2023-05-13
Readings
A recent (friendly) discussion on the internet led me and the person I was speaking with to dig into the history of the phrase “Plug and Play”: https://tedium.co/2021/08/04/plug-and-play-peripheral-history/
Diving deeper into how the Mediterranean diet works: https://phys.org/news/2023-05-mediterranean-diet-cellular-effects-revealed.html
The discovery of more objects orbiting Saturn is leading to debate as to what defines a moon (we may need to define this at some point so as to avoid situations where an astronaut could loose a baseball into space and have it be considered another moon). https://www.space.com/saturn-moon-king-62-newfound-satellites
A study of how dentistry works with rumenants: https://phys.org/news/2023-05-healthy-teeth-machine-effect-tooth.html
I enjoyed watching this confrontation between progressives from the DEI scam industry and some centrist antiwoke activists (one of whom I know a lot better and admire - Sarah Haider) - it’s clear that the Progressives are not used to having their ideas challenged and while not all the critiques are strong (it being non-scripted, they couldn’t be), as a whole I think they demonstrate that Rao and Jackson are pushing a dramatically underjustifiied (and in my view despicable) set of ideas. It was amusing how much Rao and Jackson depended on well-rehearsed ways to shut down parts of the conversation.
The evolution of Mars’ atmosphere: https://phys.org/news/2023-05-space-scientists-insight-evolution-mars.html
Towards breaking opioid addiction: https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-05-brain-region-opioids.html
Thoughts
One of the things I see as important but not much on the public radar is the importance of societal trust - a belief that overall the broad mechanisms of society - laws, justice, government, and the like - generally serve the public good and are indispensable as means towards that good. This is one of those things that differ in American society along one of the other axes (than Left-Right) through which our system can be understood - Technocracy-vs-Populism. Understanding this axis is a belief in expertise norms and policy versus a belief in heroes and character. A technocrat wants politics to be boring and regular. This fits in with societal trust - we (technocrats) commit to police, laws, the courts, elections, and governance norms, and where they are flawed we’re not looking for an excuse to sidestep or dismantle them, but rather to implement gradualist reforms to lessen frequency of failures. We note that right-populists often distrust news media (and current right populists often distrust the FBI and IRS because Donald Trump’s wrongdoings often lead to investigation), while left-populists often distrust the police. To me, news media as a whole are not markedly worse than the past or even particularly bad, but there are some better norms they could adopt that would improve public trust, and police are not markedly bad but likewise could use some reforms. We respect them all as institutions. Finding ways to attack the bad reasoning that leads to dismissive attacks on them from populists is important, while still leaving room for reforms.
I think the presence of intrusive advertising on social media platforms are bad for community on those platforms, because they guarantee that users will see spam, one of what’s usually the worst and most clear signs of rot in any community while making reporting of such things useless (because the platforms say users are supposed to have that bad experience). There’s no point given that in expecting users to report any other bad content, even in forums where there are some reasonable (e.g. no flooding or scams) topical or behaviour restrictions (which are dramatically overdone when progressives come to control a community). Overall I don’t like that in order to be on most of these platforms we have to internalise that the commercial interests of the platform mean we should just see spam.
This is a story of someone doing tabletop roleplaying games, and showing a fairly tight loop between the speaker doing something and then condemning a variant of it when someone else does it. The differences might or might not justify the different judgement, but either way there’s food for thoughts on consistency and morality:
I’ve been bothered to see Reason, a magazine that’s as much the flagbearer for US Libertarian views as Jacobin is for US views at the junction of Socialism and Progressivism, bringing Vinay Prasad, an antivax fringe scientist, to the center of a discussion on public health. I don’t normally expect to be sympathetic to Reason’s politics, but so far they’ve been at least moderately better than Jacobin at being compatible with science.
