2022-05-07
Readings
I’ve been thinking about this video about social issues with microfinance efforts ever since I saw it; there was a time when I was pretty into the topic, but I’m realising that offering vigorously enforced loans on people with poor financial literacy can easily make things worse for many who take the loans. Unclear how to solve this, and it’s worrying.
Better understanding of the frequency of mistakes in cellular machinery that lead to incorrect DNA replication: https://phys.org/news/2022-05-inversions-genome-common-previously-thought.html
Interesting to see that a temporary effect, like a mild electric current, can lead to food being tasted as saltier without the health hazards of actual salt: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/04/electric-chopsticks-stimulate-your-food-to-make-it-taste-50-saltier/
Researchers at Harvard describe a system for programmable cell-sized “robots”, with potentially broad applications: https://phys.org/news/2022-05-self-propelled-endlessly-programmable-artificial-cilia.html
I’m still getting used to the “2.5D” term, but research on how to stack materials in single-atom-thick layers and otherwise manipulate materials at that physical scale is an emerging field that may be useful for electroncs. https://phys.org/news/2022-05-age-25d-materials.html
This offers some insight into what it can be like to be a freelance game developer:
Unprompted Thoughts
In reading “Guilty Pigs”, I’m finding a lot of the rules of thumb for how a variety of laws treat animals are either interesting or touching on topics where I’ve long held strong opinions, often both. Two that came up: I think it would be ideal to build a legal standard of custodianship that would apply to children and wild animals, existing with various scales between property and independence, rather than using property to handle animals and the complex anomalous mess we use for parental custody. Another is the idea of inherited group rights of native peoples that others do not have - I think such things should be prohibited, both because they are not individualistic and because broad inherited rights that trace bloodlines are unegalitarian (these reasons coming from the same instincts but not quite the same paths).
What do I mean when I use the term radical? The term, as I see it, describes someone who uses reasoning and social norms that depart from broad norms serving a lot of values, instead substituting ones designed to tightly pursue one’s causes or express oneself. In a debate, they break rules and swear a lot. Doing history, they don’t mind lying or being sloppy. Given power, they ignore a lot of the norms, rules, and process. I don’t think the radical always wants more change than the non-radical, but they seek it in unstructured ways, often justifying it by suggesting the rules were designed to be a barrier to their ends. Radicals can be of a variety of political views, across the political spectrum.
Current Events
The Russian invasion of Ukraine continues, although reportedly the Ukraine military, with a present-if-insufficient supply of arms from western powers (which are still, wrongly I think, not putting boots on the ground) is regaining terrain. Russian media on the invasion, at least based on clips that reach the west, appears increasingly deranged with accusing Israel of anti-Semitism and dreaming of nuking western countries. The last holdouts in Mariupol, a city on the eastern border of Ukraine, are unfortunately likely to lose their remaining ground soon.
This week there was a leak from the US Supreme Court (almost as much a piece of news as the content) that they may be about to overturn Roe v Wade and Planned Parenthood vs Casey, two historic cases that set the policy boundaries on abortion for the last several decades. My political preferences are not very strong, but are pro-abortion with few restrictions. There was a helpful Pew Poll looking at broad American perspectives, with the hardliners on both sides being in the minority. And as much as I find the legal rationale that established Roe v Wade to be insufficiently justified (and that it likely would have been pretty surprising to those who drafted the Constitution/Bill), I also find the idea of overturning decisions that have been in place for decades to be worrying. The Pew Poll: https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2022/05/06/americas-abortion-quandary/
The US also held 2022 primaries in many states, deciding who will get each party’s candidacy in the general election near the end of this year. It’s generally expected that Democrats will lose both the House and the Senate, with Republicans unfortunately not yet being ready to move on from Trump, while Progressives have (largely) lost out to Liberals on the left. I’m worried that the lack of commitment to political pluralism on the Right will lead to either dangerous dysfunction or possibly political violence, but I took some joy in focusing on a single race (which I contributed to) where Shontel Brown (a Liberal) defeated Nina Turner (a Progressive), both because I partly grew up in the OH-11 area where the contest took place, and partly because I hope to see DSA/OAC affiliated politicans swept entirely out of power.
North Korea has been testing new long-range ballistic missiles, probably confident that Russia’s invasion is keeping everyone else too busy to respond: https://www.space.com/north-korea-launches-submarine-ballistic-missile-test
The Philippines are to hold broad elections for most offices early next week
Reviewlets
Little Island (NYC park) - I went last Sunday - the park is free, weird, and crowded. Built on an artificial cluster of platforms off the western side of Manhattan around 11th Street, it’s an open green space park, where “open” is less “open world” and more “open to the sky”. It resembles the High Line park in that regard. There are plants about, also in the High Line style, and it’s a good place to stare out over the river, or to admire the pillars holding the whole thing up. It’s more crowded than the High Line, and more controlled; I’m not sure I’ll return frequently.
Steam Deck (PC gaming console) - This is a fairly large PC-based handheld gaming console; various companies have tried to make something like this work for years, and it’s interesting to see that Valve finally has something worth buying. Compared to a Nintendo Switch, it’s bigger, heavier, and presumably has a much worse battery life for serious games (I have only played plugged in apart from brief moments so far). It surprisingly largely holds up ; the kind of games one would expect to play on a handheld work better, but I was able to launch Elden Ring and it was playable and pretty. The sound is good enough but not amazing. Software is both the most impressive part of the device and the thing it struggles the most with; on my gaming PC launching a game only fails about one time in every 30; on the Steam Deck that’s about one time in every four, the other times giving me some variant on a dark screen. It’s no big bother; close and reopen and things are fine, but still. Overall I’m very happy with the purchase, and expect to bring it with me on a coming trip to Europe for a scientific conference.
Amusements
A cool project mixing creativity and some machining tools:
Walrus trained to make a nice set of funny sounds:
I’m not bothered by racial jokes (unless something is literally either encouraging discriminatory behaviour in areas of life where it matters or violence, or directly asserting inferiority/superiority, I find things innocuous), but watching this (old Father Ted clip) depicting someone who has the presumably-more-common worries about them, set on a fictional rural island in Ireland, is great comedy:
A weirdly musical(?) dog:
Some cool historical sleuthing that disproves a popular legend of a spite house in Boston:
Recent Music
Less interesting for its music than the whole cultural production and the weird mix of influences that formed the style, Blackpink’s “How You Like That” video:
Hiromi Uehara does a nice jazzy take on Pachelbel’s Canon in D: