2023-06-03
(covers the last two weeks)
Readings
This is an interesting investigation of philosophical trends in films; in my view, postmodernism was another one of those wrong-answers-to-right-questions type responses, where a better response would have been to be more careful about what grand narratives should survive (nationalism should be weaker), ideally using a modernist platform to prune the modernist tree rather than needing the successive intellectual movements. The video makes the claim that actual attempts to do this often get the response from modern audiences that “they’re just not getting it”, but ideally we should see this modern audience, probably less monolithic than we might think, as something to change rather than something to react to. The cynicism that postmodernism (and its successor, if we accept this video’s framework) produces, even in lessened form, is corrosive to culture and intellect; that corrosivity should be far more selective rather than a general attitude.
Better hydrogels for sensors (highly impactful): https://phys.org/news/2023-06-self-healing-hydrogel-flexible-sensors.html
Fascinating to see PolitiFact rate ChatGPT on their own kind of work: https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2023/chatgpt-ai-replace-fact-checking/
Game theory and how democratic norms can erode from (perceived or real) the other side’s norm-breaking (says troubling things about how easy this would be to manipulate): https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-023-01594-w
Advances in understanding the treatment of MS: https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-06-immune-cells-bad-good-reverses.html
I was not aware of this historical policy, and when I saw the video title I faced the rare experience of not even being able to guess why such a policy might be in place; interesting how centralisation of a well-intentioned but bad policy, based on too little data, can displace other policy possibilities:
More a milestone than something technically impressive, ESA’s Mars Express mission livestreamed imagery from Mars (with images taking 17 minutes to reach us on Terra): https://phys.org/news/2023-06-first-of-its-kind-mars-livestream-esa-spacecraft.html
I’m not sure how to judge this essay - I may lack the background. It’s a reading on how political parties work with or against activists (and it flatters my perspective as I generally distrust and dislike activists): https://substack.com/notes/post/p-125127795
ML Prediction of the path of future science may help us focus research efforts, but such a focus would come at a cost; it would lessen the ability of reality to surprise us (science does this naturally; ML would increase the strength of that effect). Unclear whether faster discoveries and less common disruptive discovery would be a net plus or minus: https://phys.org/news/2023-06-ai-software-roadmap-biological-discoveries.html
Thoughts
Among SREs and engineers and other people who need to keep things running using various applied means and tricks of the trade, there’s a certain mentality and way of talking. I’ve been in the places where they hang out, at work and not, and I like the camaraderie that develops, as snarky as it can sometimes be towards the (non-present) people who either need help or on whose behalf the whole thing exists. Are such attitudes necessary?
The things that keep us up at night: Many years ago, I donated some money to a friend who was buying lab equipment as part of a fundraiser; the friend promised that the top donor would be able to name the lab equipment; I somehow found out that the second top donor wanted to name it in memory of some deceased family member, while I didn’t really have much of an idea for a name. I’m left with a weird guilt that I didn’t just yield the naming to the second top donor. But my memories are now quite fuzzy; I don’t recall if I named it or if I actually did yield the naming with my remaining feeling of guilt just based on my looking forward in time and realising that I would eventually feel guilty if I didn’t. Which would make the guilt I feel now a bit more ridiculous. I could reach out and ask that friend, but perhaps he doesn’t remember anymore and it’s not a memory I’d want to stir (plus we haven’t kept in touch and this would be a weird thing to get back in touch over). To live is to accumulate these weird things in our head
Current Events
The Russian invasion of Ukraine continues, with Russian missile attacks on civilians (mostly futile because of western anti-missile defenses) continuing, China advocating on Russia’s behalf, and an apparent partial Russian retreat from Bakhmut. Some independent pro-Ukraine forces have started to contest Russian control of some lands within Russia’s (proper, not claimed) borders; as (so far mild) signs of instability within the Russian state are visible. Ukraine continues to prepare for a widely-believed-in effort to regain a lot of territory.
In the bloody civil war in Sudan, the main military has withdrawn from peace talks as they are about to attempt to recapture the capital (I use the term recapture because neither military force is a legitimate government for Sudan); RSF is likely to lose the capital soon.
