2023-01-21
(This covers two weeks because I was travelling last weekend)
Readings
I think NDT rightly summarises one of the Liberal attitudes towards race - that we should get out of the habit of viewing people primarily through racial identity:
Equipment to protect from radiation: https://astronomy.com/news/2023/01/new-protective-gear-developed-for-astronauts
Weir structures in rivers, and river waterflow management in general:
I never really thought about it before, but this makes a good case that highways taking up waterfront space is a bad idea (by digging through some examples):
Great coverage of how past-Japan (similar to some other premodern societies) used to measure time:
This is good coverage of a type of non-repeating tile that seems deeply counterintuitive:
Interesting to think about dust distribution patterns on the planet for the first time: https://phys.org/news/2023-01-southern-africa-antarctica-thousand-years.html
Nailing down some of the properties of Bose-Einstein condensates: https://phys.org/news/2023-01-statistical-physics-theorem-valid-quantum.html
Thoughts
Helen Dale on Singer, the dog, and the disabled child; there are some topics where common ways of thinking about them are tainted by sounding like bad historical figures, or just by sounding too harsh; this doesn’t diminish their sensibility, but it does their expressibility. I largely agree with Sanger - that theoretically a human with severe enough a disability could have less of a mind, and possibly even less moral weight, than a beloved and healthy pet from a relatively self-aware species. Only a few disabilities would qualify. But then we have to consider whether intelligence alone leads to mental weight (a good intuition) or whether we should figure in level of embedding in the social fabric, which is relevant to this on both sides (a dog that’s part of a human family merits more moral weight than a stray dog). References:
I’ve been thinking about the role of beauty in quality of life (perennial topic for me; clearly I’m not entirely at peace with my stances) - I don’t think I’m alone in finding that my life is better when I don’t see ugly people very often. I think most people are like this, even though it’s a bit uncomfortable to talk about. When I watch Youtube videos (educational or amusing) I prefer not to be looking at an ugly person or hearing an annoying voice; such a person has a higher bar to clear when I’m considering their content.
Current Events
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continues; the list of arms shipped is slowly expanding, with tanks currently being considered (and debated, with German and American supplies being hanggled). Russia continues to warn that if it’s not allowed to roll over Ukraine it will behave more unpredictably in the future, making the case for ensuring Russian defeat. Russia is eager for good PR and doing expensive pushes to conquer key towns. The US is designating the Wagner Group, a Russian mercenary org, a criminal organisation
Sweden, NATO, and Turkey’s arm-twisting over PKK and dissident journalists: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/1/8/sweden-cannot-fulfil-turkeys-demands-for-nato-application-pm
Netanyahu’s far-right leadership in Israel voiced an intent to treat waving of Palestinian flags in the country as terrorism, while also removing judicial safeguards in the system that might stand in the way of other abuses his government intends
While initially the political transition in Brasil from a far-right to a far-left government seemed surprisingly peaceful, Bolsonaro supporters stormed various government offices and called for a coup to reinstall him; this failed and Lula removed some parts of the military that seemed complacent in the attempted coup, with police arresting over 2000 people
New Zealand’s PM Ardern resigned, citing exhaustion; she looks like she’ll be replaced by MP Hipkins
Reviewlets
Bose Noise Cancelling Headphones 700 - The device feels a bit flimsy, but it has excellent sound quality and weirdly intelligent firmware (it reads to me the name of the devices I pair it with). Kudos to them for charging (quickly) with USB-C. The noise cancelling is surprisingly good and very pleasant.
John Dies at the End (film - rewatched it) - Some books are impossible to film; the source book for this is one of them. The attempt has some of its own interestingness (putting some visuals to the books), but it tries to cover far too much, doesn’t have space to explain anything, and can’t find its own footing or be faithful to the source. It ends up being incoherent, unfortunately (I like the book series a lot). Anyone really into the books will find some bright points in this. Anyone else won’t likely be tempted to read them by it.
All systems Red (murderbot novel) - I really liked this; it’s written from the perspective of a security robot trying to keep its humans safe, and it’s an action-mystery of sorts with some reflections on society. Good characterisation, some interesting interactions along the way
Artificial Condition (second murderbot novel) - I was starting to like this, but about a third of the way through it got enough into neopronouns and related annoying things so I gave up on the series. Disappointing that so many authors have decided they need to work that into their works.
The Regulators (Stephen King novel) - I’m trying to get into this, but the work is more viscerally disturbing than a lot of King’s works (I don’t really enjoy reading descriptions of children or dogs being shot) and there’s a good chance I’ll give up on this one as well.
The Player of Games (scifi Culture-series novel) - almost gave up on it early but it proved excellent with a few minor annoyances .
Tekwar (scifi detective novel) - A lot of good ideas but it’s badly written - predictable and very stereotypical characters, and what-is-likely mangled into ways to make things dramatic. I might come back to it (I’ve been nope-ing on a lot of books recently and want to be sure I’m doing so for the right reasons) but for now I’m done
Stainless Steel Rat for President (novel in series) - I suspect the author decided that people liked over-the-top before starting on this book in the series, because he dramatically increased the level of smug in this iteration. Unfortunately, this turned an enjoyable-so-far series into one I find unpalatable. Looking at publication dates, it was written a decade after the last one I read (there was an intervening book that’s not available on Kindle) so “the author changed” seems very plausible. Giving up on this book; will have to skim the later in the series that I’ve already bought to see if any of them is worth reading.
Use of Weapons (Sci-Fi Culture-series novel) - This has a lot of things I’ve come to enjoy in the series, but harder to follow than the earlier books - the author switches perspectives between characters before they’re fully established and it makes me wish I could get a defragged version of the book.
Amusements
I love this bit of treating the very silly very seriously:
A fun wedding of recent US political drama with a well-known song from Schoolhouse Rocks:
K-pop songs that remix classical music (I find the Pachelbel Canon use most interesting):
Recent Music
The Bidding - Tally Hall - Really hammy
Bury Me With It - Modest Mouse - This is one of the weirdest songs I’ve heard; it’s more spoken poetry than anything else. Leaves a strong impression (initially negative, but addictive)
Cleetus Awreetus-Awrightus - Frank Zappa - A sampler of the musical themes from Zappa’s whole career