My Content
I did a video on Jordan Neely, suggesting that he be charged with 2nd degree Manslaughter, and commenting on publicly available info:
Polls
Pew Poll: Few Americans have positive views of Russia, most have positive views of Ukraine and NATO, and isolationism is becoming less common - I see NATO very positively, see Ukraine as worthy of full support (and favour declaring war on Russia), and see Russia as an enemy that we may need to end as a nation: https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2023/05/10/americans-hold-positive-feelings-toward-nato-and-ukraine-see-russia-as-an-enemy/
A wide poll digging at various topics of Asian-American identity in the US - I don’t have strong views on any topics in the polls, but I don’t tend to think about race using the supercategories like White or Asian; more precise categories generally avoid lumping unalike groups together; I also generally see it as beneficial that the US has a good amount of racial mixing and a melting pot attitude (I am biased; my extended family is racially diverse): https://www.pewresearch.org/race-ethnicity/2023/05/08/asian-identity-in-the-us/
Current
The Russian invasion annd occupation of parts of Ukraine continues, with Russia’s traditional victory day celebrations being gloomy (as they’ve embraced fascism but haven’t destroyed their neighbour yet). Ukraine has been slowly ramping up their efforts to push out the invaders, forcing the regular Russian army to withdraw from positions near Bakhmut, and capturing strategic ground in the area. They also have successfully shot down a number of Russian missiles in some areas, although Russians are still shelling and killing civilians across the country. It remains frustrating that the US and EU nations haven’t declared war on Russia yet
The brutal civil war in Sudan (name is strange because neither part of the conflict is the civilian government, it having been ousted by a military coup sometime back) continues, with civilian displacements and deaths at tragic levels and the RSF arresting and beating civilians they suspect may be cooperating with the regular army.
Imran Khan, corrupt and petty ex-PM of Pakistan, was recently arrested for political corruption, leading to mass protests by his supporters. The government has shut down some communications infrastructure for now in an attempt to quell riots by his supporters
In India, the Congress Party has booted Modi’s fundamentalist BJP party from office in Karnataka, hopefully an indication that in the next broad election BJP will be swept from power across the country
A number of elections are to be held tomorrow (because of the date line, some have already started); Thailand and Turkey are probably the most interesting because of the changes they may lead to
Reviewlets
Quantum Break: Zero State (Novel) - A novelisation of a videogame that was pretty decent which played with some interesting sci-fi ideas. Took awhile to become enjoyable (I’m about 2/3 through it) and it doesn’t stray too far from the game, but I’m enjoying it nontheless. Remedy (game publisher) often makes really interesting worlds for their games and it’s nice to get a little bit more content for an interesting game that wasn’t a big hit and likely won’t get a sequel (partly because of rights concerns)
Westville Chelsea (Manhattan Restaurant) - Good food, but with very limited vegetarian options. I had some ravioli and salad and enjoyed it (was there with company - would normally prefer a more veg-friendly place when dining on my own)
Ilili (Manhattan Restaurant) - This is a tradition with some people I work with where when someone heads off to their next position, we take them out here; the food here really is top-notch and they have good drinks too, although it’s pretty expensive and they cannot seat large parties very well.
Madeline Cafe (Brooklyn coffeeshop with good food selection) - When I lived in Brooklyn I was a regular here - they’re a neighbourhood fixture with a wide variety of (surprisingly good) food, they make a variety of specialty drinks (I particularly like their Smores Latte), and it’s in a part of Brooklyn that’s very chill and neighbourhood-y. Transit times to where I live now are fairly long, but places like this make me sometimes regret jumping boroughs to Manhattan.
Amusements
A tour of cursing in (castillian) Spanish:
Answers to a common physics discussion - how dangerous are falling bullets, and perhaps a good reason why cultures that celebrate by firing guns into the air are dumb.
Learning some Finnish idioms that were incorporated into the game Control:
A modern(?) fairytale that reminds me of the Doctor Faustus popular fiction:
Recent Music
Che La Luna Mezzo Mare - Sicilian Traditional - I first heard a variant of this as a teenager, by Lou Monte; over the last few weeks I’ve been tracking down variants and found about 3 gravitational points for what the lyrics are and far more (but smaller) variants in how the tune goes. It’s a fun (often naughty) song, and it briefly shows up in one of the Godfather films; there’s interesting history tied to it. I prefer Patrizio Buanne’s recording (unlike Lou Monte, he doesn’t break into English)
Four Winds - Bright Eyes - This unfortunately is tied to a crush about 15 years ago that didn’t work out and I always remember the person when I hear it (or Paralyzer by Finger Eleven). Maybe both songs stuck in my head because unrequited crush fits their themes.
Trololo - Eduard Khil - Not really the name of the song, looking into the weird history of the song and the singer sent me down a deep cultural rabbit hole (which I appreciated). It’s also a genuinely pleasant piece.