Greek elections were held, with center-right New Democracy still the largest bloc in Parliament
The second round of Turkish elections was held, with Erdogan unfortunately retaining power (in a thankfully narrow race). Erdogan should not have been permitted to seek a third term according to the Turkish Constitution. In the Turkish Parliament, while non-AKP parties thankfully gained ground (in their system, I support Kemalist parties and strongly oppose the AKP), AKP is still the largest party in Parliament by far
Political leaders of Kosovo and Serbia have met after armed conflicts (police and civilian) between the nations; these conflicts echo the wars preceding and immediately after the breakup of Yugoslavia about 20 years ago, with Serbia not recognising Kosovo’s independence. (None of my language on this particular conflict should be taken as an actual stance on whether Kosovo should be recognised or not)
Narendra Modi, the man at the head of a political movement which is ruining India, is set to address US Congress later this month, after a misguided and mistimed invite.
It’s been interesting watching some of the American political conversation around Uganda’s new anti-gay laws, and worrying to see Pastor Tom Ascol, a political ally of DeSantis, supporting Uganda’s law: https://www.thedailybeast.com/ron-desantis-pastor-buddy-tom-ascol-appears-to-defend-uganda-gay-death-penalty
Reviewlets
Warm Bodies (horror-romance) - A little bit like the original Let the Right One In (which I loved), but styled more like “Series Seven: The Contenders”, this was surprisingly heartwarming.
Surface Detail (Culture Novel) - A good novel in this series eventually has to pivot away from The Culture itself, because it’s already set up and it’s a successful civilisation that does what civilisations need to do; this is one of those that focuses on interactions with another wealth-and-corruption type civ with enormous flaws, and vendettas set up within them that drag in Culture actors. I’m sad to see that I’m nearing the end of the series.
The Hydrogen Sonata (final Culture novel) - I assume Banks knew he was dying when he started to write this - it circles back to issues of endings and transcendence that were present in the series, giving them center stage. I’m coming up on the halfway mark for this and am both eager and sad to make progress towards the end of the series.
SNOWL (Korean dessert place in Aurora, CO) - The menu didn’t look promising, but everything I tried was great (and the decor was really cute - I’ve never seen suspended foam clouds in a food place before).
Garden of the Gods (public park in Colorado Springs, CO) - Beautiful and weird red rock peaks in the middle of a large and beautiful park with hills and mountains. Was great to visit, and was really popular (lots of people with their dogs)
Pub Dog Colorado (dog-friendly restaurant in Colorado Springs) - A cute design for a restaurant, with some dog treats/food on the menu, alongside human food. Pity the human food was pretty bleh. I’d still go back if I had a dog with me though; they handle that part extremely well.
Amusements
Disturbing, yet funny - a lazy lawyer makes history by using ChatGPT to prepare for court and ends up citing plausible-sounding cases that don’t exist: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/05/lawyer-cited-6-fake-cases-made-up-by-chatgpt-judge-calls-it-unprecedented/
Fun history of some very old Spider-man movies (I’m not fond of Spider-man as a character, but the rest of that world of fiction can be decent):
I’m loving watching the comments on videos from these new IGN presenters(?), debating whether they’re just very weird people or some kind of content-generation thing:
There’s a minor-but-surprisingly-visible character in Disney’s Encanto whose only distinguishing feature is that her fish died according to a prophecy; she carries the fish corpse around town in its bowl to dance with, and I recently found that her name is, amusingly, Señora Pezmuerto (which would be weird if she had a real history before the prophecy, but perhaps she changed it as part of a weird and deep obsession that fits carrying the bowl around) -
There’s something psychologically interesting about the need to save mental state (and rapidly restore it and task-switch) to do this kind of challenge successfully:
Recent Music
Chant - Hadestown (musical) - Anaïs Mitchell - I was once obsessed with this song and still find listening to it more than rarely gets it stuck deep in my head.
Mademoiselle from Armentières - Traditional - This is an old bawdy song commonly associated with WW2; I like all the variants and the attempts at being clever and lewd. It’s like a dirty limerick contest over decades. The song is catchy too. I think I first encountered it with a very loose reference in MST3k
Asablót - Danheim - For norse-throwback-music, this sounds in parts highly-produced, almost computer-generated. Musical primitivism doesn’t need to be complete to be interesting though.
Seolfren Sicol - Sowulo - More norse-throwback, with more of a natural “you could imagine people around a campfire singing this” feel.