2022-02-chinese-rover-translucent-glass-globules.html
Biomimicry, in things as specific as mimicking chemical processes, or as gross as figuring out what physical forms are pratical, is a sure guide to science. In this case it’s interesting to think of centipede-inspired robots being a standard form. https://www.science.org/content/article/centipedes-envy-engineers-inspire-new-generation-robots
Finland’s approach to storing nuclear waste: https://www.science.org/content/article/finland-built-tomb-store-nuclear-waste-can-it-survive-100000-years
Unprompted Thoughts
I’ve been trying to understand why I find things enjoyable that I do; there are some things that are purely aesthetic (BWV1052), but I’m more interested at the moment in understanding amusement. There’s a youtuber called GrayStillPlays that does recordings of himself struggling with very difficult racing boards people make (sometimes for him) in the GTA video game. He hams it up a lot. I’m trying to keep a separate part of myself around to watch the rest of me as I enjoy it to try to figure out the key elements of what’s coming to feel a lot like a ritual. I don’t know if what I’m looking for is coherent or this understanding is possible, but I feel I’m getting closer. It’s still puzzling though, with constant thoughts of “I shouldn’t find this so amusing” from that small stashed-away observer
Some songs are easy to cover or adapt; their musical ideas are more distant from their performance, with more weight on the concept. Others are very hard to cover because their quality and distinctiveness comes primarily from their performance. I’ve been working out what this insight means; Classical music (perhaps necessarily by what has survived) seems to survive on merit of its concepts.
Recently I’ve come to critique some political commentary of behaviour that’s not-that-great (in my view) but quite common in our political system, when that commentary is phrased outside the context of it being a common issue. As one example, that many ambassadors the US appoints are not civil servants, but rather people being rewarded for helping a campaign. The counterargument is that this is whataboutism, which I don’t think it is. I grant there’s a similarity between pointing out a double standard and whataboutism, but the critique of the double standard differs in that the acts are much more close, necessarily more comparable, and they demonstrate unsavoury tactics - that a certain act is only okay when one’s side is doing it and bad when the other is - and therefore that the critique is not because one cares about the act so much as one is looking for ammunition to attack the other side. So I hold that double standard critiques are potentially viable and are not automatically to be dismissed as whataboutism, and I feel we can explore particular commentary and reasonably well judge it based on these grounds.
Current Events
Russia’s invasion of eastern Ukraine has begun, and we now know (based on both this and Crimea) what such invasions look like in the modern era - a ridiculous legal pretext, a fiery speech, and nobody so far standing up to them beyond some sanctions that have no chance of achieving anything. I wrote more about this here: http://blog.dachte.org/blog/entries/entry1645720828.html
Biden has picked Ketanji Brown, a current federal judge, as his nominee for the Supreme Court, to take the seat being vacated by Justice Breyer. There was some criticism that he announced he intended to appoint a minority to the court - somewhat valid (I also think it’s not good practice), but often from people who neglect the context that many recent US Presidents have done the same, of both parties. She seems qualified; I don’t have strong views on her stances or justicial philosophy.
South Korea has an election coming up in early March, with a slate of new candidates (the current incumbent being ineligible to run again).
Reviewlets
FF6 Pixel Remaster (PC Game) - As per all the remasters, it takes some effort to get used to the blockiness caused by the resolution, and this translation loses some of the silly charm of the original English port (this is a straight-up accurate port of the Japanese in most areas), but there is still suplexing of passenger trains. It’s decent. They could have put more effort in. Although the music improvements are very nice.
Sheepo (PC Game) - It’s a cute game with progressively harder platforming, charming in a way but not really my kind of game. I got into it because it plays with some ideas that Kirby does (character transformation), but was a bit disappointed that these are very time-limited. Of platform-puzzlers, it follows the design where each puzzle has a single intended solution, which is great for some people.
Eternal Cylinder (PC Game) - I wanted to like this - it has a lot of mechanics, some neat worldbuilding, and it’s pretty. But managing a team of characters (only one directly, with the rest being reasonably fragile) came to feel like a hassle very quickly. I feel this could’ve been a good game with some moderate retooling to some core gameplay and nothing else, but as is it’s like a nice house with a few large impracticalities making living there a hassle.
Meskerem (Ethiopian Restaurant in Manhattan) - The first thing I ate was meh (their Samosa), but the injeera was good and the meal (a vegetarian sampler) was excellent. They also served a nice mead that lacked the strange smell that mead normally has. I’ll probably go back at some point.
Amusements
I was amused and bothered to learn that there is a standard lock used to give mail carriers access to standard apartment locks:
Pig grooming!
Recent Music
Jameson’s Revenge - The Devil Takes You Dancing - One of those part-storytelling part-music pieces.
Heilung - Norupo - More nordic-themed traditional music (that I always hope isn’t saying something disturbing - I can’t understand the lyrics)
Rok Nardin - The Mad Priest - This feels like movie music of the “behold my Gothic Castle” style.
Adrian Berenguer - Beyond - This feels a bit like the band Apocalyptica, in a good way.