2022-05-14
Readings
I recently heard of the SOFAR channel and am trying to learn as much as I can about it; it’s probably best to start with the wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOFAR_channel
Louder keyboards might be a security risk if ML models can be trained to listen and transcribe: https://www.techradar.com/news/your-mechanical-keyboard-isnt-just-annoying-its-also-a-security-risk
Passive cooling of buildings, if it can be done with paint, might save a lot of power across the world; more limited cousins of these are around (some of them very old): https://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/releases/2021/Q2/the-whitest-paint-is-here-and-its-the-coolest.-literally..html
Learning how to read a legal opinion may not be practical knowledge for most people, but just like studying logical fallacies, things like this can make people better thinkers in general: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1160925
A better understanding of the processes that led to a lot of Oxygen in our atmosphere will be useful to understand how planets in general can change over time (if hopefully not practical anytime soon) https://phys.org/news/2022-03-scientists-mechanism-oxygen-built-atmosphere.html
On a similar note, finding ways to efficiently extract oxygen from water may be useful for fuels of the future https://phys.org/news/2022-02-inexpensive-catalyst-production-oxygen.html
This is a good reminder of problems that come up when people fully automate processes that can unknowingly interact with other fully-automated processes; navigating things like this is one of the bigger challenges for improving the world, because we can expect automation to increase all over the place:
Unprompted Thoughts
Recently there was an event I attended (as a donor to one of the orgs involved) on the topic of whether accusations of Islamophobia make critiques of Islam harder (and how to deal with that). It was a good talk, by someone I respect (Sarah Haider), but there was also an active comment channel for the talk, and there a weird and notorious far-right self-styled expert turned up to dispense some of his wisdom. I knew of the guy; he’s part of a strange phenomenon of self-styled experts doing the talk circuit and selling books that tell people comforting lies. I still struggle with how much to confront such people when there’s something else going on; ordinarily I’ll confront and poke fun at hucksters, but here it would have been a big distraction from the talk so I didn’t.
There was a bit of noise on the left as efforts grow to mount a response to the likely-soon ending of Roe-v-Wade conclusions, and particular groups decided to try to get people to agree to a bunch of new phrasings that they thought was a better message. In general, while I strongly disagree with those who want to police the language of others, I think it’s fine to be choosy (or not) with one’s own words, and I don’t believe words generally injure people in a way that should be recognised. I was mostly puzzled by the choices and surprised they bothered even asking phrasing consultants (who are in my view almost as useless as DEI people)
This Youtube video offers a generally decent framework for dealing with getting a bad beverage, but one of its key points is one I have a principled objection to that’s a larger idea - I think it’s appropriate to try to expose information that reveals important “whys”. Maybe not always, but I would generally if asked and sometimes if not make my thoughts known about the poor quality of something, even if I thought it was unlikely that something might be done about it, because if later the company is reflecting on why something didn’t sell well I think they ideally would have heard the right answer a few times. This applies broadly across life - I no longer hold with the radical openness/honesty that I experimented with in youth, but I still think it should happen often enough that people/orgs hear what they need to hear.
Current Events
The Russians have lost some ground in their invasion of Ukraine, with their troops pulling back from Kharkiv; they apparently are looking to officially declare annexations of some parts of the far east, although it’s unclear whether they will be able to hold them. Meanwhile, Nordic countries are beginning the steps of joining NATO, with the UK guaranteeing their security during the process.
The Philippines had an unfortunate election, resulting in large gains for a ticket and party affiliated with both a former dictator and Duterte’s strongman style of leadership. It’s expected that press freedoms will be curtailed under the incoming administration and most current pluralist safeguards will be dismantled
Economic protests in Sri Lanka led to Prime Minister Rajapaksa resigning, and PM Wikremesinghe (who has been PM many times before) being reinstalled
Google has been trying to force apps on its platform to use its payment system. This is one of those things that sounds reasonable on its face but is in fact deeply unreasonable; some vendors, like Amazon with its Kindle app, by removing the ability of their apps to buy things, asking people to go to a website. I again feel strange to take such strong stances on things that are between corporations, but in this case I feel Google is in the wrong and perhaps regulators should step in.
Reviewlets
Makai Kingdom (video game) - This is a classic game that I’ve never played (platform availability), finally ported to PC. It’s a good port, but a remake would have been better; NIS’s ports tend to stick too close to the original even when they have better game engines available. Still, I’m enjoying playing through it, and it plays nicely on SteamDeck.
Salt and Sacrifice (video game) - A sequel to a great game, this comes close to being good, but misses the mark because it throws too much hassle at the player in most things the game is trying to do. Enough so that the interestingness of the setting isn’t worth the time to get past all the hassle.
Yorkshire Malty Biscuit Tea - smells amazing, but the teabags are not capable of actually generating much taste
Amusements
A coffee geek’s efforts to brew sealed coffee from the 1930s:
It’s weird to see the actor who played Father Ted doing standup..
A cool engineering effort to make/film vortex rings colliding:
Recent Music
Rozen and Reven - Fodlan Winds - This is from the group that did the music for the Nier series, I think. It has some similar elements, although I don’t know if this is also for a game
Yellowcard - What Appears - A good song from the goodbye album for the group, which is full of nostalgia and relflection. This reminds me a bit of Watershed
Janet Jackson - Nasty - I remembered this while making a stupid pun sometime this week, and it reminded me how much I like a lot of Janet Jackson’s songs
Across the Katamari (from the “Touch my Katamari” soundtrack)
New Christy Minstrels - Green Green - I was recently interested to find this 1963 song was much bigger in Japan and made its way into all kinds of things