2022-07-30
Readings
Recently there have been stories of stem-cell based treatments curing (or sending into remission) HIV: https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/oldest-patient-yet-cured-hiv-after-stem-cell-transplant-researchers-2022-07-27/
It’s possible to recognise an abuse (anonymous use of code complaints in order to harass neighbours) while also recognising that making names visible from complaints risks retaliation over things that should be addressed; I don’t know how to best resolve the conflict between those concerns, but this is worth a read: https://www.nashvillescene.com/news/coverstory/code-snitching-nashvillians-are-weaponizing-metro-codes-against-undesirable-neighbors/article_5e94bd56-0c67-11ed-af4e-e3d04ad7e500.html
Using neuroimagery, it appears that the dominant theory for why people usually have a tougher time distinguishing faces from other racial backgrounds is verified (or at least strongly indicated). This article mentions an (unsurprisingly bad) alternative put forth by sociologists (which as a discipline generally tends to be pretty sketchy because it mixes in wishful thinking and advocacy) that is disindicated by the study. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-07-people-struggle-recognise-racial-backgrounds.html
It’s strange to read about another effect of aging - genetic defects that can accumulate over the life of an individual in their brain, causing some kinds of diseases: https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-07-byproduct-aging-hypermutations-brain.html
We should be seeing more devices of this kind that can clip into a cellphone and help diagnose health issues (beyond, of course, generic things like a Fitbit); perhaps in a decade or two our doctors will give us prescriptions for things that we’re predisposed towards and we’ll sign on to health monitoring services (perhaps hospitals will add this to the list of things they do if they can resist the urge to inflate costs): https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-07-smartphone-clip-on-zika-virus-blood.html
A call to make successors to the Voyager mission with modern instruments (which I think is a worthy goal): https://www.science.org/content/article/voyager-steroids-mission-probe-mysterious-region-beyond-solar-system
Fine-tuning our understanding of how certain metals naturally do some kinds of bacterial sterilisation has a lot of possible uses (although I wonder, given that we know a lot more about microbiomes nowadays, whether this is optimising an approach that may be becoming dated): https://phys.org/news/2022-07-copper-coating-superbug-fighter.html
I knew about most of these, but this covers some letters that used to be used in English:
Thoughts
What would it look like to do a moral-obligation retooling, to somewhat diminish our responsibility to those alive, and distribute some of that reallocate towards the long-term existence of a healthy way of living for people; the goal being to learn not to value maximal population swelling now, in order to husband our resources and have a longer, less damaging population over a long period of time. Maybe we’d decide to aim for and keep the human population on the planet around 500 million, forever. Less pollution, more land for everybody, more land we can set aside, less food needed, etc.
Software projects can easily get bogged down when teams are not structured well; I know nothing of how Mojang (as a division of Microsoft) is structured, but updates seem to be decreasing in size and boldness even though the massive userbase should mean there are adequate resources to move faster. I’ve been wondering what it would take to make something like Minecraft from scratch using just publicly available ideas about the genre and discussed optimisations; it’d be a lot of fun to write specs and plans for such a thing (and perhaps to code on it). This week I heard about Minetest, which looks like it’s building a generic framework that could have Minecraft rules placed in it. I don’t know if this genericism is a good way to dodge lawsuits, or feature creep that could doom the project to obscurity. Still, it’s an interesting effort and if they don’t get sued out of existence I think it’s good they exist.
https://www.minetest.net/
Current Events
The Russian invasion of Ukraine continues, with recent concerns over Russian rocket strikes over POW camps; Russia’s ambassadors to the UK are (as they have been) pushing disgusting messages over Twitter, and more barbarism from the Russian aggressors surfaces through video. Russia’s cutting off petrol lines as a way of pressuring Europe to allow the conquest, but in doing so it’s losing its leverage over threatening to do so, and giving Europe less of a reason to minimise involvement; it also makes pro-Russian politicians in Europe more visible, which will hopefully help remove them from power
Kenya has an upcoming presidential election, with campaigning entering the final stages
In Iraq, supporters of Muqtada al-Sadr (leader of a longstanding political movement with a militia) stormed parliament after doing well in elections but failing to control Parliament outright. The young democracy continues to struggle with popular leaders who are not committed to it and don’t take election losses gracefully
Currently a US congressional delegation is set to visit Taiwan, leading China to sabre-rattle and perform military exercises in response.
Reviewlets
Witcher: Lady of the Lake and Season of Storms (books) - These are the last two in the series; Lady of the Lake was an excellent conclusion to the continued storyline that started with Blood of Elves, and Season of Storms was more of a nice closing story that reasonably strongly ends the series; the author apparently doesn’t much like the series and so it’s probably over (although his view of it doesn’t, in my view, reduce the quality); I now feel I better understand how the books and the games stand apart (and the story in the games is a nice extension of the books, with some middling-level incompatibilities mostly around Ciri). I think the last book also shifted a few things for more compatibility with novelties from the games. “Hungry for more” is where I’m left after reading the book series, which is not a bad place to be (I’m skipping the TV series for the foreseeable future)
Ubi (board game) - A long belated review, Ubi is a board game that’s meant as a sequel of sorts to Trivial Pursuit. It’s much harder, bringing in a geographical aspect to it (you need to know what happened when and where) and as the game is now pretty dated, you’ll need to know what was known then. It’s great if you have an international, well-traveled bunch of people to play with (although even then it’ll be rare that you score). I’ve had a few good games of it over my life, but it’s not hard to see why it flopped commercially.
Lulu’s (manhattan restuarant) - I got around to trying this bar/restaurant after their waiters were friendly to my puppy a few times; the prices are pretty high, but the food is surprisingly good - I tried potato fingers (excellent) and their waffles (which were quite good, and had the novelty of being served with a sweet cheese rather than butter), along with a nice bourbon. Good meal, but too expensive to go there regularly.
Amusements
There were a lot of board games that both predate the era of modern toy companies and which were very popular but were not chess or checkers. This covers one of them (that I’ve never seen): https://www.inverse.com/culture/viking-board-games-hnefatafl
Video on making Teganites, which are described as an Ancient Greek equivalent of Teganites:
Camping in the arctic (with an annoying mental health blurb about a quarter of the way in):
The announcement for an upcoming videogame, Goat Simulator 3, is a great parody of an announcement for another game that is long-delayed:
and
Recent Music
Zerospace - Kidneythieves - It’s hard to find good music for programming, particularly music that has lyrics, but I find the vocals here easy to shove off that cliff of comprehensibility, leaving it as an instrument with a nice beat with middling complexity and a good interplay of voices. Not every good song needs to be a foreground song
Sogno di Volare - Christopher Tin - I’m coming to regard him as one of the great modern composers; his pieces can sound very different from each other, and make use of an admirable variety of instruments and themes
Space and Time - VNV Nation - This song has a lot of memories tied to it; when I first heard it I had just left Pittsburgh, closing the door on one stage of my life in the hopes (alas, not true) that I would be opening the door on a happier one. The song’s great to dance to, and I still remember, near the end of the Occupy movement, getting a DJ to queue it up for that. VNV Nation music feels timeless to me; I find it easier, when listening and dancing to their songs, to feel a continuity with my earlier and later selves doing the same
Been Good to Know Ya - Marcin Przybylowicz - This is from Cyberpunk 2077 (the game), and it’s a really interesting peace for being able to successfully weave very different instruments and beats together into a coherent whole.