2022-11-19
Readings
If this story about rare earth magnets being reproducible with a new process is true (and the process is not too expensive), an economic advantage mostly enjoyed by China in tech production will diminish: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2022/11/08/1134461777/they-made-a-material-that-doesnt-exist-on-earth-thats-only-the-start-of-the-stor
A formerly-internal tech visions document from Amazon (1998): https://www.allthingsdistributed.com/2022/11/amazon-1998-distributed-computing-manifesto.html
I don’t tend to find arguments of this style convincing; they’re almost incomprehensible when viewed through a political lens because they reach back to first principles and that’s not how politics works. Still interesting to read and dissect them occasionally:
Another good essay on how current generations are screwing up stories:
Why scientific advances rely on each other, from the social to the technological, and therefore why huge advances in one field are both unlikely and ineffective:
New (and IMO ugly) metric prefices: https://phys.org/news/2022-11-earth-ronnagrams-metric-prefixes-voted.html
Better detection of liver cancer: https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-11-ai-blood-liver-cancer.html
Thoughts
I wrote a bit on Elon Musk and leadership: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/musks-failures-teachable-moments-pat-gunn/
I’ve had a few conversations recently about human languages and what makes them good for poetry, and recently was inspired to think more about it because of something overheard that is mundane as presumably meant, but because the word “fall” has homonyms, it could be read in deeper and more interesting (if likely unmeant) ways. Good languages for poetry may be shaped like the inside of a messy mind - meaning is possible, but each time meaning touches the soil it makes an echo of discordant and interesting thoughts, introducing doubts, distractions, and double meanings. That is what I think of in terms of a language being good for poetry. It’s not so much about how many varied meanings words have (as counts); that’s too fine-grained a way to look at these things and a wrong optimisation focus.
Current Events
The Russian invasion of Ukraine entered the aftermath of Russian withdrawal, corresponding missile attacks, and a mishap with a missile defense system that had a Ukrainian interception missile land in Poland; Russia is still feigning outrage over the rest of the world calling for reparations and not normalising or accepting its invasion: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-63632819
After several delays, the Artemis I probe was launched, with its main purpose being to test the Artemis design (which is expected to be used for later missions).
In the US, Donald Trump announced another run for POTUS (but is facing strong competition from DeSantis), while Nancy Pelosi has anounced she won’t seek her current leadership position in the House again
Malaysia’s recent elections led to power shifts that may lead to coalition government rather than a majroity government
The World Cup is about to begin, with minor controversies around the sudden shift in alcohol policy (it is hosted in Qatar) and around FIFA’s leadership having said some stupid things in response to himan rights criticism of the World Cup being located there this year
Reviewlets
Nespresso Zenius (espresso machine) - I’m not a big coffee person, but I’ve been drinking it a lot more with one of these at work; I liked it enough to order one for home (despite it being clearly not intended for personal use). It arrived in ridiculously excessive packaging with unnecessary accessories, but it does a great job and it’s easy to maintain. Glad I got it.
Goat Simulator 3 (PC game) - It’s hard to make a sequel to a game like Goat Simulator, but this manages. It’s very silly, makes endless references to other games, and it’s fun to move around. Not a game you’d play through for hours on end, but good for an occasional 20 minutes or so. Has a bit more structure than the first game
Night Watch (novel in series) - Rereading this; it’s urban fantasy in a world with elaborate worldbuilding, and something I reread every few years. Had a good time with it, and it left me wondering how long the author spent building the backstory before releasing the novel
Amusements
A weird and funny sheet-music-along (I have no idea what to call this) to This is Halloween:
Rhythms in the way people speak:
Old Onion video that seems strangely perennial:
Recent Music
No Road out of Houston - Reverend Glasseye - This reminds me a bit of early music from Firewater, with a bit more of a muddy feel though.
Zivot - Jaro Milko - Balkan-ish reggae-fusion?
I Don’t Want You In Here - Solar Fake - More goth-industrial-type stuff
The Choice - Eisfabrik - The same, but more of an intricate nest of equations