2022-06-04
(because I was out of the country and did not make an entry 1 week ago, this covers May 21st to June 4th)
Readings
I find the degree of effort to navigate progressive positions in this article (by a dance club in Berlin that’s run by a collective) to be a good reason not to try to do this, but also fascinating-like-a-trainwreck in showing what happens when a community not only decides not to go to far, but is actually enthusiastic in finding its place somewhere in the new moralism in that camp: http://aboutblank.li/statement_en/
Efforts to better understand the interaction between obesity and diabetes might provide better health outcomes for a lot of people: https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-06-obese-patients-diabetes.html
Whether insects count (and how): https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fevo.2022.805385/full
A possible mechanism for the construction of parts of cellular machinery in early life, and a possible bolster for the RNA World Hypothesis: https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/ast.2022.0027
How pleiosaurs swam: https://phys.org/news/2022-06-plesiosaurs-swam-underwater.html
Following this channel for awhile has taught me a bit about how a lot of common household items work; this piece on AC technologies is no exception:
Unprompted Thoughts
The decision to adapt when in a foreign culture or to remain oneself (and perhaps explain, in case of close contact) is something I’ve written about before; viewing it from the outside, where someone is operating from different norms and not interacting as openly as we do here, can be likewise complex; I’ve had coworkers from other countries that are more reserved in a lot of ways and I’ve wondered whether and how to help them adapt, knowing that most available means may also involve stepping over the norms that they’re operating from (that look maladaptive here to me, but norms are part of us and to imagine replacing them may be to imagine a kind of violation). I also imagined the possibility, probably in a VR fantasy world, of some kind of GAN-like filter that would apply to one’s interactions with others that would translate one’s words and body language (maybe other things? although that may be difficult to virtualise) to fit local norms. Or even to mutually translate many norms simultaneously between everyone involved. There are difficulties, of course (particularly with regards to openness; someone from a less open culture is not easily going to have some supplemental system decide to reveal information about their inner lives that they don’t themselves decide, even though we all probably broadcast information that’s never received in body language and smells and other means).
The concept of the social fabric is one that has grown in importance in how I think over the last few decades; I initially came across it when reading about the impact of large-scale prisons (Foucault, whom I generally dislike as a thinker, wrote an excellent analysis of this in Discipline and Punish), and later on I’ve started thinking about the harms brought about when people die in war or other ways, particularly in societies which had a large part of a generation of fathers die in a conflict, and in increased tendencies towards criminality that can come from parental absences in upbringing. While I think most good policy comes from starting with individualism and requiring good justification to consider effects beyond, the idea of (non-actionable) harms that come from deaths or prolonged absences, on a large scale, of people other people care about, is important at least for understanding humans and taking proper reluctance to create or allow that (to partly counterbalance the urge to punish or banish).
I find irritating the story conceit of parallel worlds having everyone we know but in different circumstances; understandable because it lays it as a meal the comparisons between the worlds, but unlikely because something so small as removing a movie theater in a big city would cause different people to meet and pair and have kids. Any seriously different path for reality would have many different couples and different kids in a single generation.
Current Events
The Russian invasion of Ukraine continues, with Russian forces having rallied for a time and being pushed back in some places. Ukraine continues to get broad public/cultural support and some military support, but government military support from the west continues to be less than ideal, with efforts from above to build public acceptance for some kind of accommodation to Russia.
The recent Monkeypox outbreak continues to spread across the world, further demonstrating, (as if we needed more demonstration), that outbreaks are in modern times a world-scale thing. Fortunately, it’s not as communicable as Covid or other recent mass outbreaks; I wonder if it’d be in the news if we were not already sensitised by Covid and its associated lockdowns
There have been several additional (smaller scale) mass shootings in the US since the events near Buffalo
Australia held elections, with Labor defeating the previous government. Columbia held a presidential election that led into runoffs that will be held in about two weeks.
Former Pakistan PM Imran Khan has continued to promote conspiracy theories about his ouster in an attempt to build a political movement for his reinstatement.
Fake/TV doctor Mehmet Oz won a primary and will be the Republican Party’s nominee for a senate seat in PA; on the way to this point Oz embraced a number of conspiracy theories, pulled a Trump in declaring victory before it was clear he won, and has moved his public use of language to be in line with Trumpian nationalism.
Reviewlets
Long Journey Home (game) - I apparently bought this a long time ago and never played it. I’m getting Star Control 2 vibes, except with more of a “Lost in Space” story. It’s a marathon where it’s really easy to make a mistake with big ramifications. It’s pretty and interesting and I’m enjoying it so far (particularly amusing: in the preview part of the game, just explore the Sol system for some goofy achievements)
Sniper Elite 5 (game) - I played a few of the earlier sniper elite games; this feels basically identical to its immediate predecessor, which is a bit disappointing. The face modeling is particularly unimpressive. The gameplay is still good and I expect to play through it, but I wanted something better.
Witcher Sword of Destiny (book, 30% complete) - The basic format is the same as the first witcher book - a set of short stories only loosely tied to each other, but the author has started to show some nice worldbuilding and foreshadowing. I’m more into it than I was with the first book (which was at least pleasant, plus short enough not to feel like a major commitment). Curious to see where the series goes in later books (I have heard that the games don’t track it that tightly). I’m also wondering whether a long-form connected novel would work for the character, and what else the author has written.
Angels of Light and Darkness (book, finished) - This is the second in the Nightside series, and I still find the writing to be hilariously bad but the worldbuilding decent. I’m generally wary of books that draw on Christian mythology in fantasy; it’s too common and often feels weird outside the context of the monotheism in which it makes sense. I’m guessing this is an artefact of a lot of modern authors, who I suspect take their dreams and personal myths and sew parts of them down; the backdrop of the Mosaic mythos, even as actual belief becomes less common in the west (in my view thankfully), casts a long shadow in people with a broadly western upbringing (by phrasing it this way I’m not claiming this might not also be true of people from other broad cultural areas, just that I wouldn’t know that so well)
Berlinische Galerie (museum) - This is an art museum focusing on things made in Berlin from about the 1870s until the late 90s, focusing on many modes of art from paintings to clothing. It’s small-medium in size - I saw everything in a few hours, and unlike a lot of other museums I’ve been to it seemed to have a point behind all of its exhibit choice, about the changing social dynamics in Berlin and how the art demonstrated it. Each piece and its accompanying text was a piece of that, showing the tensions across Berlin’s society, across time. I particularly liked the pieces by Julie Wolfthorn (start with Flötenbläser); something about the way she draws faces..
Design Panoptikum (museum) - This is a highly eccentric and cool museum run by an eccentric former photographer, constructed out of a number of strange things he’s collected over the years (an iron lung, some other medical and industrial equipment, etc). It took me about 90 minutes to walk through (a large, multi-room basement) and see everything, with photographs encouraged.
Tajik Teahouse (teahouse with snacks) - They had a large menu of paired tea, light snacks, and possibly some liquor; I had their Canadian tea experience, which mixed some nice tea with maple syrup and some whiskey, and I also got an apple turnover on the side. The decor was interesting; I was the only lone person there but thankfully they were not too busy (was worried they might not serve lone travellers). I’d love to go back to this someday
DDR Museum (museum) - This was a very large, well-put-together museum of the artefacts of East German life, with a lot of video, audio, and things large and small (like a Trabi, specials in the DDR talking about their housing development plans - buildings I later saw while walking around the city). They had large mockups of the interiour of some of those flats, places that felt luxurious compared to my Manhattan apartment. I used to have some East German former coworkers (who insisted on that phrasing) earlier in my research career and I got a bit of a feel for what they missed (although the museum didn’t overall feel overly condemnatory or celebratory over the DDR as a whole)
Amusements
I’ve occasionally seen people who hold food the dumb way; it bugs me a bit even when they’re the one who’s going to eat it and I don’t know them at all:
I wasn’t fully aware of the history of the Willy Wonka movie-vs-book feud before watching this, and while in the King-versus-Cronenberg-Shining dispute I take a middle view, here I think Dahl just didn’t understand movies and his vision would not have succeeded:
A fun “celebration” of one of the weirder episodes of “Star Trek: The Animated Series”:
Every so often I come back to a weird Bad Lip Reading/Disney collaboration, particular this song from it:
Recent Music
Dean Gray - Boulevard of Broken Songs - This was a great mash-up album (that’s hard to find because of legal takedowns). I particularly like when the resolution of some musical elements is removed to make for a stable loop they can play off of. (the adaptation of Whatsername is also quite good)
Everlasting Love - This is from the “We Love Katamari” soundtrack (one of the Katamari Damashii games); I ordinarily don’t go for aggressively upbeat games, but songs from the Katamari games manage to often be that without being annoying.
Underlands - Andrew Bird - The song feels sparse and oddly focused, and its parts don’t fit together that well (the shifts in what instruments use are jarring). It’s interesting to try to figure out what decade it best fits stylistically
La Curiosidad - Ivan Cornejo - This would be almost as good without the vocals (not that they’re bad, but the music backing him is really well-written and interesting enough that it could carry itself without the lead). The scratchiness of the voice is also surprisingly a plus rather than a minus. I’m delaying putting in the time to listen carefully enough to parse/translate the Spanish because for now I’m enjoying thinking of the voice as just another instrument